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‘Don’t hold your breath’ – people living in Wylfa’s shadow have say on development plans

The UK Government recently announced it had bought the Anglesey site from Hitachi

North Wales Live, David Powell, Court reporter, 17 Mar 24

People living near the Wylfa power station on Anglesey have greeted the prospect of a fresh development at the site with excitement, anxiety and pessimism. Last week the UK Government announced that a £160m deal had been reached with Hitachi to buy sites at Wylfa and Oldbury in Gloucestershire – with a final sign off expected this summer.

The minister for nuclear Andrew Bowie says this is not another “false dawn” for Wylfa and that he was “supremely confident” that new nuclear would be developed at the site. North Wales Live this week visited nearby Cemaes to gauge opinions from people in the village on the proposals.

Cemaes resident William Huw Edwards, 80, used to work as a contractor atRio Tinto

, which ran Anglesey Aluminium, and on the runway at RAF Valley. He remembers disruption during construction work for the current Wylfa power station.

“There used to be two or three lorries at a time in convoys,” he recalled. As for the prospect of a new nuclear development, he said: “A lot of people are against it because of the traffic and the noise.”

He added: “It’s going to cost a lot and they will have to find the money.” He doubts it will be in the near future, saying: “It won’t be soon. Don’t hold your breath.”

But another resident Julie Clemence, 63, would support a new nuclear operation if it were smaller than its predecessor. “The American ones are really huge but I would support it if it’s smaller and less of a blot on the landscape than now,” she said.

………………………………………………………… Dylan Morgan, of Pobl Atal Wylfa B (PAWB), a campaign group against the proposal, said: “This government and anyone following it will face the same challenges regarding attracting any large new private investment to develop reactors at Wylfa or any other site in the global context of a shrinking nuclear industry.  

“At the same time, renewable technologies are galloping ahead every year to take an increasing share of the worldwide electricity market.” He claimed 20 years has been “wasted” when money and resources could have been spent developing renewable energy…………………………………….

Meanwhile Katie Hayward, of Felin Honeybees, has said she is “completely broken” after learning the site might be redeveloped after she battled the proposed Wylfa B site for years.

 https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/dont-hold-your-breath-people-28797236—

March 19, 2024 Posted by | public opinion, UK | Leave a comment

There is no such thing as a “nuclear waste-eating” reactor

Contrary to popular belief, the French nuclear industry is by no means “triumphant”, “the best in the world” or “at the cutting edge of technology”: in fact, EDF (bankrupt), Areva (renamed Orano after filing for bankruptcy) and CEA (subsidized by public money) are constantly making fools of themselves and leaving the French with astronomical bills.

A magic reactor killed by environmentalists?

 By Stéphane Lhomme    by beyondnuclearinternational,  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/03/17/a-magic-reactor-killed-by-environmentalists/

On the contrary, a “nuclear waste-eating reactor” does not exist

Appearing as a guest on several TV channels (BFM, Cnews, etc.), a certain Fabien Bouglé managed to fool both viewers and journalists (most of whom are totally ignorant about nuclear power) with a series of fibs, each more enormous than the last. Here are a few clarifications.

There is no such thing as a “nuclear waste-eating” reactor

The smooth-talking Bouglé left his ignorant interlocutors stunned and bewildered as he talked about “waste-eating” reactors that would have already solved the radioactive waste issue if an infamous green lobby, “betraying France to Germany” (sic!), hadn’t “prevented” the advent of such reactors.

So, like throwing a log on the fire, all you have to do is put the radioactive waste produced by today’s power plants into a “magic” reactor, and the waste will disappear.

Mr. Bouglé finally divulged his “secret”: the so-called “waste-eating” reactors are simply… breeder reactors: a type of reactor that the global nuclear industry has failed to operate for 70 years, like Superphénix in France! And, even if it did work, it would in no way eliminate radioactive waste. What’s more, less than 1% of nuclear fuel (the most radioactive waste) could theoretically have its lifespan reduced, but without disappearing and while becoming even more radioactive! In the nuclear industry, as elsewhere, miracles do not exist.

The Astrid project was not “on the way to success” and was not “taken over by Bill Gates”

Despite its pretty name, the Astrid reactor project was nothing more than a little Superphénix: a sodium-cooled breeder reactor. Look at the “progress”: 40 years after the launch of Superphénix (1240 MW), the CEA wanted to make another attempt with a reactor half as powerful (600 MW), before giving up altogether.

Japan’s Monju fast-breeder reactor was definitively shut down after countless failures, a terrible fire and sodium leaks; Germany’s Kalkar fast-breeder reactor was never commissioned; and the USA has abandoned the sector. Only Russia manages to keep its BN800 hobbling along… but it doesn’t perform any of the miracles expected of it (producing “more fissile material than it consumes”, “eating” radioactive waste and other nonsense).

As for Bill Gates, he’s one of the dummies who, in recent years, have announced various types of miraculous reactors, always claiming to be able to produce electricity “cheaply, safely and with little waste” (blah blah blah). Beginning in 2006, Bill Gates and his company Terrapower first tried to make a “travelling wave” reactor work, then a “molten salt” one, both abandoned after wasting billions. Now Gates is dreaming of developing… a sodium-cooled fast-neutron reactor: back to Superphénix and 70 years of failure for the global nuclear industry.

France’s nuclear woes are caused by… France’s nuclear woes!

The “evil anti-nuclear environmentalists” and the so-called “traitors in the pay of Germany” denounced by Inspector Bouglé have nothing to do with the disasters of French nuclear power: EDF, Areva (now Orano) and the CEA are doing just fine on their own! For example: 

  • Industrial and financial disasters at the EPR sites in Finland, Flamanville and England: 15 to 20 years (instead of four and a half) to build a reactor costing 20 billion Euros instead of 3 billion, and with serious defects.
  • The unprecedented scandal of the thousands of defective parts (including the famous Flamanville EPR vessel) produced by Areva in its Le Creusot plants.
  • Catastrophic and ruinous flops at the Iter (fusion) and RJH reactor sites. 
  • Stress corrosion (up to 32 reactors out of 56 shut down at the same time in 2022)

And so on.

Contrary to popular belief, the French nuclear industry is by no means “triumphant”, “the best in the world” or “at the cutting edge of technology”: in fact, EDF (bankrupt), Areva (renamed Orano after filing for bankruptcy) and CEA (subsidized by public money) are constantly making fools of themselves and leaving the French with astronomical bills.

