Nuclear power making a comeback in Europe? Not really
Nuclear Power Makes A Comeback In Europe , Eurasia Review, By Arab News, By Zaid M. Belbagi 17 Sept 22, “……………………………………………………………… Despite the crisis, it would seem that large-scale investment in the power sectors of the past is challenging, as countries strive to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Though the shortcomings of an overreliance on Russian gas have been exposed, only a committed effort to generate power from renewable sources will offer a long-term solution. However, fully replacing gas and nuclear energy with renewables will take years and such sources are themselves greatly impacted by climate change. The severe drought this summer, believed to be the worst in 500 years, led to a drop in hydropower generation across Europe, while repeated heat waves forced the closure of nuclear reactors over environmental concerns.
For the next two decades, Europe will remain exposed to global energy shocks until sustainable ways of generating renewable power, alongside a change in consumption, can be guaranteed.
• Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator and an adviser to private clients between London and the GCC. Twitter: @Moulay_Zaid
It’s not okay for grown adults to say the Ukraine invasion was “unprovoked”
The US Army-commissioned paper details how the empire can use proxy warfare, economic warfare and other cold war tactics to push its longtime geopolitical foe to the brink without costing American lives or sparking a nuclear conflict. It mentions Ukraine hundreds of times, and it explicitly discusses the same economic warfare tactics we’re seeing today
Caitlin Johnstone, TheAltWorld, Wed, 07 Sep 2022
On a recent interview with the Useful Idiots podcast, Noam Chomsky repeated his argument that the only reason we hear the word “unprovoked” every time anyone mentions Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the mainstream news media is because it absolutely was provoked, and they know it. Chomsky said:
“Right now if you’re a respectable writer and you want to write in the main journals, you talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you have to call it ‘the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine”. It’s a very interesting phrase; it was never used before. You look back, you look at Iraq, which was totally unprovoked, nobody ever called it ‘the unprovoked invasion of Iraq.’ In fact I don’t know if the term was ever used — if it was it was very marginal. Now you look it up on Google, and hundreds of thousands of hits. Every article that comes out has to talk about the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
“Why? Because they know perfectly well it was provoked. That doesn’t justify it, but it was massively provoked. Top US diplomats have been talking about this for 30 years, even the head of the CIA.”
Chomsky is of course correct here. The imperial media and their brainwashed automatons have spent half a year mindlessly bleating the word “unprovoked” in relation to this war, but one question none of them ever have a straight answer for is this: if the invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked, how come so many western experts spent years warning that the actions of western governments would provoke an invasion of Ukraine?
Because, as Chomsky notes, that is indeed the case. A few days after the invasion began this past February a guy named Arnaud Bertrand put together an extremely viral Twitter thread that just goes on and on and on about the various diplomats, analysts and academics in the west who have over the years been warning that a dangerous confrontation with Russia was coming because of NATO advancements toward its borders, interventionism in Ukraine, and various other aggressions. It contains examples like John Mearsheimer explicitly warning in 2015 that “the west is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked,” and Pat Buchanan warning all the way back in 1999 that “By moving NATO onto Russia’s front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation.”
Empire apologists love claiming that the invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO expansionism (their claims generally based on brazen misrepresentations of what Vladimir Putin has said about Russia’s reasons for the war), but that’s silly. The US war machine was continuing to taunt the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine right up until the invasion, a threat it refused to take off the table since placing it there in 2008 despite knowing full well that this threat was an incendiary provocation to Moscow.
This is to say nothing of the US empire actively fomenting a violent uprising in 2014 which ousted Kyiv’s sitting government and fractured the nation between its more Moscow-loyal populations to the east and the more US/EU-friendly parts of the country. This led to the annexation of Crimea (overwhelmingly supported by the people who live there) and eight years of brutal warfare against Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas. Ukrainian attacks on those separatists are known to have increased exponentially in the days leading up to the invasion, and it has been argued that this is what provoked Putin’s final decision to commit to invading (which was a last-minute decision according to US intelligence).
The US power alliance could very easily have prevented this war with a few low-cost concessions like enshrining Ukrainian neutrality, rolling back its war machinery from Russia’s borders and sincerely pursuing detente with Moscow instead of shredding treaties and ramping up cold war escalations. Hell, it could likely have prevented this war just by protecting President Zelensky from the anti-Moscow far right nationalists who were openly threatening to lynch him if he began honoring the Minsk agreements and pursuing peace with Russia, as he was originally elected to do.
Instead it knowingly chose the opposite course: continuing to float the possibility of formal NATO membership for Ukraine while pouring weapons into the nation and making it more and more of a de facto NATO memberwith closer and closer intimacy with the US war machine, and then either ordering, encouraging or tolerating Ukraine’s aggressive assault on Donbas separatists.
Why did the empire opt for provocation over peace? Congressman Adam Schiff gave a pretty good answer to that question in January of 2020 as the road to war was being paved: “so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.” If you relinquish the infantile idea that the US empire is helping its good friend Ukraine because it loves the Ukrainian people and wants them to have freedom and democracy, it’s not hard to see that the US sparked a convenient proxy war because it was in its geostrategic interests to do so, and because it wouldn’t be their lives and property getting laid to waste.
Brian Berletic put out a good video a few days ago about a Pentagon-funded 2019 Rand Corporation paper titled “Extending Russia – Competing from Advantageous Ground,” which is exactly what it sounds like. The US Army-commissioned paper details how the empire can use proxy warfare, economic warfare and other cold war tactics to push its longtime geopolitical foe to the brink without costing American lives or sparking a nuclear conflict. It mentions Ukraine hundreds of times, and it explicitly discusses the same economic warfare tactics we’re seeing today like sanctions and attacking Russia’s energy interests in Europe (the latter of which Berletic points out is also being used to bolster US dominance over its vassals in the EU).
Continue readingZaporizhzhia’s ‘last working’ nuclear reactor loses power after Russian shelling
SBS News6 Sept 22, The vast Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – the largest nuclear power plant in Europe – was captured by Moscow in March, but is still run by Ukrainian staff……….
The imperilled six-reactor facility in southern Ukraine, which is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was captured by Moscow in March, but is still run by Ukrainian staff.
“Today, as a result of a fire caused by shelling, the (last working) transmission line was disconnected,” Energoatom said in a statement on Telegram on Monday.
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“As a result, (reactor) unit No. 6, which currently supplies the (plant’s) own needs, was unloaded and disconnected from the grid,” it said.
Ukraine was unable to repair the power lines now because of fighting raging around the station, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.
“Any repairs of the power lines are currently impossible- fighting is ongoing around the station,” he said……
Two reactors at the plant, number five and six, remain in use but are currently disconnected from the grid.
They have suffered repeated disconnections due to shelling over the last fortnight.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station is still under threat
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20899451.zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-station-still-threat/ By Jane McLeod, 4 Sept 22,
INSPECTORS from the International Atomic Energy Agency are used to risky missions – from the radioactive aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in Japan to the politically-charged Iranian nuclear programme.
But their deployment amid the war in Ukraine to Zaporizhzhia takes the threat to a new level and underscores the lengths to which the organisation will go in attempts to avert a potentially catastrophic nuclear disaster.
The six-month war, sparked by Russia’s invasion of its western neighbour, is forcing international organisations, including the IAEA, to deploy teams during active hostilities in their efforts to impose order around Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, pursue accountability for war crimes and identify the dead.
The Zaporizhzhia plant was once again knocked offline in the early hours yesterday amid sustained shelling that destroyed a key power line and penetrated deep into the plant’s premises, local Russian-backed authorities said.
The IAEA’s mission is meant to help secure the site as Moscow and Kyiv continue to trade blame for shelling at and around the plant.
The plant has repeatedly suffered complete disconnection from Ukraine’s power grid since last week, with the country’s nuclear energy operator Enerhoatom blaming mortar shelling and fires near the site.
Noting that the IAEA sent inspectors to Iraq in 2003 and to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia during fighting, Tariq Rauf, the organisation’s former head of verification and security, said: “This is not the first time that an IAEA team has gone into a situation of armed hostilities. But this situation in Zaporizhzhia, I think it’s the most serious situation where the IAEA has sent people in ever, so it’s unprecedented.”
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi highlighted the risks on Thursday when he led a team to the sprawling plant in southern Ukraine.
“There were moments when fire was obvious – heavy machine guns, artillery, mortars at two or three times were really very concerning, I would say, for all of us,” he said of his team’s journey through an active war zone to reach the plant.
Speaking to reporters after leaving colleagues inside, he said the agency is “not moving” from the plant from now on, and vowed a “continued presence” of agency experts.
But it remains to be seen what exactly the organisation can accomplish.
Rauf added: “The IAEA cannot force a country to implement or enforce nuclear safety and security standards. They can only advise and then it is up to … the state itself.”
In Ukraine, that is further complicated by the Russian occupation of the power station.
The IAEA is not the only international organisation seeking to locate staff permanently in Ukraine amid the ongoing war.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan has visited Ukraine three times, set up an office in the country and sent investigators into a conflict zone to gather evidence amid widespread reports of atrocities. National governments including the Netherlands have sent expert investigators to help the court.
Khan told a United Nations meeting in April: “This is a time when we need to mobilise the law and send it into battle, not on the side of Ukraine against the Russian Federation or on the side of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, but on the side of humanity to protect, to preserve, to shield people … who have certain basic rights.”
Kiev spreading ‘propaganda by fear’ – French ex-presidential candidate
 |
https://www.rt.com/russia/562148-kiev-spreading-propaganda-fear/1 4 Sept 22, Segolene Royal has faced backlash after questioning Ukrainian accounts of events in Bucha and Mariupol.
A former French presidential candidate has accused Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky of using ‘war propaganda’ as a tool to obstruct the peace process. Veteran politician Segolene Royal also called on the UN and media associations to fight against such tactics.
Royal’s suggestion, that some of the “war crimes” Kiev blames on Russian troops were part of ‘propaganda,’ has made her a target for widespread criticism.
Speaking to BFMTV earlier this week, Royal said that “everyone knows that there is war propaganda by fear.”
As an example, she cited the alleged shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol – the story which made headlines in Western media in early March. Zelensky blamed Russia for the incident that, as local authorities claimed, killed three people, including a child. The Russian military denied targeting the medical facility and insisted the whole thing was a “completely staged provocation” by the Ukrainian side.
“You can imagine that if there had been any victim, any baby with blood, in the age of cell phones we would have seen [their photos],” Royal stressed.
The authenticity of the photos presented by Kiev as proof of the claimed Russian attack were questioned by many online. Marianna Vyshemirskaya, one of the pregnant women featured in the images that appeared on the front pages of many major outlets, later claimed that there had been no Russian airstrike on the hospital. She insisted that she told AP journalists about this, but they decided not to mention it in their reportage.
Royal, who used to be a long-term partner of France’s former president Francois Hollande, also commented on the events of April in the town of Bucha near Kiev, after which Zelensky claimed that negotiations with Russia became impossible. Ukrainian authorities accused the Russian forces of multiple atrocities against civilians in the town, including the rape of children. Moscow firmly denied the allegations of war crimes, insisting it was “yet another provocation” by Kiev.
“The stories of child rape for seven hours under the eyes of the parents: but it’s monstrous to go and spread things like that only to interrupt the peace process,” the veteran French politician stated, without elaborating.
She also claimed that Zelensky used accounts of alleged torture of Ukrainian soldiers by Russian troops – which Moscow also vehemently denies – not only to impede any peace process but also to “remobilize” troops. She argued that as “there’s been enough horror of war and casualties” and that “Ukrainian propaganda” should be stopped “under the aegis of the UN and media organizations.”
After BFMTV tweeted a fragment of her interview with a caption “Segolene Royal questions certain war crimes in Ukraine,” the politician responded that this was “false,” as she’d “never denied war crimes.”
On Saturday, Royal published the final part of her remarks which, as she said, was cut by the television network. In this fragment she says that “there is a form of one-upmanship in the description of the horror, to encourage arms deliveries and to refrain from setting up negotiation and peace processes.”
“To plead for peace is to act for the end of the suffering of the Ukrainian people and of Russian aggression,” she wrote in a caption to the video.
Royal’s interview was condemned by some politicians as well as by many social media users. The Stand With Ukraine group representing the victims and the families of victims of “Russian aggression” even announced that it was considering filing a complaint against Royal in order to defend “the honor of disappeared.”
Meanwhile, the president of the party The Patriots, Florian Philippot, criticized “the aggressive and crazy reactions” to Royal’s remarks and said that she “has every right, and an intellectual duty” to question war propaganda.
Collective madness — Zaporizhzhia is the poster child for abandoning the use of nuclear power.
The IAEA team that went to Zaporizhizhia aren’t superheroes and can’t fix what’s broken
Collective madness — Beyond Nuclear International By Linda Pentz Gunter
The deadly peril posed by nuclear power plants embroiled in a war zone — something we have been warning about since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine — just came into even sharper focus.
The continued military activity around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, home to six of Ukraine’s 15 reactors, has raised worldwide concern about the terrible consequences should a missile strike a reactor, or worse, the unprotected irradiated fuel pools or radioactive waste storage casks.
Let’s remember that the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster — the result of the explosion of a single, relatively new unit — has rendered a 1,000 square mile region (the Exlusion Zone) uninhabitable still today and for the foreseeable future. Any one of the Zaporizhzhia reactors contains a far larger radioactive inventory and a more densely packed fuel pool than was the case at Chornobyl. A major breach of any one of the six would release long-lasting radioactive contamination into the environment, forcing permanent evacuations and sickening countless people.
Several obvious conclusions emerge from all this.
- Nuclear reactors cannot be in a war zone.
- The consequences of an attack on a nuclear plant could be catastrophic, long-lasting and far-reaching.
- It is impossible to predict where a war might happen (Lindsey Graham’s recent reckless statements remind us that yes, there could even be (civil) war again here in the US).
- The odds of a catastrophic failure at a nuclear plant must be zero given the unacceptable consequences; an impossibility.
- Nuclear power plants are not only ill-suited to the climate of war, but also to both the present and impending extremes of climate change (major sea-level rise; floods; fires; violent weather events etc).
Therefore, it is senseless and irresponsible to continue using nuclear power as an energy source.
Instead, as a 14-person delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made its way to the Zaporizhzhia plant, its General Secretary, Rafael Grossi, stated that theirs was a mission “that seeks to prevent a nuclear accident and to preserve this important — the largest, the biggest — nuclear power plant in Europe”.
Preserve? Well, as Henry Sokolski just reminded us in his August 31 article — The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant Is Kindling for World War III — “The IAEA was founded seventy years ago to promote nuclear power.” It is set up to “conduct occasional nuclear audits, not to physically protect plants against military attacks or to demilitarize zones around them,” he wrote. “The IAEA can’t provide the Zaporizhzhia plant with any defenses, nor will it risk keeping IAEA staff on-site to serve as defensive tripwires.”
James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, issued similar warnings about the limitations of the IAEA delegation when he was interviewed about the worsening situation at Zaporizhzhia and the IAEA visit on the August 29th edition of The Rachel Maddow Show.
“We should be realistic about what they can achieve,” he said. “It’s their job to report what’s going on in the plant, to assess the safety and security features on the plant and to report back. They don’t have a magic way of defending the plant or repairing broken equipment.”
The White House has called for the Zaporizhzhia reactors to be shut down. It should be calling for all reactors to be shut down. Instead, it is blindly persisting with nuclear power as a present and future energy program.
The White House is not alone, of course. The illogical — and arguably insane — response to the war in Ukraine by a number of governments has been to insist on the continued or even expanded use of nuclear energy. Given what is at stake in so doing — and given the obvious safer, faster and cheaper alternatives of energy efficiency and renewable energy— this appears to be a symptom of some kind of collective madness.
Let’s face it, if Zaporizhzhia was a 6-acre wind farm instead of a 6-reactor nuclear power plant, we wouldn’t even be talking about it, let alone worrying about how to pronounce it.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.
If people take part in referendums in Donbass region, Ukraine government will prosecute them as criminal offenders
Kiev threatens pro-Russia Ukrainians with jail terms. more https://www.rt.com/russia/562159-kiev-referendum-jail-time/ 4 Sept 22, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister warns that voting in referendums in Moscow-controlled territories is a criminal offence
Ukrainian citizens risk criminal prosecution and a jail time of up to 12 years if they participate in referendums on joining Russia, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk warned on Saturday.
“There are not and will not be any referendums on our Ukrainian land,” Vereshchuk stated during a national broadcast.
Pro-Russian authorities in the Zaporozhye, Kharkov and Kherson Regions, as well the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, previously spoke of potentially holding referendums on uniting with Russia, but so far no dates have been set.
“It’s all a farce and a circus. But for our citizens who will take part in this, there is actually an article of the Criminal Code,” Kiev’s deputy prime minister said.
“If collaboration is proven, or, for example, participation in the referendum or incitement to participate in the referendum, then people can receive up to 12 years with confiscation (of assets),” she warned.
Vereshchuk urged Ukrainians who remain in Russia-controlled territories to evacuate or avoid voting in any plebiscites, as “no pressure, no violent incitement, etc., can later justify the fact that a person went to the referendum.”
