The omnicidal and unnecessary Nuclear Triad
the U.S. military no longer needs nuclear strategic bombers and land-based ICBMs in order to threaten to destroy the planet.
that triad of potentially ultimate nuclear death had become so sacrosanct that it was untouchable
Even as the nuclear clock ticks ever closer to midnight, nobody is ducking and covering in America’s classrooms anymore (except against mass shooters).
Ending My Thermonuclear Odyssey
WILLIAM J. ASTORE, JUN 6, 2024, https://www.laprogressive.com/war-and-peace/ending-my-thermonuclear-odyssey
As a late-stage baby boomer, a child of the 1960s, I grew up dreaming about America’s nuclear triad. You may remember that it consisted of strategic bombers like the B-52 Stratofortress, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) like the Minuteman, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) like the Poseidon, all delivery systems for what we then called “the Bomb.” I took it for granted that we needed all three “legs” — yes, that was also the term of the time — of that triad to ward off the Soviet Union (aka the “evil empire”).
It took me some time to realize that the triad was anything but the trinity, that it was instead a product of historical contingency. Certainly, my mind was clouded because two legs of that triad were the prerogative of the U.S. Air Force, my chosen branch of service. When I was a teenager, the Air Force had 1,054 ICBMs (mainly Minutemen missiles) in silos in rural states like Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming, along with hundreds of strategic bombers kept on constant alert against the Soviet menace. They represented enormous power not just in destructive force measured in megatonnage but in budgetary authority for the Air Force. The final leg of that triad, the most “survivable” one in case of a nuclear war, was (and remains) the Navy’s SLBMs on nuclear submarines. (Back in the day, the Army was so jealous that it, too, tried to go atomic, but its nuclear artillery shells and tactical missiles were child’s play compared to the potentially holocaust-producing arsenals of the Air Force and Navy.)
When I said that the triad wasn’t the trinity, what I meant (the obvious aside) was this: the U.S. military no longer needs nuclear strategic bombers and land-based ICBMs in order to threaten to destroy the planet. As a retired Air Force officer who worked in Cheyenne Mountain, America’s nuclear redoubt, during the tail end of the first Cold War, and as a historian who once upon a time taught courses on the atomic bomb at the Air Force Academy, I have some knowledge and experience here. Those two “legs” of the nuclear triad, bombers and ICBMs, have long been redundant, obsolete, a total waste of taxpayer money — leaving aside, of course, that they would prove genocidal in an unprecedented fashion were they ever to be used.
Nevertheless, such thoughts have no effect on our military. Instead, the Air Force is pushing ahead with plans to field — yes! — a new strategic bomber, the B-21 Raider, and — yes, again! — a new ICBM, the Sentinel, whose combined price tag will likely exceed $500 billion. The first thing any sane commander-in-chief with an urge to help this country would do is cancel those new nuclear delivery systems tomorrow. Instead of rearming, America should begin disarming, but don’t hold your breath on that one.
A Brief History of America’s Nuclear Triad
It all started with atomic bombs and bombers. In August 1945, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated by two atomic bombs carried by B-29 bombers, ending World War II. However, in the years that followed, as the Cold War with the Soviet Union heated up, the only “delivery system” the military had for its growing thermonuclear arsenal was the strategic bomber. Those were the glory days of the Strategic Air Command, or SAC, whose motto (believe it or not) was “Peace Is Our Profession” — the “peace” of a mass nuclear grave, had those hydrogen bombs ever been dropped on their intended targets in the Soviet Union and China.
However, as this country’s weapons makers produced ever more powerful hydrogen bombs and strategic bombers, a revolution was afoot in missile technology. By the late 1950s, missiles tipped with nuclear warheads became a practical reality. By the 1960s, the Air Force was already lobbying for 10,000 ICBMs, even if my old service had to settle for a mere thousand or so of them during the administration of President John F. Kennedy. Meanwhile, the Navy was maneuvering its way into the act by demonstrating that it was indeed possible for mobile, difficult-to-detect submarines to carry nuclear-tipped missiles.
By the late 1960s, that triad of potentially ultimate nuclear death had become so sacrosanct that it was untouchable. More than half a century later, America’s nuclear triad has endured and, all too sadly, is likely to do so far longer than you or me (if not, of course, used).
You might wonder why that should be so. It’s not for any sensible military or strategic reason. By the 1980s, if not before, bombers and ICBMs were obsolete. That was why President Jimmy Carter canceled the B-1 bomber in 1977 (though it would be revived under President Ronald Reagan, with the Air Force buying 100 of those expensive, essentially useless aircraft). That was why the Air Force developed the “peacekeeper” MX ICBM, which was supposed to be mobile (shuffled around by rail) or hidden via an elaborate shell game. Such notions were soon abandoned, though not the missiles themselves, which were stuffed for a time into fixed silos. The endurance of such weapons systems owes everything to Air Force stubbornness and the lobbying power of the industrial side of the military-industrial complex, as well as to members of Congress loath to give up ICBM and bomber bases in their districts, no matter how costly, unnecessary, and omnicidal they may be.
In that light, consider the Navy’s current force of highly capable Ohio-class nuclear submarines. There are 14 of them, each armed with up to 20 Trident II missiles, each with up to eight warheads. We’re talking, in other words, about at least 160 potentially devastating nuclear explosions, each roughly five to 20 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, from a single sub. In fact, it’s possible that just one of those submarines has an arsenal with enough destructive power not just to kill millions of us humans, but to tip the earth into a nuclear winter in which billions more of us could starve to death. And America has 14 of them!
Why, then, does the Air Force argue that it, too, “needs” new strategic bombers and ICBMs? The traditional arguments go like this: bombers can be launched as a show of resolve and, unlike missiles, recalled. They are also, allegedly, more flexible. In Air Force jargon, they can be rerouted against “targets of opportunity” in a future nuclear war. Of course, generals can always produce a scenario, however world-ending, to justify any weapons system, based on what an enemy might or might not do or discover. Nonetheless, strategic bombers were already nearing obsolescence when Stanley Kubrick made his classic antinuclear satire, Dr. Strangelove (1964), so prominently featuring them.
And what about land-based ICBMs? Once, the claim was that they had more “throw-weight” (bigger warheads) than SLBMs and were also more accurate (being launched from fixed silos rather than a mobile platform like a submarine). But with GPS and other advances in technology, submarine-launched missiles are now as accurate as land-based ones and “throw-weight” (sheer megatonnage) always mattered far less than accuracy.
Worse yet, land-based ICBMs in fixed silos are theoretically more vulnerable to an enemy “sneak” attack and so more escalatory in nature. The U.S. currently has 400 Minuteman III ICBMs sitting in silos. If possible incoming enemy nuclear missiles were detected, an American president might have less than 30 minutes — and possibly only 10 or so — to decide whether to launch this country’s ICBM force or risk losing it entirely.
That’s not much time to determine the all-too-literal fate of the planet, is it, especially given the risk that the enemy attack might prove to be a “false alarm“? Just before I arrived at Cheyenne Mountain, there were two such alarms (one stemming from a technical failure, the other from human error when a simulation tape was loaded into computers without any notification that it was just a “war game”). Until they were found to be false alarms, both led to elevated DEFCONs (defense readiness conditions) in preparation for possible nuclear war.
New ICBMs will only add “use them or lose them” pressure to the global situation. Mobile, elusive, and difficult to detect, the Navy’s submarine force is more than sufficient to deter any possible enemy from launching a nuclear attack on the United States. Strategic bombers and ICBMs add plenty of bang and bucks but only to the Air Force budget and the profits of the merchants of mass nuclear death who make them.
A Sane Path Forward for America’s Nuclear Force
I still remember the nuclear freeze movement, the stunningly popular antinuclear protest of the early 1980s. I also remember when President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in 1986 and seriously discussed total nuclear disarmament. I remember Barack Obama, as a 2008 presidential candidate, being joined by old Cold War stalwarts like Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn in calling for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.
Today, we’re not supposed to recall any of that. Instead, we’re told to focus on the way a developing “new cold war” with Russia and China is driving a “requirement” for a “modernized” U.S. nuclear triad that could cost $2 trillion over the next 30 years. Meanwhile, we’re discouraged from thinking too much about the actual risks of nuclear war. The Biden administration, for example, professes little concern about the possibility that arming Ukraine with weaponry capable of hitting deep inside Russia could lead to destabilization and the possible use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield (something Vladimir Putin has threatened to do). Nor are we to fret about surrounding China with ever more U.S. military bases and sending ever more weaponry to Taiwan, while the Chinese are enlarging their own force of ICBMs; or, for that matter, about the fact that the last nuclear agreement limiting the size of the American and Russian arsenals will run out in less than 1,000 days.
To such issues, the only response America’s “best and brightest” ever have is this one: give us more/newer strategic bombers, more/newer ICBMs, and more/newer nuclear submarines (whatever the cost)! To those men, it’s as if nuclear war were a theoretical (and distinctly money-making) chess match—and yes, they are indeed still mostly men!—a challenging game whose only components are profits, jobs, money, and power. Yet when the only story to be told is one featuring more nuclear warheads and more delivery systems, it’s hard not to conclude that, in some horrific fashion, nuclear Armageddon is indeed us (or at least them).
And though few spend much time thinking about it anymore, that’s madness personified. What’s needed instead is a new conviction that a nuclear Armageddon must not be our fate and, to make that so, we must act to eliminate all ICBMs, cancel the B-21 bomber, retire the B-1s and B-2s, work on global nuclear disarmament, start thinking about how to get rid of those nuclear subs, and begin to imagine what it would be like to invest the money saved in rebuilding America. It sure beats destroying the world.
And again, in the most practical terms possible, if we’re set on preserving Armageddon, America’s existing force of Ohio-class nuclear submarines is more than enough both to do so and undoubtedly to “deter” any possible opponent.
There was a time, in the early stages of the first Cold War, when America’s leaders professed fears of “bomber” and “missile” gaps vis-à-vis the Soviet Union — gaps that existed only in their minds; or rather only in the reverse sense, since the U.S. was ahead of the Soviets in both technologies. Today, the bomber and missile “gaps” are, in fact, gaps in logic wielded by a Pentagon that insists strategic bombers and ICBMs remain a “must” for this country’s safety and security.
It’s all such nonsense, and I’m disgusted by it. I want my personal thermonuclear odyssey to come to an end. As a kid in the 1970s, I built a model of the B-1 bomber. As a ROTC cadet in the early 1980s, I made a presentation on the U.S./Soviet nuclear balance. As a young Air Force officer, I hunkered down in Cheyenne Mountain, awaiting a nuclear attack that fortunately never came. When I visited Los Alamos and the Trinity Test Site at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1992, I saw what J. Robert Oppenheimer’s original atomic “gadget” had done to the tower from which it had been suspended. When the Soviet Union collapsed, I genuinely hoped that this country’s (and the world’s) long nuclear nightmare might finally be coming to an end.
Tragically, it was not to be. The gloomy Los Alamos of 1992, faced with serious cuts to its nuclear-weapons-producing budget, is once again an ebullient boom town. Lots of new plutonium pits are being dug. Lots more money is flooding in to give birth to a new generation of nuclear weapons. Of course, it’s madness, sheer madness, yet this time, it’s all happening so quietly.
U.S. Considers Expanded Nuclear Arsenal, a Reversal of Decades of Cuts.
By Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger, Reporting from Washington, June 7, 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/us/politics/us-nuclear-russia-china.html
A senior Biden administration official warned on Friday that “absent a change” in nuclear strategy by China and Russia, the United States may be forced to expand its nuclear arsenal, after decades of cutting back through now largely abandoned arms control agreements.
The comments on Friday from Pranay Vaddi, a senior director of the National Security Council, were the most explicit public warning yet that the United States was prepared to shift from simply modernizing its arsenal to expanding it. They were also a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the likely U.S. reaction if the last major nuclear arms control agreement, called New START, expires in February 2026 with no replacement.
Mr. Vaddi, speaking at the annual meeting of the Arms Control Association, a group that advocates limits on nuclear weapons, confirmed what officials have been saying in private conversations and closed congressional testimony for more than a year. It is the inevitable outgrowth, they have argued, of China’s rapid nuclear expansion and Russia’s repeated threats to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
But it would be an epochal shift, and one fraught with dangers that many Americans thought they had left behind at the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Fifteen years ago, President Barack Obama outlined a vision of moving toward a world without nuclear weapons, and he took steps to reduce their role in American strategy and defenses. While the nation’s nuclear complexes were improved and made safer, and old weapons were swapped out for more reliable or updated versions, the United States insisted it was only “modernizing” its arsenal, not expanding it.
As vice president in the Obama administration, President Biden became the spokesman for this strategy.
At the time, China was still maintaining its “minimum deterrent” policy, which dates back to its first nuclear test in 1964, and Mr. Putin appeared to have little interest in fiscally ruinous arms races. That has now changed.
China is on a path to match the number of American and Russian deployed nuclear weapons by 2035, according to the Pentagon’s public estimates. Mr. Putin has fixated on unusual weapons, including an undersea nuclear torpedo that could be launched across the Pacific to destroy the West Coast of the United States. And the United States has warned in recent months that Russia has a program underway to put a nuclear bomb into orbit.
There have been no discussions with Russia since it invaded Ukraine about negotiating a replacement for New START, which limits each country to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons, the kind that can be launched from one continent to another.
China has been unwilling to engage in deep nuclear talks with the United States, making it clear that it is not interested in arms control until its own arsenal is comparable to that of the two biggest nuclear powers. (Britain, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea all have arsenals of their own, though with much smaller numbers.)
While the Biden administration has not abandoned its rhetorical support of a world without nuclear weapons, officials have acknowledged that the prospects of new arms control deals are now so remote that they have to think about new strategies.
“Absent a change in the trajectory of the adversary arsenal, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase from current deployed numbers is required, and we need to be fully prepared to execute if the president makes that decision,” he said.
The United States remains ready to pursue arms control agreements to reduce nuclear threats by “limiting and shaping” adversaries’ nuclear forces, Mr. Vaddi said. And citing the history of separate diplomatic tracks for such agreements, he suggested Russia’s war in Ukraine would not be a barrier to a discussion.
But he said Russia’s rejection of talks to a successor agreement to New Start has “cast a shadow” over diplomatic issues.
“At least in the near term, the prospects for strategic arms control are dim,” he said.
A year ago, at the same conference, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, pledged a renewed effort to bring China into arms control talks. Since that speech, the United States has tried to engage the Chinese on nuclear safety issues and recently conducted the first talks, in Geneva, to address whether it would be possible to reach an accord that artificial intelligence should never control nuclear weapons, among other limitations.
That meeting was preliminary, and it is unclear if others are to follow. While China has urged the United States to adopt what it calls its “no first use” policy for employing nuclear weapons, it has not engaged substantively with the American proposals.
One of the complications of the current nuclear environment, administration officials say, is the potential that Russia and China may coordinate their nuclear policies, part of the “partnership without limits” that Mr. Putin and Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, announced in 2022.
The failure of Russia and China to engage in meaningful negotiations, Mr. Vaddi said, was “forcing the United States and our close allies and partners to prepare for a world where nuclear competition occurs without numerical constraints.”
Modernizing the American nuclear arsenal, he argued, will give both Russia and China an incentive to go back to the negotiating table and put Washington at a stronger place in those talks.
“We need to persuade our adversaries that managing rivalry through arms control is preferable to unrestrained competition,” he said.
Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades. More about Julian E. Barnes
David E. Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written several books on challenges to American national security. More about David E. Sanger
Keir Starmer’s Trident triple lock: how Britain’s obsession with nuclear weapons has become part of election campaigns
The nuclear debate is also wrapped up in a gendered narrative that sees a commitment to nuclear weapons as strong, sensible, rational and masculine, and anything else as weak, irrational and feminine
Nick Ritchie, Professor, Department of Politics & International Relations, University of York, June 7, 2024 https://theconversation.com/keir-starmers-trident-triple-lock-how-britains-obsession-with-nuclear-weapons-has-become-part-of-election-campaigns-231834
With a campaign slogan of “change”, Keir Starmer is on a mission to persuade the electorate that the Labour party of 2024 is different to the one of 2019. Part of this is his unequivocal “triple lock” commitment to Trident, the UK’s nuclear weapon system.
At a time when the risk of a major European war is higher than it has been for decades, Starmer has reiterated his support for a massive programme to replace the Trident system (submarines, warhead, missiles and infrastructure), initiated by former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, in 2006. The triple lock is a commitment to the current programme to build four new ballistic missile submarines, keep one of the four always at sea on operational patrol and keep the system up to date.
Starmer is pushing back against Conservative claims that Labour is “weak”, “cannot be trusted” and is a “danger to national security”, accusations that have plagued his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong opponent of nuclear weapons.
Ideas of British national identity and Britain’s place in the world connect to a commitment to nuclear weapons. This identity is also tied to the idea of Britain as a military power in Europe, and Labour’s current identity of being strong on defence.
Prospective prime ministers are effectively required to publicly declare that they would be prepared to use nuclear weapons. Commitment to nuclear deterrence has become a de facto criterion for entering No 10.
Corbyn found this out in 2017 when he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr he would never use nuclear weapons first, or perhaps ever, if he were prime minister. In an unprecedented intervention, serving and former chiefs of the defence staff said that Corbyn’s response showed he “should not be trusted … with the nation’s defence and security”, and was unfit to be prime minister. Corbyn’s opposition to Trident is still being used to attack Starmer and Labour years later.
Starmer first signalled his commitment to Trident in 2021. Two years later, shadow defence secretary John Healey and shadow foreign secretary David Lammy declared their “unshakable” commitment to nuclear weapons as part of “Labour’s heritage”. But concerns about the morality and efficacy of using nuclear weapons have long divided Labour.
This is quite different to how nuclear weapons, which are based in Scotland, are framed by the Scottish National Party. In their conception of an independent Scotland’s national identity nuclear weapons are associated with imposed, undemocratic, Tory “imperialism” in which Labour has been complicit, and contrary to the SNP’s version of progressive internationalism. The SNP has said they would remove nuclear weapons from Scotland in the event of Scottish independence.
The nuclear debate is also wrapped up in a gendered narrative that sees a commitment to nuclear weapons as strong, sensible, rational and masculine, and anything else as weak, irrational and feminine.
The nuclear ‘consensus’
This Whitehall nuclear consensus closes down democratic debate on if, how and why the prime minister might use nuclear weapons. But views in the country are far from settled.
Recent polling shows 53% supports or strongly supports the UK having nuclear weapons, with about 30% opposed or strongly opposed. For women, the split is 50:50. For under 25s, it is 28% in favour and 43% against. In Scotland it is 35% in favour and 41% against (the rest say they don’t know).
The UK prime minister is one of a handful of people in the world with the power to inflict truly catastrophic levels of violence upon another society. Nuclear weapons should therefore be subject to intense scrutiny and debate, especially in a liberal democratic society. Starmer should appreciate this as a human rights lawyer, since practically any use of nuclear weapons would transgress international humanitarian and human rights law.
The nuclear programme is also hugely expensive. At a time when public services including health and education are under serious pressure, this arguably makes democratic debate even more necessary.
In March 2024 the House of Commons public accounts committee reported that the cost of the Ministry of Defence’s 10-year equipment plan was over budget by £17 billion, despite a budget increase of £46.3 billion. The greatest cause of this was the nuclear programme, where costs have increased by £38.2 billion (62%) since the last plan. The nuclear programme is now 34.5% of the £288.6 billion defence equipment plan, which itself is 49% of the total MoD budget.
In particular, the programme to deliver the new Dreadnought ballistic missile submarines has become the MoD’s highest priority. The department will redirect funds from conventional military programmes to support it if it can’t get more money from the Treasury. Labour and the Conservatives have both committed to increase the defence budget, especially for conventional forces, but have not said where the money will come from.
There are other political reasons why Starmer has come out strong for Trident. In particular, the thousands of jobs that the production and maintenance of nuclear-powered submarines supports in England and Scotland, and the power of the unions in the Labour party. The “triple lock” language also mirrors the triple lock commitment on pensions. This may appeal to older voters, who are more likely to vote (and vote Conservative).
Starmer’s “triple lock” might make sense politically from his perspective, but it is symptomatic of a nuclear consensus in Whitehall politics that brooks little dissent. The result is that debate on these difficult and serious security, economic, legal and moral choices on nuclear weapons routinely gets shut down and reduced to political performance. In the words of retired senior British Army officer General Sir Richard Shirreff, it infantilises a deadly serious issue.
US Bombs Used in Israeli Massacre of 40 in Gaza Refugee Camp
By Sharon Zhang / Truthout June 7, 2024, https://scheerpost.com/2024/06/07/us-bombs-used-in-israeli-massacre-of-40-in-gaza-refugee-camp/
The targeting of the UN school-turned-shelter is a “blatant” violation of international law, one UN official said.
n Israeli bombing that killed 40 Palestinians and wounded 74 sheltering in a UN school-turned-shelter in a refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday was carried out using U.S.-made weapons, an analysis finds.
Fragments of at least two U.S.-made GBU-39 small diameter bombs were found at the scene of the bombing on the Nuseirat refugee camp, CNN found in a review that concluded they were used in the devastating overnight strike.
The bombing, which Gaza officials say killed at least 14 children and wounded 23, is a “blatant” violation of international law, human rights groups have said. International law prohibits targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in war.
“Attacking, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes are a blatant disregard of International Humanitarian law,” said UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. “UNRWA shares the coordinates of all its facilities (including this school) with the Israeli Army and other parties to the conflict. Targeting UN premises or using them for military purposes cannot become the new norm.”
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said that the attack is a “suspected war crime.”
If these assessments are correct, this represents direct evidence that U.S. military assistance is being used by Israeli forces to commit war crimes. U.S. weapons have been used in many war crimes committed by Israeli forces in recent months, previous reports have found.
These assessments run contrary to a recent report released by the State Department concluding that it’s “reasonable to assess” that U.S. weapons have been used in violation of international law, but that there is not enough direct evidence of Israel’s culpability in slaughtering civilians en masse. If that report had directly concluded that U.S. weapons are being used to commit Israeli war crimes, it would have spurred the U.S. to consider withholding military aid to Israel in accordance with U.S. and international law.
The conclusions of the report raised an uproar. A U.S. State Department official who quit after the release of the report said that its conclusions were fabricated by higher ups in the department to provide cover for U.S. officials working to send Israel yet more aid to be used to commit atrocities against Palestinians.
Eyewitnesses say the attack on the Nuseirat school was horrific, with Israeli forces releasing two bombs on the building that was sheltering 6,000 Palestinians who had been displaced multiple times over the course of Israel’s genocide. At the site of the attack, the smell of blood hangs heavy in the air, reported Palestinian journalist Hind Khoudary.
“We were inside the school and suddenly we were bombed, people here turned to pieces on a harsh night … this building housed families and young people, and the shelling took place without warning,” survivor Anas al-Dahouk told Al Jazeera.
The school is one of the many UNRWA facilities that have been targeted by Israeli forces since October. According to Lazzarini, 180 UNRWA buildings have been attacked, killing at least 450 Palestinians in UN facilities alone.
According to the official death toll, Israel’s genocidal assault has killed at least 36,600 Palestinians. But the true death toll is likely far higher, as thousands more Palestinians are missing and presumed to be dead under the rubble of buildings bombed by Israel. The count also doesn’t include those who have died for reasons like starvation or illness outside of health facilities in the region.
Russia doesn’t need nuclear weapons to succeed: Putin
Canberra Times. June 8 2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin says there is no need to use nuclear weapons to deliver victory for Moscow in Ukraine, the strongest signal yet from the Kremlin chief that there will not be a nuclear strike.
Putin, whose forces have been making advances in eastern Ukraine in recent months, said on Friday he did not see the conditions for the use of such weapons and requested that people stop discussing the nuclear topic.
However Putin, who leads the world’s biggest nuclear power, said he did not rule out changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which sets out the conditions under which such weapons could be used.
He also said that if necessary Russia could test a nuclear weapon, though he saw no need to do so at the present time……………………………………….
Russia’s published 2020 nuclear doctrine sets out the conditions under which a Russian president would consider using a nuclear weapon: broadly as a response to an attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or to the use of conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the state is put under threat”.
“If necessary, we will conduct tests. So far, there is no need for this either, since our information and computer capabilities allow us to produce everything in its current form.”……………………………….. more https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8656114/russia-doesnt-need-nuclear-weapons-to-succeed-putin/
France to give fighter jets to Ukraine – Macron
The French president also reiterated that Kiev can carry out long-range missile strikes on Russian soil
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will supply Kiev with Mirage 2000 fighter jets and train Ukrainian pilots on the jets. However, Macron did not specify how many planes would be provided, or when they would arrive.
“Tomorrow we will launch a new cooperation and announce the transfer of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Ukraine, made by French manufacturer Dassault, and train their Ukrainian pilots in France,” Macron told France’s TF1 broadcaster on Thursday.
Alongside US-made F-16 fighters, Kiev has long requested Mirage 2000 warplanes. In a post on social media in January, the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force said that these jets – roughly comparable to the F-16 but considered more maneuverable – could “increase the combat potential” of Ukraine’s Soviet-era fleet.
France has around 26 Mirage 2000-5 and 65 older Mirage 2000-D aircraft in active service, according to Flight International’s World Air Forces rankings. It is unclear whether Macron intends to spare any of the French Air Force’s active duty fleet, or whether out-of-service jets will be recommissioned for Kiev.
Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway have all pledged to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighters, although none have actually been delivered. Last month, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky announced that Belgium would supply 30 1980s-built F-16s, bringing to 85 the number pledged in total.
At the outset of the Ukraine conflict, Macron positioned himself as a voice of caution, warning other NATO member states that sending heavy weapons to Kiev could be too escalatory a move. However, he has since emerged as one of the most pro-interventionist NATO leaders, declaring earlier this year that the idea of sending Western ground troops into combat against Russia “could not be ruled out.”
Ukrainian army chief Aleksandr Syrsky said last week that French military instructors would soon be deployed in Ukraine. While the Ukrainian defense ministry quickly walked back these claims, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said that the question of sending French instructors to the country was “not taboo.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that there are “numerous facts” indicating that French instructors are already working in Ukraine and warned that these operatives represent an “absolutely legitimate target” for Russia’s armed forces.
Macron told TF1 that he is not worried about escalating the conflict. The French president then announced that he would back the formation of a 4,500-strong “French brigade” of French-trained and equipped Ukrainian soldiers, and repeated his announcement last week that Ukraine can use French missiles for long-range strikes on Russian soil.
“We stand with the Ukrainians. Ukraine is allowed to strike targets where missiles have been fired [from],” he told the network, adding that “we forbid hitting civilians with our weapons.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would consider arming the enemies of Western nations who give Ukraine the means to carry out these strikes. “This is a recipe for very serious problems,” he warned.
No talk of peace at Zelensky’s ‘peace conference’ – Germany
Rt.com 6 Jun, 2024
Olaf Scholz has admitted that the high-profile summit is not aimed at ending the conflict
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is not traveling to Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘peace conference’ to initiate peace talks, but to rally as many countries as possible to the Ukrainian leader’s side, he told parliament on Thursday.
In a speech focusing on security issues, Scholz told lawmakers that “there will be no peace negotiations” at the summit, which is due to take place in Switzerland next weekend.
“We are still a long way from that,” Scholz continued, adding that he intends to use the conference “to engage countries around the world in order to make it clear to Moscow: We stand by international law and the Charter of the United Nations.”
Zelensky invited more than 160 delegations to the Swiss conference, with Russia not receiving an invitation. While dozens of Western leaders and diplomats will attend – including Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US President Joe Biden will skip the event, with the White House announcing this week that Vice President Kamala Harris will attend in his stead.
Beijing has snubbed the gathering entirely, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry explaining on Monday that any peace conference aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict must involve the equal participation of Moscow and Kiev, and the consideration of multiple peace plans…………………………………………more https://www.rt.com/news/598889-scholz-zelensky-peace-conference/—
CNN’s Israel bias has been laid bare. But CNN is the norm, not the exception
Middle East Eye, By Jonathan Cook, 9 February 2024
Western media can never truly report the extent of Israel’s criminality because to do so would be to expose their long-running complicity in those crimes
eaks from within CNN reveal that for months its executives have been actively imposing an editorial line designed to reinforce Israel’s framing of events in Gaza, to the point of obscuring atrocities by the Israeli military.
The dictates, say insiders, have resulted in senior staff refusing to accept assignments to the region “because they do not believe they will be free to tell the whole story”. Others suspect they are being kept away by editors who fear they will fight the restrictions.
Internal memos insist that stories be approved by the station’s Jerusalem bureau, where staff are widely seen as partisans who slant reports in Israel’s favour. Palestinian perspectives are tightly restricted.
“Ultimately, CNN’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice,” one staffer told an investigation by the Guardian newspaper.
According to staff accounts, CNN’s pro-Israel directives come from the very top – Mark Thompson, a TV executive who was hired from the BBC. Thompson, the Guardian article notes, was remembered by BBC staff for “bowing to Israeli government pressure on a number of occasions” – presumably one of the qualifications that won him the job heading CNN.
It was he who notoriously championed in 2009 the BBC’s controversial decision for the first time not to air the annual fundraising appeal of the Disasters Emergency Committee, which is a group of major British charities, because the monies were going to Gaza after Israeli bombing had devastated it.
Alongside the unhappiness at CNN, there is reported to be disquiet at the BBC. Staff, including senior presenters, held a meeting last month with Director General Tim Davie, one of Thompson’s successors, to accuse the corporation of anti-Palestinian bias.
They expressed concerns about the “dehumanising” language used to describe Palestinians killed in Gaza and the BBC’s failure to cover important stories reported by Al Jazeera and other networks.
A source told the Deadline website that the group of dissenters was surprised by Davie’s candour. He is said to have admitted that the pro-Israel lobby “was more organised than Palestinian supporters in its dealings with the BBC”.
Skewed agendas
None of this should come as a surprise.
Middle East Eye has highlighted the clearly skewed priorities of western news agendas since Hamas broke out of Gaza on 7 October – some 17 years after Israel began imposing a military siege that had already left the enclave barely habitable.
In the carnage that day caused by Hamas’ attack – as well as Israel’s indiscriminate violent response – some 1,139 people in Israel were killed.
As MEE has noted previously, the entire western press corps, not just CNN and the BBC, has failed in its basic duty to present a balanced picture of what has been going on over the past four months.
It has also failed to treat Israeli claims with the scepticism they deserve, especially since Israel has a long track record of being caught out in lies and deceptions.
Paradoxically, given its exposure of concerns at CNN, many of the accusations of journalistic failure levelled at CNN and the BBC could be directed at the Guardian newspaper too – or any other establishment media organisation.
Following Hamas’ 7 October break-out, Israel unleashed a devastating assault on Gaza’s population – so far leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians dead or missing under rubble.
Yet all western media misleadingly continue to frame Israel’s rampage in Gaza – including the collective punishment inflicted on civilians by denying them food and water – variously as “retaliation”, “a war with Hamas”, and “an operation to eliminate Hamas”.
Western media have also largely avoided characterising as “ethnic cleansing” the Israeli military’s order for Palestinians to leave their homes. As a result, 1.7 million have been trapped in a small area in southern Gaza where they face relentless bombing.
Similarly, there has been almost no mention of a long-held plan by Israel – which it now appears close to realising – to drive Gaza’s population into the Sinai desert, in neighbouring Egypt.
And the same media outlets have refused to connect the all-too-obvious dots that Israel – in destroying most of Gaza’s homes, forcibly shutting almost all of its medical facilities and cutting off food and water, while also demanding international defunding of Unrwa, the United Nations’ main aid agency to Gaza – is pursuing an openly genocidal policy.
Israel is making Gaza unlivable, just as Giora Eiland, adviser to the Israeli defence minister, vowed Israel would do at the outset of its assault: “Gaza will become an area where people cannot live.”
When the media do refer to genocide, it is strictly in the context of the International Court of Justice’s decision to put Israel on trial for the “crime of crimes”. Even then, the establishment media have largely minimised the significance of the World Court’s ruling, or even spun it as a victory for Israel.
Astonishingly, the ICJ’s panel of 17 justices has proven to be far more courageous than western media journalists. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Career suicide
The problem is not just that the western media have acted as one in blanking out persuasive evidence of the crimes Israel committed on 7 October. They have also, again as one, been credulously ascribing particularly barbarous crimes to Hamas on the most tenuous of evidence – unsubstantiated claims that Israel has then been using to justify its genocidal rampage.
That started in the immediate wake of 7 October with allegations that Hamas had variously beheaded babies, hung them from washing lines and roasted them in ovens. These claims were even echoed by the White House.
There is still zero evidence for any of them.
CNN staff are upset that Hadas Gold, one of its reporters in Jerusalem – part of the unit vetting all copy about Gaza – uncritically recycled lies from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The real pressures
The Guardian offers various explanations for why CNN has failed so dismally to cover properly the slaughter in Gaza. All have an element of truth about them.
CNN is indeed afraid of antagonising the US government and challenging a critical part of its foreign policy agenda.
There are undoubted commercial pressures from advertisers. The Israel lobby can be confident its threats will be taken seriously when journalists face being accused of antisemitism for stepping out of line. And all of these pressures are compounded by the difficulties its journalists face in accessing Gaza.
But what the Guardian does not want its readers to notice is that all of these pressures apply not just to CNN but to every other corporate media outfit, including the Guardian itself. Which is why the failures are across the board, not confined to one or two broadcasters. …………………………………………………………….
The large corporations and billionaires that own the media are heavily invested in the arms and fossil fuel industries that require the West’s continuing colonial-style, military dominance of the planet and its resources……………………………… more https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/cnn-israel-bias-laid-bare-norm-not-exception
Should USS Investment Builder invest in nuclear power?
Government talks about sharing the benefits if the project comes in ahead of time and cost, but this is fantasy land. Nuclear projects are invariably late and overbudget. From a reputational point of view, USS’s investment in Thames Water has been damaging, but association with Sizewell C could turn out far worse.
Steve Thomas, Coordinating Editor, Energy Policy, Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy
Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), Business School , University of Greenwich 5 June 24 https://divestuss.org/news/
The British government is scouring the world for investors willing to invest in its Sizewell C project. USS has been named as one of six investors shortlisted for the project, perhaps with a stake of about £600m. Would investing in Sizewell C using the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model be a wise investment for USS funds? From a wider perspective, would it contribute usefully to the government’s target of ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and would it offer cheap power?
Sizewell’s predecessor, the Hinkley Point C project to build two EPR reactors has been a disaster both for UK consumers and for its main owner, Electricité de France (EDF). In 2008 when the project was announced, EDF claimed Christmas turkeys would be cooked using power from the plant in 2017 and the government claimed the reactors would cost £5.6bn. By the time the final investment decision was taken in 2016, completion had slipped to 2025 and the cost had gone up to £18bn (2015 money). The price consumers would have to pay for the power was high, £92.5/MWh (2012 money) or about £130/MWh in 2024 money. The one saving grace for consumers was that the price was fixed in real terms and when construction costs escalated, they fell on EDF. In January 2024, the cost and time estimate for Hinkley had increased to £31-35bn (2015 money) or up to £46bn in 2024 money with completion in 2029-31.
Luckily, Britain was not relying on Hinkley to keep the lights on. As a result, in its most recent annual report, EDF announced it was writing off €12.9bn, a large proportion of its investment to date. Press reports talk about the Sizewell project, claimed to be a duplicate of Hinkley, costing about £20bn, implying it could be built for less than half the cost of Hinkley and this is clearly implausible. Even if it could be built for 20% less than Hinkley, that would still imply a cost of nearly £40bn.
European predecessor projects using the same technology as Hinkley and Sizewell, Olkiluoto in Finland and Flamanville in France, have also been disasters taking 18 years to build and coming in at 3-4 times overbudget.
Soon after the Hinkley investment decision was taken, EDF realised its error and abandoned plans to build Sizewell using the same financial model as Hinkley.
Continue readingA Nuclear-Armed European Union? A Proposal Under Fire
By Thalif Deen, UNITED NATIONS, Jun 7 2024 (IPS) – The continued veiled threats from Russia, warning of nuclear attacks on Ukraine, have prompted some politicians in Europe to visualize a nuclear-armed European Union (EU).
But Volkert Ohm, Co-Chair of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) in Germany, told IPS that the call for nuclear weapons for the EU contradicts international law.
The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is that even in extreme circumstances of self-defense, states may only defend themselves with weapons that fulfil the conditions of international humanitarian law.”
“Nuclear weapons do not fulfill them. Nuclear radiation is inherent in any nuclear weapon; thus, “clean” nuclear weapons cannot exist. Debates and statements by politicians in the EU, and particularly in Germany, are neglecting international law on many levels,” he pointed out.
Facing the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House, the head of the EU’s biggest political grouping is calling for Europeans to prepare for war without support from the United States and to build their own nuclear umbrella, according to POLITICO, a US-based online publication.
Manfred Weber, leader of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), has described Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin as “the two who set the framework” for 2024.
The 27 member states of the European Union (EU) are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
But France is the only EU member that is also one of the world’s nine nuclear powers, along with the US, UK, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.
John Burroughs, Vice President, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms and Senior Analyst, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, told IPS that interest in some quarters in the European Union (EU) or some European entity acquiring nuclear weapons stems in part from the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine accompanied by illegal nuclear threats.
But the solution is not some form of increased European reliance on nuclear arms. Rather, it is bringing Russia’s war on Ukraine to an end soon, which would involve painful compromises on Ukraine’s part, he said.
“That would eliminate the very real potential for nuclear war arising out of the conflict, and it would open the way for getting arms control and disarmament negotiations with Russia back on track.”
This, he pointed out, is a far better path than the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the EU or another European entity. That would violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as the IALANA Germany statement points out, reinforce nuclear arms racing already underway, and tend to greenlight the spread of nuclear weapons in other regions.
“The interest in European nuclear weapons has also been spurred by concern over statements by former and possible future US President Donald Trump implying US disengagement from NATO. This concern is exaggerated.”……………………………………………………………………………………………….
Dr M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told IPS that the vast majority of the countries that are part of the European Union have signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear-weapon State Parties.
According to Article 2 of the NPT, each “non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly or indirectly.”
Likewise, nuclear-weapon State Parties to the NPT that are either part of the EU (i.e., France) or not (e.g., the United States) are obligated under Article 1 of the NPT “not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices,” he said.
Even without going into the details of who might control these proposed “nuclear weapons for the EU”, it is clear that such an arsenal would contradict the spirit of the NPT and weaken the already weak non-proliferation and disarmament norms.
As IALANA says, EU states should distance themselves from this idea and work for a world free of nuclear weapons, declared Ramana.
Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC. https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/06/a-nuclear-armed-european-union-a-proposal-under-fire/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-nuclear-armed-european-union-a-proposal-under-fire
European Nuclear Deterrent a Harebrained Illegal Proposal
Putin actually tabled a proposed agreement two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, promising not to take action if Ukraine remained neutral and was not accepted into NATO.
By Alice Slater, NEW YORK, Jun 6 2024 (IPS) https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/06/european-nuclear-deterrent-harebrained-illegal-proposal/ –
It is quite astonishing and clearly insane, that Manfred Weber, the German leader of the European Union’s center-right European People’s Party, now expected to come in first in the European Parliament election scheduled on June 6-9th, is calling for the EU’s own nuclear “deterrent”—arguing that the US-stationed nuclear weapons in five NATO states, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherland, and Turkey, may be inadequate protection for Europe’s security should Trump, that great friend of Russia, be elected!
There is a total disconnect from reality in the western world. It is driven by what has been described as an expansion of the warning of former General Eisenhower, commander of US World War II forces that worked with Russia to defeat the Nazi onslaught, which happened to kill the astounding number of 27 million Russians, in his outgoing presidential address.
Eisenhower warned against the undue influence of the Military Industrial Complex–which has been described by Ray McGovern, former CIA agent and founder of VIPS (Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) as the MICIMATT– the Military, Industrial, Congressional, Intelligence, Media, Academic, Think Tank complex! They are all making a killing on killing!
The US, leading this doomsday machine, is hurtling us towards destruction based on a flouting of all the laws and treaties that have been painfully negotiated and put in place to avoid WWIII, for what it calls its “rules-based order”.
This was the alibi it used when it bombed Kosovo over Russia’s UN Security Council veto, despite its UN treaty obligation not to commit any war of aggression without Security Council approval unless under “imminent threat of attack”, which could hardly be rationally expected to come from Kosovo!
Although the US violated no treaty, it’s steady expansion of NATO eastward, despite well documented promises to Gorbachev, when he miraculously dissolved the Warsaw pact, without a shot, and expressed his apprehension at the Nazi slaughter Russia had suffered with a hope that a unified Germany would not be part of NATO.
Reassurances were given to him that we would never allow Germany to commit aggression again and that we would not expand NATO one inch to the east. At one point, Russia was so threatened by the expansion of NATO that Putin proposed to Clinton that Russia be invited to join. The US turned him down.
And of course, Putin actually tabled a proposed agreement two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, promising not to take action if Ukraine remained neutral and was not accepted into NATO. Bush walked out of the 1972 ABM Treaty we had with the USSR to stop the proliferation of anti-ballistic missiles, and the US put missile bases in Romania and Poland.
Russia (as well as China-the other enemy we are creating to keep the war machine going) has been very forthcoming in seeking nuclear disarmament and peace. After the devastating destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin asked Truman to turn the bomb over to the UN which we jointly founded “to end the scourge of war” and the US turned him down. So, Russia got the bomb!
Gorbachev, after the wall came down, asked Reagan to join the USSR in eliminating nuclear weapons, provided the US gave up its Star Wars policy to “dominate and control the military use of space”. Reagan turned him down. Russia and China both tabled treaties for a space weapons ban at the Committee on Disarmament in Geneva where consensus is required to discuss negotiations.
The US vetoed it, refusing even any discussion in 2008, and again in 2014. Putin proposed to Clinton that we cut our nuclear arsenals to 1,000 bombs each and call the six other nuclear armed countries to the table for a treaty to abolish them. The US turned him down.
When the US and Israel boasted about their use of the Stuxnet virus to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment plant, Putin approached Obama to negotiate a cyberwar ban treaty. The US turned him down.
The demonization of Russia and Putin and now China as well, is a major project of the MICIMATT! The EU has bought the brainwashing caused by the manufacture of a false narrative to keep the war machine going.
In the words of Pogo Possum, a Walt Kelly cartoon character during the first Red Scare, “We have met the enemy, and he is us!”
Alice Slater serves on the Boards of World BEYOND War and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. She is the UN NGO Representative for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and on the Advisory Board of Nuclear Ban U.S. in support of the 2017 Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
IPS UN Bureau
‘We Want Peace’: Spain Applies to Join ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel
“We do it out of commitment to the United Nations and to international law,” said the Spanish foreign minister, calling for an end to civilian deaths.
Common Dreams, EDWARD CARVER, Jun 06, 2024
Spain’s foreign minister announced Thursday that the country had applied to join the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, just over a week after formally recognizing a Palestinian state alongside other European countries.
South Africa brought the case and has led it through its early stages, which culminated on May 24 with the ICJ, the United Nations’ highest court, ordering Israel to halt its military offensive on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip—an order that Israel ignored. Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Libya, and the Palestinians have already applied to join the case, while Chile and Ireland have also announced plans to intervene in support of the case.
We do it out of commitment to the United Nations and to international law,” José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said Thursday in a social media post that included a video of his announcement speech. “To support the work of the court. To avoid more civilian deaths. For the peace.”
“We take the decision because of the ongoing military operation in Gaza,” Albares said, according toThe Associated Press. “We want peace to return to Gaza and the Middle East, and for that to happen we must all support the court.”…………………………………………
Spain is one of several European countries that have recognized a Palestinian state in recent weeks; indeed, Madrid has been central to organizing the European effort. Israel responded by threatening “severe consequences” to nations that recognize Palestine, and it held out a special level of ire for Spanish leaders……………
Spain’s foreign minister announced Thursday that the country had applied to join the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, just over a week after formally recognizing a Palestinian state alongside other European countries.
South Africa brought the case and has led it through its early stages, which culminated on May 24 with the ICJ, the United Nations’ highest court, ordering Israel to halt its military offensive on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip—an order that Israel ignored. Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Libya, and the Palestinians have already applied to join the case, while Chile and Ireland have also announced plans to intervene in support of the case.
“We do it out of commitment to the United Nations and to international law,” José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said Thursday in a social media post that included a video of his announcement speech. “To support the work of the court. To avoid more civilian deaths. For the peace.”
“We take the decision because of the ongoing military operation in Gaza,” Albares said, according toThe Associated Press. “We want peace to return to Gaza and the Middle East, and for that to happen we must all support the court.”
Albares is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), a center-left party that leads a coalition government. Sumar, a new left-wing party that is the junior partner in the coalition, has been strongly pro-Palestine; the party’s ministers have called Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. Podemos, a left-wing party that was part of previous coalitions but now holds only five seats in parliament and has been largely replaced by Sumar, has taken a similarly strong position; its leader had previously called for Spain to back the ICJ genocide case.
The ICJ is one of several international institutions that pro-Palestine governments are using to try to isolate Israel and hold it to account for its ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 36,000 people, mostly women and children, in the last eight months. Israel’s military killed dozens early Thursday by bombing a school where refugees were sheltering. Most of the dead were women and children, the APreported.
Spain is one of several European countries that have recognized a Palestinian state in recent weeks; indeed, Madrid has been central to organizing the European effort. Israel responded by threatening “severe consequences” to nations that recognize Palestine, and it held out a special level of ire for Spanish leaders.
“Hamas thanks you for your service,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote in a message to Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on social media, along with a video that, in Al Jazeera‘s description, “flipped between images of flamenco dancers and apparent scenes of the Palestinian group’s incursion into southern Israel on October 7.”
The move for recognition has widespread support among the Spanish public—78%, based on a Madrid think tank’s survey, according to Al Jazeera………………….. https://www.commondreams.org/news/spain-genocide-case
Scots urged to vote in anti-nuclear MPs to ‘take target off our backs’
The National By Adam Robertson, @adam_robertson9 Multimedia Journalist, 6 June 24
THE Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has launched a major new project amid campaigning for the General Election, highlighting how Scots have “targets on our backs” due to the nuclear weapons on the Clyde.
The Scottish CND’s new campaign aims to push voters to back candidates who support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
We previously reported how the SNP said they would support signing the document, which would entirely outlaw nuclear weapons across the globe, after achieving independence. …………………………………………..(Subscribers only) https://www.thenational.scot/news/24368745.scottish-cnd-launch-new-campaign-amid-general-election/
Report: Vast Majority of Children Under 5 in Gaza Going Full Days Without Food
Since Israel began its Rafah invasion, the amount of aid entering the region has dropped by two-thirds.
By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUT, June 4, 2024, https://truthout.org/articles/report-vast-majority-of-children-under-5-in-gaza-going-full-days-without-food/
The vast majority of children under the age of 5 in Gaza are regularly forced to go at least one full day without eating as Israel’s manufactured famine has intensified in recent weeks, aid groups have reported.
According to a food survey conducted by humanitarian aid groups in May, 85 percent of children under 5 were deprived of food at least one day over a three day period. Official death counts reported by Gaza’s government do not include deaths by starvation; at least 30 children have been recorded starving to death in Gaza so far.
Israel’s starvation campaign has resulted in the rapid spread of famine across the region, which aid groups are warning is worsening by the day as Israel continues its near-total humanitarian aid blockade. According to an Oxfam report released Monday, the risk of famine in Gaza is higher than ever as Israel’s relentless assault and obstruction of aid has made it “virtually impossible” for groups to carry out an aid response.
The UN has reported that, since Israel began its Rafah invasion, the amount of aid entering the region has dropped by two-thirds from the already famine-inducing levels prior to May.
Since May 6, when Israel seized and closed the main humanitarian aid crossing into Gaza, only about eight trucks of aid have entered on average each day — or about 1 percent of the 500 to 600 trucks that the UN has said need to enter each day in order to meet Palestinians’ needs.
On top of the blockade, Israeli forces recently lifted a ban on commercial food deliveries entering Gaza, meaning that commercial deliveries from Israel and the West Bank are now squeezing out aid trucks attempting to enter border crossings.
The food and other supplies, like tents, entering from commercial trucks are then sold for extremely high prices, putting them out of reach for Palestinians already struggling to keep their families alive after months of price gouging and destruction. The Guardian reports that far more commercial trucks are entering because they can pay more to Israeli security guards to enter than groups operating aid trucks.
Two weeks ago, the UN reported that its food and tent storage warehouses in Gaza are empty because of Israel’s blockade; now, families are reporting having to pay $700 just for a basic tent that they would then have to pitch in cemeteries due to overcrowding.
“By the time a famine is declared, it will be too late. When hunger claims many more lives, nobody will be able to deny the horrifying impact of Israel’s deliberate, illegal and cruel obstruction of aid,” said Sally Abi Khalil, Middle East and North Africa director for Oxfam, in a statement. “Obstructing tonnes of food for a malnourished population while waving through caffeine-laced drinks and chocolate is sickening.”
Over a million people have fled Rafah as Israel carries out its invasion, fleeing to nearby Khan Younis, Al-Mawasi and Deir al-Balah, Oxfam reports. As a result, two-thirds of Gaza’s population, or 1.7 million people, have now been forced into an area that’s less than one-fifth of the area of the Gaza strip — an area that Israeli forces have been bombing anyway, despite declaring it to be a safe zone.
Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza is leading to extremely unsanitary and dangerous conditions. In Al-Mawasi, there are only 121 toilets for over 500,000 people, Oxfam says, meaning that there are roughly 4,130 people to each toilet.
Israel is carrying out its blockade and Rafah assault despite the International Court of Justice ordering an end to Israel’s siege of Rafah and an immediate influx of humanitarian aid to Gaza in May in order to stave off the spread of famine and save countless Palestinian lives.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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