OCEANIA « nuclear-news

Leaders in the Pacific raise alarm over ‘direct impact’ of Trump’s climate retreat and aid freeze

Leaders and environmental advocates in the Pacific have expressed alarm
over Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement
and freeze foreign aid, warning the moves will accelerate the existential
threats they face as nations on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Guardian 1st Feb 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/leaders-in-the-pacific-raise-alarm-over-direct-impact-of-trumps-climate-retreat-and-aid-freeze

February 3, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, OCEANIA | Leave a comment

New Zealand is under siege by the Atlas Network

We have a handful of years to achieve a monumental shift from fossil fuel towards renewable energy: Atlas partners aim to ensure this does not take place.

March 3, 2024, by: Lucy Hamilton, https://theaimn.com/new-zealand-is-under-siege-by-the-atlas-network/—

Just as the Atlas Network-connected Advance body intervened in the Voice referendum in Australia and, in recent weeks, a by-election, similar organisations spawned from the American model are distorting New Zealand’s politics from within as well as from without.

One of the key researchers into the Atlas Network, Lee Fang, observed that it has “reshaped political power in country after country.” In America, every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has begun office with a Roadmap provided by the Heritage Foundation, primary Atlas Network partner. The “Mandate” for 2025 puts America on a hard path to fascism should a Republican win in November. Britain’s economy and standing have been savaged by Atlas partners’ impacts on the Tories. In New Zealand, the recently-elected rightwing coalition government is aping the new “Atlas president” of Argentina, aiming to privatise national assets, but is increasingly also imitating Atlas strategies recently seen in Australia, inflaming racial tensions and harming the wellbeing of Māori people.

Dr Jeremy Walker called Australia’s attention to the local Atlas partner organisations’ impact on the Voice to Parliament referendum and is now helping draw together the focus on the New Zealand partners’ very similar distortion of their national debate. There is a deep racism at the heart of this ultra-free market ideology that has licensed the international right to exploit resources and people around the globe untrammelled, largely in American corporate interest, but more broadly for any corporation or allied sector big enough to be a contender. (They do not, by contrast, fight for the renewable energy sector’s interests, as a competitor to their dominant fossil fuel donors; this shapes their climate crisis denial and delay, and colours their loathing of First People’s capacity to interfere with their profits by environment-driven protest. A sense of Western Civilisation as the apex of human existence and deep disdain for non-Western cultures also pervade the network.)

The Atlas model is to connect and foster talent in the neoliberal sphere. Young men (mostly) are funded or trained to replicate the talking points that Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWI) and lobbyists have built into a global network of over 500 bodies in 100 nations. The fact that neoliberal orthodoxies are more religious ideology that fact-based theories explains why their impact has been so utterly disastrous everywhere they have reshaped societies. The goal is to spawn replicating bodies with benign-sounding names that promote the UHNWI and corporate talking points – but with a veil hiding the self-interest that is obvious when those groups speak for themselves. Some of the bodies feign being thinktanks, which George Monbiot recently renamed junktanks to clarify their disingenuousness. Others are “astroturf” organisations that pretend to be grass roots bodies representing popular opinion. Another model is the beach-head in universities, an independent organisation within those institutions intended to dignify the neoliberal religion and the chosen strategies, including climate denial. All these produce material to fill civic debate and train more acolytes to enter politics, strategy companies and junktanks. Mainstream media elevates their standing by hosting their operatives as experts without explaining that the benign-sounding organisation to which they belong is a foreign-influence operation’s local outlet.

These groups damage local conditions to favour international corporations. They lobby for the removal of the “regulations” that are actually protections for the public – as workers, as consumers, as residents. They push for the privatisation of national treasures so that (often foreign) corporations can exploit the profits at the expense of the public. The greater the damage to the local democracy, the easier it is for them to act unimpeded. The stronger their infiltration of the media, the harder it is for the local electorate to understand the stakes. The politicians and strategists that emerge from the sphere (or are its allies) know that none of this wins votes, so they fill the space with culture war division to distract the voter from paying attention. Race and sexuality are their most obvious targets, as reactionary nostalgia for a mythical past of white picket fences pervades their ideology: a valorisation of “Christianity” and “family” and the “sacredness of marriage” (preached by adulterous politicians) is equally apparent in their propaganda.

The coalition that took power in NZ late in 2023, after a campaign centred on attacking the country’s founding Waitangi Treaty, has considerable Atlas infiltration. There is concern about Atlas fossil fuel and associated tobacco interests perverting policy in parliament, as well as senior ministerial aides who might be compromised. The government has promised to repeal Jacinda Ardern’s ban on offshore gas and fuel exploration, plans to sell water to private interests, not to mention planning to enable the selling off of “sensitive” NZ land and assets to foreign corporations, just as Argentinian Milei is intending.’

One of the government members, the Act Party, began its existence as an Atlas partner thinktank and continues that close connection. It was founded by former parliamentarian Denis Quigley with two members of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS), the Atlas Network’s inner sanctum. One, Roger Douglas, was responsible for Rogernomics in NZ which has been described as a “right wing coup” that worked to “dismantle the welfare state.” The other, Alan Gibbs, who has been characterised as the godfather of the party, and a major funder, argued Act ought to campaign for government to privatise “all the schools, all the hospitals and all the roads.” This may not be surprising since he made much of his fortune out of the privatisation of NZ’s telecommunications.

The Act Party is currently led by David Seymour who functions as a co-deputy prime minister in the government. He has worked almost his entire adult life within Atlas partner bodies in Canada and boasts a (micro) MBA dispensed by the Network.

In Seymour’s 2021 Waitangi Day speech, he acknowledged his “old friends at the Atlas Network.” In light of that, his recent disdainful and absolute dismissal of the party’s connection to Atlas in an interview was telling: he clearly felt the association was damaging enough to lie outright.

Seymour is also deeply antagonistic to policies dedicated to repairing the disadvantage suffered by Māori people, disingenuously describing provisions that work cooperatively with Māori people as the “dismantling of democracy.” He appears antagonistic to Māori culture.

Another Atlas partner that has been key to distorting debate in NZ is the Taxpayer Union (TPU) which is emblematic of the production of metastasising bodies central to the Atlas strategy. Its co-founder and executive director is another graduate of the Atlas (micro) MBA program. Jordan Williams (currently “capo di tutti capi” of the Atlas global alliance of anti-tax junktanks) laughably depicts Atlas as a benign “club of like-minded think tanks.” He created, however, a body called the Campaign Company which helped radicalise the established farmer power base in NZ politics, planting sponsored material in the media. Williams claimed to grant the farmers “world-class campaign tools and digital strategies.” He also co-founded the Free Speech Union (FSU), which is unsurprisingly fighting regulation of the damaging impact of internet disinformation as well as fostering culture war battles.

A further spin-off of the bodies illustrates the increasing ugliness of the populist strategies. A former Act Party MP has founded the New Zealand Centre for Political Research which is fomenting civic division against Māori interests, including placing hate-mongering advertisements in the media.

The Act Party (alongside the populist New Zealand First party) is at the heart of the coalition government’s intention to destroy NZ’s admirable efforts to promote Māori interests for the betterment of the commonwealth, including the co-governance innovation. Efforts to undo disadvantage and programs that have promoted the distinctive NZ democratic experiment are set to be dismantled. A “massive unravelling” of Māori rights is at stake.

