nuclear-news

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

‘Holderness nuclear waste site seems ludicrous’ – expert warns of ‘significant’ risks

“Over the next 50 to 100 years the issue is sea level rise, but in the nearer term it’s storm surge risk. So why on earth are they looking at this location?

Dr Paul Dorfman is astonished that a Geological Disposal Facility is being considered for South Holderness

By Joseph Gerrard, Local Democracy Reporter 12 Feb 24

An expert has warned against proposals to build an underground radioactive nuclear waste site under Holderness.

Dr Paul Dorfman, an academic and former government adviser, told LDRS he was astonished that a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) had been proposed for south Holderness. The researcher, who specialises in nuclear waste management, said the risks included flooding and rising sea levels. He also claimed that GDFs were decades away from being proven as a concept………………………………

Under the proposals, radioactive waste would be put into containers and stored hundreds of metres underground at a site which would operate for 175 years. The network of underground vaults and tunnels built within natural geological formations would then be back-filled and the surface site would be given over to other uses.


The establishment of the South Holderness Working Group, which includes East Riding Council, could see funding of up to £2.5m granted if the proposals progress. A facility would only be built if the majority of people in the affected area were shown to want it through a “Test of Support” – though the form that this would take has yet to be decided.

Since the announcement, opposition has been growing to the proposals including with the formation of a local GDF Action Group vowed to oppose it. Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart has also backed a call from South East Holderness councillors Lyn Healing and Sean McMaster for the council to withdraw from the project.

‘Significant risks’

Dr Dorfman is a fellow of the University of Sussex’s Science Policy Research Unit and chairs the Greenpeace-backed Nuclear Consulting Group. His work has included advising the Government, including the Ministry of Defence, on nuclear waste management

Dr Dorfman said the proposals threw up problem after problem and the case for a GDF in south Holderness was knocked out of court when stacked against the evidence. The academic said: “There’s lots of discussions around nuclear energy, but that’s beside the point in this case, it’s about the site itself.

“This is an appalling site, it seems ludicrous, the area seems to have a socially disadvantaged community, and all that implies for why this location has been chosen. There’s lots of models, including the Environment Agency’s, which show this area is at risk of flooding.

“That’s because of sea levels and future sea level rises, there’s some uncertainty over how that will play out. But what there isn’t uncertainty over is the risk of storm surges.

“Over the next 50 to 100 years the issue is sea level rise, but in the nearer term it’s storm surge risk. So why on earth are they looking at this location?

“The other issue is that GDFs are largely conceptual. Yes, one’s been constructed in Sweden, but it’s still an ongoing experiment due to sets of ongoing questions around the containment, the backfill, and most importantly whether the highly radioactive waste can be securely isolated from the wider environment for tens of thousands of years.

“What would happen if there is an accident or incident at a GDF? Significant key underlying research hasn’t been completed, so the question remains, how you can start something like this before you know what you’re doing?

“The current European consensus supports the GDF concept. We have this shared problem of nuclear waste, and we must find a way of managing this extraordinarily toxic stuff. France has also been trying to build a GDF, but they’ve also had significant problems with community acceptance.

“It’s all very well saying let’s do this, but what if deep emplacement makes matters worse? The UK has an existential nuclear waste burden. What are we going to do with it? Well, at the end of the day, no one really knows.

“There may be no final solution, we may have to store it. With a GDF, there’s a huge amount of uncertainty around the underlying geology, would it remain stable for millennia? Then there’s a security issue. Once a GDF is operational, there’s still going to be an opening somewhere.

“And there’s going to be years of trying to emplace this highly radioactive stuff under the ground in containers. It has to be restated that high and mid-level radioactive waste is hugely toxic, and once emplaced, if something goes wrong, then we have a whole set of new problems.

“So, you’ve got problem after problem, and then on top of that you’ve got the issue in south Holderness of the significant risk of flooding. At that point we should just say forget it. This raises the question as to why this site was selected and all that implies for those who have been doing the site selection.

“As for me, I’m astonished the site is being considered. Clearly there will have been preliminary discussions on planning gain for the wider area, with the investment and jobs it would create.

“At a time when money is tight for local people and the local authority, any new money would be welcome. There’s always an upside to any new development, but this has to be weighed against the downside, which in this case is building a high-level nuclear waste site in an area of flooding risk, and the potential hazard to the local community over generations.

“I can’t put into words how amazed I am by this choice of location. As if there weren’t enough problems with a GDF already, south Holderness is a deeply problematic location.”……………………………………………………………………………… https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/holderness-nuclear-waste-site-seems-9090538

February 14, 2024 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Public hearings on the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Israel and Palestine February 19-26, 2024

On February 9, 2024, the ICJ announced that from February 19-26 it will hold public hearings on the request for an Advisory Opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Fifty-two States and three international organizations have expressed their intention to participate in the oral proceedings before the Court.  

In it’s request for the Advisory Opinion, the UN General Assembly asks the ICJ:

  • (a) What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian  territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures?
     
  • (b) How do the policies and practices of Israel referred to in paragraph 18 (a) above affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the United Nations from this status?”

The hearings will be streamed live and on demand (VOD) in the two official languages of the Court on the Court’s website and on UN Web TV. 

February 14, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Legal | Leave a comment

Congress takes aim at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

By Victor Gilinsky | February 12, 2024, Victor Gilinsky is a physicist and was a commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations.  https://thebulletin.org/2024/02/congress-takes-aim-at-the-nuclear-regulatory-commission-its-a-deja-vu-all-over-again/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter02122024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NuclearRegulartoryCommission_02122024

Politico reports that congressional promoters of “advanced” nuclear plants are blaming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as the main obstacle to their deployment. The report singles out Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-WV) and cites his and his colleagues blocking the reappointment to the commission of Jeff Baran, who tended to lean toward safety more than his fellow commissioners, as the start of a campaign to bring the agency to heel. Such crude bullying of a safety agency, especially by people who don’t understand what it involves, is so obviously improper as not to need further comment. But there is more to the story.

The triggering event for Sen. Manchin’s ire appears to be the faltering of NuScale, the leading firm touting the development of small modular reactors (SMRs), and the most likely to succeed commercially. The NuScale reactor design had some hiccups in satisfying the NRC’s requirements for a license, but its fundamental problem was its inability to attract customers. That commercial failure darkens the prospects of the rest of the nuclear industry’s stable of “advanced” designs, whose variety makes licensing more difficult. Safety is a subtle business (think of the Boeing door problem) and depends on design details.

More fundamentally, at risk is the dream of the nuclear industry and the US Energy Department—spun out in hearings before the Senate Energy Committee—of building large numbers of such reactors and exporting them around the world, with the United States regaining undisputed global leadership in nuclear technology.

If this beautiful dream isn’t working out, somebody must be at fault, and who better to blame than the nuclear licensing authorities for paying too much attention to safety. If you think this way, the obvious fix is to reorient the NRC. Legislation to do that (ADVANCE Act, S-1111) has passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support. As Sen. Shelley Capito (R-WV), the act’s chief sponsor, put it: “we must establish regulatory pathways for next-generation nuclear designs to be approved quickly and without burdensome unnecessary costs.”

There is a sense here of “deja vu all over again.” The most prominent in the pipeline of “advanced” reactor designs are fast reactors. (Sidebar: They rely on fast neutrons and are cooled by liquid sodium, whereas all currently operating US power reactors rely on slow neutrons and are cooled by water.)

The most prominent design of this type is TerraPower’s (Bill Gates’s) Natrium reactor. Despite its “advanced” label, this type of power reactor was developed by the US Atomic Energy Commission in the 1960s and 1970s. The prototype Clinch River plant, about the same size as Natrium, was then the country’s largest energy project. The AEC’s central goal, backed at the time by the powerful Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, was to shift US electricity generation to such reactors, starting around 1980. The advantage of these reactors is that, fueled with plutonium, there are enough excess neutrons to convert uranium in the reactor into more plutonium than is being consumed; thus it is possible to “breed” plutonium, hence the name “breeder reactor.” Natrium can be fueled in this way and likely would be if it gained wide acceptability.

Just as supporters of new “advanced” reactors see NRC safety licensing as a threat, so the AEC’s fast reactor developers saw that agency’s semi-independent reactor licensing division as standing in the way and sought to undermine it. (“Regulatory,” as it was called then, was split off from the AEC in 1975 and became the NRC. In time, the rest of the AEC became the Energy Department.) The licensing division was treated by the AEC commissioners as a stepchild and kept weak so as not to threaten the big-budget reactor project.

In the end, this strategy didn’t help the fast breeder reactor project. It got canceled because it didn’t make sense economically. But the weakness of the AEC regulatory organization had important consequences affecting the safety of the power reactors utilities bought in large numbers starting in the mid-1960s. Under pressure from the industry and commissioners, plants got licensed after rather skimpy safety reviews. So as not to constrain the licensing process, the AEC commissioners did not approve any safety regulations for power reactors until 1971. All but two of today’s 94 US operating power reactors were ordered before 1974. When it later became evident the early power reactors needed important safety upgrades, especially after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, the nuclear industry resisted them.

In the late 1990s, it became evident that some of the plants’ safety documents—necessary for operation—were a mess. Then-NRC Chair Shirley Jackson tried to apply the NRC regulations strictly. The plant owners didn’t like this kind of oversight and got to New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, their senatorial godfather, who, in a private meeting, threatened Jackson with a huge budget cut. She got the point quickly, fired offending staff, hired Arthur Anderson management consultants to “improve” the licensing process, and ended the detailed public rating of nuclear power plants that the companies hated because Wall Street used the ratings for bond issues. After those changes, Domenici said he was happy. He boasted about coercing her in his book, A Brighter Tomorrow: “Since that meeting with Chairman Jackson, I have been very impressed with the NRC. They are now a solid, predictable regulatory agency.” There haven’t been many industry complaints since NRC fell into line—that is, until recently.

While the historical industry attacks on the NRC put self-interest above public safety, the agency, after its accommodating responses, didn’t come out looking good, either. A more recent change in the way the commission describes its responsibilities raises further questions about its priorities. It concerns the safety standard in the Atomic Energy Act (Sec. 182): “adequate protection of the public health and safety.” That phrase was cited by the agency for decades as the source of its authority and was the safety standard applied in commission actions.

Perhaps a dozen years ago, for reasons unknown but guessable, the commissioners began to use a modified version of the statutory standard, which now reads (for example, Strategic Plan 2022-2026) “reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety.” There is no denying that the added phrase waters down the Sec. 182 standard, which itself has not changed.

Do Nuclear Regulatory Commission actions under that modified standard even conform with the Atomic Energy Act? The Senate energy committee might usefully address itself to that question before it undertakes any more brow-beating of the already-timid NRC.

February 14, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Planned UK nuclear reactors unlikely to help hit green target, say MPs

Guardian 13 Feb 24

Government plans to deliver SMRs ‘lack clarity’ say environmental committee, and will likely fail to meet clean-energy goal of 2035

MPs have warned that a planned fleet of small nuclear reactors are unlikely to contribute to hitting a key target in decarbonising Britain’s electricity generation, as the government opened talks to buy a site in Wales for a new power station.

The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) said that ministers’ approach to developing factory-built nuclear power plants “lacks clarity” and their role in hitting a goal of moving the grid to clean energy by 2035 was unclear.

Last year a body, Great British Nuclear, was launched with the aim of delivering new power stations, including a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs). The government has spent £215m on developing SMR design and is running a competition for companies to bid for government contracts.

However, in examining the role of SMRs, the EAC heard that a final investment decision on the first station in the UK is not expected until 2029. The timeline means it is unlikely to contribute to the 2035 target, or Labour’s pledge to run the grid on clean energy by 2030……………………..

The EAC said that the government plans to create as much as 24 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050, but this figure could be as low as 12GW. Critics of nuclear power argue that it is costly and slow to build, and that projects to store wind and solar power in large batteries could undermine the need for it as a reliable power source.

…………….. despite pledging hundreds of millions of pounds in support for SMR projects and undertaking to invest in the construction of the UK’s first SMR, the government’s overall vision for the sector at this stage lacks clarity.

“The first SMR is unlikely to be in operation by 2035, the date ministers have set for decarbonising the electricity supply: so what role will SMRs have in an energy mix dominated by renewables and supplemented by existing and emerging large-scale nuclear?”…………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/13/planned-uk-nuclear-reactors-unlikely-to-help-hit-green-target-say-mps

February 14, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Ohio Attorney General announces new indictments in FirstEnergy nuclear plant bailout scandal

Two former FirstEnergy executives and the former chairman of the Ohio Public Utilities Commission face 27 felony counts for their role in the House Bill 6 bribery scheme.

KEVIN KOENINGER / February 12, 2024,  https://www.courthousenews.com/ohio-ag-announces-new-indictments-in-firstenergy-nuclear-plant-bailout-scandal/—

COLUMBUS (CN) — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost promised to hold “the checkwriters and the masterminds accountable” Monday as he announced indictments against executives over a bribery scandal surrounding the taxpayer-funded bailout of several failing nuclear power plants.

Yost said the FirstEnergy executives — Chuck Jones, the former CEO, and Michael Dowling, former vice president of external affairs — worked with attorney Sam Randazzo, former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, or PUCO, to further their legislative interests and ensure their employer was not targeted by the commission.

The charges, filed in Summit County, are the first for Jones and Dowling, while Randazzo was previously indicted by the federal government and pleaded not guilty to multiple wire fraud charges in December 2023.

Jones and Dowling are expected to surrender to authorities later Monday.

“This indictment is about more than one piece of legislation,” Yost said at a news conference announcing the indictments. “It is about the hostile capture of a significant portion of Ohio’s state government by deception, betrayal and dishonesty.

“There can be no justice without holding the checkwriters and the masterminds accountable. Shout it from the public square to the boardroom, from Wall Street and Broad and High: Those who perversely seek to turn the government to their own private ends will face the destruction of everything they worked for,” he said.

The indictment names two shell companies run by Randazzo, alongside Jones, Dowling, and the former utilities commission chairman, and were integral to the defendants’ scheme, according to Yost.

The attorney general’s office writes in the charging document that Randazzo negotiated settlements with FirstEnergy on behalf of several clients associated with the Industrial Energy Users-Ohio trade association, but then used legal assignments to transfer those settlements to his shell companies, including Sustainability Funding Alliance of Ohio Inc.

According to Yost, Randazzo earned millions of dollars for consulting services at FirstEnergy — without his clients’ knowledge — and lobbied for the energy provider to secure subsidies eventually included in the ill-fated House Bill 6.

That legislation included a bailout of over $1 billion to save two struggling nuclear power plants owned by FirstEnergy in northern Ohio, and eventually resulted in the indictment, trial and conviction of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder.

The Republican politician was convicted of a single RICO charge in March 2023 and is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison while his appeal is pending before the Sixth Circuit.

Matt Borges, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman, was convicted alongside Householder, and is serving a five-year sentence in federal prison.

FirstEnergy paid Randazzo over $13 million through his shell companies between 2016 and 2019, and he pocketed over $5.3 million of that money for himself, the attorney general writes in the indictment.

Jones and Dowling then agreed to make a one-time payment of $4.3 million from FirstEnergy to Randazzo on Jan. 2, 2019, weeks before the attorney became chairman, a position he abused to “bend the PUCO around FirstEnergy’s will,” according to Yost.

To conduct the investigation, the Ohio Organized Crime Commission organized a task force at the behest of Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh.

“These individuals used FirstEnergy to break the law and betray the public’s trust,” Walsh said at Monday’s news conference. “This indictment is another step toward bringing justice for the residents of Summit County and Ohio.”

Randazzo was indicted on 22 felony counts, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, aggravated theft, bribery and eight counts of money laundering, among others, while Jones and Dowling face 10 and 12 felony counts, respectively.

February 14, 2024 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Environmental Audit Committee urges UK Government to clarify nuclear SMR strategy

Energy Live News.13 Feb 24

The Environmental Audit Committee has expressed concerns over the lack of clarity in the UK Government’s approach to small modular reactors, despite pledging significant funds.

The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has expressed concerns regarding the UK Government’s stance on small modular reactors (SMRs).

Despite allocating £215 million towards SMR technology, the committee highlights unclear policy direction regarding SMRs’ role in the country’s energy mix.

The EAC stresses the necessity of government clarity, especially concerning investment decisions and SMR project commissioning.

As the first SMR is not projected to contribute to the grid until 2035, questions arise regarding its integration with renewable energy sources for achieving decarbonisation goals.

Moreover, evidence presented to the committee indicates potential challenges concerning waste management and regulatory processes…………..

“The first SMR is unlikely to be in operation by 2035, the date Ministers have set for decarbonising the electricity supply: so what role will SMRs have in an energy mix dominated by renewables and supplemented by existing and emerging large scale nuclear…………………  https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/02/13/government-urged-to-clarify-nuclear-smr-strategy/

February 14, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Oxfam reaction to the Dutch court’s decision to stop military exports to Israel

February 13, 2024, by: The AIM Network,  https://theaimn.com/oxfam-reaction-to-the-dutch-courts-decision-to-stop-military-exports-to-israel/—

Oxfam Novib, together with PAX, and the Rights Forum organisations, has won a lawsuit against the Dutch Government for exporting arms to Israel that are being used in the war in Gaza. The Dutch Court ordered the government of Netherlands to stop supplying F35 fighter jet parts to Israel within seven days, due to the clear risk of serious violations of international humanitarian law. The decision comes following the three organisations’ appeal to the court case against the Dutch government for supplying Israel with military equipment despite knowing they are used to commit war crimes in Gaza. The judge concluded, based on reports from Amnesty and the UN, that many civilians, including children, are being targeted.

In response to the ruling, Michiel Servaes – Oxfam Novib Executive Director – said:

“This positive ruling by the judge is very good news, especially for civilians in Gaza. It is an important step to force the Dutch government to adhere to international law, which the Netherlands has strongly advocated for in the past. Israel has just launched an attack against the city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population are sheltering, the Netherlands must take immediate steps.”

“It is a pity that this legal action was necessary and, unfortunately, has taken four months to come to this conclusion. The judge had ruled that the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation was obliged to re-examine the arms export license to Israel, and that his decision was taken incorrectly. We hope that this verdict can encourage other countries to follow suit, so that civilians in Gaza are protected by international law.”

February 14, 2024 Posted by | EUROPE, Legal, politics international | Leave a comment

Latest Fukushima leak exposes failures in nuclear crisis management

Xinhua 2024-02-12,  https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202402/12/WS65c9eda7a3104efcbdaeab75.html

In a chilling revelation that sent shockwaves through the world, a new nuclear waste leak has unearthed the gaping crack in Japan’s professed claim of responsible handling the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The leakage of about 5.5 tons of water containing radioactive materials from the plant also highlights the need for international supervision of Japan’s controversial discharge of the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean.

It is estimated that 22 billion becquerels of radioactive materials such as cesium and strontium are contained in the leaked water, and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), claimed on Wednesday that monitoring of a nearby drainage channel did not show any significant radiation level changes.

This begs the question: What constitutes a “significant” level?

Nearly 13 years after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, recurring leaking incidents still hint at the utility’s mismanagement and the Japanese government’s inadequacy in overseeing it.

On Oct. 26, 2023, just one week before Japan started the third round of release, two men were hospitalized after being accidentally splashed with radioactive liquid at the plant. On Aug. 11, 2023, days before the first round of discharge started, TEPCO found leaks in a hose used to transfer nuclear-contaminated water, which, as it said, would not affect the discharge plan.

Even more concerning, the causes of these incidents have fully exposed the chaos and disorder of TEPCO’s internal management. The leak on Wednesday stemmed from a valve left open during cleaning operations, while the October incident resulted from a loose hose channeling contaminated solutions. In August, TEPCO attributed a leak to cracks approximately four centimeters in length found in a hose.

The deficiencies in the fundamental equipment raise questions about the potential for similar occurrences and whether TEPCO conducts regular inspections of its equipment.

While TEPCO this time claimed that there is no risk to the public and that the surrounding environment remains unaffected by the leak, its history of cover-ups and opacity has eroded public trust.

For instance, it took TEPCO over two years after the 2011 tsunami to acknowledge that radioactive tritium had leaked into the Pacific Ocean, contradicting its initial assertions that the toxic water had been contained within the plant’s premises.

Also, in February 2015, TEPCO admitted that since April 2014, it had been aware of radioactive substances from a rainwater drainage ditch linked to one of its buildings being leaked into the sea when it rained.

Until meaningful reforms are enacted, the specter of Fukushima will continue to haunt Japan, serving as a sober reminder of the country’s failure to protect its citizens and the broader environment.

February 14, 2024 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, safety | Leave a comment

UK government keen to take control of Anglesey site for Westinghouse to build Wylfa nuclear power station

The British government is seeking to take control of a key site in Wales
earmarked for a nuclear power plant as part of wider plans to revamp
nuclear technology for the UK.

State-owned Great British Nuclear is in
early-stage discussions with Hitachi, owner of the land in Wylfa in
Anglesey, an island off north Wales, to buy the site with a view to finding
a new private sector partner to develop a station there.

The site has been
in limbo since Hitachi abandoned plans to build a new reactor there in
January 2019 after failing to strike a financial agreement with the British
government. The Japanese industrial group eventually wrote off £2.1bn on
the project. It also stopped work at a second site in Oldbury, South
Gloucestershire.

Ministers are now determined to revive plans to use the
Wylfa site for new nuclear power to help replace Britain’s current ageing
fleet of nuclear reactors. One minister confirmed that tentative
negotiations with Hitachi had already begun although they acknowledged the
deal might not be finalised until after the election later this year.

The land is thought to be worth about £200mn, but there are expectations that
Hitachi could settle for a lower price given the site is fallow. A
consortium led by the US nuclear company Westinghouse and construction
group Bechtel has proposed building a new plant there using
Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor technology. It is thought the site could
also host small modular reactors.

 FT 11th Feb 2024

https://www.ft.com/content/2e7928c7-ad7f-4ac4-88d8-8cde95ee1a00

 Telegraph 11th Feb 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/11/britain-aims-to-revive-plans-nuclear-power-station-wales

 Bloomberg 11th Feb 2024

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/uk-in-talks-with-hitachi-over-welsh-nuclear-plant-site-ft-says-1.2033580

 Energy Voice 12th Feb 2024

UK in talks with Hitachi over Welsh nuclear plant site

 City AM 12th Feb 2024

February 14, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Final public meeting to discuss South Holderness nuclear waste plan

The final public meeting to discuss plans to bury nuclear waste in East
Yorkshire takes place later. The drop-in session at Burstwick Village Hall
is the last of five organised by Nuclear Waste Services (NWS).

The government agency has named South Holderness as having potential for a
Geological Disposal Facility (GDF). Chief executive Corhyn Parr previously
said the scheme would only go ahead with community support. The GDF would
see waste stored up to 3,280ft (1,000m) underground until its radioactivity
had naturally decayed. Officials from NWS said the project could create
thousands of jobs and investment in local infrastructure in the area. The
proposed South Holderness site is one of three areas in England being
considered.

However, the plan has attracted opposition, with two local
councillors calling on East Riding of Yorkshire Council to end talks with
NWS. Beverley and Holderness Conservative MP Graham Stuart, who is also the
Minister for Energy Security, has backed the councillors’ motion saying
“Our community says no”.

 BBC 12th Feb 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-68256818

February 14, 2024 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 127: Growing international alarm over Israeli plans to invade Rafah

Israel has announced its intention to push ahead with its plans to invade Rafah in the southernmost Gaza Strip, where 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering. Rafah’s mayor, Ahmed al-Sufi, warns any military action there would result in a “massacre”.

By Mondoweiss Palestine Bureau / Mondoweiss, 10 Feb 24 https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-127-growing-international-alarm-over-israeli-plans-to-invade-rafah/

Casualties:

  • At least 28,064 people have been killed and 67,611 wounded in the Gaza Strip*
  • More than 380 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
  • The death toll in Israel from the October 7th attacks stands at 1,139, according to Al Jazeera
  • 564 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**

*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on its Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”

Key Developments

  • Israel has committed 16 massacres, killing 117 Palestinians and injuring 152 in Gaza over the past 24 hours, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health
  • Despite U.S. criticisms, Netanyahu pushes ahead with planned invasion of Rafah to “take out four remaining [Hamas] battalions” in the southernmost Gaza Strip city, Haaretz reported. 
  • As Netanyahu allegedly makes plans for “civilian evacuation” in Rafah in preparation for Israeli ground invasion, Israeli army kills 28 Palestinians in Gaza in raid on residential homes in Rafah, including 10 children, the youngest of whom was a three-year-old child, Al Jazeera reported. 
  • The body has been found of missing 6-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who made headlines after her desperate calls to be rescued after her family came under attack by an Israeli tank. The Palestinian medics who were dispatched to rescue her were also declared dead. 
  • UN relief chief expresses outcry over planned invasion of Rafah: “Many of the well over 1 million people who make up Rafah’s population today have endured unthinkable suffering. Where are they supposed to go? How are they supposed to stay safe?”
  • Mayor of Rafah warns any invasion of the city “will lead to a massacre.”
  • Biden to send CIA director to Egypt to continue negotiations on ceasefire deal and potential exchange of captives. This comes on the heels of Israel rejected a proposed ceasefire deal by Hamas, which Netanyahu called ‘crazy’ and Biden dubbed as ‘over the top’. 
  • Biden issues new directive requiring countries receiving U.S. military aid to prove that they are “in compliance with international humanitarian law and human rights law and other standards,” AP reported. 
  • Israeli forces and snipers are firing at civilians and medical personnel in and outside of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Doctors Without Borders says two people have been killed and five others have been injured over the past 48 hours. 
  • Claims surface of abducted Palestinian doctor and Director of Al-Shifa’ Hospital Muhammad Abu Salmiya is being tortured by Israeli forces and treated ‘like a dog’.
  • Israeli forces kill a 17-year-old Palestinian boy in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus during a raid on the town of Beita. 
  • Israel conducts airstrikes and artillery shelling in southern Lebanon, no injuries were reported.
  • Senior Biden administration aide reportedly apologizes for “missteps” in the administration’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza in closed-door meeting with Arab-American political leaders in Michigan.  

Growing chorus of international alarm over Israel’s plans to invade Rafah

Despite warnings and criticisms from the Biden administration, Israel is announcing its intention to push ahead with its plans to invade Rafah, the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip where an estimated 1 million Palestinians, half of Gaza’s population, are sheltering. 

Israeli news daily Haaretz reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army and defense establishment on Friday to “present plans to defeat the Hamas battalions” that are allegedly operating in Rafah. 

Quoting a statement from the Prime Minister, Haaretz reported Netanyahu as saying: “It is impossible to achieve the goal of the war of eliminating Hamas while leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah.”

In an effort seemingly meant to appease vocal warnings from the Biden administration that the U.S. wouldn’t support an “unplanned” military operation in Rafah without considerations to “protect civilians,” Netanyahu also said that a military operation in Rafah would “require the evacuation of the civilian population from combat zones.”

It is not clear how Israel plans to evacuate the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have sought shelter in Rafah due to Israeli bombardment and Israeli orders to evacuate the north, central, and other areas of southern Gaza.

Inside Rafah’s city center, tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians shelter in buildings, schools, and hospitals. Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Rafah, near the Egyptian border, entire tent cities have been erected to house the growing population of displaced Palestinians. 

According to Save the Children, an estimated 1.3 million Palestinians, including 610,000 children are currently displaced and sheltering in the Rafah area. 

Given the current reality that Israel has destroyed its way through the rest of Gaza, obliterating more than half of Gaza’s infrastructure in the process, the question remains: where will the 1.3 million Palestinians in Rafah go if the army invades?

Since the start of the genocidal Israeli campaign on Gaza, Palestinians have been warning of Israeli desires to ethnically cleanse them, and push Palestinians from the small besieged enclave into Egypt. Those fears were intensified when, in late October, documents were leaked from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence outlining plans to push the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza into the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, which borders Gaza to the south. 

Egypt’s borders, however, have remained firmly closed, save the entry and exit of minimal humanitarian aid. The Egyptian government and other Arab nations have also remained firmly opposed to Israeli ideations of mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.  

Despite the growing threat of an invasion in Rafah, many Palestinians sheltering there say they will not leave their shelters. “We have come to the border area with Egypt because we thought it would be the safest place, the last place where Israel would push the residents. Now it is not possible to push them any farther, it is not possible for us to move anywhere else. We will only move from here to the grave. This is our last resort,” a Palestinian woman in Rafah told Middle East Eye. 

As Israel continues to promote its plans of an invasion into Rafah, a growing chorus of outcry is emerging both locally and on the international stage.  

According to Al Jazeera, the mayor of Rafah, Ahmed al-Sufi, has warned that any military action in Rafah would result in a “massacre”.

Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, posted on X warning that Palestinians in Rafah would have nowhere to go in the case of an Israeli invasion. 

“Many of the well over 1 million people who make up Rafah’s population today have endured unthinkable suffering. Their homes have been destroyed, their streets mined, their neighborhoods shelled. They’ve been on the move for months, braving bombs, disease and hunger. 

Where are they supposed to go? How are they supposed to stay safe? There’s nowhere left to go in Gaza. Civilians must be protected and their essential needs, including shelter, food and health must be met,” Griffiths wrote. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also posted on X, saying: “Half of Gaza’s population is now crammed into Rafah with nowhere to go. Reports that the Israeli military intends to focus next on Rafah are alarming.