When asked, how many people potentially might take part in voting, Vereshchuk claimed the percentage is “tiny… not even 2%.”
The Ukrainian government previously warned that citizens who attempt to become Russian citizens could be punished with up to 15 years in prison.
Ukrainian government wants to sell nuclear energy to Germany
DW, 4 Sept 22, Kyiv offers nuclear energy to Germany. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said a proposal to export electricity to Germany amid the ongoing energy crisis would be “a very good deal for both sides.” DW rounds up the latest…….
“Currently, Ukraine exports its electricity to Moldova, Romania, Slovakia and Poland. But we are quite ready to expand our exports to Germany,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told the dpa news agency on Saturday.
“We have a sufficient amount of electricity in Ukraine, thanks to our nuclear power plants,” he said. The issue will be discussed during Shmyhal’s visit to Berlin over the weekend, where he will be meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Electricity consumption in Ukraine has fallen since the start of the Russian invasion, due to the mass exodus of refugees and an economic slump.
Shmyhal said such a deal “would be very good for both sides.”…….
Ukraine operates four nuclear power plants with a total capacity of more than 14 gigawatts.
However, observers fear Russia’s capture of the Zaporizhzhia facility — the largest nuclear power plant in Europe — could lead to a serious accident if the war intensifies…………. https://www.dw.com/en/russia-ukraine-updates-kyiv-offers-nuclear-energy-to-germany/a-63009289
“This is Not Our War” • Czech People Rise Up Against NATOSTAN War — Calculus of Decay
Tens of thousands took to the streets to protest the NATO involvement in the Russia/Ukraine war:
“This is Not Our War” • Czech People Rise Up Against NATOSTAN War — Calculus of Decay
Nikopol under attack: Residents flee fighting near Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
Euro News 4 Set 22, Every day, people gather in a wooded park just 30 kilometres from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and set up temporary shelters.
Some are from the southern Ukrainian city of Nikopol, situated down the river from Europe’s biggest nuclear power station.
The campers have fled Nikopol to escape shelling, with many of them sleeping in tents or their cars. When the rumbling of artillery fire stops, they return to Nikopol to work or check if their homes are still in one piece.
Attacks on Nikopol – located just 10 kilometres from Zaporizhzhia – have intensified over the past couple of weeks, as Russia and Ukrainian continue to exchange deadly blows in their six-month conflict. ……
More than 50% of Nikopol’s residents have fled the city, according to local authorities, with many of those who remain being forced to sleep in basements and shelters. https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/04/nikopol-under-attack-residents-flee-fighting-near-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant
—
IAEA at Zaporizhia nuclear station: Dr Paul Dorfman assesses the risks
The “physical integrity” of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in
south-eastern Ukraine has been “violated”, the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said, as he voiced his fears
for the site.
Rafael Grossi led a team of inspectors to the
Russian-controlled plant that has been frequently shelled in recent weeks,
raising fears of a nuclear incident. “It is obvious that the plant and
physical integrity of the plant has been violated several times,” Grossi
told reporters after he returned with part of his team to the
Ukrainian-controlled area on Thursday.
“I worried, I worry and I will
continue to be worried about the plant,” he said, while adding that the
situation was “more predictable” now. Rafael Grossi speaks to the media
before setting off to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “We have
spent there four or five hours. I have seen a lot, and I have my people
there, we were able to tour the whole site,” Grossi said about the
long-anticipated inspection. He said that part of his 14-strong mission to
the plant would stay at the facility “until Sunday or Monday, continuing
with the assessment”.
Guardian 2nd Sept 2022
Fighting goes on near Ukraine nuclear plant; IAEA on site
WSMV4 By YESICA FISCH, Sep. 2, 2022, ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Fighting raged Friday near Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in a Russian-held area of eastern Ukraine, as inspectors from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency expressed concern over the facility’s “physical integrity” but didn’t blame either warring side.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said he expects to produce a report “early next week, as soon as we have the full picture of the situation by the end of the weekend, more or less.”
Speaking to reporters in Vienna after returning from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, he said he will brief the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
“We’ve seen what I requested to see — everything I requested to see,” Grossi said, adding that his big concerns were the plant’s “physical integrity,” the power supply to the facility and the situation of the staff………………..
Russian-backed officials in Enerhodar claimed Russian forces had shot down an armed Ukrainian drone near the plant Friday.
“Ukrainian militants, apparently, continue to try to attack the plant despite the fact that there are IAEA employees there,” the press service of the municipal administration said in a statement………………….