The Fessenheim closure is not the cause of electricity shortages in France and imports from Germany

Mr. Bouglé claims that France was an exporter to Germany before the closure of Fessenheim and that it has suddenly become an importer because of the plant’s closure in 2020. He’s talking nonsense.

In reality, there are exchanges (in both directions) between the two countries throughout the year. When the balance sheet is drawn up on December 31, France is still an importer from Germany (*), and has been for over 25 years (**), long before Fessenheim was shut down.

This phenomenon is mainly due to the absurd choice of electric heating, developed on a massive scale in France to “justify” nuclear power: as soon as it gets cold, electricity consumption is such that it far exceeds the capacity of the French nuclear fleet, even when it’s working properly!

It’s also worth noting the ridiculous claim that life was wonderful in France with 58 reactors, and that it has suddenly gone into crisis with “only” 56 reactors, which in reality is an insane number. For the record, during the stress corrosion crisis, France was saved by importing massive amounts of electricity from neighboring countries, which have only a few reactors, if any at all.

(*) Of course, we can criticize the fact that a significant proportion of Germany’s electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants (even if the share of renewables is increasing exponentially), but the fact is that it’s this “dirty” electricity that heats France every winter, and French nuclear enthusiasts don’t go so far as to refuse this electricity and stay in the cold and dark!

(**) Except, very narrowly, in 2011: following the Fukushima disaster, Germany immediately shut down 8 reactors. But by 2012, France was once again a net importer from Germany.

The joke about waste-eating reactors

Let’s start by noting that nuclear reactors continually produce insane quantities of radioactive waste of various kinds, from nuclear fuel to the tools and clothing used in power plants, which are contaminated… and can’t be “eaten”!

But let’s concentrate on the most radioactive, the spent fuel that comes out of the reactor core after use.

Spent fuel comprises four types of element: plutonium, uranium, fission products and minor actinides. Note that the vast majority of radioactivity is contained in these last two categories.

To attempt reuse this waste fuel, separation work must already be carried out in a gigantic plant such as La Hague. These operations require huge amounts of electricity and using large quantities of terribly corrosive and dangerous chemicals: a far cry from the “clean” energy that could “save the planet”.

– Plutonium

Listening to Mr. Bouglé, the uninformed viewer (and the ignorant journalist) think that all they have to do is recover this fuel and put it in the so-called “waste-eating reactor”, which will make this waste disappear… while producing electricity! Jackpot, bravo and thanks for everything. But Santa Claus doesn’t exist, and it’s all poppycock. And here’s why.

It is used by the military for their atomic weapons. Some of this plutonium can be recovered to make fuel (known as “mox”) for use in today’s power plants, which exacerbates the consequences of an accident when it occurs. Various studies show that this option reduces only slightly the amount of uranium needed from mining. But in no case is this plutonium “eaten” or “incinerated”; it is almost entirely recovered after use.

– Uranium

The uranium resulting from these separation operations, known as “reprocessed uranium”, can theoretically be reused in place of mined uranium, but in reality, this option poses a number of technical problems. EDF has been trying to use it for years in its Cruas power plant (Ardèche), after re-enrichment… in Russia (thanks Putin!). But this remains very marginal, and in no case is this uranium “eaten” or “incinerated”; it is almost entirely recovered after use.

– Fission products

There’s nothing we can do with them, except vitrify them and store them for millennia!

– Minor actinides

These are the only elements of radioactive waste that could theoretically have their lifespan reduced in breeder reactors… while becoming even more radioactive! But even if such a “feat” were to happen (provided we finally manage to operate breeder reactors properly), minor actinides would not be “eaten”, “incinerated” or “disintegrated”. In fact, they are vitrified like fission products and have to be stored for millennia.

Conclusion 

Of course, there is no technology that can “eat” nuclear waste. At most, it is theoretically possible (but not in practice) to degrade a tiny fraction of it, and even then, at the cost of new radioactive and chemical contamination and very high energy consumption.

Once and for all, let’s remember that there will never be a nuclear miracle, be it with magic reactors, or by replacing uranium with thorium (the thorium sector is also that of fast-breeder reactors!), or with fusion, or by calling old projects that have never worked “4th generation” or “SMR”. 

Stéphane Lhomme is Director of the Nuclear Observatory.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | France, Reference, spinbuster, technology | Leave a comment

Will Biden’s, NATO’s military personnel in Ukraine cross the last red line to Armageddon?

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing to send NATO troops to Ukraine to keep Ukraine from imminent defeat to Russia. “The time has come for a Europe where it will be appropriate not to be a coward.” Macron got a lot of pushback form less delusional NATO leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Other NATO countries have joined France at considering direct troop involvement. Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas stated that “Everything is on the table.” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsberg agreed that “nothing can be taken off the table, no option can be rejected out of hand. I very much welcome and encourage the discussion that has started.”

But unbeknownst to most Americans, due to government censorship, is that NATO military personnel are already there serving as a tripwire to wider, possibly nuclear war.

The British Prime Minister’s office confirmed recently that “Beyond the small number of personnel we do have in the country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine, we haven’t got any plans for large-scale deployment.” Didn’t we hear the same thing from US officials regarding ‘US advisors in Vietnam?

German Chancellor Scholz refused to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine because it would require German personnel to operate them. Britain and France aren’t so cautions. Scholz stated that France also has military personnel in Ukraine along with England to assist Ukraine military operations. He hinted at US presence there stating “It’s known that there are numerous people there in civilian attire who speak with an American accent.” The NY Times reported last month that numerous CIA operatives were left in Ukraine when the war started and “scores of new officers were sent in to help the Ukrainians.”

President Biden may have slipped in his State of the Union Speech last week when he uttered “There are no American soldiers (of war) in Ukraine, and I intend to keep it that way.” Biden should have added ‘But we sure have a lot of helpers there and I intend to keep it that way.’

The US and NATO are playing a dangerous game with Mother Earth and her 8 billion residents. For 750 days they’ve been crossing red lines Russia has put up to protect their borders from NATO encroachment. When Biden became president, he continued the reckless US campaign to arm Ukraine in their civil war against Russian leaning Ukrainians in Donbas seeking independence from Ukraine violence and subjugation. He repeatedly floated NATO membership to Ukraine. He rebuffed every desperate entreaty by Russia to even begin discussing their border security concerns.

The result? Russia invaded Ukraine 2 years ago February 24, 2022…after 15 years of warnings. Having catastrophically bungled the diplomacy that instigated the war, Biden could have made amends by supporting the peace agreement Ukraine’s Zelensky and Russia’s Putin negotiated in the war’s first month. Instead of support, he sabotaged it.

Biden and his NATO buddies have marched right up to, and sometimes over, numerous Russian red lines with billions in weapons, extreme rhetoric, sanctions and diplomatic maneuvering with largely unsupportive nations. Now with US and NATO military and intelligence personnel in Ukraine, and ominous calls for combat troops, we should all fret that the next red line Biden and NATO’s war cabinets cross may trigger a mushroom cloud.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Reversing Europe’s and Australia’s slide into irrelevance & insecurity – National Press Club of Australia speech- Yanis Varoufakis

First, Australia must restore a reputation tainted by blindly following America into lethal adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and, today, via its active and crucial complicity in Israel’s deliberate war crimes in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Children are not starving in Gaza today. No, they are being deliberately starved. Without hesitation or remorse. The famine in Gaza is no collateral damage. It is an intentional policy of starving to death thousands until the rest agree to leave their ancestral homeland.

Second, Australia has a duty to de-escalate the New Cold War. To understand that this can only be done if Australia ends its servility to a United States’ actively creating the threats that they then make us pay through the nose to protect us from.

Imagine an Australia that helps bring a just Peace in Ukraine, as opposed to a mindless forever war. A non-aligned Australia that is never neutral in the face of injustice but, also, not automatically aligned with every warmongering adventure decided in Washington.

Imagine an Australia which, having re-established its credentials as a country that thinks and acts for itself, engages with China in the spirit of peaceful cooperation – a far better way of addressing Beijing’s increasing authoritarianism toward its own peoples than buying useless, hyper-expensive submarines that only succeed in forcing China’s political class to close ranks around a more authoritarian core.

Imagine a truly patriotic Australian Prime Minister who tells the American President to cease and desist from the slow murder of Julian Assange for the crime of journalism – for exposing American war crimes perpetrated behind the back of US citizens in their name.

To conclude, if Europe and Australia are to escape gross irrelevance, we need separate but well-coordinated European and Australian Green New Deals.

DiEM25, our paneuropean movement, is working toward this goal.

Yanis Varoufakis – 14/03/2024 

Europe and Australia are facing a common existential threat: a creeping irrelevance caused, on the one hand, by our failure properly to invest and, on the other hand, by our ill-considered slide from a strategic dependence on the United States to a non-strategic, self-defeating servility to Washington’s policy agenda.”

Yanis Varoufakis’s address at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday 13 March, 2024

…………………………………. The three post-war phases that shaped Australia’s and Europe’s habitat

Our present moment in Europe and in Australia has been shaped by three distinct postwar phases.

The first was the Bretton Woods system. America exited the war as the only surplus, creditor country. Bretton Woods, a remarkable recycling mechanism, was, in effect, a dollar zone built on fixed exchange rates, sustained by capital controls, and erected on the back of America’s trade surplus. With quasi-free trade as part of the deal, Washington dollarised Europe, Japan and Australia to generate aggregate demand for the products of its factories – whose productivity had skyrocketed during the war. Subsequently, the US trade surplus sucked the exported dollars back into America.  The result was twenty years of high growth, low unemployment, blissfully boring banking and dwindling inequality. Alas, once the United States lost its trade surplus, Bretton Woods was dead in the water.

The second phase was marked by the violent reversal of this recycling mechanism. The United States became the first hegemon to enhance its hegemony by boosting its trade deficit. Operating like a powerful vacuum cleaner, the burgeoning US trade deficit hoovered up the world’s net exports. And how did America pay for them? With dollars which it also hoovered up from the rest of the world as German, Japanese and later Chinese capitalists sent to Wall Street 70% of dollar profits made from their net exports to the US. There, in Wall Street, these foreign capitalists recycled their dollar profits into Treasuries, real estate, shares and derivatives.

This audacious inverted recycling system, built on US deficits, required ever increasing American deficits to remain stable. In the process, it gave rise to even higher growth than the Bretton Woods era, but also to macroeconomic and financial imbalances as well as mind-numbing levels of inequality. The new era came complete with an ideology (neoliberalism), a policy of letting finance rip (financialisation), and a false sense of dynamic equilibrium – the infamous Great Moderation built on hugely immoderate imbalances.

Almost inevitably, on the back of the perpetual tsunami of capital rushing in from the rest-of-the-world to Wall Street, financiers fashioned gigantic pyramids of complex wagers – Warren Buffet’s infamous Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction. When these crashed, to deliver the Global Financial Crisis, two things saved Wall Street and Western capitalism:

  • The G7 central banks, that printed a total of $35 trillion on behalf of the financiers from 2009 to last year – a peculiar socialism for bankers. And,
  • China, which directed half its national income to investment, thus replacing much of the lost aggregate demand not only domestically but also in Germany, Australia and, of course, in the United States.

The third period is more recent. The era of technofeudalism, as I call it, which took root in the mid-2000s but grew strongly after the GFC in conjunction with the rapid technological change that caused capital to mutate into, what I call, cloud capital – the automated means of behavioural modification living inside our phones, apps, tablets and laptops. Consider the six things this cloud capital (which one encounters in Amazon or Alibaba) does all at once:

  1. It grabs our attention.
  2. It manufactures our desires.
  3. It sells to us, directly, outside any actual markets, that which will satiate the desires it made us have.
  4. It drives and monitors waged labour inside the workplaces.
  5. It elicits massive free labour from us, its cloud-serfs.
  6. It provides the potential of blending seamlessly all that with free, digital payments.

Is it any wonder that the owners of this cloud capital – I call them cloudalists – have a hitherto undreamt of power to extract? They are, already, a new ruling class: today, the capitalisation of just seven US cloudalist firms is approximately the same as the capitalisation of all listed corporations in the UK, France, Japan, Canada and China taken together!

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March 17, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

French president Emmanuel Macron tells Putin ‘WE are a nuclear power and WE are ready’ in latest WW3 rhetoric.

  • A stern Macron chastised Putin for threatening the use of nuclear devices
  • It comes after Putin told state TV ‘weapons exist to be used’ earlier this week

Having nuclear weapons ‘imposes on us the responsibility never to escalate,’ Macron said, in a dig at the constant reminders issued by top Russian officials and media personalities of their nuclear arsenal.

His statements come amid a hardening of Paris’ stance towards Moscow after Macron abandoned his longstanding efforts to maintain a closer bond with Putin.

Britain and France are Europe’s only nuclear powers, but even their collective power is a fraction of that employed by Russia, which has the world’s largest and most varied collection of nuclear weapons by some margin – even larger than that in Washington’s vast stockpiles.

Speaking with French and Ukrainian media, Macron chastised Putin for threatening the use of nuclear devices and reminded him France also has an advanced weapons programme……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

For Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean, Russia specialist at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), the change in Macron’s stance towards Putin triggered this reaction from Russia.

‘There is incomprehension (in Russia) over how someone who wants to discuss with Russia, to be the mediator, turns into someone who takes the lead of the toughest camp opposing it,’ she said.  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13201319/French-president-Emmanuel-Macron-declares-nuclear-power-ready-response-Putins-threats-using-nukes-Kremlin-says-France-signalled-deeper-involvement-Ukraine.html

March 17, 2024 Posted by | France, weapons and war | Leave a comment

HSBC leads Sizewell C investment push as time ticks on final investment decision

https://www.cityam.com/hsbc-leads-sizewell-c-investment-push-as-time-ticks-on-final-investment-decision/ 14 Mar 24

Britain’s largest bank by market capitalisation is trying to rally an effort to push a final investment decision over the line for the delayed Sizewell C nuclear super project.

According to a Bloomberg report today, HSBC is discussing the possibility with investment funds to provide a debt facility that would be guaranteed by the UK’s export finance agency.

The report said that people familiar with the matter said the move would help the project, Sizewell C, which in January received government approval to begin the process of building the site, due to take nine years to complete.

But delays have come thick and fast due to inflationary cost rises and the logistical challenges involved with building a massive nuclear power station, so much so that the project is now scoped for a bill with the potential to reach £40bn.

The UK government is working in tandem with Barclays to find equity investors for the project in the hope of reaching a final investment decision this year, with gas giant Centrica having declared an interest.

Sizewell C was proposed by a consortium of EDF Energy and China General Nuclear Power Group, which own 80 per cent and 20 per cent of the project respectively.

The site, along with the also-delayed multi-billion pound Hinkley Point C and another planned major reactor that was unveiled in the nuclear strategy back in January, will form the backbone of the UK’s nuclear energy drive.

Complimenting the large projects, which are estimated to be able to provide power for around six million people each, are small module reactor programmes to be taken up by private investors.

In recent months, the UK government has reportedly been wooing the United Arab Emirates to step in to help fund Sizewell C in place of China.

However the National Security & Investment Act 2021 and the National Security Act 2023 could prove barriers to any foreign state gaining influence through investment in critical infrastructure.

In Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget last week, he announced a £160m deal with Japanese technology giant Hitachi to buy back two sites on which the latter had committed to build power stations.

March 17, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

UK Steps Up Sizewell Nuclear Push With State-Backed Loans

Mar 14, 2024, William Mathis and Priscila Azevedo Rocha, Bloomberg News, https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/uk-steps-up-sizewell-nuclear-push-with-state-backed-loans-1.2046821

HSBC Holdings Plc is in talks with investment funds about loans to help to finance the construction of the UK’s Sizewell C nuclear plant, as the government steps up efforts to get a key energy project off the drawing board this year. 

The bank is in discussions with funds to provide the debt that would be guaranteed by the country’s export finance agency, according to people familiar with the matter. That would help Sizewell offset risks of financing a long-term project, while securing cheaper capital, the people said, asking not to be identified as the negotiations are private.

HSBC, Sizewell and UK Export Finance all declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said the development of the project’s commercial structure is subject to sensitive discussions

Securing state-guaranteed funding would be an important milestone for a project that could cost more than £40 billion ($51 billion). The UK government has vowed to get as much as 25% of the country’s power from nuclear plants in coming years as part of a push to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Declining output from Britain’s fleet of aging reactors means new plants will be needed by the end of the decade. 

So far, the only one under construction is Electricite de France SA’s Hinkley Point C. That plant has been repeatedly delayed, while the projected budget has ballooned to as high as £47.9 billion. 

The UK government is working with Barclays Plc to drum up equity investors for the Sizewell project, with bids due later this year. Centrica Plc is seen as a potential anchor investor, with Chief Executive Officer Chris O’Shea saying the company has been in talks with the government.

HSBC is working for Sizewell C Ltd., the operating company set up by EDF to build the copy of Hinkley. The second project should cost less than its forerunner, according to EDF.

The UK has gradually increased its own exposure to Sizewell C, boosting investment in the project to more than £2 billion earlier this year to become the majority shareholder. The government is taking on more construction risk than it did for Hinkley, as it trials a different approach to financing to try to get new projects over the line.

The huge costs involved make it tricky. In 2019, the government offered to take a third of the equity in a £20 billion project in Wales, and provide all the debt during construction plus guaranteed power prices. That wasn’t enough to convince the developer Hitachi Ltd. to proceed.

With assistance from Jessica Shankleman and Francois de Beaupuy.

March 17, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant reports shelling by Ukraine army

Reuters, March 14, 2024,  https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-controlled-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-says-was-shelled-by-ukraine-2024-03-14/

MOSCOW, March 14 (Reuters) – The Russian-controlled management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, said on Thursday that the Ukrainian army had shelled a critical infrastructure facility at the plant.

An explosive device was dropped near a fence where diesel fuel tanks are located, the plant reported.

“Such attacks are unacceptable,” it said.

It was not immediately clear when the attack had taken place. Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield reports from either side.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi has repeatedly warned of the danger of attacks on the plant.

Russia and Ukraine, at war for more than two years, have blamed each other for past shelling that has downed power lines and endangered generators.

March 16, 2024 Posted by | incidents, Ukraine | Leave a comment

The ideology of war in Ukraine and Israel

by Thierry Meyssan,  https://www.voltairenet.org/article220527.html 14 Mar 24

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are more similar than you might think, at least if you know their histories. The Ukrainian war didn’t start with the Russian military operation, but with the massacres in the Donbass, while the Gaza war didn’t start with the Al-Aqsa deluge, but 75 years earlier with the Nakhba. In the long term, those responsible for both wars share the same ideology.

Generally speaking, every war defines who “we” are and who “they” are. “We” are Good, while “they” are Evil.

Western leaders, while declaring that war itself is bad, claim that it is indispensable today in the face of aggression from Russia and Hamas. According to them, Russia, or rather its president Vladimir Putin, dreams of seizing our property and destroying our political system. After invading Ukraine, he will invade Moldavia and the Baltic states, then continue westwards. Hamas, on the other hand, is a hate-filled sect that begins by raping and beheading Jews out of anti-Semitism, and will continue by invading the West in the name of its religion.

It’s worth noting that both Israel and the USA were founded by their armies, the Haganah and the Continental Army. Today, the vast majority of their political leaders have spent their careers in the armed forces or secret services. But they’re not the only ones, since Xi Jinping is a military man and Vladimir Putin is a former member of the Soviet secret service (KGB).

One wonders what feeds the phantasms of the political West and how they prevent us from grasping reality. Russia didn’t invade Ukraine any more than France invaded Rwanda. Moscow and Paris stopped the massacre of Ukrainians in the Donbass and Rwandan Tutsis. Both were driven by their “responsibility to protect” and implemented Security Council resolutions. Palestinians don’t rape and behead anyone for pleasure, even if some of them belong to a secret society that does. They don’t fight the Jews out of anti-Semitism, except for the historic branch of Hamas, but against the apartheid system of which they are victims.

Perhaps the first function of collective blindness is to erase our previous crimes: it was the “democracies” of the United States and members of the European Union who organized the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014. It was Germany and France that signed the Minsk Accords to guarantee peace for Ukrainians in Donbass (2015), but never intended to implement them and, according to the confessions of Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande, used them to arm Ukraine against Russia. This violation of our word and signature constitutes, according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, the gravest of all crimes, that “against peace”.

Similarly, it is the “greatest democracy in the Middle East”, Israel, which has stolen, metre by metre, by occupation and nibbling, most of the Palestinian Territories established by Security Council resolution 181 (1947).

These conflicts are not about resources, but territories. Since 1917, Dmytro Dontsov’s Ukrainian integral nationalists have consistently claimed sovereignty over Nestor Makhno’s anarchist Novorossia and the Bolshevik Donbass and Crimea. Of course, these territories were merged into Soviet Ukraine by Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev, but Kiev cannot invoke recent history to claim them as its own. Similarly, since 1920, Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s revisionist Zionists have claimed sovereignty over the whole of Palestine, and eventually over the Egyptian Sinai, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria – in short, all the territories from the “Nile to the Euphrates”. Of course, the ancient kingdom of Jerusalem consisted of the city and its suburbs, but that doesn’t allow them to evoke history for all these conquests.

It is often said that the age pyramid determines the aggressiveness of states. States with a majority of young people between the ages of 15 and 30 would by nature be inclined to war. But this is neither the case in Ukraine, nor in Israel. What’s more, it’s Palestine, not Israel that the age pyramid could push towards war.

The ideological question is probably the most important. Dmytro Dontsov and his henchman Stepan Bandera glorified the Ukrainian fighters, heirs to the Swedish Vikings, the Varegues, who had to slaughter the “Muscovites” to be able to feast in Valhalla. Today, it’s the “White Führer”, Andriy Biletsky, who has commanded the troops of the Azov Division in Mariupol, the 3rd Assault Brigade in Bakhmut/Artiomovsk and most recently in Avdeyevka/Avdiyevka. Similarly, Benjamin Netanyahu, son of Vladimir Jabotinsky’s private secretary, has not hesitated to compare the Palestinians to the ancient Amalekites. The implication is that they must all be exterminated as Yahweh commands, or else their race will re-emerge against the Hebrews. In the same way, the IDF has systematically destroyed all the universities and schools in the Gaza Strip and massacred 30,000 civilians under the pretext of fighting Hamas.

Dmytro Dontsov formed an alliance with Adolf Hitler as early as 1923, i.e. before he came to power, and became one of the administrators of the Reinhard Heydrich Institute, responsible for carrying out the Final Solution of the Jewish and Gypsy question. Vladimir Jabotinsky, who had formed an alliance with Dontsov in 1922, founded the Betar cadre school in Civitavecchi (Italy) with the help of Duce Benito Mussolini in 1935. He was unable to play a major role in the Second World War, dying in August 1940. There can be no doubt about the adherence of Ukrainian integral nationalists to Nazism and revisionist Zionists to fascism.

Incidentally, we find the territorial logic of fascist and Nazi regimes in the current discourse of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At the same time, the Russian and Palestinian presidents, Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Abbas, constantly claim to be defending their peoples.


 To find out more about Dmytro Dontsov’s integral nationalism, read:
“Who are the Ukrainian integral nationalists?“, by Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, November 15, 2022.
 For more on Volodymyr Jabotinsky’s revisionist Zionists read:
“The veil is being torn: the hidden truths of Jabotinsky and Netanyahu“, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, January 23, 2024.
and “In Jerusalem, the ’Conference for the Victory of Israel’ threatens London and Washington“, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, February 13, 2024.

March 16, 2024 Posted by | culture and arts, history, Israel, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Dounreay workers vote on strike action after pay talks stall

 https://www.gmbscotland.org.uk/newsroom/gmb-scotland-ballot-at-dounreay.html 13 Mar 24

Workers at Dounreay nuclear site are being balloted on industrial action after long-running pay talks stalled.

Members of GMB Scotland and other unions are voting on industrial action including working to rule, overtime bans and strikes after a pay offer was overwhelmingly rejected.

Discussions with management at the Caithness site have been continuing for 18 months and Keir Greenaway, GMB senior organiser in public services, said workers cannot be expected to wait any longer for a fair offer.

He said: “This delay would be unacceptable at any time but when our members have been enduring an unprecedented cost of living crisis, it is beyond the pale.

“Managers insist they are bound by civil service rules but have chosen not to seek exemption from those rules for their own reasons.

 “We have heard a lot of words but seen no action by management and words do not pay our members’ bills.

“They deserve to see a fair pay offer urgently and will take whatever action is necessary to secure one. Enough is enough.”

Dounreay joined Magnox Ltd last year and then became part of Nuclear Restoration Services, which is responsible for the clean-up of the Caithness site and 11 others across the UK.

A ballot on industrial action by GMB Scotland, Unite and Prospect members is now open and will continue for three weeks.

March 16, 2024 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s Spring budget a ‘myopic sop’ to nuclear obsessives

 https://cnduk.org/spring-budget-a-myopic-sop-to-nuclear-obsessives/ 14 Mar 24

CND Vice-President Dr Ian Fairlie writes for us on the purchase of the Wylfa nuclear site in last week’s budget.

On March 6, as part of the Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced a deal with the Japanese multinational Hitachi to purchase the defunct and closed Wylfa and Oldbury nuclear sites for £160 million. Hitachi suspended the much larger Wylfa project in 2019 and then abandoned it in September 2020 due to the massively rising costs of building nuclear plants.

Many nuclear enthusiasts read into the Chancellor’s statement that the government was going to build new plants at these sites. However a careful reading of the Budget statement reveals no such commitment. Instead, several independent commentators drily remarked that if Hitachi had decided the Wylfa nuclear plant was commercially untenable, why would anyone in Government think it was.

In fact, it is likely the £160 million land purchase was little more than a sop to myopic nuclear obsessives in the Conservative Party. The reality is that, in energy strategy terms, this sum is a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated £46,000 million (£46 billion) which Hinkley C nuclear plant would cost if it ever were completed. And, in another comparison, the Chancellor confirmed that the budget for the 2024 Contracts for Difference (CfD) auctions mainly for wind and solar projects will be set at over £1,000 million (£1 billion).

The environmental group People Against Wylfa B called the Chancellor’s statement a cynical move to try to support Tory Virginia Crosbie MP to keep her Ynys Môn parliamentary seat. Not much chance of that happening as her majority is under 2,000, and several recent by-elections have shown that Tory majorities of even 20,000 or more are now unsafe.

March 16, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Putin warns again that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty is threatened

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 14, 2024

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty or independence is threatened, issuing another blunt warning to the West just days before an election in which he’s all but certain to secure another six-year term.

The Russian leader has repeatedly talked about his readiness to use nuclear weapons since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The most recent such threat came in his state-of-the-nation address last month, when he warned the West that deepening its involvement in the fighting in Ukraine would risk a nuclear war.

Asked in an interview with Russian state television released early Wednesday if he has ever considered using battlefield nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Putin responded that there has been no need for that. He also noted that he doesn’t think that the world is heading for a nuclear war, describing U.S. President Joe Biden as a veteran politician who fully understands the possible dangers of escalation…………………………….

In an apparent reference to NATO allies that support Kyiv, he also declared that “the nations that say they have no red lines regarding Russia should realize that Russia won’t have any red lines regarding them either.”https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-putin-nuclear-weapons-82ced2419d93ae733161b56fbd9b477d

March 15, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

European Powers Stab Each Other in the Back Over Ukraine Proxy War Defeat

Finian Cunningham, March 13, 2024,  https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/03/13/european-powers-stab-each-other-in-the-back-over-ukraine-proxy-war-defeat/—


The failure of being vassals for the American empire and the impending disaster of defeat for the NATO proxy war in Ukraine is weighing heavily. 

Europe is rife with treachery in the age-old fashion of imperial rivalry. It’s pathetic to watch, but highly instructive about who the real villains of the piece are.

The failure of being abject vassals for the American empire and the impending disaster of defeat for the NATO proxy war in Ukraine is weighing heavily.

Each European power is pushing the other over the abyss to save its own political skin.

France’s Emmanuel Macron has emerged to be a little king rat. He has taken to talking up deploying NATO troops to Ukraine to salvage the proxy war against Russia. Macron struts around like a rat in jackboots too big for his feet calling on other European leaders not to be cowards.

The former Rothschild banker Macron then turns around and cancels yet another trip to the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Maybe the French leader got scared by the Russian air strike on Odessa last week when the Greek premier was touring the city along with Ukraine’s puppet president Zelensky.

Macron sent his Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné to Lithuania last Friday to discuss with the rabid Russophobic Baltic states the idea of sending NATO troops to Ukraine. Given the history of the Baltic states aiding and abetting the Third Reich’s invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa in 1941, we can safely posit the same states are an open door for such French-inspired madness.

However, with classic elite cowardice, Macron obviously doesn’t want to be anywhere near the front line when the action gets hot. Better to hunker down on a comfy armchair in Elysée Palace and bark out your angry poodle orders from there.

Meanwhile, that other bastion of European civility (meaning treacherous deception) the good old British are cajoling Germany to send long-range missiles to Ukraine to strike deep into Russia.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is balking at supplying the Taurus cruise missiles to the Ukrainian regime. The German-made weapon has a range of 500 kilometers. Given the unhinged NeoNazis in Kiev (headed up by a Jewish puppet Zelensky) it is a certainty that the Taurus missiles would be fired at Moscow to kill “Untermenschen Russians”.

That’s why Scholz is worried. His top Luftwaffe commanders have already been caught red-handed planning how the Taurus “super tools” would be used to hit deep Russian targets.

Enter the ever-so-polite British with a helping hand to the Germans. Britain’s Foreign Secretary “Lord” David Cameron visited Berlin last week urging the Germans to supply the Taurus missile to Ukraine.

Cameron said London was ready to help Germany “solve the problem” of its reluctance to provide the long-range weapon.

The British top diplomat offered a swap arrangement whereby London would buy Taurus missiles from Germany while supplying more of its Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine. In that way, Berlin would not be implicated in attacking Russia, according to Cameron.

Laughably, the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she considered the British offer to be viable.

Her nominal boss, Chancellor Scholz, has officially remained reluctant to the idea of sending Taurus missiles.

Germany would do well to treat any British proposal with deep suspicion. After all, it was the British that inveigled Germany into two world wars. The first one was with the objective of destroying an imperial rival, while the second one was engineered to unleash Hitler’s war machine on the Soviet Union.

The cold facts are that the United States and its European NATO vassals embarked on a proxy war against Russia using Ukraine as the battleground. That war was at least 10 years in the making from the CIA-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014 which brought to power the present NeoNazi regime.

The two-year proxy war has turned out to be a colossal failure for the American empire and its European satellites. The Kyiv regime is collapsing from overwhelmingly superior Russian firepower. The wasting of the Ukrainian military – as many as 500,000 men – as well as up to $200 billion in financial and military aid paid for ultimately by Western taxpayers will rebound with massive political repercussions for the warmongering Western elites.

Each one of these imperialist criminal powers wants to save their own necks as the noose of public anger inevitably tightens.

The French cock-turned-rat Macron would no doubt like to muddy the battlefield with NATO troops – while avoiding any muck splashing on his dainty little boots of course.

The Americans are beginning to realize they can’t win and are finally cutting off the money, leaving the Europeans high and dry to deal with a continental-sized mess. Joe Biden can’t even remember if it was Ukraine or Iraq that he made a fatal mistake in.

Britain, ever the arch Machiavellian maggot, would like to throw Germany into the frontline against Russia. No doubt the City of London could pick up some much-needed capitalist business from war reconstruction contracts.

The proxy war in Ukraine is over and the Western rats are scurrying off the ship.

The Western public needs to hold each one of them to account and not let them blow up a bigger war with Russia as a way to distract from their culpability.

March 15, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Why the US is trying to imprison Assange: Report from inside the Court

But even if what the United States is saying were true, these documents were not published first by Assange. John Young, the owner of a website called cryptome.org testified to the court that he was the one who published the documents first, and the United States never prosecuted him or asked him to take them down.

Extraditions for political offenses are forbidden under Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty 2003

The Extradition Act, which is the implementation of the US-UK treaty inside British law, is missing this section. This is likely due to the fact it was passed at the height of the “War on Terror” in 2003, giving the Americans carte blanche to snatch people, drag them to the US and throw them in dungeons

Richard Medhurst Al Mayadeen English, 7 Mar 2024,  https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/why-the-us-is-trying-to-imprison-assange–report-from-inside

Richard Medhurst is a British journalist who has covered Julian Assange’s extradition case from inside the court since 2020. In this article, he explains what took place in the latest hearings, why the United States is trying to extradite the WikiLeaks founder, and why everyone should care.

Julian Assange is an Australian journalist in the United Kingdom, and the founder of WikiLeaks. He published documents that were given to him by a US soldier called Chelsea Manning, which showed US war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and much more.

The United States want to extradite Assange from the UK to America, and put him on trial for publishing these classified documents. They are threatening him with 175 years in prison.

The reason this case is so serious is because it essentially makes journalism illegal. 

The United States claims Assange asked Manning for classified documents and that this is a crime. It’s not. 

The US alleges that Assange having classified documents in his possession and publishing them is a crime. It’s not.

Asking for classified documents; protecting sources, these are things journalists do every single day around the world.

But because these files were so embarrassing to the United States and exposed the brutality of their war crimes, they are threatening Assange with almost two centuries in prison; and to do it, they are accusing him of being a “spy” and a “hacker”, charging him with 17 counts under the “Espionage Act”, and with one count of “Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion”.

The goal of this indictment is to make an example out of Assange, and make other journalists afraid to publish things that the public has a right to know.

If extradited, Assange would be placed in the worst prison conditions imaginable, “Special Administrative Measures” (or SAMs): A strict regime of solitary confinement, no contact with other prisoners allowed, and barely any contact with your family. SAMs are internationally recognized as torture. Julian would be sent to the worst prison in America, ADX Florence, a super-maximum security facility in Colorado.

On January 4, 2021, British judge Vanessa Baraitser blocked Assange’s extradition because US prison conditions would be so oppressive in his current state as to drive him to suicide.

Nevertheless, despite blocking the extradition on health grounds, she agreed with all the political and trumped-up charges. 

I have attended all of Assange’s court hearings and saw the smears against him debunked by dozens of expert witnesses. But the judge still chose to side with the United States. She chose to essentially criminalize journalism, even drawing dangerous equivalences between the US Espionage Act and Britain’s Official Secrets Act (OSA).

After this, the United States went to the English High Court to appeal her ruling and won by providing empty promises that they would supposedly treat Assange well– even though the United States has a history of violating extradition assurances. I exposed this when I published classified documents from David Mendoza’s extradition from Spain to the US, a case previously cited in court by Julian’s lawyers.

After the US succeeded in overturning the lower court’s ruling in Dec 2021, there was only one thing left: A signature from the Home Secretary, who allowed the extradition to go ahead.

The above is everything that took place between 2020 and 2024, which brings us to the latest hearings at the Royal Courts of Justice in February 2024. 

Point 1: To appeal the ruling of the lower court from Jan 4, 2021. 

Assange’s lawyers argued that the judge was correct to block Assange’s extradition on health grounds, but she was wrong to agree with all the political charges (equating him with a “hacker” and a “spy”). 

They’re saying very plainly: This case is undemocratic, it criminalizes journalism, and doesn’t take into account the fact that the documents Assange published expose enormous US war crimes that the public had the right to know about. 

(See for example the “Collateral Murder” video published by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks: Footage from a US gunship crew laughing as they slaughter Iraqi civilians, among them children and reporters).

Another claim made by the United States is that Assange “harmed informants” by publishing unredacted cables. Ironically, this was proven false by the United States’ own military when they court-martialed Chelsea Manning (the soldier that gave the files to Assange). The US military couldn’t find a single example of anyone having been harmed by the disclosures. 

The assertion by the United States that Julian Assange simply published all these documents without censoring or redacting names simply isn’t true: I listened to many journalists tell the court how they spent countless hours meticulously redacting names with Assange.

Assange’s lawyers are also arguing that the judge in the lower court failed to undertake a balancing act. She blindly accepted the United States’ premise that the lives of informants– who weren’t even harmed– are more important than the people killed and tortured by the United States. This is tantamount to saying: The United States should be allowed to continue committing these war crimes in secret; that it’s somehow okay for them to butcher people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the public have no right to know.

But even if what the United States is saying were true, these documents were not published first by Assange. John Young, the owner of a website called cryptome.org testified to the court that he was the one who published the documents first, and the United States never prosecuted him or asked him to take them down.

This demonstrates that the whole case against Assange is selective, political, and has nothing to do with the law.

Assange’s lawyers are also arguing that the judge in the lower court failed to undertake a balancing act. She blindly accepted the United States’ premise that the lives of informants– who weren’t even harmed– are more important than the people killed and tortured by the United States. This is tantamount to saying: The United States should be allowed to continue committing these war crimes in secret; that it’s somehow okay for them to butcher people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the public have no right to know.

But even if what the United States is saying were true, these documents were not published first by Assange. John Young, the owner of a website called cryptome.org testified to the court that he was the one who published the documents first, and the United States never prosecuted him or asked him to take them down.

This demonstrates that the whole case against Assange is selective, political, and has nothing to do with the law.

The Espionage Act that Assange is being charged under was created during World War I, in 1917. It has always been used as a political tool against dissidents such as Eugene Debs, or whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden, who exposed the true extent of the US war in Vietnam, and NSA mass surveillance.

If you’re charged under the Espionage Act, you’re also forbidden from arguing a public interest defense. This means that even if you expose colossal government crimes, you still go to prison. 

Point 2: The Home Secretary was wrong to allow the extradition

This constitutes the second part of Assange’s appeal: It is illegal in Britain to extradite someone to another country, knowing they could face the death penalty.

If the Home Secretary, who has the final say on extraditions, is aware of such a risk, they are compelled to bar the extradition.

It is inconceivable that Priti Patel was unaware of who Julian Assange is, and the likelihood he would be killed in the United States. Once in US jurisdiction, the US could pile on additional charges, or simply execute him, as espionage is a capital offense.

Even without a specific death sentence, at 52 years old, even a 30-year bid is akin to a death sentence. 

The hollow assurances given by the United States do not preclude the death penalty. And on top of that, the Home Secretary didn’t even bother asking for assurances that would.

So how could the Home Secretary agree to send Assange to a foreign country that so clearly wants to see him dead? 

Mike Pompeo, who back then was head of the CIA, and then-president Donald Trump, launched this legal case against Julian Assange. In the past, Donald Trump had called for Assange to be given the death penalty, while Mike Pompeo proclaimed Assange “has no First Amendment rights”. After WikiLeaks published a trove of CIA documents, dubbed the Vault 7 files, Mike Pompeo declared war on WikiLeaks by publicly labeling it a “non-state hostile intelligence service”

All these political denunciations of WikiLeaks and Assange were then followed up with threats against him and his family. As we heard in court in 2020 from protected witnesses, the CIA had drawn up plans to potentially kidnap or assassinate Julian.

The United States is accusing Julian Assange of “espionage”. Normally, this is where the case should be thrown out, because espionage is considered a textbook political offense. And it is forbidden to extradite someone for a political offense under the US-UK Extradition Treaty, Art 4. 

Customary extradition treaties have always forbidden extradition for political offenses such as “espionage” and “treason”. And this line of defense has been used before in court to successfully block extraditions.

  • Extraditions for political offenses are forbidden under Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty 2003

Here is where the problem arises: 

The Extradition Act, which is the implementation of the US-UK treaty inside British law, is missing this section. This is likely due to the fact it was passed at the height of the “War on Terror” in 2003, giving the Americans carte blanche to snatch people, drag them to the US and throw them in dungeons. 

At the time of its passage, many criticized the Extradition Treaty as being extremely one-sided in favor of the United States. 

  • The Extradition Act is the implementation of the US-UK Extradition Treaty inside British law.

No matter how you look at Assange’s case, it is unfair and illegal.

The United States wants to prosecute Julian Assange under US law, but at the same time deny him any protections under US law, such as free speech. If Assange has no First Amendment rights as a foreign national, then how can he be punished as a foreign national – who is not even in the US? This is such a flagrant double standard, and selective application of the law.  

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is incorporated into British law through the Human Rights Act. Upon examination, it is clear that Julian’s rights are being flagrantly violated

Article 5 protects one from arbitrary detention. 

Because this is a political case, it would be a violation of the Extradition Treaty to send Julian to America. Therefore, he has no reason to be in prison right now, and is therefore being arbitrarily detained in violation of his Article 5 rights.

Article 6 guarantees the right to a fair trial. 

We know the United States spied on Assange’s conversations with his lawyers when he was inside the Ecuadorian embassy; stole his electronic devices; and collected medical and legal records. 

In 2020, I sat in court with Fidel Narvaez, the former Consul to the Ecuadorian embassy in London. We listened to the submissions of two protected witnesses who confirmed they had spied on Assange because the security company they worked for, UC Global, had been contracted by the CIA to do so. They also discussed plans to potentially kidnap and poison Julian Assange and harvest DNA from his baby.

To spy on someone’s privileged conversations with their lawyers, and to use tainted evidence in court is scandalous beyond words, and violates the fundamentals of due process in any jurisdiction. Any judge would have thrown this case out from day one. 

We also know Assange will not get a fair trial in America because the jury will be selected from a pool of people who work for the CIA, NSA, or have friends and family working in the intelligence community. These are the very same people whose crimes Julian Assange exposed.

The court in Virginia that issued the charges and would hold this trial is used specifically for this reason; because the jury is biased and the government knows it can’t lose. It is already 100% guaranteed that he will get convicted and go to prison.

Additionally, the United States could use secret evidence against Julian Assange, that he wouldn’t even be allowed to view due to it being “classified”.

Article 7 protects one from being punished retroactively. The case against Julian Assange is unprecedented: No publisher in America has ever been prosecuted, let alone convicted for publishing classified documents.

This case criminalizes journalism, and therefore violates Article 10, which guarantees freedom of expression.

Assange’s lawyers went over the ECHR repeatedly because it is incorporated into British law, meaning the court is obliged to follow it. Not only that, but this was their way of hinting to the judges: If you don’t give us permission to appeal, we will go to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, and that court will look upon your decision unfavorably.

(The United Kingdom is a founding and current member of the European Council, which is separate from the European Union).

Assange’s lawyer, Mark Summers, argued very clearly: The Strasbourg court will see that a) these US war crimes were real; b) they were happening on the ground at the time, and; c) by publishing these documents Assange altered the United States’ behavior: The helicopter massacres like in the “Collateral Murder” video stopped, and the Iraq war came to an end.

Assange’s team put together a very compelling defense during this week’s hearing.

Continue reading →

March 14, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, Legal, Reference, UK | Leave a comment

Shelling continues near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station

12 March 2024. Modern Power Systems

Director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, in his 8 March statement Update 215 concerning the situation in Ukraine, reported his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin as part of the IAEA’s continuing efforts to help prevent a nuclear or radiological accident during the present conflict.

Mr Grossi said the meeting, on 6 March, was “professional and frank”, with the discussions focused on the paramount importance of reducing the still significant nuclear safety and security risks at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, under Russian control for the past two years.

It was their second meeting, following one in Saint Petersburg in October 2022, and it took place a month after Mr Grossi on 7 February crossed the frontline to travel to the ZNPP for the fourth time during the war. On the way to the plant, he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv……………………………


Military activity

IAEA experts stationed at the ZNPP site have continued to hear explosions and other indications of military activity not far away from the facility. Three times during the week of 4 March they reported hearing several successive explosions within a few minutes, as well as one explosion on 7 march and multiple explosions on 8 March, possibly indicating the use of heavy weapons from an area close by.

On 1 March, the IAEA experts heard an explosion some distance away from the ZNPP. The following morning, the team was informed by the plant that there had been shelling in parkland a few hundred metres away from the city hall administrative building of the town of Enerhodar, where many plant staff live.

Further underlining the fragile nuclear safety and security situation at the ZNPP, the plant remains without back-up external power after the only remaining 330 kV line was disconnected on 20 February. As a result, the ZNPP remains dependent on its only functioning 750 kV power line, out of four such lines available before the war. The IAEA team has informed that the 330 kV line is not expected to be reconnected before 15 March.  https://www.modernpowersystems.com/news/newsshelling-continues-near-znpp-11594597

March 14, 2024 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

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