It is not only Māori people who will suffer. The NZ coalition government is also attempting a kind of “shock therapy” that did so much to tip first Chile and then other “developing” nations into brutal pain in pursuit of market “freedom.” The MPS was at the heart of Pinochet’s neoliberal brutality, resulting from Nixon’s injunction to make the Chilean economy scream.[1] New Zealand now faces cuts to a range of services, welfare and disability payments, even while the new PM, one of NZ’s wealthiest ever holders of the role, charged the taxpayer NZD 52,000 to live in his own property. It’s important to remember that this kind of entitlement is the sort that the neoliberals like, alongside subsidies to industry and corporations.

Lord Hannan (one of Boris Johnson’s elevations to the peerage, and a junktank creature) recently spoke in NZ, welcoming “all the coalition partners around this table” to hear his oration. There he celebrated the small percentage of GDP that NZ’s government spends on its people, cheering on the TPU’s power. He also disdained the “tribalism” that has dictated recognition of First Peoples’ suffering. There is grand (but unsurprising) irony in a graduate of three of Britain’s preeminent educational institutions dictating that humanity’s essential equality is all that can be considered when devising policy, particularly in settler-colonial nations.

Amusingly the weightier debunking of the Atlas connections has come from: Chris Trotter, formerly centre left, now a council member of Williams’ FSU; Eric Crampton, chief economist of the New Zealand Initiative, NZ’s leading Atlas partner and Sean Plunkett whose “anti-woke” vanity media platform, Platform, is plutocrat funded and regularly platforms the NZI talking heads.

While Atlas’s system largely functions to connect and train operatives, as well as acting as an extension of American foreign policy, this modest-seeming program must not be ignored. We have a handful of years to achieve a monumental shift from fossil fuel towards renewable energy: Atlas partners aim to ensure this does not take place.

And Atlas partners will push us at each other’s throats while we procrastinate.

[1] That MPS intervention resulted in massive unemployment, extraordinary inequality, and fire-sale prices of national assets to cronies. Much of Chile’s later success is as likely to be attributable to the trade requirements of (statist) China whose demand for copper has done so much to enrich Chile.

January 1, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | New Zealand, Reference, Reference archives, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Grazing sheep among solar panels could produce higher quality wool, study finds

Sophie Vorrath, Nov 1, 2024,
https://reneweconomy.com.au/grazing-sheep-among-solar-panels-could-produce-higher-quality-wool-study-finds/

The co-location of solar farming with sheep grazing does not have a negative affect on wool production and could even improve the quality of the wool produced, a new study has found.

The study is based on the results of a second round of wool testing at the Wellington solar farm, south east of Dubbo in New South Wales, which has shared its site with 1,700 merino sheep for the past three years.

Legend has it that the decision to graze sheep at the solar farm came about when an employee of Lightsource bp, the owner of the Wellington project, complained to a local, sixth-generation wool farmer about the hassle and cost of mowing the solar farm six times a year.

According to Tony Inder, who heads up the Allendale Merino Stud, the effect on his sheep has been a lot better than he thought it would be – he says the wool quality they are producing has “increased significantly.”

But Lightsource bp – which is now wholly owned by the oil and gas giant BP, after completing the acquisition of the remaining 50.03% interest – has used the opportunity to gather some formal data.

The study, conducted by EMM Consulting with support from Elders Rural Services, compares two groups of merino sheep – one group grazed in a regular paddock and the other at the Wellington solar farm.

The latest findings show grazing sheep among solar panels does no harm to wool production, even in the case of pre-existing high-quality standards. And it says that some parameters even indicate an improvement in wool quality, although conclusive benefits require further long-term measurement.

Lightsource bp says that while the study at the Wellington solar farm is ongoing, it is another indication that solar farms can exist side-by-side with sheep farming, for the benefit of both enterprises.

“These results are very encouraging and highlight the potential for solar farms to complement agricultural practices,” says Emilien Simonot, Lightsource bp’s head of agrivoltaics.

“By integrating sheep farming with solar energy production, we can achieve dual benefits of sustainable energy together with agricultural output.” . By co-locating grazing with renewable energy, land can remain in agricultural use, offering farmers additional revenue while contributing to cleaner energy for the planet.

“Finding ways for agriculture and clean energy to work together is crucial for a more sustainable future,” says Brendan Clarke, interim head o environmental planning Australia and NZ at Lightsource bp.

“The promising results from this study indicate that we are on the right path, and working closely with farmers to grow our knowledge in this area is paramount.”

As for the sheep, Inder says they “just do really well” when grazing among the Wellington solar farm panels.

“I like to say that panel sheep are happy sheep.”

Sophie Vorrath

Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. She is the co-host of the Solar Insiders Podcast. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.

November 4, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | New Zealand, renewable | Leave a comment

Inside the radioactive island with mutant sharks that was used to test nuclear bombs

The water….remains undrinkable and sealife and plants cannot be eaten due to the radioactive water and soil.

The Defence Department concluded in the ’70s that the soil was so contained with cesium-137 and strontium-90 – both taking about three decades to decay, called a half-life – that the best course of action was to just let it rot.

Plutonium-239, however, takes a little longer; 24,000 years..…………………

Josh Milton, Oct 26, 2024,
https://metro.co.uk/2024/10/26/inside-radioactive-island-mutant-sharks-caused-nuclear-bombs-21376332/

Mutant sharks. White sand laced with plutonium. Water tainted with strontium. Hub cap-sized hermit crabs eating coconuts containing caesium. A dome ‘coffin’ crammed with radioactive material in plastic bags.

The Marshall Islands, a ring of coral reefs in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, looks like the perfect place to throw on a floppy sun hat and read a book below swaying palm trees.

But in the 1940s and ’50s, the US used two of the far-flung atolls, Bikini and Enewetak, to test out 67 nuclear bombs.

One was 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, according to Hibakusha Worldwide, which tracks nuclear incidents.

This was part of Operation Crossroad, an atomic testing programme that came out of the anxiety of the Cold War.

With 52,000 Marshallese people calling the islands home at the time, the 20 islands are the remnants of ancient volcanoes halfway between Hawaii and Australia.

Yet entire islands were vaporized and craters gouged into its shallow lagoons, forcing hundreds of people out of their homes, never to return.

Bikini Atoll now has such a reputation for groovy wildlife it inspired the setting of Spongebob Squarepants.

While the islands are unlikely home to talking sponges, the radiation that lingers in its waters is impacting the wildlife.

Nurse sharks with just one dorsal fin swim around the Bikini Atoll and car-sized coral grows along the seafloor.

‘Popular belief is that radiation causes mutations, and you know what, it’s true,’ Steve Palumbi, a professor of marine sciences also at Stanford, told The Sun.

Even low levels of radiation can cause genetic mutations. Caesium, strontium and other radioactive isotopes break apart DNA, compressing thousands of years of evolution into a few decades in what one paper once described as ‘unnatural selection‘.

Marine life is on the rebound in Bikini. ‘The fact there is life there and the life there is trying to come back from the most violent thing we’ve ever done to it is pretty hopeful,’ said Steve Palumbi, a professor in marine sciences at Stanford University.

The water, though, remains undrinkable and sealife and plants cannot be eaten due to the radioactive water and soil.

People living on nearby islands, now part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, during and after the testing show a higher risk of developing cancer – not one of the top two causes of death – and birth defects.

The list of woes for the Marshallese does not end there, with rising sea levels fuelled by climate change slowly swallowing up the habitable atolls.

The largest nuclear detonation was the hydrogen bomb Castle Bravo, fired on March 1, 1954, in Bikini. As the mushroom-shaped clast cast a shadow over the island, the radioactive fallout and debris spewed well beyond the shorelines.

‘Traces of radioactive material were later found in parts of Japan, India, Australia, Europe, and the US,’ says the Atomic Heritage Foundation.

‘This was the worst radiological disaster in US history and caused worldwide backlash against atmospheric nuclear testing.’

Bikini, the colonial spelling of Pikinni, became so radioactive there’s little hope it’ll ever be habitable.

After the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 put an end to atmospheric nuclear testing, this left American officials – and the islands’ displaced citizens – with one option: wait.

Plutonium-239, however, takes a little longer; 24,000 years. The US dumped 437 plastic bags filled with lumps of plutonium that had spewed after a bomb misfired into a 33-foot crater left behind in 1958 by a nuke on Runit Island.

That, and about 35 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of radioactive soil and nuclear waste.

The crater was plugged up by a 350-foot-wide slab of concrete called the Runit Dome, which locals call ‘The Tomb’, in the ’70s. The dome almost looks like something from a science fiction movie, surrounded by a tropical paradise.

And the dome is leaking. ‘The dome is a significant visible scar on the landscape,’ Ken Buesseler, a marine radioactivity expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), told Oceans magazine in 2020.

But it’s a relatively small source of radioactivity.’

Overall, more than half of the 167 original inhabitants of Bikini Atoll have died. Some started showing cancers related to radiation exposure in the 1960s, while people living downwind of the explosions suffered burns and low blood counts.

Several generations later, about 5,400 Bikinians are still living in exile. Some live on a lone Pacific island called Kili, roughly 400 miles from Bikini, and others from Honolulu to the ‘Wheat Capital’ of Oklahoma, Enid.

Bikini Atoll largely remains uninhabited, with a tiny caretaker team taking care of the island infrastructure and divers pop in from time to time.

Bikinians continue to fight, however. Lobbying the US Congress for money to redevelop and clean up the place they once called home.

Scientists are hopeful. Remediation efforts include sprinkling affected areas with potassium fertilizer which reduces how much cesium-137 seeps into locally grown crops. How radioactive the soil is has also been decreasing.

The Marshall Islands Program advises that, once resettlement finally begins, a radiation monitoring programme be set up.

‘In this way, the Kili-Bikini-Ejit Local Government and the people of Bikini can be assured that radiological conditions on the islands remain at or below applicable safety standards, and the United States Government can avoid mistakes of the past,’ the programme says.

October 28, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, OCEANIA | Leave a comment

Waihopai is a Secret U.S. Spy Base in New Zealand Designed for War-fighting

Global Peace and Justice A0TEAROA) By Murray Horton, August 29, 2024

Murray Horton is organiser of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) and an advocate of a range of progressive causes for the past five decades.
He can be reached at: cafca.

Reprinted from Covert Action Magazine

The news that the Waihopai spy base was going to be built led to the birth of the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) in 1987. ABC has campaigned for the closure of Waihopai ever since (our most recent protest there was in 2023).

We have consistently said that it is a U.S. spy base in all but name, i.e., that the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB, NZ’s spy agency in the Five Eyes international spy alliance) works as directed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). We have also consistently said that it is a war-fighting base, not just a spy base. The powers that be in New Zealand’s covert state, and their political mouthpieces, have always denied this and/or asked for evidence?

Soothing Reassurances from GCSB Bosses

For example, this from The New Zealand Herald, (April 9, 2010), with the eye-catching title “It’s ours and it’s not evil, say spy-base masters”:

“New Zealand’s secret spies emerged from the shadows yesterday to deny their Waihopai station is an American spy base contributing to torture and war. Present and past Directors of the Government Communications Security Bureau took the unusual step of commenting publicly on allegations made during and after last month’s trial in which a jury acquitted teacher Adrian Leason, 45, Dominican friar Peter Murnane, 69, and farmer Sam Land, 26, of charges of burglary and willful damage after they broke into the base in Marlborough.”

“Father Murnane said after the verdict: ‘We have shown New Zealanders there is a U.S. spy base in our midst.’ In court, he said the trio felt strongly about the evil caused by activities of spy bases, such as torture, war and use of weapons of mass destruction such as depleted uranium. Air Marshal Sir Bruce Ferguson, the Bureau’s Director, and his predecessor, Dr. Warren Tucker, said the allegations demanded a response because they brought into question the integrity of New Zealand’s security and intelligence apparatus. ‘The Waihopai station is not a U.S.-run spy base,’ they said. ‘It is totally operated and controlled by New Zealand, through the GCSB as an arm of the New Zealand Government.’”

Waihopai Hosted U.S. NSA Spying/War-Fighting System for Nearly a Decade

Case closed? Not so fast. The year 2024 has unearthed fresh revelations. According to RNZ News, “The operation—that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) did not tell government ministers about—ran from 2013-20, but was only exposed by an official watchdog last month [March 2024)]. Intelligence documents strongly suggest the bureau hosted—but exercised virtually no oversight over—a system run by the U.S. National Security Agency [NSA] to help acquire targets classified as terrorists for killer drones, bombs and raids using GCSB data.”

The article continued: “An important aspect of the deal document—called a memorandum of understanding (MOU)—was that it dealt with concerns that arose within the GCSB about the system’s military capabilities. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) said the system was ‘largely controlled by the partner agency,’ even though the bureau could have vetoed operations it did not like under the MOU. It chose instead not to keep track of them, the inspector-general’s report last month showed.”

“The public report did not identify the foreign agency, and the inspector-general later told RNZ he did not ask if the system was used for military operations. His report revealed the MOU was signed with the foreign agency in March 2012 by a GCSB deputy director. An internal GCSB document from 2012 showed it signed an MOU with the NSA that year to host the APPARITION system.”

“‘The decision to host the capability on the terms set out in the MOU was significant, particularly given the potential uses of the capability to support military operations,’ said the inspector-general report. The MOU was poorly implemented, it said. A subsequent policy requires the bureau to get ministerial approval for an international agreement that deals with new policy. The inspector-general said this should be triggered if the bureau looked at a hosting deal like this again.”

Nicky Hager Explains APPARITION

So, what was this all about? Fortunately, we could rely on Nicky Hager to flesh out the details. Here’s what he wrote: “The IGIS [Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security] report said the GCSB decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was ‘improper’ and that the GCSB ‘could not be sure the tasking of the capability was always in accordance with…New Zealand law.’ The Inspector-General said: ‘I have found some of the GCSB’s explanations about how the capability operated and was tasked to be incongruous with information in GCSB records at the time.’”

Hager continued: “But the Inspector-General could not reveal details of the system to the public because they are ‘highly classified.’ The name and function of the foreign spy spying equipment, the identity of the ‘foreign partner agency’ and the location of the ‘GCSB facility’ where foreign equipment was hosted all remained secret.”

“The mystery spy equipment appears strongly to be a top-secret U.S. surveillance system that was installed at the GCSB’s Waihopai base at the same time as the equipment in the IGIS investigation was installed at a ‘GCSB facility.’ The top-secret NSA spy equipment had the ghostly codename ‘APPARITION’ and fits with all the details presented in the IGIS report.”

“APPARITION was owned by and controlled by the U.S. National Security Agency—the world’s largest intelligence gathering agency and head of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that includes the GCSB. A[n] NSA internal report, written after the launch of the APPARITION system in 2008, said that it ‘builds on the success of the GHOSTHUNTER prototype…a tool that enabled a significant number of capture-kill operations against terrorists.’”

“Capture-kill operations involve lethal attacks on targeted people using drones, bombs and special forces raids. Human rights organisations have documented numerous deaths of civilians during capture-kill operations—many of them ‘algorithmically targeted’ by electronic surveillance systems such as APPARITION. They are also criticised as being ‘extra-judicial killings.’”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Waihopai Domes Gone But It Continues Spying

RNZ News reported that “[t]he various NSA and GCSB reports quoted were part of the trove of top secret reports released by the U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. The APPARITION documents do not say what the NSA used the Waihopai-based APPARITION equipment to target. However GCSB used the equipment for its own targeting as well.”

“Another 2012 Snowden document suggests that the Waihopai base was intercepting VSAT communications in the Pacific by targeting the NSS-9 satellite, which was located at 183 degrees east. The 2012 report discusses technology changes affecting Waihopai’s ‘South Pacific mission’ including the ‘ViaSat Skylink VSAT links,’ the NSS-9 satellite. It’s unclear whether this VSAT surveillance involved APPARITION.”…………………………………………………..

In 2022 the GCSB announced ‘Removal of Waihōpai spy base surveillance domes begins’ and media reported that the ‘virtually obsolete’ Waihopai spy domes were being dismantled.” “Some people, including journalists, assumed that the Waihopai station was ceasing to be an intelligence base. However Waihopai continues to intercept a range of satellites with more modern antennas and processing equipment as part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.”

New Zealand Has Blood on Its Hands. Shut Waihopai and GCSB

So, there we have it. While the GCSB spy bosses have been making reassuring noises all along, the reality is that, for nearly a decade (and a very recent decade at that), the GCSB was hosting, at Waihopai, a U.S. NSA system over which the GCSB had no control—by choice—and which was not known to the various Ministers who were nominally “in charge” of the GCSB. This period spanned both the Key National government and the Ardern Labour government, so both major parties were equally ignorant and culpable.

Furthermore, this NSA system was not only for spying but for capturing and/or killing targets via drones, missiles, bombs or attacks by special forces in countries far removed from New Zealand. Such military strikes inevitably kill family members, neighbors, bystanders and innocent civilians in general. This means that New Zealand very much has blood on its hands.

As the ABC has said from the outset, Waihopai is a U.S. spy base and a war-fighting one. The GCSB is a willingly complicit junior partner of the NSA. This is the proof. And it makes even more urgent the case for shutting down both Waihopai and the GCSB. https://gpja.org.nz/2024/08/29/waihopai-is-a-secret-u-s-spy-base-in-new-zealand-designed-for-war-fighting/

August 29, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | New Zealand, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Pacific leaders, Japan, agree on Fukushima nuclear wastewater discharge (not everyone is happy)

RNZ 19 July 2024 , By Pita Ligaiula in Tokyo

Consensus has been reached by Pacific leaders with Japan to address the controversial release of treated nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

In August last year, Japan began discharging waste from about 1000 storage tanks holding 1.34 million metric tons of contaminated water collected after an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that caused the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The agreement came at the Japanese hosted 10th Pacific Island Leaders Meeting (PALM10) on Thursday in the capital Tokyo attended by most of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) country leaders…………………………..

Pacific leaders emphasised the importance of a shared commitment to safeguarding the health, environment, and marine resources of the Pacific region and a need for transparency from Japan………………………………………….

TEPCO uses a process known as Advanced Liquid Processing System involving special filters which remove from the contaminated water most of the 62 types of radioactive materials, radionuclides such as cesium, strontium, iodine and cobalt but not tritium.

The leaders agreed to keep the ALPS treated water issue as a standing agenda item for future PALM meetings with Japan, supported by an ongoing review process. Their decision reflects concerns about addressing the long-term implications and ensuring continuous monitoring and evaluation.

While consensus was reached at the summit, the wastewater release continues to be questioned by some scientists.

Director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, Research Professor Robert Richmond, said concerns remain regarding the efficacy of the ALPS treatment and the contents of the thousands of storage tanks of radioactive wastewater.

“The long-term effects of this discharge on Pacific marine ecosystems and those who depend on them are still unknown. Even small doses of radiation can cause cancer or genetic damage,” Richmond said in a statement to BenarNews after the agreement.

He criticised the current monitoring program as inadequate and poorly designed, failing to protect ocean and human health.

“The discharge, planned to continue for decades, is irreversible. Radionuclides bioaccumulate in marine organisms and can be passed up the food web, affecting marine life and humans who consume affected seafood,” Richmond said……………………………………………… https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/522582/pacific-leaders-japan-agree-on-fukushima-nuclear-wastewater-discharge—

July 23, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, oceans, wastes | Leave a comment

Philippines Says US Will Pull Out Controversial Mid-Range Missile System

The US deployed the Typhon missile system for annual military drills

by Dave DeCamp July 4, 2024 ore https://news.antiwar.com/2024/07/04/philippines-says-us-will-pull-out-controversial-mid-range-missile-system/

On Thursday, the Philippines said the US was pulling out a new missile system it deployed to the Southeast Asian country for annual military exercises.

The US sent the Typhon missile system for the Balikatan exercises, which were held in April and May. The Typhon is a controversial launcher since it would have been banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a treaty between the US and Russia that the Trump administration withdrew from in 2019.

The INF prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles. The Typhon can launch nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of about 1,000 miles. It can also fire SM-6 missiles, which can hit targets up to 290 miles away.

Philippine Col. Louie Dema-ala told AFP that the US planned to withdraw the Typhon from the Philippines following the military exercises. “As per plan… it will be shipped out of the country in September or even earlier,” he said. “The US Army is currently shipping out their equipment that we used during Balikatan and Salaknib (exercises).”

China strongly condemned the deployment of the Typhon system, which US officials have acknowledged was developed to prepare for a future conflict with Beijing over Taiwan or the South China Sea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also recently mentioned the deployment. He made the comments when calling for Moscow to follow the US and develop missile systems previously banned by the INF.

“We need to start production of these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where — if necessary to ensure our safety — to place them,” Putin said last week.

“Today it is known that the United States not only produces these missile systems, but has already brought them to Europe for exercises, to Denmark. Quite recently it was announced that they are in the Philippines,” the Russian leader added.

July 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Philippines, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Guam’s fight for radiation exposure compensation ‘far from over’

RNZ, By Mar-Vic Cagurangan, Pacific Island Times, 17 June 24

Despite nearly two decades of relentless lobbying, Guam’s hopes to finally be included in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) crumbled anew when the US House Republican leadership let the program expire without extension or expansion.

While the RECA extension and expansion proposal received bipartisan support in the US Senate, House Speaker Mike Johnson shunned its inclusion in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.

Guam Delegate James Moylan said the House Rules Committee ruled his amendment to incorporate the RECA expansion language into the defense spending policy bill “out of order”. As a result, the language didn’t make it to the floor for the House vote.

“The primary reason was that offset costs were not provided, which were estimated at around US$50 billion,” Moylan said in a statement.

“This mirrors the message from House leadership when referencing the RECA measure passed by the Senate, and many in the House, including myself, have been requesting for a vote to take place on the floor.”

RECA, the 1990 legislation that provided financial compensation for atomic test downwinders in three states and pre-1971 uranium miners, expired on June 10.

The expanded version would have added Guam, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana and New Mexico to the list of areas currently included in RECA, namely Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

“The Republican leadership’s policy is that any new spending measure must have an offset provided, to prevent uncontrolled spending or an unfunded mandate,” Moylan said.

“There are others who believe the measure should be passed regardless, and thus allow the executive branch to identify the funds. We believe a combination of both is needed.”

The Pacific Association of Radiation Survivors led by Robert Celestial has been fighting for Guam’s inclusion in RECA, backed by the National Research Council’s 2005 report declaring the territory’s eligibility for compensation under the program.

“Guam did receive measurable fallout from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific between 1946 and 1958,” read the council’s report, which recommended that people living on island during that period be compensated under RECA “in a way similar to that of persons considered to be downwinders.”

Despite the latest defeat, Moylan said the advocacy “is far from over” and “building more support along the way”.

He is banking on the Senate to include the language in its version of the NDAA in the coming weeks………………………………………… more https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/519741/guam-s-fight-for-radiation-exposure-compensation-far-from-over

June 18, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, radiation | Leave a comment

In Nuclear Crosshairs, Guam Still Doesn’t Control Its Own Affairs

… because its inhabitants are not fully considered Americans when it matters.

WORDS: APRIL ARNOLD, PICTURES: JAZMIN SMITH, MAY 20, 2024, https://inkstickmedia.com/in-nuclear-crosshairs-guam-still-doesnt-control-its-own-affairs/

At the core of Guam’s indigenous CHamoru culture are the concepts of inafa’maolek – inafa meaning “to make together” and maolek meaning “good.” It is the idea that something was once bad or broken and is in need of repair, and that repair comes from doing good together and restoring harmony. If there is one thing the CHamoru have known for nearly 500 years, it is how to make the best of broken circumstances.

In recent years, Guam has found itself at the center of tensions between the United States and countries in the Pacific. As the tiny island sits on the frontlines of the competition for influence in the region, Guam has increasingly come under threat of being a prime target for nuclear attack by China or North Korea.

In 2022, North Korea confirmed a test launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile that could reach Guam. In 2023, the country confirmed launching spy satellites that targeted military installations in Japan, on the US mainland and on Guam. Equally concerning was North Korea’s response that attempts to interfere with their satellites would be considered a declaration of war. In April 2024, North Korea conducted a test launch of another intermediate-range ballistic missile that could also reach Guam.

“Guam Killer”

As for China, during a military parade in September 2015, the Chinese government unveiled a new missile that quickly became known as the “Guam Killer.” Following the introduction of this new missile, the US-China Economic Security Commission published a 2016 report detailing China’s military expansion and its implications for Guam.

Yet, despite the threat to the island, it still does not have a full say over many aspects of its strategic role in international affairs. Its citizens are not allowed to vote in US presidential elections, with straw polls showing that voting trends of the territory do not guarantee one political party leverage over the other.

Nor does Guam have full representation in US Congress, limiting its ability to lobby for the island’s interests, despite being in harm’s way militarily and environmentally. As the US promotes democracy worldwide, it should start at home by affording Guam statehood. This, in turn, could help temper the aggression and rhetoric China and North Korea have directed at the island, giving the US an even stronger foothold in the region.

History of Foreign Rule

Guam has been under foreign rule since 1565 and foreign aggression since 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan landed on the island. As a strategic trade outpost for Spain for over 300 years, the CHamoru were forced to convert to Catholicism by the Jesuits and subservient to Spanish governance that ravaged the island’s natural resources and culture. In the book “Destiny’s Landfall,” author Robert F. Rogers detailed stories of the abuse the CHamoru people experienced at the hands of governors who had a recurring penchant for excessive greed and virile priests seeking to exact their purportedly divine authority.

Then, as a concession of the Spanish-American War, Spain transferred Guam to the US under the Treaty of Paris of 1898. This was a controversial transaction at the time as Congress was amid the throes of the debate over Manifest Destiny and expansion into the Pacific.

Much to the surprise of the citizens of Guam, the transfer did not result in its incorporation into the country as a state, despite establishing a local democratic government to aid this effort.

Military Oversight

Instead, the island was placed under the oversight of the Department of the Navy for 52 years, where military governance had absolute authority. As a result of the treaty, the US government faced a new hurdle of incorporating these newly-acquired territories.

Through a series of Supreme Court rulings known as the Insular Cases, the US decided that Guam among other islands such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines, would be considered territories without full citizenship rights.

Language from one of the Insular Cases, Downes vs. Bidwell, states, in part, the following about foreign territories: “If those possessions are inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation, and modes of thought, the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible.”

Taking Advantage

In short, even though Guam had been under Catholic influence and rule for more than 300 years and had adopted many Catholic practices, it was not enough to be accepted into the US as more than an “alien race.”

Meanwhile, the US had begun taking full advantage of Guam’s position in the Pacific, constructing military bases starting in WWII. It wasn’t until 1950 that the Department of the Navy would transfer its oversight of Guam to the Department of the Interior, designating the island as an unincorporated territory through the Guam Organic Act.

With the steady military buildup of US forces on Guam over the decades, the US would gain more influence in the Pacific while pushing CHamoru off their lands and creating waste management nightmares that now include two Superfund sites used to dispose of hazardous chemicals.

Military Buildup

Even as tensions have grown, military officials have called for increased investment in a missile defense capability on the island to counter China’s capabilities development and aggression in the region. This includes relocating 5,000 US Marines to Camp Blaz on Guam later in 2024, with some concerned over impacts to the local ecosystem and historical sites.

Meanwhile, Guam continues to wrestle with the US government on waste management funding to clean up the Superfund site, Ordot Landfill. The landfill was formerly owned and used by the Department of the Navy during WWII, with some of its contents allegedly being toxic chemicals such as Agent Orange. Even upon returning the landfill to the island after Congress passed the Guam Organic Act in 1950, the Navy continued to use the dump until the 1970s.

After its closure in 2011, Guam’s local government began clean-up efforts and filed a lawsuit under the Superfund Act to seek financial help from the US government on the $160 million estimated cost. A lower court ruled that Guam’s lawsuit surpassed the statute of limitations under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. As one article states, “Shouldering the cost alone would be unduly difficult for the small island, as the bill exceeds the combined annual budget of its health, social services, police, fire, public works, solid waste and environmental departments.”

In May 2021, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling, and in September 2023 the US government agreed to pay $48.9 million in cleanup costs that were incurred prior to Aug. 10, 2022. The remaining $110 million in costs will still have to be covered by Guam’s local government.

Self-Determination

The conversation of Guam’s self-determination starts at the local level. Guam’s Commission on Decolonization was formed in 1997 to promote domestic education and outreach on the island’s options for self-determination. These options include statehood, free association, or independence. The first step in this process is the self-determination vote, where voters decide which of the decolonization options to pursue. Yet, efforts for a referendum have already run into issues at the federal level.

Before conducting the vote, Guam’s government needs to decide who is included in the definition of self-determination, which it has already done. According to the commission’s website, the right of self-determination belongs to those who were colonized, with the definition of “native inhabitants of Guam,” referring to people who became US citizens through the 1950 Guam Organic Act, as well as their descendents.

In 2020, the Supreme Court declined to review Guam’s appeal of a previous lower court ruling on conducting a nonbinding plebiscite to determine whether native inhabitants preferred statehood, free association, or independence because the vote was discriminatory on the grounds of race.

In February 2024, Guam’s government began looking into better defining the term so that it meets expectations in local law and was not “considered again a ‘proxy for race’ and therefore unconstitutional.”

On May 13, 2024, Guam’s Attorney General published an opinion that there was “no room” for Guam’s definition of the phrase that would be deemed constitutional. Instead, the AG recommended Guam’s Governor take other legal routes, such as lobbying Congress to recognize Guam’s unique history and work with the island to develop a path towards self-determination as well as petition support from the United Nations.

Reluctance

Separately, politicians on Guam are also reluctant to pursue tribal classification for the CHamoru people, especially after the US federal government sued Guam over land trust issues.

In 2017, Madeleine Bordallo, then the Guam delegate to the US House of Representatives, expressed concerns over the implications of enrolling the CHamoru as a tribe when the island would have to transfer ownership of the tribal lands to the federal government.

Each of these issues has made it difficult for Guam to gain traction in pursuing any form of self-determination, let alone statehood.

While it is unlikely that the majority of US elected officials would support anything other than statehood for Guam, leaving the island in a position that forces them to either lobby Congress for any self-determination support or solicit help from the United Nations could strain the relationship at a delicate time internationally.

Path Forward

After a referendum favoring statehood, all that is required for Guam to become a state is a simple majority vote on a joint resolution in both houses of Congress and approval by the President. The biggest hurdle is often lobbying Congress for the votes. The CHamoru have had their land taken from them to support US military demands with little-to-no reconciliation efforts from the US government.

Yet, the tiny island finds itself in the crosshairs of growing tensions between multiple nuclear weapons states, with barely a voice to hold the US government accountable for its actions. Many arms control and nonproliferation experts lament the lack of US public interest in the threat of nuclear war. Perhaps, it is because those most at risk are not fully considered Americans when it matters. If the US truly cares about ensuring democracy around the world, it should start at home.

May 22, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, politics | Leave a comment

US, Philippines, Japan, and Australia Conduct First Joint Military Exercise in South China Sea

China launched patrols in the South China Sea in response

by Dave DeCamp April 7, 2024
https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/07/us-philippines-japan-and-australia-conduct-first-joint-military-exercise-in-south-china-sea/

The US, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia conducted joint military exercises in the South China Sea on Sunday in a provocative show of force aimed at China.

According to Japan’s Kyodo News, the drills marked the first “full-scale exercise” between the four nations. The US has been looking to increase military cooperation between its treaty allies in the region as part of its military build-up to prepare for a future war with China.

The four countries released a joint statement that made clear the drills were meant to push back on China’s claims to the South China Sea. “We stand with all nations in safeguarding the international order based on the rule of law that is the foundation for a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region,” the statement said.

According to The South China Morning Post, the drills included two Philippine vessels, one American ship, one Australian ship, and a Japanese ship and focused on anti-submarine warfare training, tactical exercises, and photo exercises.

China launched patrols in the South China Sea on the same day in what appeared to be a response to the drill. “The Southern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army will conduct a joint air and sea combat patrol in the South China Sea on April 7,” the Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command said.

The joint drills come as tensions are soaring between China and the Philippines over disputed rocks and reefs in the South China Sea. Chinese and Philippine vessels frequently have tense encounters in the waters, which often end in collision. In the most recent incident, a Chinese vessel fired a water cannon at a Philippine supply boat, injuring several crew members.

The incidents in the South China Sea could potentially spark a major war as the US has repeatedly affirmed that the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty applies to attacks on Philippine vessels in the disputed waters.

President Biden is hosting Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington this Thursday for the first-ever trilateral summit between the three nations. They’re expected to announce the launch of regular joint patrols in the South China Sea.

April 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, Japan, Philippines, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Pacific wants open discussion on AUKUS to ensure region is nuclear free

Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific Journalist, @eleishafoon, more https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/508948/pacific-wants-open-discussion-on-aukus-to-ensure-region-is-nuclear-free 12 Feb 24

Keeping the Pacific nuclear-free, in line with the Rarotonga treaty, was a recurring theme from the leaders of Tonga, Cook Islands and Samoa to New Zealand last week.

The New Zealand government’s Pacific mission wrapped up on Saturday with the final leg in Samoa.

Over the course of the trip, defence and security in the region was discussed with the leaders of the three Polynesian nations.

In Apia, Samoan Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa addressed regional concerns about AUKUS.

New Zealand is considering joining pillar two of the agreement, a non-nuclear option, but critics have said this could be seen as Aoteroa rubber stamping Australia acquiring nucelar-powered submarines.

“We would hope that both administrations will ensure that the provisions under the maritime treaty are taken into consideration with these new arrangements,” Fiamē said.

New Zealand’s previous labour government was more cautious in its approach to joining AUKUS because it said pillar two had not been clearly defined, but the coalition government is looking to take action.

Prime Minister Fiamē said she did not want the Pacific to become a region affected by more nuclear weapons.

She said the impact of nuclear weapons in the Pacific was still ongoing, especially in the North Pacific with the Marshall Islands, and a semblance of it is still in the south with Tahiti.

She said it was crucial to “present that voice in these international arrangements”.

“We don’t want the Pacific to be seen as an area that people will take licence of nuclear arrangements.”

The Treaty of Rarotonga prohibits signatories – which include Australia and New Zealand – from placing nuclear weapons within the South Pacific.

Cook Island’s Prime Minister Mark Brown said Pacific leaders were in agreement over the security matter.

“I think our stance mirrors that of all the Pacific Island countries. We want to keep the Pacific region nuclear weapons free, nuclear free and that hasn’t changed.”

Reflecting on dicussions during the Pacific Islands Forum in 2023, he said: “A review and revisit of the Rarotonga Treaty should take place with our partners such as New Zealand, Australia and others on these matters.”

“It’s timely that we have them now moving forward,” he said.

Last year, Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka proposed a Pacific peace zone which was discussed during the forum leaders’ meeting Rarotonga.

This year, Tonga will be hosting the forum and matters of security and defence involving AUKUS are expected to be a key part of the agenda.

Tonga’s Acting Prime Minister Samiu Vaipulu acknowledged New Zealand’s sovereignty and said dialogue was the way forward.

“We do not interfere with what other countries do as it is their sovereignty. A talanoa process is best,” Vaipulu said.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Health and Pacific People’s Minister Shane Reti reiterated that they care and have listened to the needs outlined by the Pacific leaders.

They said New Zealand would deliver on funding promises to support improvements in the areas of health, education and security of the region.

February 12, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA | Leave a comment

Fijian youths condemn Japan’s discharge of radioactive water

Global Stringer, 22-Jan-2024, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-01-22/We-Talk-Fijian-youths-condemn-Japan-s-discharge-of-radioactive-water-1qz4wGtqnkc/p.html

The fourth round of discharge of nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will begin in late February 2024, with a total release of 7,800 tonnes, local media reported on December 18. Japan has so far completed three rounds of nuclear discharge, sending more than 23,000 tonnes of nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean in less than three months.

CGTN Stringer took to the streets of Fiji and asked many local college students for their opinions on this matter. The students expressed their strong opposition, noting that the islanders depend on the sea for a living. The discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea will pollute the Pacific Ocean and destroy coral groups. It will seriously affect the living resources of the islanders, endanger the health of the people of the island country, and cause immeasurable damage to ecosystems.

January 24, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, oceans | Leave a comment

Halt the US-Philippines Nuclear Deal

Sign on to Letter to US Congress

Full statement and sign on: tinyurl.com/haltUSPHdeal

While thousands gathered in San Francisco to protest the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s presence at its meetings, United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken signed a new Section 123 Nuclear Agreement with the Philippine Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla. This agreement would allow the United States to export nuclear technology and material to Manila. Negotiations for the agreement began upon Kamala Harris’ November 2022 trip to the Philippines, making it the fastest Section 123 agreement ever signed, according to Blinken.

President Marcos Jr. portends the so-called “peaceful nuclear cooperation,” to be an alternative energy solution for the Philippines. The agreement must now go before the US Congress for approval.

Here are five reasons why we must act now to oppose it:

In a country already prone to climate disaster, vulnerable communities in the Philippines will be further at risk. Located in the notoriously active seismic zone known as the “ring of fire,” the Filipino people are among those that climate change and natural disasters most endanger, seen in the yearly typhoons and major disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, which some estimate affected around 16 million people. History meanwhile provides no doubt about the potential disasters that can come with nuclear energy; we are already witness to the devastation caused by the nuclear accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima. US-based nuclear companies are pivoting their projects to the Philippines, making the country a guinea pig for their untested and risky technologies.

2 Nuclear energy poses a threat to the health and safety of communities in the Philippines. Exposure to toxic nuclear waste is linked to increased rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and other adverse health effects, particularly in sensitive populations including children. The Philippines is highly abundant in safer forms of renewable energy, and it is better to use precautionary principles than put already vulnerable communities at further risk. There is no confidence in the Philippine government to handle this type of radiation processing of energy, especially if they are privatized and the main objective is profit.

3 Fashioned in the style of the Marcos Sr. Dictatorship, this deal benefits only the US and Philippine elite. This is not the first attempt of the Philippine government to prioritize nuclear energy with the United States. Marcos Sr., following his declaration of Martial Law, worked with US companies to begin the building of the Bataan Nuclear Plant. The Bataan Plant, a point of protest for activists in the Philippines, quickly failed and was mothballed when the Marcos dictatorship, full of corruption and plundering of public funds for personal use, could not complete the construction. Now, Marcos Jr., known for his lavish spending on global travel, has sought to revive a nuclear project like his father’s to earn foreign investment. House of Representatives Member Mark Cojuangco, a billionaire and long-time supporter of the Marcos family, has been a proponent of nuclear projects. These families support said nuclear project because it benefits their widespread power over land and profit in the Philippines Creating a deal with the US and foreign corporations will serve their business interests, not those of the Filipino people. For the US and US based corporations, it gives the opportunity to control and profit further from the resources in the Philippines, a country which, since 2022, has allowed 100 percent foreign ownership over “clean” energy projects.

4 The so-called “peaceful transfer” of nuclear materials thwarts the Filipino people’s right to peace, development and self-determination. Known as the deadliest country for land defenders, environmental activists, indigenous people, farmers and people in rural areas of the Philippines are currently facing brutal attacks under the Marcos’ counterinsurgency program – recently documented by UN Special Rapporteur Ian Fry. In its attempts to squash the CPP-NPA-NDF, the Marcos regime has continued the US-designed counterinsurgency policy of Duterte and many presidents before him that result in the militarization of indigenous and rural communities, indiscriminate aerial bombings, forced surrender of civilians and mass displacement of people from their homelands. At the roots of the armed conflict in the Philippines is the Filipino people’s struggle for land and sustainable, national development, free from foreign intervention and control. The transfer of nuclear materials paves the way for more displacement of indigenous people, land grabbing for the sake of foreign corporations and further militarization of the countryside. The potential monopoly of foreign ownership over energy in the Philippines further aggravates the people’s aspiration to control and determine the development of their own economy. The US agreement with the Marcos regime gives further approval of Marcos’s policies and rewards his family for their ongoing plunder and exploitation of the Filipino people.

5 As tensions with China escalate, the storage of nuclear materials will set a precedent for the US to allow a nuclear arsenal to be stored in the Philippines. The required technology and infrastructure for facilities to hold nuclear materials will open up the door for conversations to allow for the potential storage of US nuclear weapons on Philippine soil. President Marcos has already allowed the ongoing Kamandag war game exercises between the US, Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, only serving to escalate tensions in the region and drag the Philippines into conflict between the US and China. By allowing the US to store nuclear materials in the Philippines, Marcos is setting the stage to welcome US nuclear weapons as an opportunity to advance his foreign affairs relationship with US President Biden.

For these reasons, we, members of the Filipino community and allies in solidarity, demand that members of US Congress halt the Section 123 US-PH Nuclear Deal.

December 2, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, Philippines, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear energy in Philippines? Group says there’s not even a Filipino expert on safety, radiation.

By: Cristina Eloisa Baclig – Content Researcher Writer / @inquirerdotnet, INQUIRER.net / 03:08 PM November 27, 2023

MANILA, Philippines—In a convergence of scientific and environmental dissent, progressive groups, scientists, and climate activists expressed strong opposition to the newly signed nuclear deal between the Philippines and the United States (US).

Last Nov. 17, Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken signed the 123 agreement, or the “peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement,” on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation (Apec) Summit.

It took a year to negotiate the breakthrough agreement between the two countries. Blinken described it as “the fastest that the United States has ever negotiated this kind of agreement.”

The deal, which awaits approval by the US Congress, establishes a legally binding framework allowing the transfer of nuclear material and the export of nuclear fuel, reactors, and equipment from the US to the Philippines…………………………

A ‘reckless decision’

The group Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (AGHAM) said the government’s decision to “impulsively” enter into the agreement was a “reckless decision that lacks careful consideration.”

The group explained that despite its promised and expected benefits, there is still no detailed study on whether nuclear power is necessary and appropriate for the country.

“This omission leaves the Marcos administration without a solid foundation to justify their nuclear aspirations, as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) emphasizes the importance of such studies in assessing a country’s needs and potential for nuclear energy,” the group added.

AGHAM argued that nuclear energy will only worsen the energy crisis in the country, where, according to the group, other indigenous sources of energy remain largely untapped or with inefficient and incomplete distribution systems.

It also described the agreement as “dangerously premature,” considering that the science and technology sector in the country remains severely underfunded and understaffed.

“To illustrate, as of this moment, there is no Filipino expert in nuclear safety or in radiological environmental impact assessment in the country,” the group explained.

“This means that we will have to disproportionately rely on the US nuclear regulatory mechanism, which will lead to us being clueless guinea pigs for their new nuclear technologies; since we do not have our own way of technically assessing future implementations.”

Not a solution for clean energy security

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., who witnessed the signing of the pact, said the deal would ensure a “more energy secure and green Philippines.”

“We see nuclear energy becoming a part of the Philippine energy mix by 2032, and we would be more than happy to pursue this path with the United States as one of our partners,” said Marcos Jr. in a speech.

“The signing of the Philippines-United States Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, or the 123 Agreement, is the first major step in this regard, taking our cooperation on capacity building further and actually opening the doors for U.S. companies to invest and participate in nuclear power projects in the country,” he added.

However, according to the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), the 123 Agreement poses a threat by acquiring risky nuclear technologies, misleadingly promoted as a remedy for clean energy security.

“[T]he agreement’s purported benefits are debunked. Nuclear energy, touted for clean energy, releases pollutants worsening the planet’s temperature. The resulting radioactive waste persists for years, often irresponsibly dumped or stored, lacking proper technology for disposal,” PMCJ said in a statement.

PMCJ said that it “vehemently opposes nuclear energy in the country, advocating for a shift towards sustainable solutions.”

Despite the supposed benefits, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP-US), along with progressive groups — Bayan USA, Malaya Movement USA, Kabataan Alliance — demanded that members of the US Congress halt the nuclear deal, citing five reasons:

In a country already prone to climate disaster, vulnerable communities in the Philippines will be further at risk.
Nuclear energy poses a threat to the health and safety of communities in the Philippines.
Fashioned in the style of the Marcos Sr. regime, this deal benefits only the US and Philippine elite.
The so-called “peaceful transfer” of nuclear materials thwarts the Filipino people’s right to peace, development, and self-determination.
As tensions with China escalate, the storage of nuclear materials will set a precedent for the US to allow a nuclear arsenal to be stored in the Philippines.

Renewable vs nuclear energy

Both PMCJ and AGHAM questioned Marcos Jr. and his administration’s plans to use more renewable energy while also pushing for the use of nuclear power……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“As with his other policies, this will just be an edifice to be used as a talking point for the purposes of extending the Marcoses’ cling to power; with no real positive contribution, and even potentially dangerous, to the Filipino people,” the group continued.

Environmental group Greenpeace Philippines has previously called out Marcos Jr. for showing mixed signals on his stance on energy.

“He used renewable energy when he ran for president, and continues to talk about it like he means it, but it’s all a game of pretend. If you look at his actions, he’s actually out to promote nuclear energy and fossil gas–both of which will block major RE development,” said Greenpeace Philippines country director Lea Guerrero.

“Greenpeace believes this is climate hypocrisy at its most dangerous,” she added.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1866612/nuclear-energy-in-ph-group-says-theres-not-even-a-filipino-expert-on-safety-radiation#ixzz8KL4mjfe6
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November 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, Philippines | Leave a comment

A four-decade-old Pacific treaty was meant to preserve the ‘peaceful region’. Now experts say it’s being exploited

“We regret that the Aukus agreement … is escalating geopolitical tensions in our region and undermining Pacific-led nuclear-free regionalism,” says the Pacific Elders’ Voice,

the US and the UK will increase rotations of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia,

Pacific countries rushed to join the TPNW six years ago, reflecting their longstanding concerns about nuclear testing legacies. It’s the same regional sentiment that spurred the earlier Treaty of Rarotonga.

Daniel Hurst in Rarotonga

Nearly 40 years after the Treaty of Rarotonga came into force, the region is on edge about another rise in geopolitical tension

…………………………………………………………………………….heightened concerns permeated the region in the months leading up to the crucial meeting in the Cook Islands in August 1985 where leaders endorsed a nuclear-free zone.

Hawke, the Australian prime minister at the time, hailed the negotiations as a “dramatic success” that would send “a clear and unequivocal message to the world”, with the treaty leaving major powers in no doubt about the region’s desire to preserve “the South Pacific as the peaceful region which its name implies”.

But nearly 40 years after the Treaty of Rarotonga came into force, the region is on edge about another rise in geopolitical tensions – and critics say gaps in the treaty’s coverage are now being exploited.

“The treaty was really important to a lot of people, especially for grassroots activists,” says Talei Mangioni, a Fijian-Australian board member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Australia.

But it was quite watered down. And so even though we celebrate it today, what activists were saying in the 1980s and what progressive states like Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu were saying was that it wasn’t comprehensive enough.”

Mangioni, who researches the legacy of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement, adds: “That’s what’s left us now with things like Aukus exploiting certain loopholes that have remained in the treaty.”

A hotbed of great-power competition?

When leaders met last week in the Cook Islands for the annual meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum (Pif), the Treaty of Rarotonga was once again on everyone’s lips.

The host of the summit, prime minister Mark Brown of the Cook Islands, argued the region “should rediscover and revisit our Rarotonga treaty to ensure that it reflects the concerns of Pacific countries today, and not just what occurred back in 1985”.

The treaty – signed on the 40th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima – reflected “the deep concern of all forum members at the continuing nuclear arms race and the risk of nuclear war”.

Also known as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, it designated a vast area from the west coast of Australia to Latin America where its parties must prevent the “stationing” (critics say this was always a deliberately ambiguous word) of nuclear weapons.

“The treaty prohibits the use, testing or stationing of nuclear explosive devices in the South Pacific,” the Cook Islands News explained on 7 August 1985.

“It does not prohibit countries from transporting nuclear devices through the zone nor does it prohibit nuclear-powered or equipped ships from calling in ports within the area.”

Today the parties to this treaty are Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Once again, many of these nations are worried about the Pacific becoming a hotbed of great-power competition and the risk of that spiralling into conflict. Aukus feeds into some of those fears.

“We regret that the Aukus agreement … is escalating geopolitical tensions in our region and undermining Pacific-led nuclear-free regionalism,” says the Pacific Elders’ Voice, a group of former leaders whose members include Anote Tong, the ex-president of Kiribati.

The legality of a treaty – and the spirit of it

Under the Aukus plan, Australia will buy at least three Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines from the US in the 2030s, before Australian-built boats enter into service from the 2040s.

In the meantime, the US and the UK will increase rotations of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, all aimed at deterring China from unilateral action against Taiwan or destabilising activities in the increasingly contested South China Sea.

One point of sensitivity is that it will be the first time a provision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime has been used to transfer naval nuclear propulsion technology from a nuclear weapons state to a non-weapons state.

The Australian government has worked assiduously behind the scenes to reassure Pacific leaders on a key point about Aukus.

“Certainly when I was talking to people about it I would explain how it was consistent with the Treaty of Rarotonga,” says the Australian minister for the Pacific, Pat Conroy.

Donald Rothwell, a professor of international law at the Australian National University, concurs. The treaty, he notes, does not deal with nuclear-propelled submarines.

“My view is that Aukus is consistent with Australia’s Treaty of Rarotonga obligations,” Rothwell says.

“Pacific states may have concerns about the potential stationing of US and UK nuclear-armed warships in Australian ports under Aukus. The stationing of such vessels, as opposed to port visits, would be contrary to the treaty.”

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, sought to allay any Aukus-related concerns when he briefed Pacific leaders during the Pif meetings last week and appears to have held off any open rebellion.

Albanese insists the treaty remains “a good document” and “all of the arrangements that we’ve put in place have been consistent with that”.

But anti-nuclear campaigners point to the planned new aircraft parking apron at the Tindal base in the Northern Territory that will be able to accommodate up to six US B-52 bombers.

The US refuses to confirm or deny whether the aircraft on rotation would be nuclear-armed, in line with longstanding policy.

“We should delineate between a legalistic interpretation of the Treaty of Rarotonga and the spirit of it,” says Marco de Jong, a Pacific historian based in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“Pacific nations are growing increasingly frustrated at Australia’s reliance on loopholes and technicalities.”

Australia: the regional outlier

The Nobel prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons says a good way for Australia to reassure the region about its long-term intentions would be to sign the newer Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Rock sampling taking place off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

This is an idea Albanese previously supported enthusiastically but which appears stalled.

One potential problem is that the US has warned that the TPNW – which includes a blanket ban on helping others to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons – wouldn’t allow for close allies like Australia to enjoy the protection of the American “nuclear umbrella”.

Documents obtained by the Guardian under freedom of information laws show the Australian defence department has warned the Labor government that the TPNW is “internationally divisive” because the nuclear weapons states “are all opposed”.

But Mangioni, a member of the Youngsolwara Pacific movement of activists, counters that Pacific countries rushed to join the TPNW six years ago, reflecting their longstanding concerns about nuclear testing legacies. It’s the same regional sentiment that spurred the earlier Treaty of Rarotonga.

“I would say that Australia is indeed the outlier compared to the rest of the Pacific states,” Mangioni says.

“Australia depends on nuclear deterrence as its policy but the rest of the Pacific states are nuclear abolitionists.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/19/a-40-year-old-pacific-treaty-was-meant-to-maintain-the-peaceful-region-now-experts-say-its-being-exploited

November 22, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, politics international | Leave a comment

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