Ukraine alleges Russia is using the plant as a shield to launch attacks. On Friday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu rejected the Ukrainian allegations and said Russia has no heavy weapons either on the site or in nearby areas.
Shoigu said Ukrainian forces have fired 120 artillery shells and used 16 suicide drones to hit the plant, “raising a real threat of a nuclear catastrophe in Europe.” ……….. https://www.wsmv.com/2022/09/02/fighting-goes-near-ukraine-nuclear-plant-iaea-site/
Very real risks of nuclear catastrophe at Zaporizhia nuclear station, with the memory of Chernobyl ever present
War in Ukraine. What are the risks of a nuclear accident around the
Zaporijjia power plant? For weeks, the international community has had its
sights set on the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, which the Russians and
Ukrainians have accused each other of bombing. This Thursday, September 1,
IAEA experts arrived at the plant to assess the security situation there.
Its director general, Rafael Grossi, had earlier warned of the “real risk
of nuclear disaster”. What are the real risks of a nuclear accident around
this plant? In Zaporijjia, near the eponymous nuclear power plant, occupied
by Russian forces and the target of regular bombardments, the inhabitants
are now preparing for the worst, and some are already imagining seeing the
reactors explode.
Because the fighting around this power plant with its
imposing silhouette, the largest in Europe, has revived painful memories of
the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. That
year, a reactor exploded, causing the largest civilian nuclear accident in
history and releasing a radioactive cloud that spread across Europe.
According to the UN, around thirty operators and firefighters lost their
lives there, killed by acute radiation, but the human toll of the disaster
is still debated today. According to different sources, the number of
deaths as a result of this nuclear accident varies from a few hundred to
several thousand. The NGO Greenpeace even estimates that it would have
caused 200,000 additional deaths between 1990 and 2004.
Thirty-six years later, this Chernobyl disaster is still present in people’s minds, and some
fear that the scenario will repeat itself in Zaporijjia. But are the fears
of the inhabitants of Zaporijjia, located barely fifty kilometers as the
crow flies from the plant, really justified? Is a serious nuclear accident
really possible?
“Yes, serious accidents are possible, nuclear power plants
being machines that are intrinsically very sensitive to external
aggressions and not being designed to operate in a context of armed
conflict” , explains Bernard Laponche, former nuclear engineer at the
Commissariat at the atomic energy (CEA), doctor in nuclear physics and
president of the Global Chance association. And this, especially since no
one knows today what the current state of this plant is.
Ouest France 1st Sept 2022
Zelensky aide says UN nuclear watchdog should be mistrusted ‘by default’
RT.com, 2 Sept 22,
A top advisor to the Ukrainian president says he doesn’t expect a breakthrough from the IAEA mission to the Zaporozhye power plant.
International organizations including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are “cowardly” and cannot be trusted, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has said.
“I don’t like international institutions and mediation missions in general. They look extremely ineffective, extremely cowardly and extremely unprofessional,” Mikhail Podolyak said in an interview on Thursday evening.
This applies “not only to the IAEA”, but also to the UN, Amnesty International, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Ukrainian official claimed, adding: “By default, you should not trust them.”
Podolyak’s remarks came as he criticized the IAEA mission to the Russia-controlled Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which arrived earlier in the day. He expressed his low expectations from the mission, based on the positive remarks that Director General Rafael Grossi made after touring the facility in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian official said he was willing to give the IAEA inspectors the benefit of the doubt and wait for them make an official report that would “show the depth of their inner destruction”.
He explained his concerns, citing several aspects of Grossi’s visit. They include its relatively short duration, which Podolyak assessed was too short for a proper fact-finding mission. He also criticized the willingness of the IAEA chief to talk to a representative of the Russian atomic energy body Rosatom, who, Podolyak said, “delivered a strange long speech” to the UN official.
The IAEA experts arrived at the station from Kiev despite continued military action in its vicinity. Kiev and Moscow have accused each other of being behind the shelling and of trying to derail the inspection. Some members of the mission stayed behind to monitor the situation, while Grossi and others left.
Podolyak said the IAEA should blame Russia for attacks on the plant, and if their report fails to do so, only stating that inspectors witnessed evidence of strikes, his opinion about the organization will be vindicated.
President Vladimir Zelensky too has expressed skepticism about the IAEA visit to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant………….https://www.rt.com/russia/562053-iaea-mission-podolyak-interview/
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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