nuclear-news

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

Active-Duty US Service Members Issue Appeal to Congress to Stop Funding Genocide

As Israel continues its genocide against the Palestinians, the number of US conscientious objectors is increasing.

By Marjorie Cohn , TRUTHOUT, June 13, 2024


On June 4, a coalition of active-duty service members, veterans and G.I. rights groups launched a campaign called Appeal for Redress V2 to encourage military personnel to tell Congress to stop funding genocide in Gaza. Israel’s genocidal operation, now in its ninth month, has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 85,000.

The campaign is sponsored by Veterans For Peace (VFP), the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, About Face: Veterans Against the War and the Center on Conscience & War. It is modeled after the 2006 Appeal for Redress issued during the occupation of Iraq. During that campaign, almost 3,000 active-duty, Reserve and Guard personnel sent protected communications to their members of Congress urging an end to the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Appeal for Redress V2 was formulated to help G.I.s directly tell their representatives that they oppose U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“We will not stand by silently while genocide unfolds,” Senior Airman Juan Bettancourt, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, stated at a June 4 press conference announcing the campaign. “We refuse to be complicit” in the “unspeakable carnage,” said Bettancourt, who is seeking separation from the U.S. military as a conscientious objector.

Kathleen Gilberd, executive director of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild and my coauthor for Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, told Truthout there has been an increase in the number of applications for conscientious objection (CO) and other types of honorable discharge from the military. “Many military personnel have serious objections to the U.S. support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians,” Gilberd said…………………………………………………………………………

The Appeal for Redress

“We know many young people join the military out of necessity to get their needs met. But they are not obligated to contribute to genocide and unjust, unlawful wars that go against their conscience,” said Shiloh Emelein, U.S. Marine Corps veteran and operations director of About Face: Veterans Against the War, in the Appeal’s June 3 press release. “You do have rights, you do have options to object, and there’s a large community of post-9/11 veterans ready to welcome you.”………………………………………………………………………………………….

U.S. Provision of Weapons to Israel Violates Several U.S. Statutes

These active-duty service members oppose U.S. funding of Israel’s genocide both because it’s immoral and because U.S. government employees are violating several federal statutes when weapons are shipped to Israel…………………………………………..more https://truthout.org/articles/active-duty-us-service-members-issue-appeal-to-congress-to-stop-funding-genocide/

June 15, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

LANL plans to release highly radioactive tritium to prevent explosions. Will it just release danger in the air?


The venting may harm pregnant women and fetuses, advocates say.
SEARCHLIGHT NEW MEXICO, by Alicia Inez Guzmán 12 June 24

Last fall, the international community rose up in defense of the Pacific Ocean. Seafood and salt purveyors, public policy professors, scientists and environmentalists, all lambasted Japan’s release of radioactive wastewater from the disastrously damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the sea.

At the heart of the contention was tritium, an element that, by mass, is 150,000 times more radioactive than the plutonium used in the cores of nuclear weapons. Odorless and colorless, tritium — the radioactive form of hydrogen — combines with oxygen to form water. Just one teaspoon is enough to contaminate 100 billion gallons more water up to the U.S. drinking water standard, according to Arjun Makhijani, an expert on nuclear fusion and author of the monograph, “Exploring Tritium Dangers.”

What didn’t make international headlines — but was quietly taking place on the other side of the world — was Los Alamos National Laboratory’s own plans to vent the same radioactive substance into northern New Mexico’s mountain air. Japan’s releases would take place over three decades. LANL’s would include up to three times more tritium — and take place in a matter of days.

There is no hard timeline for the release, but if the plans are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, LANL is looking at a period with “sufficiently warm weather,” a spokesperson from the National Nuclear Security Administration wrote by email. That could mean as soon as this summer.

Those controversial plans date back to 2016, when LANL discovered that a potentially explosive amount of hydrogen and oxygen was building up in four containers of tritium waste stored in a decades-old nuclear dump called Area G. The safest and most technically viable solution, the lab decided — and the best way to protect workers — would be to release the pressure and, with it, thousands of curies of tritium into the air.

When advocates caught wind of the venting in March 2020, Covid was in its earliest and most unnerving phase. Pueblo leaders, advocates and environmentalists wrote impassioned letters to the lab and the EPA, demanding that they change or, at the very least, postpone the release until after the pandemic. At the same time, Tewa Women United, a nonprofit founded by Indigenous women from northern New Mexico, issued its first online petition, focusing on tritium’s ability to cross the placental barrier and possibly harm pregnant women and their fetuses. Only after a maelstrom of opposition did the lab pause its plans and begin briefing local tribes and other concerned members of the community. 

“We see this as a generational health issue,” said Kayleigh Warren, Tewa Women United’s food and seed sovereignty coordinator. “Just like all the issues of radioactive exposure are generational health issues.”

Last fall, the lab again sought the EPA’s consent. A second petition from Tewa Women United followed. Eight months later, the federal agency’s decision is still pending.

The NNSA, which oversees the health of America’s nuclear weapons stockpile from within the Department of Energy, declined Searchlight New Mexico’s requests for an interview.

The crux of the issue comes down to what is and isn’t known about the state of the containers’ contents. Computer modeling suggests they are pressurized and flammable, but the actual explosive risk has not been measured, the lab has conceded.

Critics have requested that the contents be sampled first to determine whether there is any explosive risk and whether venting is even needed. The EPA says that sampling would require going through the same red tape as venting. The lab, for its part, plans to sample and vent the contents in one fell swoop.

But why, critics wonder, are these containers in this state in the first place? Were they knowingly over packed and left for years to grow into ticking time bombs?

“I do not like the position we’re in,” James Kenney, cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department, told the Legislature’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee in 2020. The containers, he said, had been “neglected for so long by both DOE and the Environment Department” that NMED potentially faces a lose-lose situation: Vent the tritium drums and try to prevent the emissions from being released into the air or “run the risk of leaving those drums onsite knowing that they are pressurized and could rupture, meaning an uncontrolled amount of tritium would go out.”

Venting and vexing

State and federal documents paint a kind of chicken-and-egg dilemma. The containers can’t be moved until the pressure is vented. But the movement itself may cause more pressure to build up, requiring a second, third or even fourth venting……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Tritium 101 

Plutonium and uranium are familiar to most people, if by name only. But few know anything at all about tritium — a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is used to make watch dials and EXIT signs glow bright neon. Tritium’s other, lesser-known use is as a “boost gas,” which, when inserted into the hollow core of a plutonium pit, amplifies a nuclear weapon’s yield. Globally, hundreds of atmospheric weapons tests dispersed tritium into the atmosphere, steeping rain, sea, and groundwater with the element and, ultimately, lacing sediment worldwide.

Tritium is widely produced at nuclear reactors and is today tested, handled and routinely released at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Criticisms of this venting have always centered on two of the element’s key characteristics: First, it travels “tens to hundreds of miles,” according to lab documents. Second, when tritium is in the form of water, it becomes omnipresent and easy for bodies to absorb.

“Tritium is unique in this,” wrote Makhijani. “It makes water, the stuff of life, most of the mass of living beings, radioactive.”

Years of LANL reports depict tritium’s ubiquity in the lands and ecosystem within its bounds, a palimpsest of radioactive decay. This is measured in curies, a basic unit that counts the rate of decay second by second. 

The lab’s first environmental impact statement, published in 1979, estimated that it had buried close to 262,000 curies of tritium at Area G and released tens of thousands more into the air from various stacks over the decades. The lab had two major accidental releases of tritium around the same time — 22,000 curies in the summer of 1976 and nearly 31,000 curies in the fall of 1977.

Today, trees have taken it into their root systems on Area G’s southeast edge. Rodents scurrying in and out of waste shafts are riddled with the substance, owing to tritium vapors from years past. A barn owl ate those rodents and had 740 times more tritium concentration in its body than the U.S. drinking water standard, the common reference value for indicating tritium contamination. The lab’s honeybee colonies — kept to determine how radioactive contaminants are absorbed — produced tritiated honey up to 380 times more concentrated than the drinking water standard, reports show.

The EPA set the current standard for radioactive emissions at DOE facilities in 1989, but that didn’t stop the lab from releasing thousands of curies of tritium into the air shortly afterward. In 1991, the EPA issued a notice of non-compliance to the lab for not calculating how much of a radiation dose the public received. Another notice followed in 1992.

Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety filed a lawsuit two years later alleging that the DOE hadn’t properly monitored radioactive emissions, as required by the Clean Air Act. At the time, a former lab safety officer, Luke Bartlein, observed what he described in an affidavit as a “pattern and practice of deception at LANL with respect to the radionuclide air monitoring system.” It was routine for lab staffers and management to vent glove boxes and other materials contaminated with tritium outside so that the contamination would deliberately “not register” on the stack monitors, he recounted, leading to false emissions reports.

The lab settled in 1997; a consent decree followed and would stay in effect until 2003. The lab says it has maintained low annual emissions ever since…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

In 1999, Makhijani and more than 100 scientists, activists and physicians across the country and worldwide signed a letter to the National Academy of Sciences. Their ask? To evaluate how radionuclides that cross the placental boundary, including tritium, impact the fetus, a request Makhijani renewed in 2022.

As he put it, tritium — the “most ubiquitous pollutant from both nuclear power and nuclear weapons” — has largely escaped regulatory and scientific scrutiny when it comes to matters of pregnancy.

Cindy Folkers, the radiation and health hazard specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a national advocacy organization, believes the reason is rooted in the radiation establishment’s fear of liability. “You get layers and layers and layers and layers of denial.”

The scant research that does exist comes from pregnant women who survived atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1986, the International Commission on Radiation Protection concluded that exposing a fetus to ionizing radiation, the kind that tritium emits, has a “damaging effect…upon the development of the embryonic and fetal brain.” The area most at risk of harm, it went on, is the forebrain, which controls complex and fundamental functions like thinking and processing information, eating, sleeping and reproduction.

Ionizing radiation damages the cell in two ways. On the one hand, it breaks apart the building blocks from which humans are made, causing rifts in DNA. On the other, it fundamentally changes the chemistry of the cell, breaking apart its water molecules and upsetting its metabolism.

That’s what makes it different from, say, an X-ray, Folkers said. “A machine can be shut off,” but “a radioactive particle that’s inside your body will continue irradiating you.” For a pregnant woman, this adds up to “cumulative biological damage,” the kind that cuts across generations.

“We’re dealing with a life cycle,” Folkers said. “And females are an integral part of that life cycle. Not only are they more damaged by radioactivity, and their risks are higher for cancer, but they are also carrying in them the future generations. So when you’re dealing with a female baby who’s developing in the womb, you are dealing with that child’s children at the very least.”

In other words, a mother is like a Russian nesting doll. She holds a fetus and that fetus, if a female, holds all future eggs. Exposure to her is exposure to future generations.  https://searchlightnm.org/lanl-plans-to-release-highly-radioactive-tritium-to-prevent-explosions-will-it-just-release-danger-in-the-air/?utm_source=Searchlight+New+Mexico&utm_campaign=08e25288bd-6%2F12%2F2024+-+LANL+Tritium+Release&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8e05fb0467-08e25288bd-395610620&mc_cid=08e25288bd&mc_eid=a70296a261

June 14, 2024 Posted by | radiation, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Sodium cooled nuclear reactors are not necessarily safer

While no sodium-cooled reactors currently operate in the United States, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is working with industry on a number of “advanced” reactor designs, including the Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR).  One of the SFR’s safety advantages, to quote the DOE, is that the design provides a “Long grace period for corrective action, if needed.” SRE’s meltdown transpired over a two-week period. Fermi Unit 1 had indications of inadequate core cooling in June that were repeated in August and dismissed until extensive damage occurred in October 1966. The “if needed” grace period is never long enough when warning sign after warning sign is dismissed or ignored.

DOE did acknowledge some “challenges” for the SFR: their higher speed and higher energy neutrons can embrittle and degrade nearby materials, liquid sodium coolant reactors with air and water and degrades concrete, and the opaqueness of the liquid sodium coolant complicates in-service inspections and maintenance.

Thank goodness for the “Long grace period for corrective actions, if needed.” That and the fact that SFRs only operate in cyberspace where the primary threat is carpal tunnel syndrome

safety-symbol-SmFlag-USANuclear Plant Accidents: Fermi Unit 1, Union of Concerned Scientists , director, Nuclear Safety Project | July 12, 2016, Disaster by Design

Jorge Agustin Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, also known as George Santayana, wrote that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Continue reading →

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Reference, technology, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear Power Is Hard. Billionaire Bill Gates Wants to Make It Easier

COMMENT. Sodium cooled nuclear reactors are not necessarily safer. Nuclear power: molten salt reactors and sodium-cooled fast reactors make the radioactive waste problem WORSE

Work is starting in Wyoming coal country on a new type of reactor.
Its main backer, Bill Gates, says he’s in it for the emissions-free
electricity. Outside a small coal town in southwest Wyoming, a
multibillion-dollar effort to build the first in a new generation of
American nuclear power plants is underway. Workers began construction on
Tuesday on a novel type of nuclear reactor meant to be smaller and cheaper
than the hulking reactors of old and designed to produce electricity
without the carbon dioxide that is rapidly heating the planet.

The reactor being built by TerraPower, a start-up, won’t be finished until 2030 at the
earliest and faces daunting obstacles. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
hasn’t yet approved the design, and the company will have to overcome the
inevitable delays and cost overruns that have doomed countless nuclear
projects before.

What TerraPower does have, however, is an influential and
deep-pocketed founder. Bill Gates, currently ranked as the seventh-richest
person in the world, has poured more than $1 billion of his fortune into
TerraPower, an amount that he expects to increase.

At a recent conference in New York, David Crane, the Energy Department under secretary for
infrastructure, said that two years ago he “didn’t really see” a case
for next-generation reactors. But as demand for electricity surges because
of new data centers, factories and electric vehicles, Mr. Crane said he had
become “very bullish” on nuclear to provide carbon-free power around
the clock without needing much land. One problem with nuclear power,
though, is that it has become prohibitively expensive.

Traditional reactors are huge, complex, strictly regulated projects that are difficult to build
and finance. The only two American reactors built in the last 30 years,
Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia, cost $35 billion, more than double initial
estimates, and arrived seven years behind schedule. TerraPower’s reactor,
by contrast, uses liquid sodium instead of water, allowing it to operate at
lower pressures. In theory, that reduces the need for thick shielding. In
an emergency, the plant can be cooled with air vents rather than
complicated pump systems. The reactor is just 345 megawatts, one-third the
size of Vogtle’s reactors, making for a smaller investment.

New York Times 11th June 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/11/climate/bill-gates-nuclear-wyoming.html

June 14, 2024 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Biden hits ‘new low’ in arming ‘pro-Nazi’ Azov: US Congressman

ByAl Mayadeen English, Source: Agencies, 12 Jun 2024  https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/biden-hits–new-low–in-arming–pro-nazi–azov–us-congressm

Paul Gosar says the Biden administration’s decision to lift a ban on arms supplies to Ukraine’s Azov battalion prolongs the war.

US President Joe Biden has reached a new low after his administration decided to remove restrictions on arms supplies to Ukraine’s Azov battalion, US Congressman Paul Gosar pointed out on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post, citing the US State Department, reported that the Biden administration has lifted the ban on arms supplies to and training of the Azov battalion.

Established in 2014 by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists in the wake of the Western-backed Maidan riots, the Azov Battalion was included in the National Guard of Ukraine in November of that year.

The battalion has come under severe criticism for its support of Nazi ideology and symbols, as well as its human rights violations against the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s Supreme Court designated Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as a terrorist organization in August 2022.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov called the reported decision by the United States outrageous, adding that it raises serious concerns about US readiness to fight terrorism.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office last year accused Azov militants of employing prohibited means and methods of warfare, including the torture of civilians and the killing of children.

The battalion’s symbol is the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel, a black swastika against a yellow background. Founded by Andriy Biletsky, who vowed to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen,” the group is a pack of neo-Nazis working with the US-backed Ukrainian military.

June 13, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is ‘overblown’ as an energy source for data centers, power company CEO says

CNBC Spencer Kimball, MON, JUN 10

KEY POINTS

  • AES Corporation CEO Andrés Gluski said the “euphoria” over nuclear power has been a “little overblown.”
  • AES is a major power provider for large tech companies building out data centers, with more than 40% of its backlog coming from customers including Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
  • Gluski said renewables are the future, though natural gas will be needed as a transition fuel.

The euphoria over nuclear energy as a power source for data centers is “overblown,” the CEO of a major power provider for large tech companies told CNBC in an interview Monday.

AES Corporation CEO Andrés Gluski said renewable energy is the future, though natural gas will also play a role as a transition fuel. Nuclear power, on the other hand, faces challenges in meeting the growing power demand from data centers, Gluski said.

AES is a major power provider for large tech companies building out data centers, with more than 40% of its 12.7 gigawatt backlog coming from customers including Amazon, Microsoft and Google, according to its most recent earnings presentation to investors.

……………………Gluski said the “euphoria” over nuclear power is a “little overblown.” There is only so much existing nuclear energy that merchant power providers can re-contract to sites such as data centers, the CEO said.

“The question is, going forward, what’s the price of new nuclear,” Gluski said, adding that only one new nuclear plant has been built in the U.S. in decades and it came in far above budget.

‘The future is going to be renewable’

The second of two new nuclear reactors at Vogtle Plant in Georgia came online in April, but the project was seven years behind schedule and cost double the original projections, according to the Energy Information Administration. The reactors, operated by Georgia Power, are the first newly-constructed nuclear units built in the U.S. in more than 30 years, according to the Department of Energy.

……………………..Gluski pointed to the recent agreement between Microsoft and Brookfield Asset Management for 10.5 gigawatts of renewable energy between 2026 and 2030 as a sign of the future. Microsoft and Brookfield described the agreement as the largest renewable purchase ever between two corporate partners.

“It tells you that’s where most of the energy is going to be coming from,” Gluski said. “They are cheaper, they are clean and quite frankly easier to site, so the future is going to be renewable energy.”…………………………….

Solar, storage and wind represented about 95% of the power capacity in line waiting for connection to the grid at the end of 2023, while gas was just 3% and a grab bag made up the rest, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Renewables and storage in line for connection is nearly twice the installed capacity of the U.S. power plant fleet.

AES has already signed long-term contracts with data centers to provide them hourly matched renewable energy 24/7, Gluski said. “We’ve done that already for two years. So we can do that today,” he said.

AES signed an agreement with Google in 2021 to power its Virginia data center campus with 90% carbon-free energy on an hourly basis using a combination of wind, solar, hydro and battery storage resources.

The power company recently signed an agreement with Amazon for an additional gigawatt of solar and storage at a site in Kern County, California, bringing the project to a total of two gigawatts in a 15-year contract that is expected to come online in 2025 to 2026. AES has described the agreement as the largest solar and storage project in the U.S.

All told, the power company has signed agreements to provide Amazon with 3.1 gigawatts of power, Microsoft with 1.7 gigawatts, and Google with 800 megawatts, according to its first quarter earnings presentation.

“All of them want to be part of an energy transition,” Gluski said. “I don’t see anybody saying build me gas and coal plants to power my data centers, unless it’s a temporary situation, give me power from your gas plant until the renewables are available.”

AES stock is up 26% over the past three months and 6% year to date. Some 67% of Wall Street analysts rate AES the equivalent of a buy, 25% have a hold on the company’s stock and 8% rate it the equivalent of a sell.  https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/10/nuclear-is-overblown-as-energy-source-for-data-centers-aes-ceo-says.html

June 12, 2024 Posted by | ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

US Drone Flights Over Gaza Supported Israeli Operation That Killed Over 200 Palestinians in Nuseirat

A team of US special operations soldiers and intelligence personnel based in Israel assisted in the operation

by Dave DeCamp June 9, 2024 ,  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/06/09/us-drone-flights-over-gaza-supported-israeli-operation-that-killed-over-200-palestinians-in-nuseirat/

Israel received intelligence support from the US in its Saturday operation in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp that killed over 200 Palestinians and freed four Israeli hostages.

The intelligence support included information provided by US drone flights over Gaza. The US began flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Gaza days after October 7 and deployed special operations forces to Israel, demonstrating that US military support for Israel goes beyond providing weapons.

The Washington Post reported that a team of US special operations soldiers and intelligence personnel based at the US Embassy in Jerusalem provided the intelligence support. Besides the drone flights, the US provided communications intercepts, and Israel also received intelligence support from the UK.

Local residents said the Israeli special forces who carried out the raid were disguised as displaced Palestinians from Rafah, and others entered the camp in an aid truck. The Israeli military denied it used an aid truck, but Israeli media reported Israeli soldiers meant to blend in as Arabs were part of the attack. Israeli warplanes pounded Nuseirat as the Israeli commandos on the ground moved to locate the hostages.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 274 Palestinians were killed in the attack on Nuseirat, and 678 were wounded. Gaza’s Media Office said 64 of the dead were children, and 57 were women. The total death toll in Gaza since October 7 has surpassed 37,000.

Israel claimed it killed less than 100 people in the assault, while the US said it didn’t know how many people died. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan celebrated the assault and also acknowledged that “innocent people” were killed.

“We, the United States, are not in a position today to make a definitive statement about that. The Israeli defense forces have put out one number. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has put out another number,” Sullivan said. “But we do know this … Innocent people were tragically killed in this operation.”

Hamas alleged that the Israeli attack killed three other Israeli hostages, including an American citizen. The Palestinian group released a video of three corpses, but they were unidentifiable.

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Gaza has become a humanitarian catastrophe and Israel will have to answer tough questions

By global affairs editor John Lyons, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-10/israel-tough-questions-war-in-gaza/103956848?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=twitter&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web

“Frozen“ children — it’s an unusual description of an appalling reality.

They’re the words Sydney clinical psychologist Scarlett Wong used after a recent trip to Gaza with Doctors Without Borders.

“When you see a starving child, they are apathetic, they have no response,” she told SBS News. “This is the kind of thing we were seeing from a medical view … children have become frozen, with no emotion, and apathetic.”

The situation, Dr Wong said, was “the worst humanitarian disaster I have ever seen”.

Gaza has become one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our time. The UN’s World Food Programme has said parts of Gaza are now gripped by “a full-blown famine”. 

One of the few countries denying this is Israel. Not only is there not a famine, said Ron Dermer, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, but there is an abundance of food.

He told a startled Yalda Hakim on Sky UK recently that there were in fact “bustling markets” with fruit and vegetables.

Dermer’s claim defies all available evidence. Given the Israeli army has drones flying constantly across the tiny enclave, Dermer could have provided photographs of the “bustling markets”. Where are the photos?

According to Foreign Policy magazine, 30 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been bombed — many repeatedly — even while medical staff, patients and civilians seeking shelter remained inside. Satellite imagery shows vast sections of Gaza in rubble.

The Wall Street Journal reported that from October 7 to December 15, Israel dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on Gaza. This means that, on average, Israel hit every square kilometre of Gaza with 79 bombs, munitions or shells.

After just nine weeks of the war, the newspaper said the destruction of homes, schools and other buildings resembled “some of the most devastating campaigns in modern history”.

When the war does finish, the rebuilding of Gaza could take a generation. The Washington Post reported that the head of the UN’s Mine Action Program, Mungo Birch, said the number of unexploded missiles and bombs lying under the rubble was “unprecedented” since World War II and that Gaza was now the site of about 37 million tons of rubble — more than what had been generated across all of Ukraine during Russia’s war — and 800,000 tons of asbestos and other contaminants.

Has the response been proportional?

Over the weekend, Israel rescued four hostages captured on October 7 from a heavily populated refugee camp. Gazan authorities said at least 210 Palestinians were killed and 400 wounded during the rescue, which involved heavy bombardment.

Hamas has had its day of reckoning; the videos from October 7 would be, for any reasonable observer, proof of atrocities and war crimes. The videos and photos not released to the public are even more appalling. Hamas has kept hostages for more than eight months.

But Israel’s day of reckoning for its eight-month-long response is still to come. The question is, has its response been proportional?

Every country that engages in war has a day, or years, of reckoning. America had such a day after the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Australia has had — and continues to have — days of reckoning after its involvement in Afghanistan, with continuing investigations into possible war crimes.

Israel will argue that for self-defence it needed to ensure that Hamas was never again in a position to commit an attack. They will argue that throughout the war, Hamas has used civilians as human shields and that, therefore, a large number of civilians were killed.

But there will be very specific allegations that Israel will be under pressure to answer. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported this week that the Israeli military has been using white phosphorous in Gaza and south Lebanon. HRW noted that white phosphorous causes severe burns, often down to the bone, and burns to only 10 per cent of the body are often fatal. It said it can cause respiratory damage and organ failure.

“Using airburst white phosphorous is unlawfully indiscriminate in populated areas and otherwise does not meet this legal requirement to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm,” the group said. 

The HRW report also referenced the Israel-Lebanon border. It said Israel had engaged in “widespread” use of white phosphorous since October, including at least five municipalities where white phosphorous munitions were unlawfully airburst over populated residential areas. It said Lebanon should turn to the International Criminal Court and enable the prosecution of grave international crimes.

The ABC put these allegations to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), who said that like many western militaries, the IDF possesses “smoke-screen shells that include white phosphorous that are legal under international law”. 

“These shells are used by the IDF for creating smoke screens and not for targeting or causing fires and are not defined under law as incendiary weapons.”

Tough questions are being asked

As the war drags on, some media outlets are increasingly asking difficult questions of Israel.

CNN has conducted a major investigation of one of Israel’s “black site” prison facilities, where they claimed systemic torture of hundreds of Palestinians taken from Gaza is occurring. 

The US media outlet spoke to three Israeli whistleblowers from the facility who revealed atrocities ranging from doctors amputating prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing and medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics, which earned the facility a reputation for being “a paradise for interns” and a place “where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot”.

One medic from the facility said beatings of Palestinians were not done to gather intelligence but out of revenge for the October 7 attack. 

He said he was ordered to perform medical procedures on Palestinians for which he was not qualified: “I was asked to learn how to do things on the patients, performing minor medical procedures that are totally outside my expertise.”

June 11, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel, Legal, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Radioactive Tritium from Monticello Reactor Leaked to the Mississippi River

BY JOHN LAFORGE,  https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/06/10/radioactive-tritium-from-monticello-reactor-leaked-to-the-mississippi-river/

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has formally apologized for multiple false assurances from its staff that a major leak of radioactive tritium from Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear reactor had not reached the Mississippi River — the drinking water source for 20 million people, including, 3.7 million in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area.

In opening remarks to an NRC-sponsored public hearing at the Monticello (Minn.) Community Center May 15, 2024, senior NRC Branch 1 Environmental Project Manager Stephen Koenick, made jaws drop around the room when he quashed and corrected the NRC staff’s oft-repeated claims that 820,000 gallons of radioactive tritium-contaminated cooling water, that leaked from the 53-year-old reactor, had not been detected in the Mississippi.

Koenick said, “I would like to take a moment to address and clarify some miscommunication regarding the presence of detectable tritium in the Mississippi River. I know we … reported there [was] no indication [that the] tritium leak made it to the Mississippi. However, … in our Draft Environmental Impact Statement we … conclude there were some very low concentrations of tritium in the Mississippi River.” In this extremely rare and incriminating confession, Koenick went on: “So we apologize for this miscommunication.” (Transcribed from cellphone recording of the hearing.)

This official U-turn and apology from NRC managerial staff over its use of routinized PR-driven claims of “no danger to the public” — in this case regarding a major radioactive leak — should ravage the credibility an arguably industry-captured commission. Nothing it says should be taken at face value.

The NRC’s about-face nullifies months of repeatedly saying to the press, which then duly reported, that no detectable tritium had been found by Xcel’s testing of the Mississippi River. On March 18, 2023, NRC spokesperson Victoria Mitlyng even told the press, “There is no pathway for the tritium to get into drinking water.” Absurdly, even an official NRC email message sent to Nukewatch the same evening of the May 15 public hearing, states: “As far as the Mississippi River, samples taken from the river so far have not shown increased tritium concentrations.”

A week before the formal disavowal, on May 7, 2024, NRC presenters at an NRC-sponsored public hearing, held in the same Monticello community center, repeated on the record that Xcel had found “no detectable levels” of tritium in the Mississippi. Since the massive leak was disclosed in March 2023, Xcel has claimed, as it does in a company website posting (“Monticello Groundwater: Progress on the recovery and treatment of tritium in the groundwater….as of Nov. 18, 2023”): “We test the river regularly for tritium and have not found any, indicating that if it is present, it is at such low levels, and is dispersing so quickly, that it cannot be detected by highly sensitive instruments.”

Xcel’s tritium contamination of the Mississippi has been confirmed by the NRC’s April 2024 “draft Site-specific Environmental Impact Statement” (Draft EIS) regarding Xcel’s request for an extended operating license, and by Xcel’s own 2023 “Annual Radioactive Effluent Release Report”, which says on page 2: “Tritium was detected in newly developed MW-33A [monitoring well-33A] and MW-37A which resulted in MNGP [Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant] reporting an abnormal discharge to the Mississippi River.” Monitoring wells 33A and 37A are the two closest to the river.

Xcel has now, and for a second time, applied to the NRC for an extended operating license which, if granted, would allow the achey, breaky Monticello jalopy to run until the age of 80. No power reactor on earth has ever done so. Such official lying and its protection of corporate contamination of drinking water ought to be scandal enough to cancel any consideration of Xcel’s license extension. Public denunciations or “comments” on the NRC’s Draft EIS on the application are being accepted until June 25. To send yours, see: www.nukewatchinfo.org.

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter.

June 11, 2024 Posted by | environment, radiation, USA | 1 Comment

US issues major nuclear weapons alert amid fears of all-out war: ‘If that day comes…’

Hindustan Times, By Shweta Kukreti, Jun 08, 2024

The White House has issued a major warning, stating that the United States may have to broaden its nuclear weapons arsenal.

Amid rising geopolitical tensions, the White House has issued a major warning, stating that the United States may have to broaden its nuclear weapons arsenal in reaction to Russia, China, and North Korea expanding their nuke programs “at a breakneck pace”.

Speaking to the Arms Control Association on Friday, Pranay Vaddi, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Arms Control at the White House, stated: “Absent a change in adversary arsenals, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase from current deployed numbers is required. We need to be fully prepared to execute if the president makes that decision.”

If that day comes, Vaddi believes it will lead to the conclusion that additional nuclear arsenals are needed to dissuade US adversaries while also protecting the American people, and Washington’s allies, and partners.

Vaddi’s statements come amid rising tensions between the United States, Russia, and China, raising worries of an all-out conflict. In May, Russia carried out strategic nuclear arms training “in response to provocative statements and threats by individual Western officials.”…………………………………………………….

US’ alert comes after Putin’s warning

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened that he could deploy conventional missiles within range of Western powers after some of the countries granted Ukraine authorisation to use their weapons against Russian military targets on its own territory for the first time……………………………  https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/us-issues-major-nuclear-weapons-alert-amid-fears-of-all-out-war-if-that-day-comes-101717854501474.html

June 11, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine is a ‘gold mine’ – US senator

 https://swentr.site/news/599068-ukraine-gold-mine-us/ 10 June 24

Allowing a Russian victory in the conflict would deprive America of access to vast mineral resources, Lindsey Graham says.

Washington “cannot afford” to allow Russia to achieve victory in the Ukraine conflict as this would mean losing direct access to vast mineral assets, US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) has said.

In an interview with ‘Face the Nation’ on CBS on Sunday, Graham accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a “megalomaniac” who is attempting to “re-create the Russian Empire by force of arms,” starting with Ukraine. He further claimed that if Moscow wins the current conflict, it will then take over Ukraine’s wealth and share it with China. Graham described that prospect as “ridiculous,” suggesting it would be better if this “gold mine” were available to the US instead.

They’re sitting on 10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe… If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of, that $10 to $12 trillion of critical mineral assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China,” Graham stated.

Graham, a longtime Russia hawk and one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in the US Senate, also called on the West to speed up the seizure of $300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets. He reiterated his demands for Russia to be designated “a state sponsor of terrorism” under US law, a suggestion which earlier this year landed the senator on Moscow’s list of extremists and terrorists.

One day prior to Graham’s remarks, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban argued that the West wants Kiev to win the conflict with Russia so that it can control Ukraine’s wealth. In an interview with Hir TV, Orban accused the US and its allies of seeing Ukraine as a potentially huge source of revenue which they will be able to control, provided Russia is defeated. He also said the conflict is a major boost for Western “arms suppliers, creditors, and speculators,” arguing that this is the reason it has dragged on for so long.

Moscow has repeatedly stated throughout the conflict that its goals are to protect the largely Russian-speaking population of Donbass against persecution by Kiev, and to ensure Russia’s own security in light of NATO expansion toward its borders. Moscow has never spoken of any intention to take over Ukraine’s resources, but has repeatedly stressed that the former Ukrainian regions which have chosen to join Russia, including Crimea, must remain under its control.

June 11, 2024 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Why a substantive and verifiable no-first-use treaty for nuclear weapons is possible

a no-first-use treaty could prohibit verbal threats of first use of nuclear weapons by the governments and militaries of states parties. Threatening to use nuclear weapons first is a means of sending a coercive signal. Such threats can be a major cause of escalation of nuclear confrontation and constitute a dangerous nuclear risk that must be reduced. A no-first-use treaty can consider any verbal threat of first use of nuclear weapons as a violation that is not only harmful but also detectable. A clause prohibiting the threat of first use of nuclear weapons, if included in the treaty, is verifiable. With a no-first-use treaty in place, if a state party intends to threaten to use nuclear weapons first would mean it can only withdraw from the treaty or violate its no-first-use commitment, raising the cost of signaling a nuclear threat. In this way, a no-first-use treaty could play a significant role in nuclear risk reduction

By Li Bin | June 4, 2024  https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/us-issues-major-nuclear-weapons-alert-amid-fears-of-all-out-war-if-that-day-comes-101717854501474.html

Since conducting its first nuclear detonation in 1964, China has pledged to never be the first to use nuclear weapons and has urged other nuclear weapon states to make the same commitment by proposing that they negotiate a no-first-use treaty.

In the United States, there have also been domestic policy initiatives, including in 2017 when US Vice-President Joe Biden commented that “deterring—and if necessary, retaliating against—a nuclear attack should be the sole purpose of the US nuclear arsenal.” However, successive US administrations have failed to formally adopt a “sole-purpose” policy, nor have they responded positively to China’s no-first-use proposals. And there is little hope that President Biden will move forward with this policy before the US presidential election in November.

But silence is consent: Both presidential candidates, Biden and Donald Trump, need now to explain to their domestic and international audiences why the United States should not adopt the “sole-purpose” policy and why they refused as presidents to negotiate a no-first-use treaty with China.

Criticism. The “sole purpose” and “no-first-use” policies may differ in some details, but in general they are very similar (and I don’t distinguish between the two here). There are two sets of reasons for criticizing the idea of no-first-use. First, for some, a no-first-use policy is not considered credible or verifiable. Others argue that the United States must retain the option of first use of nuclear weapons and that a no-first-use policy is not in the United States’ interest. This second argument, however, should be judged and debated by US experts and lawmakers.

Continue reading →

June 11, 2024 Posted by | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader -on Joe Biden: Pushing America Deeper into the Russian/Ukrainian War

Is Joe Biden increasingly slipping America into the quagmire of the Russian/Ukrainian war? Something like the U.S. did in Vietnam?

Ralph Nader  https://nader.org/2024/06/08/joe-biden-pushing-america-deeper-into-the-russian-ukrainian-war/

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Biden announced that the U.S. government would help Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” Despite being someone who taught classes on the “separation of powers,” he nonetheless continues the unilateral presidential practice of starting or involving the U.S. in foreign wars without Congressional authority.

Biden, aware of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and Putin’s dictatorial rule, started out cautiously but soon proceeded to repeatedly change his “No’s” to “Yes’s” regarding increased aid to Ukraine.

First, Biden said “No” to sending an advanced missile and then said “Yes.” Then he said “No” to the latest tank and then said “Yes.” Then he said “No” to F-16 fighter planes and then said “Yes.” Then he said “No” to cluster bombs and then relented with these brutal child killer weapons. (According to Human Rights Watch, “Clearance is dangerous, time-consuming, and expensive. Doing it well involves highly trained professionals with specialized equipment carefully marking and examining land meter-by-meter.”)

Biden said “No” to using U.S.-supplied weapons to attack military targets within Russia. But then he said “Yes” to hit targets inside Russia for “limited purposes.” All along he opposed any soldiers from NATO going to Ukraine and now he is starting to relent, with some French “military advisers” on their way, that had to have had his approval.

Through the bloody World War I-type trench fighting with immense casualties on both sides, Joe Biden seems to be willing to arm Ukraine down to the last Ukrainian family. Everybody in his circle believes that only peace negotiations can end this war. Yet Biden failed to push his State Department and the UK Prime Minister to further productive negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Turkey during the first month of the war.

Biden accepted advice that Ukraine would get a better deal after the Russians were pushed back to the border. That has not happened and is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
So, the tens of billions of dollars flow to Ukraine. Israeli leaders used the legislation providing aid to Ukraine to secure more billions for weaponry and war costs from a deficit-ridden Biden budget. Meanwhile, crucial necessities of life for millions of American children and their needy parents remain underfunded or unfunded.

As for this Congress, with its rubber-stamp hoopla, its committees have continued a tradition of failing to have intensive policy oversight public hearings, as Senator William Fulbright had on the Vietnam War. The Afghan and Iraqi “wars of choice” (meaning they were illegal offensive wars) dragging on for many years witnessed a surrendering Congress avoiding serious public hearings, even on the annual $50 billion spent on these military adventures that circumvented the Committee process altogether.
Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, who has testified before Congressional Committees over 200 times, has written about this Congressional surrender in our print newspaper Capitol Hill Citizen(See, capitolhillcitizen.com) as well in his new report Congressional Surrender and Presidential Overreach, with a preface by Congressman Jamie Raskin.

Does anyone in the powerless citizenry really care that their most direct branch of government – its 535 legislators – is not exercising precise and serious constitutional obligations, such as having the exclusive war-declaring power? For many years now, U.S. presidents have been free to start wars, mini-wars, and armed incursions in any country they choose with total impunity. This is constitutional authority seized by the Executive Branch from Congress which doesn’t want the responsibility clearly invested in it by our Founding Fathers.

A little-noticed practical result from this Empire-meddling is that our government is avoiding leading a “peace race” and reviving the requisite arms control treaties, especially such as the long-time faltering or expiring nuclear arms treaties with Russia. Moreover, Biden is spending far more of his precious time weaponizing the Israeli genocide, while weakly waffling about the issue of Israel committing war crimes, rather than spending his time strengthening and defending all life-saving regulatory agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Interior, and Agriculture’s crucial missions for America. Moreover, there is a potential avian flu epidemic lurking on our dairy farms that is being neglected. (See, Dr. Rick Bright’s op-ed in the New York Times, June 5, 2024, titled, Why the New Human Case of Bird Flu Is So Alarming).

Biden has always been quick with the delivery of weapons and deployment of armed forces abroad and very slow with diplomatically driven conflict avoidance. The one very belated exception was the gridlocked war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2021, he left Afghanistan abruptly, without taking along several thousand terrified Afghans, who were working as drivers, technicians, and translators, who were dangerously exposed.

Joe Biden squares off in the first presidential debate against Trump on June 27, 2024. Convicted felon Donald knows how to dominate his opponents in debates, if the moderator lets shouting, lying Trump get away with violating the time rules. It is almost certain though that he will go after Biden’s “endless wars.” Biden better have a Gaza ceasefire in place, because the lawless, violent Netanyahu would love to have lawless Trump back in the White House. As President, Trump supported outright annexation of the Palestinian territories and Syria’s Golan Heights and recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Just a reminder from past columns, “Stop it, stop it now, Joe” was what Dr. Jill Biden said to her husband in December after seeing the mass slaughter of Palestinian infants and children. Send those wise words everywhere you can. Make them go VIRAL!

June 10, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

In D-Day Speech, Biden Celebrates Deaths of Russian Soldiers in Ukraine

Russia was not invited to the event in Normandy commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day

by Dave DeCamp June 6, 2024  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/06/06/in-d-day-speech-biden-celebrates-deaths-of-russian-soldiers-in-ukraine/

President Biden celebrated the deaths of Russian soldiers in Ukraine during a speech in Normandy, France, commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

“They’ve suffered tremendous losses, Russia. The numbers are staggering — 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded. Nearly 1 million people have left Russia because they can no longer see a future in Russia,” Biden said.

The real number of dead or wounded troops in the Ukraine war is unclear since neither side shares information about casualties. But it’s likely Ukraine has suffered more casualties since the conflict is largely an artillery war, and Ukrainian forces have been significantly outgunned.

Russian officials were not invited to the D-Day commemoration despite the Soviet Union being an ally of the US and France during World War II and suffering tens of millions of deaths. Biden used the event to rally support for NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine and slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “tyrant.”

“We know the dark forces that these heroes fought against 80 years ago.  They never fade,” Biden said. “Here, in Europe, we see one stark example.  Ukraine has been invaded by a tyrant bent on domination.”

Biden also declared that NATO was the “greatest military alliance in the history of the world” and framed the proxy war in Ukraine as a battle for “democracy” despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky canceling elections and remaining in power after his term ended.


“Let us be the generation that when history is written about our time — in 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years from now — it will be said: When the moment came, we met the moment. We stood strong.  Our alliances were made stronger. And we saved democracy in our time as well,” Biden said.

Biden’s speech came about a week after he gave Ukraine the green light to use US-provided missiles to strike Russian territory, a significant escalation that risks sparking World War III. Putin has warned of “serious consequences” for NATO countries that support strikes on Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron is preparing another major escalation of the proxy war. According to a report from Reuters, the French president is holding a meeting with Zelensky on Friday and could announce a deployment of French troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers. Russia has warned that any French trainers in Ukraine would be legitimate targets.

June 10, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

President Biden’s subliminal D Day speech in France

Walt Zlotow. 9 June 24

President Biden’s subliminal D Day speech in France We heard the 1,800 words President Biden spoke at the 80th anniversary of the D Day invasion Tuesday. But below the surface was the subliminal message that coursed thru Biden’s mind, reflecting his real, tho unheard meaning.

D Day Biden: “Today, NATO stands at 32 countries strong. And NATO is more united than ever and even more prepared to keep the peace, deter aggression, defend freedom all around the world.”

Subliminal Biden: “NATO should have disbanded 30 years ago upon the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it provides billions to US weapons markers and allows America to dominate Europe and weaken Russia.”

D Day Biden: We know the dark forces that these heroes fought against 80 years ago. They never fade. Aggression and greed, the desire to dominate and control, to change borders by force — these are perennial.

Subliminal Biden: “Actually, that pretty much sums up American foreign policy in the 21st century. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Ukraine, Gaza…all turned into failed states from American aggression.”

D Day Biden: “Ukraine has been invaded by a tyrant bent on domination Subliminal Biden: “Took America 8 years after we helped depose Russian leaning Ukraine President Yanukovych, but we finally provoked Russia to defend its borders from NATO nukes and save Donbas Ukrainians we armed Kiev to slaughter. D Day Biden: “Ukrainians are fighting with extraordinary courage, suffering great losses, but never backing down. They’ve inflicted on the Russian aggressors — they’ve suffered tremendous losses, Russia. The numbers are staggering — 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded. Nearly 1 million people have left Russia because they can no longer see a future in Russia.”

Subliminal Biden: “Ukrainian men are fleeing the draft in greater proportion than Russian men. Ukraine losses dwarf Russia’s, so much so Ukraine is running out of new cannon fodder. But America demands Ukraine keep fighting to weaken Russia on America’s behalf till the last Ukrainian solder is kaput.”

D Day Biden: “The United States and NATO and a coalition of more than 50 countries standing strong with Ukraine. We will not walk away because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated.

Subliminal Biden: “Neither the US or its 31 NATO allies will shed 1 drop of blood to save Ukraine from losing the Donbas it has been subjugating for the past 10 years, and collapsing into failed state status.” .

D Day Biden: “And make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked. We cannot let that happen.”

Subliminal Biden: “Actually, the rest of the world outside of NATO, is horrified America is stupidly seeking to extend its unipolar dominance long after its shelf life has expired.”

D Day Biden: “And we must remember: The fact that they were heroes here on D Day does not absolve us from what we have to do today.”

Subliminal Biden: “Keeping the Ukraine war going with billions in weapons instead of negotiating a mutually acceptable ceasefire, is not a good way to honor all who died here on D Day to achieve peace.”

June 10, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »