Ruthless and relentless – USA-UK destruction of Julian Assange
The charge against Julian is very specific; conspiring with Chelsea Manning to publish the Iraq War logs, the Afghanistan war logs and the State Department cables. The charges are nothing to do with Sweden, nothing to do with sex, and nothing to do with the 2016 US election; a simple clarification the mainstream media appears incapable of understanding.
The campaign of demonization and dehumanization against Julian, based on government and media lie after government and media lie, has led to a situation where he can be slowly killed in public sight, and arraigned on a charge of publishing the truth about government wrongdoing, while receiving no assistance from “liberal” society.
Unless Julian is released shortly he will be destroyed. If the state can do this, then who is next?
The Annihilation of Julian Assange, https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-annihilation-of-julian-assange/, Craig Murray “In Defense of Julian Assange,” edited by Tariq Ali and Margaret Kunstler, is now available for OR Books.
I was deeply shaken while witnessing yesterday’s events in Westminster Magistrates Court. Every decision was railroaded through over the scarcely heard arguments and objections of Assange’s legal team, by a magistrate who barely pretended to be listening.
Before I get on to the blatant lack of fair process, the first thing I must note was Julian’s condition. I was badly shocked by just how much weight my friend has lost, by the speed his hair has receded and by the appearance of premature and vastly accelerated aging. He has a pronounced limp I have never seen before. Since his arrest he has lost over 15 kg in weight.
But his physical appearance was not as shocking as his mental deterioration. When asked to give his name and date of birth, he struggled visibly over several seconds to recall both. I will come to the important content of his statement at the end of proceedings in due course, but his difficulty in making it was very evident; it was a real struggle for him to articulate the words and focus his train of thought.
Until yesterday I had always been quietly skeptical of those who claimed that Julian’s treatment amounted to torture – even of Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture – and skeptical of those who suggested he may be subject to debilitating drug treatments. But having attended the trials in Uzbekistan of several victims of extreme torture, and having worked with survivors from Sierra Leone and elsewhere, I can tell you that yesterday changed my mind entirely and Julian exhibited exactly the symptoms of a torture victim brought blinking into the light, particularly in terms of disorientation, confusion, and the real struggle to assert free will through the fog of learned helplessness. Continue reading
EDF – a nuclear business financial meltdown
On the shores of the English channel in Normandy, engineers are struggling to fix eight faulty welds at a plant that’s supposed to showcase France’s savoir faire in nuclear power.As they consider sending in robots to access hard-to-get-to areas between two containment walls, for Electricite de France it’s just the latest setback in a project that’s running a decade late and almost four times over budget.
“We hear every year that there’s a new problem,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday. It is not acceptable that one of the most prestigious and strategic sectors for our country is facing so many difficulties.”
The Flamanville plant is now slated to be completed in 2022 at a price tag of 12.4 billion euros ($13.8 billion), with the latest glitch costing a whopping 1.5 billion euros. Bemoaning the loss of France’s edge in the sector because of a 15-year gap between the start of construction at the plant and that of the previous reactor, Le Maire has given EDF a month to come up with an action plan to restore the industry’s know-how before the country can determine whether it will build any new atomic plants.
For the world’s largest producer of nuclear power producer, Flamanville is just one of many challenges. Across the channel, delays at two U.K. reactors have upped the cost to as much as 22.5 billion pounds ($28.9 billion), 2.9 billion pounds more than previously estimated. EDF also faces mounting costs of maintaining 58 domestic nuclear plants that provide more than 70% of France’s power.
Add to the mix the fact that the former electricity monopoly is losing market share among French corporate and residential clients as rivals buy a part of the electricity it generates at below-market prices, and it’s easy to see why investors are bearish about the company. EDF’s stock has lost 34% this year, making it the second worst-performing utility in the Stoxx 600 Utilities Index of European companies.
A year ago, EDF was Europe’s biggest utility by market value. Now, its market capitalization stands at 28 billion euros, less than half that of Italy’s Enel SpA, which has swelled to 69 billion euros on the success of its renewable business. RWE AG, the German utility planning to shut down its nuclear plants and progressively phase out coal-fired plants, is up 43% this year and Orsted A/S, the Danish champion in offshore wind, whose revenue is about a sixth of EDF’s, has surpassed the French giant.
“Investors are staying away because of current uncertainties following the strongly negative news flow on the reputation of the nuclear industry,” said Auguste Deryckx, an analyst at AlphaValue. “The CEO’s stubbornness in pursuing nuclear, which is limiting potential growth in renewables that are better valued by the market, remains a black spot.”
EDF is struggling to cover the 15 billion euros it needs annually to maintain its aging nuclear reactors, build new atomic and renewable projects, upgrade its electricity network and roll out smart meters, even after cutting 1.1 billion euros in cost cuts in the past four years. Profits have been hit not only by falling power prices, but by safety issues that have forced reactors to be shut for several months in France and the U.K. Other clouds on the horizon—the decommissioning of two of its oldest reactors next year and a dozen more by 2035, and the treatment of nuclear waste.
The one-time monopoly—now about 83% owned by the state—needs some drastic measures, says Chief Executive Officer Jean-Bernard Levy, who’s pushing the state for an increase in the regulated prices at which rivals buy the company’s nuclear power……..https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/the-worlds-largest-nuclear-power-producer-is-melting-down/ar-AAJEHRZ?li=AAgfYrC&fbclid=IwAR2c-xzdRQS6grHOpiPYl5e7lEPRCPkPIQCGEWCP3vT5mxgDkH4sfc9alJo
Residents of Gillingham UK unaware of proximity of nuclear waste dump
Kent Live 30th Oct 2019, Gillingham Asda shoppers have no idea they’re parked metres away from a nuclear waste dump. Householders in Gillingham might be surprised to know that they live, work and sleep in the vicinity of vast tonnes of nuclear waste.wooded area where the Ministry of Defence deposited more than 3,000 cubic
metres of radioactive waste between 1968 and 1986. That’s enough to fill
an Olympic swimming pool. Householders in Gillingham might be surprised to
know that they live, work and sleep in the vicinity of vast tonnes of
nuclear waste. Just off Pier Approach Road lies a small, unmarked and
fenced-off wooded area where the Ministry of Defence deposited more than
3,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste between 1968 and 1986. That’s
enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool.
https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/gillingham-asda-shoppers-no-idea-3484975
Britain’s Dungeness nuclear reactors -extended outages, since corrosion found in pipes
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Reuters 31st Oct 2019, EDF’s EDF Energy has extended outages at its Dungeness B21 and B22 nuclear reactors in Britain to around the end of January, its website shows. Dungeness B-21 reactor went offline in September 2018 and was scheduled to come back online in November. That outage has now been extended to January 2020.
Dungeness B-22 reactor went offline in August 2018 and was scheduled to come back in December. That has been extended to January 31. EDF Energy is carrying out inspection and repair of steam line pipes which carry steam from the boilers to the turbine. Corrosion was
identified during previous inspections. |
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Nuclear costs escalate as wind prices keeps falling,
WindEconomics: Nuclear escalates as wind prices keeps falling, WindPower monthly, 31 October 2019 by David Milborrow
Nuclear power is too expensive. That is the implicit conclusion of the UK government, which has issued a consultation document on possible ways of reducing the electricity price.
This would be possible if the government — which can borrow money cheaply –shouldered some of the risks and/or provided some finance.
The consultation focuses on “regulated asset base” models. The document describes these models as “typically used for funding UK monopoly infrastructure” and involving “an economic regulator who grants a licence to a company to charge a regulated price to users of the infrastructure”.
One of the advantages for developers is that charges can be levied before the project is completed.
The range of possible prices quoted in the consultation document, shown in the top below, bears out the maxim that “prices are what you want them to be”.
They range from a minimum of -£6/MWh, when the state shoulders all the risks and the rate of return for the government is 2%, to £137/MWh, when the investors demand a 12% rate of return and bear all the risks. In the first case, the cost to the taxpayer would be £18 billion.
The present contract for the under-construction Hinkley Point C power station, which has been widely criticised, is based on a 9% rate of return and an electricity price of £92.5/MWh (2012 prices). That is about £106/MWh (€119/MWh on 1 October) in 2019 prices.
It was announced on 25 September that the estimated cost of the project had risen by nearly 10% — to £21.5-22.5 billion.
The price of electricity to the consumer will not increase, but the profitability for developer EDF will be reduced. This gives a new benchmark price for nuclear of £6,750/kW, as the facility’s output will be 3.26GW.
The effects of moving away from state funding can be illustrated by looking back to the first public inquiry for Hinkley Point….. https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1663433/windeconomics-nuclear-escalates-wind-prices-keeps-falling
French activists broke into nuclear plant, demonstrating the risk of terrorism
Greenpeace 28th Oct 2019, In the early hours of 12 October 2017, eight people sneaked inside the grounds of the Cattenom nuclear plant in northern France. Without much difficulty, they reached the foot of a spent fuel pool – where the still highly radioactive fuel rods are stored after use.
It was a scenario Greenpeace France had been warning about since 2001 through numerous reports, letters and speeches. France’s aging fleet of reactors is poorly protected, and not designed to withstand big impacts, such as an explosion set off by terrorists.
A loss of water from the spent fuel pools – protected by walls only 30cm thick – could lead to a massive release of radioactivity. Fortunately, the eight intruders turned out to be peaceful activists from Greenpeace France; they set off some fireworks to demonstrate their presence and then allowed themselves to be led away.
The ease with which they had penetrated alarmed the government of Luxembourg, which lies just north of Cattenom. It also finally spurred the French authorities into action; a parliamentary investigation into nuclear safety
was announced the following month. It’s a textbook example of the role of
non-violent direct action (NVDA) in a democracy, much like the recent
climate strikes.
When the authorities are sleeping at the wheel, and not
responding to polite arguments, citizen action is needed to wake them up.
In this case, it did. A happy end? Unfortunately not.
In a classic case of shooting the messenger, prosecutors have pressed for stiff penalties. In February 2018, a court in Thionville sentenced the ‘Cattenom nine’ – the eight activists and a Greenpeace France employee. It imposed a 2-month jail sentence on two of the individuals, and suspended sentences on the
rest. It also ordered Greenpeace France to pay €50,000 to the power
company, EDF as ‘moral damages’.
African countries being conned into nuclear debt, by Russia
African countries rush to sign nuclear deals with Russia, Daily Maverick By Peter Fabricius• 29 October 2019
But concerns are being raised about whether they can all afford nuclear energy.
The Russian nuclear power corporation Rosatom has already signed nuclear cooperation agreements with about 18 African counties, as Russia accelerates its drive for nuclear business on the continent.
The growing commitment of African countries to high capital cost nuclear energy has raised some concern about whether they are committing themselves to unaffordable debt.
Rosatom director-general Alexey Likhachev revealed a large number of nuclear agreements with African countries after signing an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy with the Ethiopian Minister of Innovation and Technology, Getahun Mekuria Kuma, during the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi on the Black Sea last week.
Mekuria later told the Russian official news agency Tass that Ethiopia had plants to build a nuclear power plant.
Rosatom later also signed an agreement with Rwanda at the summit on cooperation for the construction of a centre of nuclear science and technology in Rwanda. Rosatom had a strong presence at the economic forum which paralleled the political summit. The Rosatom stand attracted scores of interested African government officials on the sidelines of the forum. …..
Likhachev told journalists after the discussion that Rosatom had now signed memoranda of understanding or intergovernmental agreements with about one-third of countries on the continent – about 18. He could not say how many of these were about scientific cooperation and how many were about producing nuclear energy “because very often those two tracks go hand in hand”.
But he did say in the discussion that about half of the African countries with which Rosatom had signed nuclear agreements were actively discussing joint projects with the corporation, which had been stipulated in contracts. The most advanced joint project is with Egypt, which has contracted Rosatom to build a 4,800MW nuclear power plant……
“We are ready to propose to Ethiopia cutting-edge solutions of nuclear technology. And our Ethiopian partners are invited to visit nuclear facilities in our country.
“Apart from larger capacity nuclear power plants, we also stand ready to offer smaller capacity, modular reactors.”
……..However, the apparent rush to nuclear energy by African countries has raised some concerns that they may be committing themselves to high capital costs of nuclear power production which they will be unable to afford.
Analysts have noted that even South Africa, one of the top two economies on the continent, backed away from an apparent commitment by former president Jacob Zuma to order 9,600MW of nuclear power plant production from Rosatom – at an estimated cost of about R1-trillion.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said after meeting Putin on the sidelines of the summit that the Russian president had once again asked him if South Africa was still interested in building a nuclear power plant and he had told him once again that it still could not afford to.
An African minister at the summit told Daily Maverick that although power plants could be an important source of economic growth, African countries were sinking further into debt and had to be careful to ensure they could afford the infrastructure they built.
Likhachev defended nuclear energy as an economical source of electricity over the long term. ……….
Olivier Nduhungirehe, Rwandan minister in charge of the East African community would not be drawn on the cost and affordability implications, saying the details of the agreement would be announced in due course. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-10-29-african-countries-rush-to-sign-nuclear-deals-with-russia/
UK Government propaganda for nuclear war in the 1980s
Taras Young, author of a new history titled Nuclear War in the UK, estimates he has collected 500 booklets, pamphlets and posters produced by national and local government, volunteers and businesses.
“Until you see them all in one place, it’s hard to appreciate the scale of how much of this stuff was being produced,” he says. “There was so much more going on than Protect and Survive.”…..
“They were essentially advertising campaigns. For me as a marketer, it’s like the ultimate form of marketing – can you convince people that they’re going to survive when they won’t?”
The first pamphlet distributed to the public was Civil Defence and the Atom Bomb, published in 1952. In 1955, the Strath report – a government-commissioned investigation into how Britain would cope after a nuclear war – found that the country would be left on the brink of collapse with millions dead. This made the next pamphlet, 1957’s The Hydrogen Bomb, hugely popular.
By 1963, Advising the Householder on Protection Against Nuclear Attack had a print run of 500,000 copies. Meanwhile, councils across the UK were producing localised guides that imagined nuclear war decimating their high streets, with everywhere from Hull to Bristol getting their own dedicated pamphlets……..
The dilemma for the government since the 1950s, Young says, was that they knew that their guides “weren’t necessarily particularly useful.”
“But at the same time, they had to be seen to be producing something, as they couldn’t just admit that we’d all die,” he says. “If they produce the stuff, people will criticise it as being useless. If they don’t produce it, then they’ll be criticised for not doing anything.”…….
While researching his book, he found a note by one of the civil servants preparing Protect and Survive: “It said something like, ‘We must make people believe that they can survive.’ Not that they could survive, but they needed to believe they could – that kind of sums up the whole thing. And even if you did survive, then what? You’ve survived into hell on Earth. Is there any point in living with envy of the dead?”
……… the legacy of these cold war documents is quite interesting, because it’s just meant that the government no longer communicates with the public in that way any more. They are obviously trying to avoid any public reaction whatsoever.”
• Nuclear War in the UK by Taras Young is published by Four Corners Books. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/30/uk-was-primed-for-nuclear-war-in-the-uk-taras-young-interview
Warning on ecological impacts of Sizewell nuclear project
coast will have “significant adverse ecological impacts” which will be very
difficult to mitigate. Creating Sizewell C would mean the loss of
nationally important fen habitat and the Suffolk Wildlife Trust (SWT) says
it could hit water-levels, affect coastal erosion, harm rare bats, and have
a profound impact on wildlife.
consultation as part of its preparations to submit its final plans for the
twin reactor. SWT’s head of conservation, Ben McFarland said the trust had
concerns about the potential impact of Sizewell C on wildlife and a lack of
sufficient information accompanying the plans for the development. The main
areas for concern include loss of rare and protected habitats including
land designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, a severe impact on
rare bats and a negative impact on birds with noise and lighting during the
10-year construction period likely to displace many specially protected
birds, such as the marsh harrier.
Brexit’s threat to Scotland’s environmental protection
Environment Protection Agency, the national regulator, said there was a
need for a “new and coherent” governance system to act as a safeguard once
EU protections and oversight disappear after Britain’s departure from the
bloc. Last year, The Herald revealed Scottish Environment LINK’s concerns
that Scotland’s rarest species north of the Border face being obliterated
in the fall-out from Brexit unless urgent new laws and funding are brought
in to safeguard vital conservation work.https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17996856.scots-natural-environment-risk-inadequate-brexit-plans/
France’s government demands that EDF fix Flamanville nuclear reactor within one month
EDF given a month to draw up a fix for Flamanville’s nuclear woes French energy group under pressure to address faults highlighted in a new report. https://www.ft.com/content/877eedae-f987-11e9-a354-36acbbb0d9b6 David Keohane in Paris, 28 Oct 19.
Worrying legacy of radioactive trash under planned Moscow roadway
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Locals fear radiation spikes as Moscow plans road across nuclear waste dump: ‘Everything is very bad’ Greenpeace claims radiation levels at the site are already many times above natural levels – and higher than the levels now seen in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Independent Oliver Carroll, Moscow @olliecarroll 27 Oct 19,
Up a small hill from the Moskvorechye commuter station in southeastern Moscow, there is a hole in a green corrugated fence. Radioactive warning signs, fly-posted by a group of local activists, are a clue to the mystery on the other side. Equipped with rubber boots, air masks and radiation counters, a motley crew is carrying out an inspection of the radioactive waste dumps behind the fence, on the perimeter of Moscow’s decommissioned Polymetal factory. It’s part of a last-gasp attempt to stop local authorities from building a bridge and eight-lane motorway across part of the site – controversial plans, the activists say, that run the risk of releasing buried radioactive material into the air and adjacent Moskva river. Campaigning group Greenpeace has recently published results from new tests of topsoil from the area immediately affected by the highway construction. Those tests showed radiation levels dozens of times above permissible levels, and pose a cancer risk to local residents, the group claimed. Samples at 0.5 metres below the surface showed significantly higher levels of radiation.
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Protestors against Sizewell nuclear project get their message out, despite EDF’s blocking tactics
East Anglian Daily Times 27th Oct 2019, A protest planned to take place in Pillbox Field, Sizewell, on October 26, was thwarted when EDF arranged for metal barriers and security staff to occupy an access road to the site. Undaunted but remaining peaceful, the protest was moved to a new location, Sizewell beach car park, where the activists erected marquees and carried out their planned truth-tellingexercises and people’s assembly.
XR protestor Victoria Proctor said:
“There’s been lots and lots of groups in the past few years that have been
working so hard to bring attention to what’s being planned along the coast.
“We’re trying to get the truth out there for people so they realise what is
under threat.
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/extinction-rebellion-xr-protest-edf-sizewell-1-6343148
Press freedom in Europe is on the decline
Q&A: How Europe has Moved Away from Being a Sanctuary for Journalists http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/10/qa-europe-moved-away-sanctuary-journalists/?utm_source=English+-+IPS+Weekly&utm_campaign=2391e81e36-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_24_01_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_eab01a56ae-2391e81e36-5466689
As it released its annual Press Freedom Index earlier this year, the group warned that Europe was “no longer a sanctuary for journalists”, pointing to the murders of three journalists in Malta, Slovakia and Bulgaria in the space of a few months and warning that “hatred of journalists has degenerated into violence, contributing to an increase in fear… the decline in press freedom in Europe… has gone hand in hand with an erosion of the region’s institutions by increasingly authoritarian governments”.
IPS spoke to Pauline Ades-Mevel, Head of European Union & Balkan desk at RSF about why press freedom was deteriorating across the continent and how, while threats to press freedom in Central and Eastern Europe often make headlines, the situation is far from trouble free in Western Europe. Excerpts of the interview follow.
Inter Press Service (IPS): RSF’s most recent surveys and reports suggest that media freedom is on the decline generally in Europe. Is this decline specific for Europe or part of a global trend?
Pauline Ades-Meve (PAM): When working on our most recent Global Press Freedom Index, we looked to see if there was a trend of deterioration of press freedom just in Europe or elsewhere. We found that it was actually a global trend, that we could see that trend in many regions. We looked at why this was the case and, while there are some different reasons in different countries, what we saw in general was that there was a climate of fear in which many journalists were working in. This is why there is this general deteriorating trend. Fear has been causing the most problems for journalists.
In Europe specifically a number of countries have fallen down the Index. This is for a number of reasons and comes with rising populism, anti-media rhetoric from politicians, cyber-harassment of journalists, physical attacks.
IPS: Threats to media freedom in central and eastern Europe and the Balkans have made a lot of headlines in recent years, perhaps understandably due to the nature of those threats, but RSF has made clear that media freedom in western Europe is also declining. What kind of threats are media facing in western Europe today?
PAM: We have seen threats to journalists emerge in recent years in Western Europe. For instance, in Spain, during the Catalan independence protests, leaders of the movement delivered rhetoric which undermined trust in journalists. They did not think journalists were covering the situation properly, or at least not in the way they wanted, and they viewed journalists who were not supporting their cause as people who were working against it and trying to prevent independence.
We recently published a report on the pressures faced by journalists in Spain and people don’t realise that, at the moment, Spain is no longer a heaven to be a journalist when you cover politics.
And then another example is Italy where there are 20 journalists who have around the clock police protection because they are facing threats from criminal networks.
Journalists in Europe are facing cyber-harassment – journalists covering protests in Spain and in France have been attacked online.
There is also a trend we are seeing in Western Europe of journalists being attacked when covering protests themselves. This is because part of the population no longer trusts the media anymore – protest leaders have portrayed them negatively, as untrustworthy, because they are not happy with the coverage. Journalists sometimes face violence and terrible threats from protestors. We have had cases of female journalists being threatened with rape. And sometimes, when they cover demonstrations, journalists are sometimes targeted by both the protestors and the police, which makes their mission even harder.
IPS: Are these threats growing or changing in nature?
PAM: They are growing and new threats are emerging. One of these is growing legal harassment of journalists. Governments and businessmen are chasing journalists legally, through lawyers and courts, trying to stop them reporting and doing their jobs. This is extremely worrying.
IPS: How do they differ, if at all, from the threats faced by media in central and eastern Europe and the Balkans?
PAM: In some ways the threats are the same. There is a lot of legal harassment of journalists in central and eastern Europe and the Balkans. There is also physical intimidation of journalists and cyber-harassment too, while in some countries the independence of public media is under threat as well with governments trying to interfere in editorial independence, to influence them. We tend not to see this in Western Europe.
IPS: Physical intimidation of journalists is not a new phenomenon, especially in some countries in Europe, e.g. Russia or Ukraine. Is it becoming more common in western Europe, though, and if so, who is doing the intimidation?
PAM: Western Europe is certainly not free of this. Journalists in Western European states do face physical intimidation. Places like France, Spain, Italy, fascist groups in Greece. And it is only a few months ago that a journalist, Lyra McKee, was killed in Northern Ireland. Western Europe is not without this problem, even today.
IPS: There have been cases of journalists being attacked by protestors, and sometimes police, at demonstrations in parts of Western Europe in recent years e.g. in France. While this is not a problem specific to just western Europe, or Europe as a whole, in the past press were generally seen as neutral observers at such events and as such, left alone. Is that changing, are journalists now being seen as ‘fair game’ by certain groups?
PAM: One thing we have noticed in recent years is that due to social media and some ‘media’ which frankly should not be labelled as media, people are losing trust in media in general and this has galvanised certain people in certain movements and groups to attack journalists. As an example, when asked many of the Gilets Jaunes protestors in France said that their favourite TV station for news was the Russian state-sponsored channel RT, or people’s Facebook pages where they could read stories. We could then see at protests that protestors were attacking journalists with rocks because they were not happy with them, they did not trust them, did not think they were portraying the protests the way they wanted them to. So they just attacked them and destroyed their things, like cameras.
IPS: Online hatred towards journalists, including incitement to violence against them, appears to have become more of a problem in recent years. Is this the case in Europe and if so, what do you think is driving this rise?
PAM: This is a problem across Europe, but not just Europe. It is worldwide. Being online means that the attacked can remain anonymous and that anonymity emboldens them, makes them feel stronger. Their hatred also makes them feel powerful. Cyber-harassment is one of the major problems facing journalists in a lot of countries in Europe, both in Western Europe and the rest of the continent.
Much has been reported about authoritarian governments in parts of central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans trying to crack down on critical media so they can cement their power e.g. Hungary, Poland, Serbia. Do you think public perception of western Europe with its historical traditions of democracy and freedoms, particularly freedom of speech, means that people can sometimes mistakenly assume that this could never happen in western Europe?
I am often reminded of conversations between journalists in France who remind themselves of how they work in an environment where they are protected by legislation, by institutions, and have the freedom to do their jobs. But while the West is seen as having traditionally good, strong democracies to protect journalists, the situation with press freedom is not as good as it has been. Populist movements have spread across Europe, including Western Europe. We have seen problems with, for example, independence of public media in Spain
IPS: Would you say there are greater legal or constitutional safeguards against an erosion of media freedom in western European states than in other parts of Europe?
PAM: I think that Western European states may have a greater sense of European values and respecting those values. This includes respecting the freedom of the media and some governments in Western Europe have moved to specifically protect journalists, even giving them a special status – in Portugal, there is a legal statute protecting journalists so that if someone attacks a journalists it is actually more serious a charge than attacking a normal member of the public.
Overall the situation in Western Europe with regard for respect of the institution of press freedom is better than in other parts of the Europe. This is why we have seen an erosion of press freedom in places such as Hungary, or Bulgaria, because in those countries there is not the same tradition, or sense of, European values.
Sweden’s wind power to surpass nuclear this year
Sweden’s wind power to surpass nuclear this year: lobby, Lefteris 
Karagiannopoulos, STOCKHOLM (Reuters) 35 Oct 19, – Sweden is set to have more wind power capability
The association makes quarterly forecasts based on data it collects from turbine manufacturers and project developers.
Its latest forecast for 2 GW growth was down from 2.2 GW previously.
Investment decisions corresponding to 686 MW of new wind power were made in the third quarter, it said, up from 114 MW in the second quarter. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-wind/swedens-wind-power-to-surpass-nuclear-this-year-lobby-idUSKBN1X3145Reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; editing by Jason Neely
1 This Month
1 June Webinar – The High Cost of Nuclear Power – Register
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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