Such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”

Amnesty International posted satellite images showing vast displacement camps in Rafah, saying” “Many have already faced successive waves of displacement. If these mass ‘evacuation orders’ are indeed issued they may amount to the crime of forcible transfer.”


UNICEF also warned against a ground invasion in Rafah, saying it would “mark another devastating turn. The agency’s director also called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” saying it would save lives. 

Avril Benoit, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders (MSF)-USA also responded to Israel’s planned invasion of Rafah, saying it would be “catastrophic and must not proceed.”

“As aerial bombardment of the area continues, more than a million people—many living in tents and makeshift shelters—now face a dramatic escalation in this ongoing massacre.”

“Nowhere in Gaza is safe,” she continued, “and repeated forced displacements have pushed people to Rafah, where they are trapped in a tiny patch of land and have no options.”

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs alo issued a statement, saying it “rejects the displacement of Palestinians inside or outside their territories and stresses the need to end the war on the Gaza Strip.”

As Israel mulls over plans to ‘protect civilians’, Israel kills more civilians in Gaza

Just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intentions to evacuate civilians in Rafah, Israeli forces killed 28 Palestinians in air attacks on residential homes in Rafah.

Continue reading →

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Report: Egypt warns Israel Rafah offensive may lead to suspension of peace treaty

On Friday, Israel’s Channel 12 also reported that IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi was opposed to Netanyahu’s plan for a swift Rafah campaign, saying that although the military is technically capable of such an operation, it would be unwise to undertake it without coordination with the Egyptians and plans for the city’s massive refugee population.

Saudis also raise alarm; ground op pledged by Netanyahu in refugee-packed border city draws rebukes even from allies

Times of Israel, By TOI STAFF 10 February 2024,

in Rafah, Wednesday, January 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have added their voices to a rising tide of criticism of a planned Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that such a campaign was forthcoming.

Netanyahu announced Friday that he had ordered the Israeli military to present the cabinet with a plan to both evacuate the city’s civilian population — augmented by over one million refugees from the strip’s north and center — and destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions in the area.

According to Netanyahu, an assault on Rafah is critical to completing Israel’s stated war aim of dismantling Hamas. Earlier in the week, the premier rejected Hamas’s “delusional” terms for a hostage deal, which included a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Strip and the release of hundreds of terrorists serving life sentences.

“There is limited space and great risk in putting Rafah under further military escalation due to the growing number of Palestinians there,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Saturday during a press briefing, warning that an escalation would have “dire consequences.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Egyptian officials warned the decades-long peace treaty between Egypt and Israel could be suspended if Israel Defense Forces’ troops enter Rafah, or if any of Rafah’s refugees are forced southward into the Sinai Peninsula.

in Rafah, Wednesday, January 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have added their voices to a rising tide of criticism of a planned Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that such a campaign was forthcoming.

Netanyahu announced Friday that he had ordered the Israeli military to present the cabinet with a plan to both evacuate the city’s civilian population — augmented by over one million refugees from the strip’s north and center — and destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions in the area.

According to Netanyahu, an assault on Rafah is critical to completing Israel’s stated war aim of dismantling Hamas. Earlier in the week, the premier rejected Hamas’s “delusional” terms for a hostage deal, which included a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Strip and the release of hundreds of terrorists serving life sentences.Hostage RallyKeep Watching

“There is limited space and great risk in putting Rafah under further military escalation due to the growing number of Palestinians there,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Saturday during a press briefing, warning that an escalation would have “dire consequences.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Egyptian officials warned the decades-long peace treaty between Egypt and Israel could be suspended if Israel Defense Forces’ troops enter Rafah, or if any of Rafah’s refugees are forced southward into the Sinai Peninsula.

Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Editionby email and never miss our top storiesNewsletter email addressGET IT

By signing up, you agree to the terms

In addition, Saudi Arabia — which has already conditioned normalization with Israel on an end to hostilities and steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state — issued a statement Saturday warning of “the extremely dangerous repercussions of storming and targeting the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip,” given the city being “the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of people.”

Reuters reported that in an effort to forestall a massive influx of refugees, Egypt has over the past two weeks stationed some 40 tanks near its border with Gaza, after having reinforced the border wall since the beginning of hostilities, both structurally and with surveillance equipment.

On Friday, Israel’s Channel 12 also reported that IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi was opposed to Netanyahu’s plan for a swift Rafah campaign, saying that although the military is technically capable of such an operation, it would be unwise to undertake it without coordination with the Egyptians and plans for the city’s massive refugee population.

Netanyahu, according to the report, thinks the IDF would need to wrap up a Rafah campaign by the March 10 start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

The two Arab countries’ admonitions follow similar warnings by the United States, where senior figures in the administration of President Joe Biden have publicly decried the prospect of a Rafah offensive as a “disaster.” Philippe Lazzarini, chief of the UN’s aid agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, was also quoted by Reuters saying “there is a sense of growing anxiety, growing panic in Rafah because basically people have no idea where to go.”


Hamas, meanwhile, issued a statement Saturday saying military action in Rafah would have catastrophic repercussions that “may lead to tens of thousands of martyrs and injured,” for which the terror group would hold “the American administration, international community and the Israeli occupation” responsible…………………………………… https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-egypt-warns-israel-rafah-offensive-may-lead-to-suspension-of-peace-treaty/

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Egypt, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

First Small Nuclear Reactor (SMR) domino falls, potentially to start cascade

February 8, 2024,  https://beyondnuclear.org/first-smr-domino-falls-potentially-to-start-cascade/—

Same financial risks viewed as generic to entire reactor type

The nuclear industry is rattled by an Opinion piece appearing in the January 31, 2024 edition of the energy trade journal Utility Dive. The article, astutely entitled “The collapse of NuScale’s project should spell the end for small modular nuclear reactors,” is an extensively documented study of yet another nuclear folly. 

Its author, M.V. Ramana, the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, carefully focuses on the financial collapse of what was heralded to be the first units of a bow wave of mass produced small commercial power reactors to be constructed and operated in the United States.

NuScale Power Corp, the Portland, Oregon based company that started up in 2007, was supposed to be the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) poster child to mass produce the first US Small Modular Reactors (SMR)  owned and controlled by US nuclear giant and thermonuclear weapons manufacturer Fluor Corporation.    Instead, on November 9, 2023, NuScale was announced as just another financial causality in a growing tally of nuclear projects stymied by uncontrollable cost and a recurring pattern of delay after delay.  In this case, however, NuScale fell victim  even before its selected reactor design could be certified by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a viable license for the groundbreaking ceremony.

The NuScale pilot project’s initial goal was to license, construct and operate twelve contiguous units, (50 to 60-megawatts electric (MWe) each for a total up to  720 MWe of generating capacity per site), housed in a single reactor building with one control room. On the promise that this would be safer, cheaper and quicker to build and operate, the NuScale SMR is really just a redesign of a decades-old technology for the impossibly expensive and larger (800 to 1150 MWe per unit) commercial pressurized water reactors operating on license extensions today.

Yet, even with this extensive experience going back to the 1960’s, the redesign has not yielded to be any more reliable for estimating cost-of-completion, time-to-completion or affordable operation. In fact, with the industry’s abandonment of the design and construction of new reactors on “economies of scale,” the prospect for generating affordable electricity from  small “mirage” reactors has apparently only become more unattainable.

The NuScale pilot reactor construction site was awarded by the DOE on the federally owned Idaho National Laboratory (INL) near Idaho Falls. NuScale worked out a deal for its projected electricity customer base on a contract with the Utah Associated Municipal Power System (UAMPS), an electric cooperative of 50 cities in seven western states incentivized by a DOE federal government payout to would be customers of up to $1.4 billion over ten years.

But despite the federally promised awards to reduce nuclear power’s certain financial risks to customers, Ramana documents the NuScale and UAMPS struggle with first building its power purchase subscriptions from members who would shortly run for the designated “exit ramps” scheduled into the contract.

As these municipalities pulled out of the nuclear project because of financial concerns, UAMPS and NuScale renegotiated the project’s generating capacity down to six units each rated at 77 MWe for a total generating capacity of 462 MWe.

The reactor design’s safety, however, is still problematic and uncertified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and now demonstrated to be yet another expensive “house of cards.” Like the previous “nuclear renaissance” initiated by Congress and the nuclear industry in 2005, of the 34 “advanced” Generation III units put forward by industry, only one unit (Vogtle unit 3) is commercially operable today and another unit (Vogtle unit 4) still under construction. The initial $14 billion project in Georgia is now approaching as much as $40 billion to show for it.

In a follow-on article in the February 3, 2024 edition of DownToEarth, M.V. Ramana and Farrukh A. Chishtie are co-authors of “Tripling nuclear energy by 2050 will take a miracle, and miracles don’t happen” which identifies the same dangerous wild goose chase to expand nuclear power that is destined to fail climate change mitigation on the global scale.

Chishtie and Ramana expertly rebut the deluded notion as presented by the United States former Special Envoy on Climate Change John Kerry at the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai, UAE.  They cite “the hard economic realities of nuclear power” historically to date  as the principal reason nuclear power cannot be scaled up from what can only be termed a preposterous level by 2050.  That will be far too late by most accounts to abate an accelerating climate crisis.

“The evidence that nuclear energy cannot be scaled up quickly is overwhelming. It is time to abandon the idea that further expanding nuclear technology can help with mitigating climate change. Rather, we need to focus on expanding renewables and associated technologies while implementing stringent efficiency measures to rapidly effect an energy transition.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Putin ‘tried everything possible’ to make peace – Ukrainian diplomat

One thing is clear: Kiev has chosen to see itself as literally unable to make peace without Western permission.

Fri, 29 Dec 2023, Rt,  https://www.sott.net/article/487425-Putin-tried-everything-possible-to-make-peace-Ukrainian-diplomat—

The possibility of compromise was “very real” in April 2022, a key negotiator from Kiev’s side has said

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally sought a peace agreement with Ukraine in April 2022, according to Ambassador Aleksandr Chaly, a senior member of the Ukrainian delegation.      Chaly expressed this perspective during an event at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) in early December, where he dissected the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The ex-deputy foreign minister is an associate fellow at the Swiss government-funded foundation. His remarks drew media attention after a video of the event was released on YouTube last week.

Chaly analyzed the roots of the ongoing conflict, which he described as “hard competition” for Ukraine that the US and the EU have with Russia, as well as Kiev’s intention to join the EU and NATO. He stressed that “Russian aggression” was not inevitable since the parties had sufficient tools to resolve their differences.

The diplomat called Putin’s decision to launch the special military operation against Ukraine in February 2022 “a crime” and “a mistake” and claimed that the Russian leader had been misled by “his own propaganda and his intelligence services.”

Approximately a week into hostilities, Chaly believes Putin recognized the unrealistic nature of his expectations and actively pursued a negotiated resolution. He based his analysis on his personal involvement in the peace talks, which were first hosted by Minsk and culminated in Istanbul in late March with a draft truce approved by both sides.

“Putin … tried to do everything possible to conclude [the] agreement with Ukraine,” the diplomat told the audience. The text made concessions to Kiev, compared to Russia’s initial position, and it was Putin’s “personal decision” to accept it, he claimed.

“We’ve managed to find a very real compromise. Putin really wanted to reach some peaceful agreement with Ukraine.”

Chaly mused that “for some reason,” the Istanbul communique did not transform into an actual treaty.

The Ukrainian delegation’s leader, MP David Arakhamia, said in late November that then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised Ukrainians to “just continue fighting” during his visit to Kiev after the conclusion of the talks.

Remarks made by senior Russian officials, including Putin, partially back Chaly’s account. The president said during his year-end press conference this month that Russia’s stated goals of demilitarization and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine would have been addressed under the pre-approved treaty.

“Options remain to either achieve them through an agreement or by force,” Putin stressed.

Comment: The article adds to the list of articles that document what the Ukrainians and Russians tried to achieve. Putin talks about de-Nazification. Does that translate to de-NATOification, if what Russia wanted most of all, was for Ukraine to stay neutral and give up on NATO membership?

See also:
November 27, 2023 The Jews and Boris Johnson: Zelensky’s top political ally looking for scapegoats as Ukrainian elites begin to accept the war is lost In this article Tarik Cyril Amar writes:

Regarding the peace negotiations that took place in Belarus at the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, Arakhamia tells Moseichuk that the Russian delegation had one “key aim”: to make Ukraine accept neutrality and give up on NATO membership. In Arakhamia’s own words, “everything else” Russia talked about, such as demands regarding “denazification, Russian-speaking populations, and blah-blah-blah” was merely “cosmetic political seasoning.”

Let that sink in: Here is a prime negotiator for Ukraine and one of the Zelensky regime’s top men stating explicitly that all that peace really required at that very early stage in the large-scale war was Kiev committing to neutrality and giving up on its NATO ambitions. The war could have stopped in the spring of 2022; that is, one-and-a-half very bloody years ago. And for Kiev, this would have come at the price of giving up on a NATO ambition that is based on a false promise encapsulated in the foul compromise of the 2008 Bucharest summit. A pledge which the West has no intention of keeping, as demonstrated again at the 2023 Vilnius summit.

Arakhamia’s admission proves, once more, that there have always been viable alternatives to war. Western information warriors still denying this empirically established fact simply refuse to face their own terrible responsibility for stonewalling negotiations throughout. Likewise, Arakhamia demonstrates that everyone in Ukraine and the West who insisted that Moscow’s war aims were maximalist (whether to obliterate Ukraine as a state or to march right through it to, at least, Berlin) were flat out wrong, whether by mistake or on purpose. At least, that’s if we believe Arakhamia, who had direct experience with real representatives of Russia and not the fantasy creatures populating the minds of all too many Westerners, from Yale to Berlin. And note: Arakhamia has absolutely no reason to embellish Moscow’s record.
[…]
One thing is clear: Kiev has chosen to see itself as literally unable to make peace without Western permission.

After Belarus there were talks in Türkiye:

November 22, 2023 Boris Johnson derailed Ukraine peace deal – key Zelensky ally The article has many links to articles that describe how the peace negotiations were derailed. In the article there is:

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson played a key role in derailing a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev, telling Ukraine to “just continue fighting,” top Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia has said. Arakhamia, the head of President Vladimir Zelensky’s parliamentary faction, was the chief negotiator at the botched peace talks in Istanbul, held early into the ongoing conflict.

The MP made the bombshell revelation on Friday in an interview with the Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel. “Russia’s goal was to put pressure on us so that we would take neutrality. This was the main thing for them,” he said. “And that we would give an obligation that we would not join NATO. This was the main thing.”

However, Kiev did not actually trust Moscow to keep its word and did not want to reach such a deal without third-party “security guarantees,” Arakhamia claimed, while revealing the lead role in derailing the agreement was played by Johnson.

When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we would not sign anything with [the Russians] at all. And [said] ‘let’s just continue fighting.’

The pivotal role played by Johnson in Ukraine’s decision to scrap the draft agreement with Russia – signed by Arakhamia personally in Istanbul – has long been rumored, with initial reports on the matter emerging in Ukrainian media as early as May 2022. Until now, however, it was neither denied nor confirmed by any of the parties involved.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief is an unpopular ‘butcher’ – Politico

 https://www.rt.com/russia/592184-ukraine-commander-syrsky-unpopular/ 10 Feb 24

Troops are wary of General Aleksandr Syrsky, and reportedly fear that he will throw them into “fruitless assaults”

Ukraine’s new armed forces chief, General Aleksandr Syrsky, is deeply unpopular among the rank and file of the Ukrainian military, who view him as a “butcher” willing to sacrifice waves of troops, Politico reported on Thursday.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky named Syrsky as the new head of the armed forces on Thursday, after firing General Valery Zaluzhny from the post. The switch had been the subject of media rumors for several weeks, and Zelensky hinted in an interview last week that it would form part of a wider “reset” of the country’s military and civilian leadership.

Syrsky is a controversial choice, best known for “leading forces into a meat grinder in Bakhmut [called Artyomovsk in Russia], sending wave after wave of troops to face opposition fire,” Politico said.

The unsuccessful defense of Artyomovsk/Bakhmut last year cost Ukraine dearly, and earned Syrsky the nickname ‘butcher’, an anonymous source within the Ukrainian military told the news site. A captain told the outlet that Syrsky’s appointment is a “very bad decision,” adding that soldiers refer to him as ‘General200’, a nickname that Politico said refers to 200 of his men dying, but could also refer to ‘Cargo 200’, a Soviet and Russian military code used to describe corpses being removed from the battlefield.

“General Syrsky’s leadership is bankrupt, his presence or orders coming from his name are demoralizing, and he undermines trust in the command in general,” an anonymous Ukrainian military officer and frontline intelligence analyst posted on X. “His relentless pursuit of tactical gains constantly depletes our valuable human resources, resulting in tactical advances such as capturing tree lines or small villages, with no operational goals in mind.”

“This approach creates a never-ending cycle of fruitless assaults that drain personnel,” the officer said.

In a group chat of Bakhmut/Artyomovsk veterans, one soldier wrote “we’re all f**ked” upon learning of Syrsky’s appointment, Politico stated.

Syrsky takes over command of a depleted military, with Kiev having lost more than 383,000 men since the hostilities started in February 2022, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Prior to his dismissal, Zaluzhny warned Zelensky that a rapid improvement in Ukraine’s position on the battlefield was unlikely, regardless of who took his place, the Washington Post reported last week.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia’s campaign against Ukraine will not be affected by Syrsky’s appointment, and that Moscow will continue until its objectives are achieved.

February 13, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »