nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

RUSSIAN NUCLEAR INDUSTRY STRUGGLES WITH PANDEMIC, also threatened by climate change

June 1, 2020 Posted by | climate change, health, Russia, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nuclear industry brazenly exploiting Pandemic to get tax-payer funding

The Nuclear Industry at the Feeding Trough   https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/05/15/the-nuclear-industry-at-the-feeding-trough/  VICTOR GILINSKY & HENRY SOKOLSKI, 15 May, 20

The nuclear lobby is playing the national security card in trying to justify Federal handouts. It’s a con.

We are getting used to brazen coronavirus claims for federal largess, but it’s hard to beat the claims coming from the nuclear industry. Even before the pandemic hit, it had for the most part given up competing for new power plant sales in the domestic and international energy marketplace and instead was wrapping itself in the flag and declaring itself essential to U.S. national security, and therefore deserving of generous federal support.

This approach has the full backing of the Trump Energy Department, and has been dutifully rolled out as part of the broader scramble for federal relief funds unleashed by the coronavirus crisis. As Energy Secretary Danny Ray Brouillette made clear to radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt in an April 28 interview:

We’ve lost our leadership both on the technology side and on the market side… to the Russians and the Chinese. And why does that matter? Well, obviously it matters, because we are, we were the world leader not only in the development of nuclear technology, but in the export of this technology around the world. And we lost that, and it leads to a national defense issue.

And, indeed, DOE’s web site announces: “Nuclear power is intrinsically tied to National Security.” Among the ways DOE plans to restore American nuclear energy leadership are “minimizing commercial fleet fiscal vulnerabilities [DOE-speak for subsidizing],” and “leveling the playing field against state-owned enterprises.”

The implication is that other countries are not competing fairly, as if they snuck around us to jump the line. Now, to cope with this, we have to sweeten the deals we offer to get the sales. And as a thriving nuclear sector is supposedly a necessary condition for gaining foreign sales, we have to prop up domestic nuclear plants, too.

If nothing else, there is a stunning lack of self-awareness in this view. Yes, the United States pioneered the light water reactor technology used around the world. But, as a result of U.S. business decisions, in part reflecting the unfavorable economics of nuclear power in the United States but also poor management, we effectively no longer have any reactor manufacturers.

Combustion Engineering, a company with 28,000 employees, a pressurized water reactor manufacturer, sold itself in 1989 to the European firm ABB Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. The great Westinghouse firm, once the world leader on pressurized water reactors, blundered financially into becoming a subsidiary of the CBS Corporation. In 1995, CBS sold it to British Nuclear Fuels Limited. BNFL in turn sold Westinghouse nuclear activities to Toshiba in 2006.

Westinghouse, by then a shell of its former self, performed so miserably in constructing the last large reactors to be built in the United States in South Carolina and Georgia that it went bankrupt and almost took Toshiba down, too. The South Carolina owners canceled their two plants, and the remaining two in Georgia will cost nearly $30 billion, double the original contract price. After this experience, it is hard to see any future sales of large reactors in the United States.

General Electric used to build boiling water reactors, but it only offers sales abroad as a junior partner to Japan’s Hitachi Corporation. Its reputation is anyway tarnished because it designed the plants that failed during the 2011 Fukushima accident. In short, U.S. nuclear plant manufacturing capabilities are much diminished, and the domestic market just isn’t there. And it isn’t there because nuclear economics are extremely unfavorable.

Currently, the US still has 95 power reactors online, supplying a bit less than 20 percent of America’s electrical demand. They are on average 39 years old. Only two plants, the ones in Georgia, are now under construction and they are expected to be the last large ones to be built for some time.

That hasn’t fazed the nuclear faithful both in and out of government. They still think, as their predecessors thought sixty years ago, that nuclear power is the technology of the future. They paint a picture of our putative arch-enemies, Russia and China, selling nuclear power plants and locking up nuclear relationships with numerous states, including important friendly states such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, relationships that will last for the rest of the century. We will be frozen out and will thereby lose influence throughout the world. But it’s still not too late if we follow the advice of the Energy Department, the nuclear industry, and a gaggle of consultants looking to cash in.

What is it we have to do? The battles in Washington turn on so-called agreements for cooperation with potential customers that are prerequisites for sales of major reactors and components. The main issue concerns whether we will accept customers that also want to acquire acquires auxiliary facilities that can be used to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the fuels that are also the explosives used in nuclear weapons. The only position consistent with non-proliferation, halting the spread of nuclear weapons, is “no.”

But the nuclear enthusiasts say that’s too strict, that others have more accommodating terms, and that if we sell with looser terms, we’ll have more influence. They have their eye especially on Saudi Arabia, a country that at one point said, implausibly, it was going to build 16 nuclear power plants. They don’t seem to pay attention to the other thing the Saudis said—the crown prince’s statement that if Iran was going to get a bomb, he was going to get one, too, and fast.

It’s not just the Trump crowd that opposes tightening security rules over nuclear exports (in the name, they say, of security). President Obama’s Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has been arguing that subsidizing domestic nuclear power and encouraging nuclear sales without especially tight security restrictions—restrictions that go by the rubric of “gold standard”—are in the interests of U.S. nuclear security, and even support the deterrence value of our nuclear weapons.

All this is a bit much. Do we really think that Russia, with a GNP below that of Italy, is capable of freezing us out of the world? Does it have the financial capacity to offer generous terms on many projects? Will they ever be completed?

Nuclear power is just one U.S. export technology, and not exactly the most promising. For example, the U.S. exported $136 billion in aircraft last year; U.S. nuclear exports for the same period could only be measured in millions of dollars. China is building a comparatively large number of nuclear plants but nuclear power supplies less than five percent of its electrical demand and is only projected to account for seven percent by 2040. Any large accident will turn this program off.

There are many more exciting technologies to share with others. We don’t have to sell out our nonproliferation policies. If anything, we should be strengthening them, and convincing Russia and China to conform to them, as well.

As for the DOE and industry sales pitch, we should see it for what it is: a con to get at the federal trough. May 15, 2020

Victor Gilinsky is program advisor for the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) in Arlington, Virginia. He served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Henry Sokolski is executive director of NPEC and the author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (2019). He served as deputy for nonproliferation policy in the office of the U.S. secretary of defense during the George H.W. Bush administration.

May 30, 2020 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | 3 Comments

‘The Triumph of Doubt’ – corporations’ war on science

Inside corporations’ war on science . A new book explains how corporations create a climate of doubt around science and expertise. Vox, By Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com  May 26, 2020

Johnson & Johnson announced this week that it will stop putting talc, a mineral linked to asbestos, in its baby powder products. The move comes after years of lawsuits alleging that the powder causes various cancers.

It’s also a surprising turnaround. Johnson & Johnson has spent decades funding biased science and lobbying the government to avoid regulating its products or labeling them as cancer-causing. It’s a tactic deployed by many other industries that have a stake in stifling regulation and the science behind it.

The history of this practice is documented in a new book by David Michaels, the former assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under the Obama administration. It’s a close look at how powerful corporations fund junk science and misinformation campaigns in order to obscure evidence and undercut regulatory efforts.

Big Tobacco and the fossil fuels industry are obvious examples, but the problem goes well beyond that. From cancer-causing hair products and apparel to diabetes-linked food and sugary drinks, corporations have realized that you don’t have to convince the public or government officials of anything — all you have to do is create the illusion of doubt.

And they do that by piloting bogus studies, organizing partisan think tanks, supplying dubious congressional witnesses, and anything else they can think of to give regulators enough cover to plausibly look the other way. If you’ve ever heard a politician say “The science is still unclear” or “We need to keep researching the issue,” there’s a good chance that was made possible by industry-funded pseudo-science.

I spoke to Michaels about what this process looks like, why journalists and civic actors have been unable to stop it, and how the practice has become more pervasive in recent years. We also discussed the coronavirus pandemic and how the tactics he describes in this book helped lay the groundwork for the extreme skepticism of scientific expertise we’re seeing from conservatives.

“The Republican base,” Michaels told me, “has been acclimatized to be skeptical of mainstream science, and easily believe accusations that they are being manipulated by the deep state, the liberal media, and pointy-headed scientists.”

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

When you say that big corporations like DuPont or Exxon manufacture doubt around their products, what do you mean?

David Michaels

I mean that they hire scientists who appear to be reputable to produce or obscure evidence about the products they make. If there are studies or even suggestions that their product is dangerous, you can hire a scientist who will say, “The evidence is in question,” or, “The study is wrong.”

Corporations make sure those scientists get their opinions into what look like credible peer-reviewed journals, then they get picked up by newspapers, then they have the sound bites that commentators repeat, and that’s enough to convince people that there’s uncertainty. Not necessarily that the product is safe, but that the scientific evidence isn’t there.

That’s basically how it works.

Sean Illing

You used the phrase “appear to be reputable.” What does that mean?

David Michaels

They are credentialed people, but they typically work for consulting firms whose business model is to provide any result their client needs……..

One of the things the Trump administration has done is essentially take the same mercenary scientists who have been working for corporations trying to influence the agencies to do the wrong thing and then given them high-level positions in these same agencies – [EPA , the FDA  and other public institutions]…….

The example that I find most striking is a fellow named Tony Cox, who was appointed chairman of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who is himself a longtime lobbyist for the oil and coal industries……..

Sean Illing

So we’ve just made the process more efficient. Industry doesn’t even need middlemen to muddy the waters on their behalf now because they just have their own people appointed to run the agencies charged with regulating them…….

David Michaels

As the abject and enormously tragic failure of the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic becomes increasingly clear, the president and his supporters are taking the tobacco road, applying the same strategy used by cigarette manufacturers, fossil fuel corporations, and a host of other industries whose products and activities damage public health.

Not only is it the same strategy, it features the same cast of characters, and it is promoted in the same social media and cable TV venues, especially Fox News. Right-wing pundits, Trump administration officials, and scientists with long histories of discredited studies first declared the epidemic a hoax and then asserted the numbers of cases and deaths are wildly inflated. They have been eventually shown to be wildly wrong, but it has no impact on their credibility or their willingness to offer outrageous claims.

This strategy is successful because the Republican base has been acclimatized to be skeptical of mainstream science and easily believe accusations heard on Fox News or read on Facebook that they are being manipulated by the deep state, the liberal media, and pointy-headed scientists……..

When the Trump administration is finally evicted from power, we will need to rebuild our system of public health protections, not simply by pouring more funding into federal agencies that were weak and flawed even before Trump, but by reimagining how they can be far more effective and inclusive, and are able to apply the best available science. And we must do this in a way that overcomes the anti-science culture fed by the current administration and the Republican party.

If we are unable to accomplish these goals, I fear that the nation’s disastrous response to Covid-19 is likely to be a preview of a very troubling future.  https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21137717/johnson-and-johnson-triumph-of-doubt-david-michaels

May 30, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, resources - print, Resources -audiovicual, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Misleading and inaccurate information provided by Australia’s authorities on National Radioactive Waste Management

Peter Remta  – submission to Senate Committee on National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment (Site Specification, Community Fund and Other Measures) Bill 2020   [Provisions] Submission 65 more https://antinuclear.net/2020/05/23/peter-remta-misleading-and-inaccurate-information-provided-by-authorities-on-national-radioactive-waste-management/

“………. EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM The explanatory memorandum accompanying the Bill simply repeats many of the inaccurate and misleading comments and information provided by the Department of Industry Innovation and Science and ANSTO  to the communities of the initially accepted sites in South Australia since the beginning of the nomination process under the existing legislation.

………I must stress that the serious and unacceptable manner in which quite inaccurate information has been disseminated on behalf of the government on such an important issue both now and during the nomination and selection process has only caused more concern and community dissension and I suggest will lead to a greater general apprehension of starting a nuclear industry in Australia

Explanatory memorandum assertions :
1. While the concept of a single and purpose-built nuclear waste facility is a desired objective as outlined at the start of the explanatory memorandum it will be difficult to achieve as is now proposed.

To begin with it is wrong to say that this facility will support nuclear science and technology since it fails to meet the safety prescriptions for a facility of that nature.

It is also wrong to link the provision of nuclear medicine to the proposed storage and disposal of waste at the facility as the various entities generating waste from medical and research activities will continue relying on their own disposal methods and will not necessarily use a government run business for that purpose.

2. Most importantly it is a totally false and misleading proposition to suggest that the failure to establish the facility as proposed by the government will somehow lead to a reduction in nuclear medical services and treatment and the government should quickly correct that serious misconception since this has been a rather distressing concern for the community at Kimba and generally. It is therefore disingenuous to give that impression that this will be a central
facility for all nuclear waste in Australia.

3. While existing waste is held in numerous locations around the country there is no legal or other requirement that this waste would be disposed of at the facility and it is therefore disingenuous to give the impression that this will
be a central facility for all waste in Australia.

4. The reference to meeting with the international obligations under the Joint Convention4 ignores the safety code requirements promulgated some 12 years later under which it would be very difficult to establish the proposed
facility.

5. The suggestion of acquiring additional land for such things as all weather road access is only another example of the intrinsically unsuitable nature of the chosen site and the lack of planning and the necessary technical knowledge for construction of the facility.

6. The process of identifying a suitable location being a 40 year effort again shows the inability of the government or simply ignores that the current process in a proper manner only began after 2012 under the existing legislation.

7. To suggest proper and successful consultations with community members is a test of normal intelligence having regard to the strong and spirited opposition to the facility from the outset by the community generally and the fact that a concerned Aboriginal group has litigated its opposition to an appeal to the Federal Court5 and may now resort to a referral to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

8. The financial aspects of the government’s proposals lack frankness and justification when it has been claimed variously that the amount so far spent in selecting the site is $55 million or $85 million over the past five years but with a constant refusal to provide any details as to how that money has been spent or applied.

Surely there should be proper public disclosure of this quantum of expenditure when compared to the usual outcry where there is only a fraction of that amount involved if there is no reasonable explanation given. Moreover this should be gauged against the persistent refusal of the government to pay for an independent assessment and scrutiny of its
proposals by the members of the Kimba community who oppose the facility.

9. The statement as to compatibility with human rights is again with respect rather nonsensical when the government was incapable of holding a proper and valid ballot (albeit through the District Council of Kimba) which totally ignored the inclusion of an opposing argument contrary to the recognised and applicable principles of human rights. That ballot and the previous one as well as some claimed community surveys failed to meet the principles of informed consent which places a high standard of compliance on both the government and the District Council.

This becomes even worse by excluding the Aboriginal peoples from the ballotIf the government were genuine then it should hold another ballot with a more appropriate and wider base for voting and with the prior provision of all pertinent
information including the arguments or case against the facility. This goes back to providing a proper assessment and scrutiny of the government’s proposals by the opposing members of the Kimba community which has never been
the case.

Regrettably the compatibility statement is more prescriptive in its content instead of actually dealing with the facts of the situation and circumstances that occurred and which have been presented in the statement in a most favourable light for the government. when under the most basic of constitutional and democratic rights they
should have been included in that process…………

Sections on NAPANDEE    FINANCIAL ASPECTS  INFORMATION, BALLOTS, and INFORMED CONSENT  LEGAL ACTIONS  MANAGEMENT of FACILITY  INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS   TECHNICAL ASSESSMENT [these will be published here separately, later]

…. CONCLUDING COMMENTS and RECOMMENDATIONS Continue reading →

May 25, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

More about dirty nuclear tricks in Ohio

In disgusting turn, shareholders reap the profits from ratepayer payouts intended to keep Ohio’s nuclear plants afloat May 22, 2020   By Editorial Board, cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer

So much for the cries of doom and gloom over the future of the two Ohio nuclear plants FirstEnergy Corp. built and that an affiliated company operated.

To keep open the Perry nuclear power plant east of Cleveland and the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio’s electricity customers are about to start paying an extra $150 million a year in subsidies. That comes courtesy of the Ohio General Assembly and Gov. Mike DeWine via House Bill 6, a bill they rushed into law last summer.

Akron-based FirstEnergy Solutions, which then owned the two plants, had argued (through an army of Statehouse lobbyists) that, without the nuclear subsidy, it would be forced to close the two plants.

In February, Solutions emerged from bankruptcy and became an independent (and solvent) firm, Energy Harbor Corp., also based in Akron.

It now appears the biggest beneficiaries of the deal will be Energy Harbor stock investors.

Energy Harbor’s board voted last week to boost stock buybacks by $300 million, from $500 million to $800 million, cleveland.com’s Andrew J. Tobias reports. When a company buys back its own stock, that cuts the number of available shares, which can boost their prices, benefiting shareholders.

And where did that extra $300 million come from? Could it be on the expectation of the impending subsidy from Ohioans on their electricity bills? It’s fair to ask whether Perry and Davis-Besse were ever in real jeopardy of closing, or was it all a shell game to shore up the company’s finances?

That’s House Bill 6: Socializing losses and privatizing profits, although the bill’s Statehouse backers said otherwise. HB 6, quarterbacked by House Speaker Larry Householder, was absolutely, positively all for a good cause, the speaker assured Ohioans — promoting clean air and, by the way, saving nuclear power plant workers’ jobs.

Nuclear plants don’t emit greenhouse gases, which stoke global warming. But HB 6 wasn’t fully a clean air act. Besides subsidizing Perry and Davis-Besse and providing $20 million annually to six solar power projects in Ohio, HB 6 also underwrote two coal-fired power plants (one in Indiana). Coal plants hardly promote clean air. And the bill zeroed out the state’s renewable energy mandates and reduced its energy-efficiency ones.

But, as Oscar Wilde said, consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. And when it comes to lining the pockets of electric utilities, our legislature isn’t merely imaginative; it’s shameless.

Energy Harbor now owns Perry and Davis-Besse and a share of the coal plants. And while Energy Harbor stock isn’t publicly traded, it’s available through brokers……..

Given the gravy HB 6 will sluice, no wonder pals of HB 6 threw everything they could dream up – including a ridiculous “Chinese conspiracy” – to sidetrack people trying to get HB 6 on the statewide ballot so Ohioans could vote the bill up or down. The friends of HB 6 succeeded, disgracefully, in blocking a statewide vote. The message they sent to Ohioans: Shut up – and pay up. Given the gravy HB 6 will sluice, no wonder pals of HB 6 threw everything they could dream up – including a ridiculous “Chinese conspiracy” – to sidetrack people trying to get HB 6 on the statewide ballot so Ohioans could vote the bill up or down. The friends of HB 6 succeeded, disgracefully, in blocking a statewide vote. The message they sent to Ohioans: Shut up – and pay up. https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2020/05/in-disgusting-turn-shareholders-reap-the-profits-from-ratepayer-payouts-intended-to-keep-ohios-nuclear-plants-afloat.html

May 22, 2020 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Profiteering from the pandemic, the Pentagon and nuclear industry exploit the situation

Beware the Pentagon’s Pandemic Profiteers, Hasn’t the Military-Industrial Complex Taken

enough of Our Money?  POGO,  BY MANDY SMITHBERGER | FILED UNDER ANALYSIS | MAY 04, 2020    This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.com.

At this moment of unprecedented crisis, you might think that those not overcome by the economic and mortal consequences of the coronavirus would be asking, “What can we do to help?” A few companies have indeed pivoted to making masks and ventilators for an overwhelmed medical establishment. Unfortunately, when it comes to the top officials of the Pentagon and the CEOs running a large part of the arms industry, examples abound of them asking what they can do to help themselves.

It’s important to grasp just how staggeringly well the defense industry has done in these last nearly 19 years since 9/11. Its companies (filled with ex-military and defense officials) have received trillions of dollars in government contracts, which they’ve largely used to feather their own nests. Data compiled by the New York Times showed that the chief executive officers of the top five military-industrial contractors received nearly $90 million in compensation in 2017. An investigation that same year by the Providence Journal discovered that, from 2005 to the first half of 2017, the top five defense contractors spent more than $114 billion repurchasing their own company stocks and so boosting their value at the expense of new investment.

To put this in perspective in the midst of a pandemic, the co-directors of the Costs of War Project at Brown University recently pointed out that allocations for the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health for 2020 amounted to less than 1% of what the U.S. government has spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone since 9/11. While just about every imaginable government agency and industry has been impacted by the still-spreading coronavirus, the role of the defense industry and the military in responding to it has, in truth, been limited indeed. The highly publicized use of military hospital ships in New York City and Los Angeles, for example, not only had relatively little impact on the crises in those cities but came to serve as a symbol of just how dysfunctional the military response has truly been.

Bailing Out the Military-Industrial Complex in the COVID-19 Moment

Demands to use the Defense Production Act to direct firms to produce equipment needed to combat COVID-19 have sputtered, provoking strong resistance from industries worried first and foremost about their own profits. Even conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot, a longtime supporter of increased Pentagon spending, has recently recanted, noting how just such budget priorities have weakened the ability of the United States to keep Americans safe from the virus. “It never made any sense, as Trump’s 2021 budget had initially proposed, to increase spending on nuclear weapons by $7 billion while cutting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding by $1.2 billion,” he wrote. “Or to create an unnecessary Space Force out of the U.S. Air Force while eliminating the vitally important directorate of global health by folding it into another office within the National Security Council.”

In fact, continuing to prioritize the U.S. military will only further weaken the country’s public health system. ……..

How Not to Deal With COVID-19

Along with those military-industrial bailouts came the fleecing of American taxpayers. While many Americans were anxiously awaiting their $1,200 payments from that congressional aid and relief package, the Department of Defense was expediting contract payments to the arms industry. Shay Assad, a former senior Pentagon official, accurately called it a “taxpayer rip-off” that industries with so many resources, not to speak of the ability to borrow money at incredibly low interest rates, were being so richly and quickly rewarded in tough times. Giving defense giants such funding at this moment was like giving a housing contractor 90% of upfront costs for renovations when it was unclear whether you could even afford your next mortgage payment.

Right now, the defense industry is having similar success in persuading the Pentagon that basic accountability should be tossed out the window. ……..

Unfortunately, as COVID-19 spread on the aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt, that ship became emblematic of how ill-prepared the current Pentagon leadership proved to be in combatting the virus. Despite at least 100 cases being reported on board—955 crewmembers would, in the end, test positive for the disease and Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr. would die of it—senior Navy leaders were slow to respond. Instead, they kept those sailors at close quarters and in an untenable situation of increasing risk. When an emailed letter expressing the concerns of the ship’s commander, Captain Brett Crozier, was leaked to the press he was quickly removed from command. But while his bosses may not have appreciated his efforts for his crew, his sailors did. He left the ship to a hero’s farewell. ……… https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/05/beware-the-pentagons-pandemic-profiteers/

May 16, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

Nuclear fraud in Norway could affect nuclear safety in other countries

May 16, 2020 Posted by | EUROPE, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Dirty tricks department – FirstEnergy in Ohio as a prime example

Let this be a lessen all the conspiracy people who fell for the “we need to save Davis Besse, and Nuclear energy.” It appears that tax payers were scammed by big business once again by listening to scare tactics. Now the consumers will pay more while the business and shareholders reap the benefits.

May 16, 2020 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Torture would await Assange in the US prison system

From the frying pan into the fire. The torture that awaits Julian Assange in the US.https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2020/05/10/from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire-the-torture-that-awaits-julian-assange-in-the-us/   
Tom Coburg  10th May 2020    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is currently held in Belmarsh prison awaiting hearings that could see him extradited to the US to face prosecution for alleged espionage-related offences.

Award-winning US journalist Chris Hedges described the torture that would await Assange in the US prison system, adding “they will attempt to psychologically destroy him”. If extradited, Assange would likely be detained in accordance with ‘Special Administrative Measures’ (SAMs). One report equates this to a regime of sensory deprivation and social isolation that may amount to torture.

Journalists speak out

US journalist Chris Hedges spoke about the treatment Assange is likely to receive in the US. He argues that the US authorities will “psychologically destroy him” and that conditions imposed could see him turned into a ‘zombie’ to face life without parole:

Australian journalist John Pilger agrees:

If Julian is extradited to the US, a darkness awaits him. He’ll be subjected to a prison regime called special administrative measures… He will be placed in a cage in the bowels of a supermax prison, a hellhole. He will be cut off from all contact with the rest of humanity.

From the frying pan…

Assange is already in a precarious position, alongside all other UK prisoners. Belmarsh is a high-security Category A facility and, as with all other prisons in the UK, inmates there are at risk to infection from coronavirus (Covid-19).

On 28 April, the BBC reported that there were “1,783 “possible/probable” cases of coronavirus – on top of 304 confirmed infections across jails in England and Wales”. Also that there were “75 different “custodial institutions”, with 35 inmates treated in hospital and 15 deaths”.

Vaughan Smith, who stood bail for Assange, reported that the virus was “ripping through” Belmarsh:

We know of two Covid-19 deaths in Belmarsh so far, though the Department of Justice have admitted to only one death. Julian told me that there have been more and that the virus is ripping through the prison.

Assange has a known chronic lung condition, which could lead to death should he become infected with coronavirus. Assange’s lawyers requested he is released on bail to avoid succumbing to the virus, but that request was rejected.

As for the psychological effects of segregation, a European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment report argued that it can “can have an extremely damaging effect on the mental, somatic and social health of those concerned”.

…and into the fire

It’s likely that Assange will be placed under SAMs if he is extradited to the US. The Darkest Corner, a report authored by the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and The Center for Constitutional Rights, describes how SAMs work.

In its summary, the report explains that:

SAMs are the darkest corner of the U.S. federal prison system, combining the brutality and isolation of maximum security units with additional restrictions that deny individuals almost any connection to the human world. Those restrictions include gag orders on prisoners, their family members, and their attorneys, effectively shielding this extreme use of government power from public view.

It continues:

SAMs deny prisoners the narrow avenues of indirect communication – through sink drains or air vents – available to prisoners in solitary confinement. They prohibit social contact with anyone except for a few immediate family members, and heavily regulate even those contacts. And they further prohibit prisoners from connecting to the social world via current media and news, limiting prisoners’ access to information to outdated, government-approved materials. Even a prisoner’s communications with his lawyer – which are supposed to be protected by attorney-client privilege – can be subject to monitoring by the FBI.

It ominously adds that: “Many prisoners remain under these conditions indefinitely, for years or in some cases even decades”. Moreover, these conditions can be used as a weapon to force a prisoner to plead guilty:

In numerous cases, the Attorney General recommends lifting SAMs after the defendant pleads guilty. This practice erodes defendants’ presumption of innocence and serves as a tool to coerce them into cooperating with the government and pleading guilty.

The report provides further details on how SAMs incorporate sensory deprivation and social isolation measures that “may amount to torture”. Also, it argues that the SAMs regime contravenes both US and international laws.

ECHR article 3

Should the UK courts agree to extradite Assange, he could face months, if not decades, of psychological torture. However, Article 3 of the European Court of Human Rights states clearly: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. Under that article, the US extradition request should be rejected by the UK courts.

For a publisher to be subjected to such a nightmare scenario would be intolerable.

May 14, 2020 Posted by | civil liberties, Legal, politics international, UK, USA | Leave a comment

Alabama joins Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia to criminalize fossil fuel protests

the Alabama legislation is the most concerning, Gibson said. “It’s pretty cynical,” he said. “It’s a combination of deterrent against would-be protesters and revenge insurance if anyone dares engage in nonviolent direct action against pipelines or polluting facilities.”
Yet Another State Quietly Moves To Criminalize Fossil Fuel Protests Amid Coronavirus   https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/alabama-fossil-fuel-pipeline-protest-criminalize_n_5eb590b4c5b6197b8461d550?ri18n=true&ncid=engmodushpmg00000004  

In March, Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia passed laws restricting pipeline protests. Alabama is poised to become the fourth.

By Alexander C. Kaufman  10 May 20 Alabama lawmakers this week advanced legislation to add new criminal penalties to nonviolent protests against pipelines and other fossil fuel projects, setting a course to become the fourth state to enact such measures amid the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic.

The bill would designate virtually any oil, gas or coal equipment or facilities in the state as “critical infrastructure” and severely prohibit where aerial drones that watchdog groups depend on to track pollution can fly. The legislation would make any action that “interrupts or interferes” with pipelines, storage depots or refineries a Class C felony, punishable with at least one year in prison and up to $15,000 in fines.

Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia enacted similar measures in March, just as states started implementing lockdowns to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

The Alabama Senate passed the bill on March 12, just befohe Alabama Senate passed the bill on March 12, just before state officials, alarmed at the spread of the virus, postponed legislative hearings for a month. When the capitol reopened in Montgomery on May 4, state Democrats remained in their home districts, but enough Republican lawmakers returned to restart work on the legislation. On Monday, the House version of the bill was introduced and referred to the committee that oversees utilities and infrastructure. Continue reading →

May 11, 2020 Posted by | civil liberties, climate change, Legal, politics, USA | Leave a comment

A potential US extradition of Assange poses existential threats to democracy.

In his fight against extradition to the US, where he faces 175 years in prison and being subjected to harsh conditions under “Special Administrative Measures”, Assange is rendered defenseless. He is in effective solitary confinement, being psychologically tortured inside London’s maximum-security prison. With the British government’s refusal to release him temporarily into home detention, despite his deteriorating health and weak lung condition developed as consequences of long detention, Assange is now put at risk of contracting coronavirus. This threatens his life.

Now, as the world stands still and becomes silent in our collective self-quarantine, Assange’s words spoken years ago in defense of a free internet call for our attention from behind the walls of Belmarsh prison:

“Nuclear war, climate change or global pandemics are existential threats that we can work through with discussion and thought. Discourse is humanity’s immune system for existential threats. Diseases that infect the immune system are usually fatal. In this case, at a planetary scale.”

Assange’s US extradition, Threat to Future of Internet and Democracy, CounterPunch by NOZOMI HAYASE 8 May 20 On Monday May 4, the British Court decided that the extradition hearing for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, scheduled for May 18, would be moved to September. This four month delay was made after Assange’s defense lawyer argued the difficulty of his receiving a fair hearing due to restrictions posed by the Covid-19 lockdown. Monday’s hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court proceeded without enabling the phone link for press and observers waiting on the line, and without Assange who was not well enough to appear via videolink.

Sunday May 3rd marked World Press Freedom Day. As people around the globe celebrated with online debates and workshops, Assange was being held on remand in London’s Belmarsh prison for publishing classified documents which exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. On this day, annually observed by the United Nations to remind the governments of the importance of free press, Amnesty International renewed its call for the US to drop the charges against this imprisoned journalist.

The US case to extradite Assange is one of the most important press freedom cases of this century. The indictment against him under the Espionage Act is an unprecedented attack on journalism. This is a war on free speech that has escalated in recent years turning the Internet into a battleground.

Privatized censorship Continue reading →

May 9, 2020 Posted by | media, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Michael Flynn’s involvement in shady nuclear deals with Saudi Arabia

White House May Share Nuclear Power Technology With Saudi Arabia, Pro Publica, by Isaac Arnsdorf
 Nov. 29, 2017  The overture follows an intense and secretive lobbying push involving Michael Flynn, Tom Barrack, Rick Gates and even Iran-Contra figure Robert McFarlane.   The Trump administration is holding talks on providing nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia — a move that critics say could upend decades of U.S. policy and lead to an arms race in the Middle East.

The Saudi government wants nuclear power to free up more oil for export, but current and former American officials suspect the country’s leaders also want to keep up with the enrichment capabilities of their rival, Iran.

Saudi Arabia needs approval from the U.S. in order to receive sensitive American technology. Past negotiations broke down because the Saudi government wouldn’t commit to certain safeguards against eventually using the technology for weapons.

Now the Trump administration has reopened those talks and might not insist on the same precautions. Continue reading →

May 7, 2020 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

U.S. Congress kept in the dark about government nuclear negotiations with Saudi Arabia

U.S. should keep Congress informed about nuclear talks with Saudis: GAO, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-nuclearpower/us-should-keep-congress-informed-about-nuclear-talks-with-saudis-gao-idUSKBN22G2X  Timothy Gardner

6 May 20, WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Departments of State and Energy should commit to regular briefings to relevant committees in Congress on talks about nuclear power cooperation with Saudi Arabia, a congressional watchdog said in a report on Monday.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, report said Congress should consider amending the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, or AEA, to require the briefings for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about negotiations on nuclear power sharing.

Lawmakers concerned about nonproliferation issues associated with nuclear power development had complained they were being kept in the dark about Trump administration talks with Saudi Arabia, many of which were led by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Concern grew after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told CBS in 2018 that the kingdom did not want to acquire a nuclear bomb, but would do so if its rival Iran did so.

Riyadh could announce a tender this year for two nuclear power reactors, its first commercial ones. Russia, China, South Korea and France have also been in talks about building reactors there.The State Department is required by the AEA to keep Congress “fully and currently informed” about the talks. But the GAO found it was “unclear” whether the department did so. “Congressional staff provided us with examples of having to find information on the negotiations from other sources, such as press articles,” the GAO said.

Some U.S. lawmakers want the United States to insist that Saudi Arabia agree to a so-called gold standard that restricts enrichment and reprocessing, potential pathways to making fissile material for nuclear weapons. The United States struck such an agreement with the United Arab Emirates in 2009. If Saudi Arabia develops nuclear power without the gold standard, the UAE would likely seek to be released from its agreement.

The GAO said Congress should consider whether to amend the AEA to require briefings, perhaps on a quarterly basis, and to specify expectations for the content of the briefings.

Senators Robert Menendez, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Republican, had asked the GAO last year to review U.S. agency negotiations with Saudi Arabia on nuclear power, partially because they were concerned the Energy Department, not the State Department took the lead.

The senators said they would explore legislative changes recommended by the GAO. “Congress must reassert its critical role in reviewing nuclear cooperation agreements to ensure these agreements do not pose an unnecessary risk to the United States” they said.

Senators Robert Menendez, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Republican, had asked the GAO last year to review U.S. agency negotiations with Saudi Arabia on nuclear power, partially because they were concerned the Energy Department, not the State Department took the lead.

The senators said they would explore legislative changes recommended by the GAO. “Congress must reassert its critical role in reviewing nuclear cooperation agreements to ensure these agreements do not pose an unnecessary risk to the United States” they said.

May 7, 2020 Posted by | politics, politics international, Saudi Arabia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) gags staff on subject of Trident nuclear weapons in Scotland.

Ferret 3rd May 2020, The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has banned its military and civilian staff
from speaking publicly about Trident nuclear weapons in Scotland. All
members of the armed forces and MoD civil servants have been instructed not
make any public comment, or have any contact with the media, on
“contentious topics” such as “Trident/Successor” and “Scotland
and Defence”. The instructions have been condemned as a “gagging order
worthy of a dictatorship” by campaigners. They have also been criticised
by the Scottish National Party as “an infringement too far”.

https://theferret.scot/ministry-of-defence-trident-scotland-gag/

May 5, 2020 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Netanyahu’s deceitful push to try to get USA to attack Iran

May 2, 2020 Posted by | Iran, Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »