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

Nuclear lobby takes over tertiary education, with blatant lies about “clean” “green” nuclear

 X-energy plans fleet of 40 Xe-100 reactors across the UK. More than 100
businesses from across Teesside and the UK met to learn how they can work
with X-energy on its proposed nuclear new build project. X-energy, along
with deployment partner Cavendish Nuclear, discussed the potential fleet
production of its Xe-100 advanced modular nuclear reactors, likely
timescales, scope of contracts for companies of all sizes across multiple
sectors, and what is required to win business. The event at Hartlepool
College of Further Education was followed by a workshop……………  https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/24645271.x-energy-plans-fleet-40-xe-100-reactors-across-uk/

Hartlepool College of Further Education hosts 70 businesses to set out opportunities for X-energy’s multi-billion pound Hartlepool nuclear reactor project

By Madeleine Raine, 8 October 24

More than 100 representatives from local and national companies are meeting in Hartlepool to hear about the opportunities offered by X-energy’s proposed nuclear reactor project.

On Tuesday, October 8, businesses from across the UK are coming together at Hartlepool College of Further Education to find out about the role regional and British engineering, manufacturing and construction companies can have in building the next generation of [?] clean power production nationwide.

X-energy and deployment partner Cavendish Nuclear are going to be discussing the potential production of advanced modular nuclear reactors…………………………………………

“What X-energy is proposing with its AMR technology will make Hartlepool the epicentre of this country’s transition to a [?] green energy superpower with billions of pounds worth of generational investment”…………………………..  https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/people/hartlepool-college-of-further-education-hosts-70-businesses-to-set-out-opportunities-for-x-energys-multi-billion-pound-hartlepool-nuclear-reactor-project-4814707

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Education, UK | Leave a comment

Pentagon “goes to school” -William Hartung, The Battle for the Soul of American Science

“……………………………………………. Hartung, a Pentagon expert, has focused on this strange reality of ours: no matter how many wars the United States loses, it only pours yet more taxpayer dollars into the Pentagon budget and into the coffers of those giant weapons-making companies of the military-industrial-congressional complex. 

September 29, 2024, Tomgram

………………………………………………… Yet, after all these years, what couldn’t be more striking today is that, in the same spirit as those older pieces, Hartung focuses (as he so often has) on a different aspect entirely of the Pentagon’s distinctly over-funded world, one that, amid all the news coverage in this country, gets little or no attention: how the Pentagon, as he puts it, “goes to school” to enlist American science in the battle to create yet more horrific weaponry. 

Pentagon expert William Hartung first wandered into TomDispatch in March 2008, less than seven years after this country’s Global War(s) on Terror were launched, full-scale disasters that were already costing the American taxpayer a fortune and a half — or perhaps, given the subject, all too literally an arm and a leg. As he wrote then, “How much, for instance, does one week of George Bush’s wars cost? Glad you asked. If we consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan together — which we might as well do, since we and our children and grandchildren will be paying for them together into the distant future — a conservative, single-week estimate comes to $3.5 billion. Remember, that’s per week! By contrast, the whole international community spends less than $400 million per year on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the primary institution for monitoring and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons; that’s less than one day’s worth of war costs.”

Only $650 million or so of that weekly sum, he estimated, was “spent on people.” So, he wondered, “where does the other nearly $3 billion go?” The answer he offered then: “It goes for goods and services, from tanks and fighter planes to fuel and food. Most of this money ends up in the hands of private companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the former Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root.” And knowing about that expense of $3.5 billion a week “and counting” on America’s wars, he added sarcastically, “Doesn’t that make you feel safer?”

Ever since then, Hartung, a Pentagon expert, has focused on this strange reality of ours: no matter how many wars the United States loses, it only pours yet more taxpayer dollars into the Pentagon budget and into the coffers of those giant weapons-making companies of the military-industrial-congressional complex. Even the titles of a few of his pieces over the years catch the grim spirit of his all-too-striking analysis: “There’s No Business Like the Arms Business, Weapons ‘R’ Us (But You’d Never Know It)” (July 2016); “The Urge to Splurge, Why Is It So Hard to Reduce the Pentagon Budget?” (October 2016); “The American Way of War Is a Budget-Breaker, Never Has a Society Spent More for Less” (May 2017); “Merger Mania, The Military-Industrial Complex on Steroids” (July 2019); “America Dominant Again (in Arms Sales), And Again… and Again… And Again” (May 2021); “Fueling the Warfare State, America’s $1.4 Trillion ‘National Security’ Budget Makes Us Ever Less Safe” (July 2022); “Spending Unlimited, The Pentagon’s Budget Follies Come at a High Price” (March 2024).

And of course, that’s just a small dip into the pieces he’s written for TomDispatch. Yet, after all these years, what couldn’t be more striking today is that, in the same spirit as those older pieces, Hartung focuses (as he so often has) on a different aspect entirely of the Pentagon’s distinctly over-funded world, one that, amid all the news coverage in this country, gets little or no attention: how the Pentagon, as he puts it, “goes to school” to enlist American science in the battle to create yet more horrific weaponry. And so it goes, again and again and again. Tom

The Pentagon Goes to School. The Battle for the Soul of American Science. Bringing the Militarization of University Research Back to Earth

By William D. Hartung

The divestment campaigns launched last spring by students protesting Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza brought the issue of the militarization of American higher education back into the spotlight.

Of course, financial ties between the Pentagon and American universities are nothing new. As Stuart Leslie has pointed out in his seminal book on the topic, The Cold War and American Science, “In the decade following World War II, the Department of Defense (DOD) became the biggest patron of American science.” Admittedly, as civilian institutions like the National Institutes of Health grew larger, the Pentagon’s share of federal research and development did decline, but it still remained a source of billions of dollars in funding for university research.

And now, Pentagon-funded research is once again on the rise, driven by the DOD’s recent focus on developing new technologies like weapons driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Combine that with an intensifying drive to recruit engineering graduates and the forging of partnerships between professors and weapons firms and you have a situation in which many talented technical types could spend their entire careers serving the needs of the warfare state. The only way to head off such a Brave New World would be greater public pushback against the military conquest (so to speak) of America’s research and security agendas, in part through resistance by scientists and engineers whose skills are so essential to building the next generation of high-tech weaponry.

The Pentagon Goes to School

Yes, the Pentagon’s funding of universities is indeed rising once again and it goes well beyond the usual suspects like MIT or Johns Hopkins University. In 2022, the most recent year for which full data is available, 14 universities received at least — and brace yourself for this — $100 million in Pentagon funding, from Johns Hopkins’s astonishing $1.4 billion (no, that is not a typo!) to Colorado State’s impressive $100 million. And here’s a surprise: two of the universities with the most extensive connections to our weaponry of the future are in Texas: the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) and Texas A&M.

In 2020, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy appeared onstage at a UT-Austin ceremony to commemorate the creation of a robotics lab there, part of a new partnership between the Army Futures Command and the school. “This is ground zero for us in our research for the weapons systems we’re going to develop for decades to come,” said McCarthy.

Not to be outdone, Texas A&M is quietly becoming the Pentagon’s base for research on hypersonics — weapons expected to travel five times the speed of sound. Equipped with a kilometer-long tunnel for testing hypersonic missiles, that school’s University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics is explicitly dedicated to outpacing America’s global rivals in the development of that next generation military technology. Texas A&M is also part of the team that runs the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the (in)famous New Mexico facility where the first nuclear weapons were developed and tested as part of the Manhattan Project under the direction of Robert Oppenheimer.

Other major players include Carnegie Mellon University, a center for Army research on the applications of AI, and Stanford University, which serves as a feeder to California’s Silicon Valley firms of all types. That school also runs the Technology Transfer for Defense (TT4D) Program aimed at transitioning academic technologies from the lab to the marketplace and exploring the potential military applications of emerging technology products.

In addition, the Pentagon is working aggressively to bring new universities into the fold. In January 2023, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the creation of a defense-funded research center at Howard University, the first of its kind at a historically black college.

Given the campus Gaza demonstrations of last spring, perhaps you also won’t be surprised to learn that the recent surge in Pentagon spending faces increasing criticism from students and faculty alike. Targets of protest include the Lavender program, which has used AI to multiply the number of targets the Israeli armed forces can hit in a given time frame. But beyond focusing on companies enabling Israel’s war effort, current activists are also looking at the broader role of their universities in the all-American war system.

For example, at Indiana University research on ties to companies fueling the killings in Gaza grew into a study of the larger role of universities in supporting the military system as a whole. Student activists found that the most important connection involved that university’s ties to the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, whose mission is “to provide acquisition, engineering… and technical support for sensors, electronics, electronic warfare, and special warfare weapons.” In response, student activists have launched a “Keep Crane Off Campus” campaign.

A Science of Death or for Life?

Graduating science and engineering students increasingly face a moral dilemma about whether they want to put their skills to work developing instruments of death. Journalist Indigo Olivier captured that conflict in a series of interviews with graduating engineering students. She quotes one at the University of West Florida who strongly opposes doing weapons work this way: “When it comes to engineering, we do have a responsibility… ​Every tool can be a weapon… I don’t really feel like I need to be putting my gifts to make more bombs.”

By contrast, Cameron Davis, a 2021 computer engineering graduate from Georgia Tech, told Olivier about the dilemma faced by so many graduating engineers: ​“A lot of people that I talk to aren’t 100% comfortable working on defense contracts, working on things that are basically going to kill people.” But he went on to say that the high pay at weapons firms ​“drives a lot of your moral disagreements with defense away.”

The choice faced by today’s science and engineering graduates is nothing new. The use of science for military ends has a long history in the United States. But there have also been numerous examples of scientists who resisted dangerous or seemingly unworkable military schemes……………………………………………………………………………………………

Scientists have also played a leading role in pressing for nuclear arms control and disarmament, founding organizations like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1945), the Federation of American Scientists (1945), the global Pugwash movement (1957), the Council for a Livable World (1962), and the Union of Concerned Scientists (1969). To this day, all of them continue to work to curb the threat of a nuclear war that could destroy this planet as a livable place for humanity.

A central figure in this movement was Joseph Rotblat, the only scientist to resign from the Manhattan Project over moral qualms about the potential impact of the atomic bomb. In 1957, he helped organize the founding meeting of the Pugwash Conference, an international organization devoted to the control and ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. In some respects Pugwash was a forerunner of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which successfully pressed for the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in January 2021.

Enabling Endless War and Widespread Torture

The social sciences also have a long, conflicted history of ties to the Pentagon and the military services. Two prominent examples from earlier in this century were the Pentagon’s Human Terrain Program (HTS) and the role of psychologists in crafting torture programs associated with the Global War on Terror, launched after the 9/11 attacks with the invasion of Afghanistan.

………………………………………………An even more controversial use of social scientists in the service of the war machine was the role of psychologists as advisors to the CIA’s torture programs at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba, and other of that agency’s “black sites.” ……………………………………………………………

 today, resistance to the militarization of science has extended to the growing use of artificial intelligence and other emerging military technologies. For example, in 2018, there was a huge protest movement at Google when employees learned that the company was working on Project Maven, a communications network designed to enable more accurate drone strikes. More than 4,000 Google scientists and engineers signed a letter to company leadership calling for them to steer clear of military work, dozens resigned over the issue, and the protests had a distinct effect on the company. That year, Google announced that it would not renew its Project Maven contract, and pledged that it “will not design or deploy AI” for weapons.

Unfortunately, the lure of military funding was simply too strong. Just a few years after those Project Maven protests, Google again began doing work for the Pentagon,…………………………………….

The Future of American Science

……………………………………………………………………The stakes are particularly high now, given the ongoing rush to develop AI-driven weaponry and other emerging technologies that pose the risk of everything from unintended slaughter due to system malfunctions to making war more likely, given the (at least theoretical) ability to limit casualties for the attacking side. In short, turning back the flood of funding for military research and weaponry from the Pentagon and key venture capital firms will be a difficult undertaking. After all, AI is already performing a wide range of military and civilian tasks. Banning it altogether may no longer be a realistic goal, but putting guardrails around its military use might still be.

Such efforts are, in fact, already underway. The International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) has called for an international dialogue on “the pressing dangers that these systems pose to peace and international security and to civilians.”………………………………….

The Future of Life Institute has underscored the severity of the risk, noting that “more than half of AI experts believe there is a one in ten chance this technology will cause our extinction.”

Instead of listening almost exclusively to happy talk about the military value of AI by individuals and organizations that stand to profit from its adoption, isn’t it time to begin paying attention to the skeptics, while holding back on the deployment of emerging military technologies until there is a national conversation about what they can and can’t accomplish, with scientists playing a central role in bringing the debate back to earth?

https://tomdispatch.com/the-pentagon-goes-to-school/

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Education, USA | Leave a comment

“Peaceful” and war-making nuclear industries get together in tertiary education

 The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC)
and Holtec, the USA’s largest nuclear components exporter, have entered a
formal partnership to collaborate on SMRs and large-scale nuclear and
fusion in the civil and defence sectors.

Earlier this week, the two
organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for ‘Cooperation
on Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Technology’ at the AMRC’s facility in
Sheffield.

 Machinery Market 24th Sept 2024 https://www.machinery-market.co.uk/news/38159/SMRs-and-large-scale-nuclear-and-fusion-collaboration

September 27, 2024 Posted by | Education, UK | Leave a comment

‘The Genocide Gentry’: Weapon Execs Sit on Boards of Universities, Institutions

“This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions,” said one campaigner.

Brett Wilkins, Sep 18, 2024, https://www.commondreams.org/news/u-s-universities-weapons-companies

A trio of human rights groups on Wednesday announced a new interactive initiative exposing what the coalition is calling a “Genocide Gentry” of weapons company executives and board members and “54 museums, cultural organizations, universities, and colleges that currently host these individuals on their boards or in other prominent roles.”

The coalition—which consists of the Adalah Justice Project, LittleSis, and Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE)—published a map and database detailing the “educational and cultural ties to board members of six defense corporations” amid Israel’s ongoing annihilation of Gaza, for which the U.S.-backed country is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.


” Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza and nearly 200 cultural heritage sites since October 2023, using bombs and weapons manufactured by the companies included in the Genocide Gentry research,” the coalition said. “As of April, these attacks have killed more than 5,479 students and 261 teachers and destroyed or critically damaged nearly 90% of all school buildings in Gaza.”

“Universities across the country including the likes of Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and New York University have remained largely silent on Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza,” the groups added. “Behind closed doors, these same universities are hosting executives and board members of the companies manufacturing the weapons used in these attacks as board members, trustees, and fellows.”

Members of the Genocide Gentry include:

  • Jeh Johnson, Lockheed Martin board of directors: Johnson is currently a Columbia University trustee, and sits on the board of directors at MetLife and U.S. Steel. Columbia University notably shut down student protests demanding divestment from weapons companies like Lockheed Martin.
  • Brian C. Rogers, RTX board of directors: Rogers is currently a trustee of the Harvard Management Company, tasked with managing the $50 billion endowment. Notably Harvard administrators have cracked down on students demanding divestment from weapons companies like RTX, formerly Raytheon.
  • Catherine B. Reynolds, General Dynamics board of directors: Reynolds is a trustee of the Kennedy Center and sponsors a fellowship at New York University, which has also cracked down on anti-genocide protests and recently enacted a policy equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

“Students on university campuses across the country have not only been demanding divestment, but transparency,” said Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project. “Transparency about their institutions’ investments, partnerships, donors, and decision-makers, and their connections to individuals and companies directly enabling and profiting off war and genocide.”

“This research helps provide some of this transparency by illuminating just how embedded the interests of the weapons industry are within our institutions, so we can begin chipping away at the power and influence that they wield,” she added.

ACRE campaign director Ramah Kudaimi noted that “as part of its genocide since October 2023, Israel has targeted universities and cultural centers across Gaza, destroying campuses, museums, libraries, and more.”

“That this is all backed by the United States means U.S. educational and cultural institutions have a responsibility to consider what their role is in helping end these war crimes, and that starts with reconsidering their connections with the weapons companies profiting from the destruction,” Kudaimi said.

Munira Lokhandwala, director of the Tech and Training program at LittleSis, said: “This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions. Through this research, we show how the defense industry shapes and influences our civic and cultural institutions, and as a result, their silence around war and genocide.”

“We must ask our institutions: What role are you playing in whitewashing war and destruction by inviting those who profit from manufacturing weapons onto your boards and into your galas?” she added.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Education, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Some UK higher education rejoices in the nuclear and military partnership

Nuclear decommissioning centre shares learning with MoD apprentices 

by Cumbria Crack, 30/07/2024

An innovative engineering and maintenance centre is forging links with the Ministry of Defence to help share learnings between the nuclear and defence sectors. 

Sellafield Ltd Engineering Centre of Excellence in Cleator Moor, hosted degree apprentices from Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport in Argyll and Bute, Scotland on Wednesday. 

The visit was arranged by the Sellafield Engineering Centre of Excellence team to showcase its pioneering work with robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, flight and electrical simulators and VR technology. 

Five MoD degree apprentices, all on a five-year programme linked to the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, at Swansea, gained hands-on experience of operating a drone simulator, using VR equipment and a range of other remotely operated technology at the state-of-the-art centre in Cumbria. ………………………………………………………………more https://cumbriacrack.com/2024/07/30/nuclear-decommissioning-centre-shares-learning-with-mod-apprentices/

August 1, 2024 Posted by | Education | Leave a comment

Bangor University to collaborate with Rolls Royce and the University of Oxford to develop nuclear power for space

 Bangor University is continuing its relationship with Rolls-Royce in the
field of space nuclear power technology. Rolls-Royce has secured funding
from the UK Space Agency under the National Space Innovation Programme
(NSIP), which adds more support for the development of its space nuclear
power technology. The new £4.8m award from NSIP Major Projects will help
to significantly advance the development and demonstration of key
technologies in the space nuclear Micro-Reactor. The Rolls-Royce National
Space Innovation Programme will have a total project cost of £9.1m and
aims to progress the Micro-Reactor’s overall technology readiness level,
which will bring the reactor closer to a full system space flight
demonstration.

 Bangor University 24th July 2024

https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/2024-07-24-bangor-university-to-collaborate-with-rolls-royce-and-the-university-of-oxford-on

July 27, 2024 Posted by | Education, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclearisation of universities

Helping youngsters start a nuclear career

 by Business Crack, June 9, 2024

“………..The Nuclear Sponsorship Scheme offers 50 students a series of summer placements after each year of their degree as well as funding worth £42,000 – £27,000 in university fees and a £15,000 subsistence bursary – £5,000 per year for three years.

The scheme is means-tested and aimed at increasing social mobility among young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds…………………  https://businesscrack.co.uk/2024/06/09/helping-youngsters-start-a-nuclear-career/

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Education, UK | Leave a comment

University of Ghent to cease all collaboration with Israeli institutions

Friday 31 May 2024, By The Brussels Times with Belga

Ghent University (UGent) plans to end all partnerships with Israeli institutions, citing serious human rights violations and breaches of international law in Gaza, according to chancellor Rik Van de Walle.

Pro-Palestinian activists have occupied the UFO building at UGent for several weeks, demanding a comprehensive boycott against Israeli academic bodies. Hundreds of students have set up encampments in the building’s entrance hall, hoisting flags in protest.

Van de Walle had asked the university’s human rights commission to review all cooperations with Israeli universities and research centres, to bolster Ghent University’s human rights policy. Previously, the university terminated three contracts involving Israeli organisations suspected of involvement in human rights violations……………………………………………

UGent explained that the connection with other organisations or authorities prevents further cooperation. “UGent doesn’t want to be implicated in the very serious human rights and international law violations in Gaza… [or] cooperate with partners involved in these serious human rights violations,” the Flemish institution declared.

The university’s human rights commission – support by the chancellor – advises that for ongoing projects, the consortium should ascertain whether collaboration with the Israeli partner can be ended and take appropriate measures. If this isn’t feasible, “UGent must take the necessary steps to withdraw from the project” itself……..  https://www.brusselstimes.com/1070115/university-of-ghent-to-cease-all-collaboration-with-israeli-institutions

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Education | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Grad Students Complete Nuclear Internship Program in the United States

MAY 28, 2024

Eight university students from Ukraine recently completed their nuclear energy internship program with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).  

The program was implemented through Argonne National Laboratory and is designed to assist Ukraine’s nuclear power industry in growing its nuclear energy workforce. 

A Long Overdue Visit

The two-year internship program was tailored to Ukrainian university graduate students pursuing nuclear energy-related degrees that specialize in areas such as small modular reactors, accident tolerant fuels, and even misconceptions of nuclear energy. 

The students selected for the program were supposed to spend their first summer in the United States taking extra courses and the second summer working with U.S. nuclear energy companies. 

A Country Rebuilding

Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors generate more than half of the country’s electricity, but the plants are old and so is the country’s aging nuclear workforce.  

The grad students returned to their country to continue their studies and careers in Ukraine’s nuclear energy program as they work to pursue new technologies independent of Russia.  

Ukraine’s entire fleet of reactors is based on old Russian VVER pressurized water reactor technology. Six of the reactors were seized by Russian forces during the war and placed in cold shutdown. 

The U.S.-Ukraine nuclear energy internship program was funded by the Office of Nuclear Energy’s Office of International Cooperation, which collaborates with international partners to support the safe, secure, and peaceful use of nuclear energy.  https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/ukrainian-grad-students-complete-nuclear-internship-program-united-states—

June 1, 2024 Posted by | Education, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Texas A&M University System To Bring Nuclear Reactors To Texas A&M-RELLIS

Initiative aims to enhance Texas’ power grid and support technological growth with advanced nuclear energy solutions.

By Texas A&M University System, MAY 29, 2024

Leaders at The Texas A&M University System announced plans Wednesday to bring the latest nuclear reactors to Texas A&M-RELLIS.

John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M System, said the System seeks to provide a platform for companies to test the latest reactors and technologies. It also will address the pressing need for increased power supply…………………………………….

To kickstart the latest nuclear initiative, the Texas A&M System will be seeking information — and later proposals — from manufacturers of nuclear reactors. Ultimately, the site could host multiple electrical power-generating facilities, and it could host first-of-a-kind reactors with a net increase of up to 1 GW of capacity that will have a direct connection to the grid operated by Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc., or as it is more commonly called, ERCOT..

Representatives from the System and from the companies hope to stand up operational reactors within the next five to seven years.  https://today.tamu.edu/2024/05/29/texas-am-university-system-to-bring-nuclear-reactors-to-rellis/

May 30, 2024 Posted by | Education, USA | Leave a comment

Follow the Money: How Israel-Linked Billionaires Silenced US Campus Protests

Scheerpost, By Alan MacLeod / MintPress News, May 23, 2024

Thousands of students face severe consequences for protesting Gaza violence. Alan Macleod investigates the powerful financial and ideological ties to Israel driving the harsh responses from America’s top universities.

America’s universities are on fire. A protest movement against the violence in Gaza and U.S. colleges’ complicity in them has swept the nation, with encampments on college campuses in 45 of America’s 50 states. The crackdown has been swift; thousands of students have been arrested, charged, fined, lost their degrees, or even deported. Amid corporate media demanding a “Kent State 2.0”, riot police, armored vehicles and snipers have been deployed across the country to terrify those campaigning for justice into silence.

Why have overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations against a foreign power’s actions been met with such a heavy-handed response? A MintPress News investigation finds that those same elite institutions have deep financial and ideological ties to the state of Israel, are funded by pro-Israel billionaires who have demanded they take action to crush the student movement, are partially funded by the Israeli government, and exist in a climate where Washington has made it clear that the protests should not be tolerated.

ISRAEL’S BILLIONAIRE BACKERS

The movement began on April 17 at Columbia University, where a modest Gaza solidarity encampment was established. Protestors hardly expected to be welcomed by university authorities but were shocked as university president Minouche Shafik immediately called in the NYPD – the first time the university had allowed police to suppress dissent on campus since the famous 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.

Shafik’s decision was no doubt influenced by the enormous pressure put on her by the university’s top donors – many of whom have deep connections to the Israeli state and its military

The turning point, Kraft said, was watching a publicity stunt by Shai Davidai, an Israeli-American academic at Columbia, who claimed his access to campus was revoked. Davidai had previously called the student protestors “Nazis” and “terrorists” and called for the National Guard to be set upon the encampment, obliquely referencing the Kent State University Massacre while doing so.

Kraft is one of Columbia’s most important donors, giving the institution millions of dollars, including $3 million to fund the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life.

He also has deep connections to Israel, having visited the country over 100 times, including to have private lunch with his friend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said, “Israel does not have a more loyal friend than Robert Kraft.”

Netanyahu is correct. Kraft is one of the Israel lobby’s primary benefactors, donating millions to groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), The Israel Project and StandWithUs. He pledged a gigantic $100 million to his own Foundation to Combat Antisemitism – a group that presents critics of Israeli policy with the charge of anti-Jewish racism. He has also funded a host of pro-Israel politicians in races against progressive, anti-war challengers. A recent MintPress News investigation took a closer look at how Kraft is a key actor in trying to launder Israel’s image in America.

LEON COOPERMAN

Another billionaire benefactor pulling his Columbia funding is Leon Cooperman………………………………………

LEN BLAVATNIK

A third billionaire backer using his financial clout to pressure Columbia is Soviet-born oligarch Len Blavatnik, who demanded that the university protestors be “held to account.” Leaked messages reveal that for Blavatnik,  this meant using the full weight of the law against protestors………………………………………….

IDAN OFER

From Columbia, the protests quickly spread across America, including to many of the country’s most prestigious institutions, including Harvard.

LESLIE WEXNER

Another billionaire apparently “stunned and sickened” by Harvard’s pro-Hamas positions is former Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner. Apart from Wexner’s exceptionally close and well-publicized connections to child sex traffickers and Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein, Wexner is a major donor to Israeli causes……………………………………………

MARC ROWAN

Nowhere, however, has the elite backlash to student protests been as bitter as at the University of Pennsylvania. Leading the charge to suppress pro-Palestine sentiment on campus there has been Marc Rowan. The billionaire investor demanded that his side must “exact a price” on students who express solidarity with Palestine. ……………………………………………………………………

ACADEMIC COLLABORATION

In addition to pressure from donors, elite U.S. universities have close academic and business ties to Israel………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

PAID FOR BY ISRAEL

However, more controversial than the academic collaboration is the Israeli government’s direct funding of American educational institutions. MIT, for example, is awash in Israeli cash. Scientists Against Genocide, a group at MIT, report that, since 2015, the university has received over $11 million in authorized research funding from the Israeli Ministry of Defense. This cash has reached various departments, including Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Biological Engineering, Physics, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Materials Science and Engineering, and Civil and Environmental Engineering…………………………………………………………………….

TIES TO THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

It could be argued that MIT could reasonably be accused of directly abetting a genocide in Gaza. However, MIT and other elite institutions are under enormous governmental pressure from the other side. Its president, Sally Kornbluth, as well as Harvard president Claudine Gay and Pennsylvania’s Magill, were brought before Congress and grilled on their universities’ alleged support for Hamas and indifference to antisemitism. The case made national news and focused waves of pressure on universities nationwide………………………………………………….

While corporate media has demonized the students as out-of-touch supporters of terrorism, they enjoy widespread support among their peers. Students approved a resolution calling on MIT to cut all research and financial ties to the Israeli military, with 63.7% of undergraduates and 70.5% of graduates voting in favor of it. American adults aged between 18 and 44 support the nationwide protests by a ratio of 4:3.

THE CRACKDOWN

Authorities, however, have been in little mood to negotiate, and images of black-clad riot police beating up and dragging away students and faculty members have gone viral across the globe………………………………………………………………………………………..

SHREDDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT…………………………………………………………

Despite the campus demonstrations being overwhelmingly peaceful, authorities have chosen to crack down harshly upon them, shredding the First Amendment in the process. Why have both universities and the government shown virtually zero tolerance towards those protesting against genocide? Firstly, because so many big-money university benefactors are themselves committed Zionists and have deep ties to the Israeli state…………………………………………  https://scheerpost.com/2024/05/23/follow-the-money-how-israel-linked-billionaires-silenced-us-campus-protests/—

May 25, 2024 Posted by | Education, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Yet another university co-opted by the nuclear industry

Teesside University to set out benefits of X-energy site at Hartlepool

Teesside University is to help set out the huge regional economic benefits of a multi-billion pound nuclear power station project in Hartlepool.

Northern Echo, Mike Hughes, 22nd May 24

X-energy and Cavendish Nuclear have commissioned the university to look at the opportunities – including jobs, skills, supply chain contracts, and investment – led by Professor Matthew Cotton, Professor of Public Policy.

The work is part funded by the UK Government which awarded the firms £3.34m in April this year from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero’s Future Nuclear Enabling Fund.

This was matched by X-energy which aims to build its Xe-100 advanced modular reactor plant, by the early 2030s, next to Hartlepool’s existing Nuclear Power Station which is scheduled to close this decade.

The assessment is part of a £6.68m programme of work the companies are jointly undertaking to prepare for the proposed roll out of around 40 Xe-100 power stations across the UK……………………………….  https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/24333214.teesside-university-set-benefits-x-energy-site-hartlepool/

May 23, 2024 Posted by | Education, UK | Leave a comment

University of Sheffield gets into the nuclear debt web, partnering with Rolls Royce to make “small” nuclear reactors

New facility will help de-risk and underpin the Rolls-Royce SMR programme

( De-Risking, is a strategy that companies apply when they cannot manage the money laundering risks that they have obligations to. )

Mirage News, 21 May 24

  • The University of Sheffield and Rolls-Royce SMR are setting up a multi-million pound manufacturing and testing facility in South Yorkshire
  • Based in the University of Sheffield AMRC’s Factory 2050, the new facility will produce prototype modules for small modular reactors (SMRs)
  • New facility will help de-risk and underpin the Rolls-Royce SMR programme that aims to deploy a fleet of factory-built nuclear power plants in the UK and across the world

…………………… The first phase, announced today, is worth £2.7 million and will be part of a wider £15+ million package of work that will further de-risk and underpin the Rolls-Royce SMR programme.

The new facility at the University of Sheffield AMRC will produce working prototypes of individual modules that will be assembled into Rolls-Royce SMR power plants.

The Rolls-Royce SMR programme is UK’s first home-grown nuclear technology for over a generation and today’s announcement is another vital step towards deploying a fleet of factory-built nuclear power plants in the UK and around the globe.

Victoria Scott, Rolls-Royce SMR’s Chief Manufacturing Engineer, said: “Our investment in setting up this facility and building prototype modules is another significant milestone for our business.

“Our factories will produce hundreds of prefabricated and pre-tested modules ready for assembly on site. This facility will allow us to refine our production, testing and digital approach to manufacturing – helping de-risk our programme and ensure we increase our delivery certainty.  https://www.miragenews.com/rolls-royce-smr-sheffield-uni-launch-new-1238675/

May 22, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Education, UK | Leave a comment

The plutonium connection: Why I no longer conduct my research at the University of New Brunswick

I had already learned enough about the power and influence of the nuclear industry to know that I would be fighting a losing battle if I kept my research at UNB

Once during my 13 years at the NRC I was asked to work on a military technology project, and I refused. I had a visceral negative reaction to doing research that could potentially be implicated in mass killing.

by Susan O’Donnell, May 17, 2024,   https://nbmediacoop.org/2024/05/17/the-plutonium-connection-why-i-no-longer-conduct-my-research-at-the-university-of-new-brunswick/

On Thursday this week, two very different emails landed in my inbox minutes apart. The juxtaposition jolted me, and I thought: it’s time to share my story about my departure from the University of New Brunswick.

The first email, from the NB Media Co-op, informed me that my commentary written with Gordon Edwards was just published. Our article marked the 50th anniversary of an event that had shocked the world: India’s test nuclear explosion made with plutonium extracted from a ‘peaceful’ nuclear reactor, a gift from Canada. We questioned if Canada was making the same mistake by backing the Moltex project to extract plutonium from used nuclear fuel at the Point Lepreau site on the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick.

A UNB professor friend sent the second email. He wrote: ‘This will be aggravating to read, but I thought you’d want to see it. I’m attaching the announcement about Arthur Irving’s death coming from UNB’s President. Arthur Irving is celebrated for his commitment and dedication to the environment. Meanwhile, people who are actually committed to the environment (e.g., you) are blacklisted.’

The two emails had this connection: My research and writing about plutonium and Moltex is the main reason why in 2023 I moved my research program from the University of New Brunswick, the largest university in the province, over to St. Thomas University, a small liberal arts undergraduate institution that shares the campus with UNB in Fredericton.

My journey from UNB to STU began in 2020. At that point, I had been with the UNB Sociology department for almost 16 years as an adjunct professor, on faculty but not on staff and so not in the faculty union. During those years, I brought considerable federal research funding into UNB and hired and trained more than a dozen UNB graduate students. My research expertise includes technology adoption: analyzing the social, political, environmental and economic contexts in which people deploy technologies. I joined UNB in 2004 while employed at the National Research Council of Canada on the Fredericton UNB campus, as a senior researcher and vice-chair of the NRC’s research ethics board. Once during my 13 years at the NRC I was asked to work on a military technology project, and I refused. I had a visceral negative reaction to doing research that could potentially be implicated in mass killing.

At the start of 2020, I could not have imagined a connection between NB Power’s Point Lepreau nuclear reactor and weapons of mass destruction. That February, my UNB research project RAVEN was invited to partner with local groups to bring nuclear expert Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, to New Brunswick to give public talks in Saint John and Fredericton. I readily agreed. Several months previously, I had read Gordon’s article in the NB Media Co-op about ‘small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs)’ and wanted to learn more. I put up posters around the UNB campus promoting Gordon’s upcoming talk. I asked the UNB communications office to help me promote Gordon’s visit, but they never came through, and I assumed they were too busy to help.

Gordon Edward’s talk, moved online when the pandemic hit in March 2020, sparked my research interest in the adoption of nuclear technology. I began looking into the two small nuclear reactor projects planned for New Brunswick, Moltex and ARC. In July that year, I co-wrote my first commentary with Gordon that mentioned our concerns about the Moltex project and plutonium extraction from used nuclear fuel. The same day that our piece was published in The Hill Times, the newspaper on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the CEO of Moltex emailed, asking to meet with me. I agreed, and during a break in the pandemic that month, we met outside at Picaroons Roundhouse along with Janice Harvey, the coordinator of the Environment & Society program at St. Thomas University and a co-investigator on my RAVEN project. At the meeting, Janice and I disagreed with the Moltex CEO about the wisdom of his project to extract plutonium from the used nuclear fuel at Point Lepreau.

I continued my research into small nuclear reactors and plutonium extraction by reading research articles and consulting with Gordon and other experts across Canada and internationally. In May 2021, the federal government gave Moltex a $50.5 million grant to develop its technology that could be exported globally. Shortly after, nine U.S. non-proliferation experts wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau expressing concern about the Moltex project, writing that by ‘backing spent-fuel reprocessing and plutonium extraction, the Government of Canada will undermine the global nuclear weapons non-proliferation regime that Canada has done so much to strengthen.’ The Globe and Mail published an article about the nuclear weapons proliferation concerns with the Moltex project, and Gordon and I published commentaries in The Hill Times, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the NB Media Co-op.

During this time, I co-founded a public interest group with local activists, the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB), to advocate for a nuclear-free renewable energy future. Janice Harvey invited me to join her in the STU Environment & Society program as an adjunct research professor, and in June 2021 I was appointed to the STU faculty in addition to my UNB faculty appointment.

In August 2021, I received a phone call that augured the end of my research program at UNB. On the phone, a friend told me about overhearing the UNB president say: ‘Susan O’Donnell is spreading misinformation about nuclear energy.’ That shocked me for several reasons. First, I would never knowingly spread misinformation. Second, I’d never met the UNB president and didn’t know he knew I existed. Third, why the heck would he say such a thing? To find out, I filed a Right to Information request with UNB, asking for all communications received by the UNB President and the Vice-President Research that mentioned me or my research project RAVEN.

UNB released the information to me in November 2021. The release package, HERE, is dozens of pages, almost all of it redacted. Just enough information was left for me to know that the UNB senior administration’s concern about me began in February 2020, while I was putting up posters around UNB for Gordon Edwards’ talk about small nuclear reactors. Over the weeks leading up to Gordon’s event, a flurry of emails – involving the UNB president, his chief of staff, several vice-presidents, the UNB secretary, two UNB professors I’ve never met, numerous people in UNB communications, and the Atlantica Centre for Energy, a lobby group funded by the energy industry – fretted about the upcoming ‘anti-nuclear event,’ imagining that it was linked to the Green Party and would jeopardize funding for nuclear research at UNB. I finally realized why the UNB communications office had not responded to my request to help publicize Gordon’s talk.

Most interesting to me in the package was an email from the CEO of Moltex to the UNB vice-president research on July 6, 2020, the same day the CEO wrote to me requesting a meeting. To the VP research, the CEO wrote:

‘You may have seen the article recently written by Dr Susan O’Donnell and her group in NB media coop. It was today issued in the Hill Times which gives it significant exposure and credibility. I understand she is a lecturer at UNB. I have emailed her to request a meeting… I do have concerns that her group RAVEN is supported by SSHRC and yet it is being used as an advocacy group and she is using her Academic Freedom to express views without scientific credibility and in conjunction with political parties but I don’t plan on bringing that up with her. I greatly appreciate debate around nuclear and clean energy (I used to be anti nuclear) but it is hard to compete with misinformation backed by a university.’

There it was: the accusation that I was spreading ‘misinformation’ ­– the same accusation repeated later by the UNB president that my friend had overheard. Finally, I understood why the heck the president had said that: Moltex had stated it as a fact. I knew that Moltex was collaborating with UNB’s Centre for Nuclear Energy Research, and that in addition to the federal grant to Moltex of $50.5 million, UNB received more than $560,000. The Right to Information request showed me that half a million bucks buys a lot at UNB.

To learn more, I filed a complaint in December 2021 with the New Brunswick Ombuds office, asking UNB to release the redacted information. In April 2022, my complaint was dismissed, and I decided to drop it there.

I had already learned enough about the power and influence of the nuclear industry to know that I would be fighting a losing battle if I kept my research at UNB. I was due to write another application for federal research funding. My main concern was that the UNB VP research – who had written many emails about me (that had been redacted) and who would need to sign off on my future requests for federal research funding – was also on the advisory board of the UNB Centre for Nuclear Energy Research. An application for federal research funding takes months of work, and I was not willing to take the risk that after preparing the application, it could be vetoed at the final stage. I asked my UNB Sociology chair not to renew my faculty appointment when it expired in 2023, and I submitted my funding application via the research office at St. Thomas University.

When my UNB appointment ended, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded me a five-year research grant at STU for the CEDAR project – Contesting Energy Discourses through Action Research. CEDAR has excellent co-investigators, collaborators and research assistants. We research the energy transition – focusing on nuclear energy – with the support of my new university administration.

As a bonus, my experience with the Right to Information system raised my awareness of how access to information requests could be useful for research. I’ve since filed more than two dozen requests with different federal and provincial government departments and agencies to learn what goes on behind the scenes between the nuclear industry and governments related to plutonium extraction from used nuclear fuel. As the release packages arrive, many heavily redacted, I’m making them available to other researchers, journalists, and anyone interested, via a page on the CEDAR project website, HERE. Using that information, The Globe and Mail published an article last September, and Gordon Edwards and I published another in March this year in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about the collusion between the nuclear industry and the federal government to develop a policy on nuclear fuel reprocessing. My research continues.

Susan O’Donnell is the primary investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University.

May 18, 2024 Posted by | Canada, Education, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

UK nuclear lobby further infiltrates universities with government grants for nuclear fusion

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the UK’s national
fusion energy research and development organisation, has awarded six
organisations with £9.6 million of contracts to advance their concepts to
support fusion energy development. The contracts were awarded to three
universities and three companies focusing on digital engineering and fusion
fuel cycle developments dedicated to addressing fusion energy challenges.
The contracts range between £460,000 and £1.9m, and are funded by
UKAEA’s Fusion Industry Programme, an initiative launched in 2021 to
develop the necessary technology and skills for the future global fusion
powerplant market.

 UKAEA 15th May 2024

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ukaea-awards-96m-to-six-organisations-for-fusion-projects

May 16, 2024 Posted by | Education, UK | Leave a comment

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