Biden’s $582 Million Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia. Can It Be Blocked?
BY CHARLES PIERSON, https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/11/bidens-582-million-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia-can-it-be-blocked/
On December 24, 2023, the Biden Administration announced a $582 million arms sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Three Congressional resolutions aim at blocking the sale.
S.Res. 109,[1] which Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) introduced on March 15, 2023, invokes a little-used section of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.[2] Section 502B bars the US from providing “security assistance,” including arms sales, to any country with a “consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”[3] The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia certainly fits that requirement.
502B allows Congress to request that the White House produce a report on a foreign government’s human rights record. A 502B report on Saudi Arabia[4] would focus on (1) Saudi Arabia’s human rights record; and (2) Saudi conduct with respect to Yemen, particularly the Kingdom’s disproportionate killing of civilians (which the US has aided).[5] If the Executive fails to produce the report within 30 days all security assistance to the country in question stops automatically.[6]
There are exceptions. Even if the Executive does not produce a report within 30 days security assistance can continue if the Secretary of State determines that “extraordinary circumstances” exist;[7] or, if in the Secretary’s opinion, continuing the assistance is in the US “national interest”;[8] or, the if president determines that there has been a significant improvement in the country’s human rights practices.[9] These exceptions are big enough to drive a truck through and could allow the president to evade enforcing the law. Whether Congress approves S.Res. 109 or not may not make a difference.
Biden Promises to End US Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia
Even before he was elected, Biden promised to reevaluate the US-Saudi relationship.
This was in part a reaction to the assassination of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had been chopped up by a bone cutter at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. Khashoggi’s murder was ordered by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. During the November 20, 2019 Democratic presidential debate, Biden called Saudi Arabia an international “pariah” and vowed that the US would no longer sell weapons to the Saudis.
Biden condemned arms sales to Saudi Arabia in his first major foreign policy speech as president on February 4, 2021. Biden announced that he was “ending all support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” Pay close attention to that wording.
Biden’s Empty Promises
The Biden Administration has not treated Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.” Biden even visited the crown prince on July 15, 2022, in hopes of persuading Bin Salman to boost oil production.
And the weapons continued to flow. For the first six months of Biden’s presidency there were no US arms sales to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. In January 2021, the administration announced a temporary freeze on the Trump Administration’s pending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. There was less to this move than met the eye. As the Wall Street Journal noted: “U.S. officials said it isn’t unusual for a new administration to review arms sales approved by a predecessor, and that despite the pause, many of the transactions are likely to ultimately go forward.”
Then on August 2, 2021 the Biden Administration announced $5 billion in arms contracts to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This was followed by a $650 million arms sale to Saudi Arabia which was announced on November 21, 2021.
On December 7, the US Senate voted 30-67 against a joint resolution (S.J. Res. 31) which would have blocked the sale.
Biden said during his February 4 speech that he was “ending all support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” The key word here is “offensive.” Which weapons are “offensive” and which “defensive”? The Biden Administration won’t say and has rebuffed Congressional attempts to find out. Many weapons can be used for either defense or offense. Whenever the Biden White House sells arms to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates it simply asserts that they will be used for defense, such as defense against Iran or the Houthis.
This brings us to the $582 million sale announced by the Administration on December 24, 2023. S.Res. 109 would block this sale, along with all other arms sales and security assistance to Saudi Arabia. Two other resolutions target only the $582 million sale. The two resolutions are S.J. Res. 53 , introduced on Dec. 11, 2023 by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and H.J. Res. 106 , introduced on January 2, 2024 by Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN-5). Representative Omar has said: “It is simply unconscionable to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia while they continue to kill and torture dissidents and support modern-day slavery.” Omar has also excoriated Saudi Arabia’s “systematic murder, rape, and torture of [hundreds of Ethiopian refugees]” who were attempting to enter Saudi Arabia from Yemen.[10]
S.Res. 109 has been gathering dust since March 2023 without a vote. Let’s hope that these two new resolutions have more luck.
Sizewell C: UK and France-owned EDF look to raise £20bn for Suffolk nuclear site
The UK government and EDF energy has announced its bid to raise £20bn for an extension to EDF’s nuclear facility in Suffolk.
The British government and the French-owned energy company EDF plan to build the UK’s second-largest power station, Sizewell C, on the Suffolk site.
They hope to raise the money by the end of 2024, the energy minister responsible for the sector told the Financial Times.
Ministers approved the construction of the building in 2022 after a decade of consultations. It is expected to take a further decade to build, although delays and high costs at sister plant Hinkley Point C suggest that it may take even longer.
“It’s a phenomenal sum of money but we are genuinely very pleased and very positive about the reaction we have had through the capital-raising process so far,” Andrew Bowie told the Financial Times. “We are very much on track.”
The UK government has already committed £1.2bn to the project, while a UAE sovereign wealth fund is among several potential investors.
On Thursday, the UK government launched its £300m civil nuclear road map in the “biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years”, which restates its aim to build up the UK’s supply of nuclear energy to 24GW by 2024…………………… more https://www.cityam.com/sizewell-c-uk-and-france-owned-edf-look-to-raise-20bn-for-suffolk-nuclear-site/
UK Government’s nuclear power expansion plans branded hot air
12 Jan 24 https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-nuclear-power-expansion-plans-branded-hot-air
NEW government plans for “Britain’s biggest nuclear power expansion in 70 years” were dismissed today as “unevidenced” hot air.
Unite and Greenpeace poured doubt over ministers’ latest “grandiose” promises of cheap energy provision amid faltering nuclear output and project delays.
The government has published a roadmap recommitting itself to building a series of nuclear reactors capable of producing 24 gigawatts — a quarter of national electricity demand — by 2050.
Approval would be given for one or two new reactors every five years from 2030 to 2044, alongside backing for another large-scale reactor in addition to Hinkley Point C and the planned Sizewell C.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed the announcement as “the next step in our commitment to nuclear power, which puts us on course to achieve net zero by 2050 in a measured and sustainable way.”
But Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The government’s announcement to expand nuclear power sounds like a lot of hot air.
“We have had years of time wasting and underinvestment by ministers in this industry, which is vital to achieving energy security and net zero.”We have had years of time wasting and underinvestment by ministers in this industry, which is vital to achieving energy security and net zero.
“If they now want to be taken seriously we need to see far more detail and clarity. Any plans for nuclear need to include small modular reactors as part of Britain’s balanced energy mix.
“It is also essential that we don’t just hand over government funding to private companies and hope for the best.”
French energy giant EDF said the cost of Hinkley Point C has spiralled to £33bn, a 30 per cent increase from 2015 when it forecast the cost at £25-£26bn.
Hinckley Point C’s planned successor project at Sizewell C in Suffolk, which has been planned for the past 12 years, is yet to receive a final investment decision.
Greenpeace UK chief scientist Doug Parr said: “Every few months the government makes a grandiose public announcement about future nuclear in the hope that a big investor will believe the hype and step up to fund this 20th century technology, but it isn’t working.
“The energy industry knows that the economic case for slow, expensive nuclear just doesn’t add up, and the future is renewable.
“This vague, aspirational announcement with its unevidenced claims of cheap energy is unlikely to change their minds when there are real reactors overshooting their massive construction budgets and showing them the truth.”
Mini nuclear plants to be built almost anywhere in UK
Mini-nuclear power plants will be allowed almost anywhere outside built-up
areas, as ministers relax planning rules to allow a “reawakening” of
atomic electricity.
Under plans to quadruple capacity in the next quarter
of a century, ministers want a fleet of “small modular reactors” to be
built across Britain alongside large power plants. Unlike conventional
plants, small modular reactors do not need to be built on the coast and the
government wants to open up far more areas as potential sites, in a
developer-led approach that will replace rules that allow nuclear power
stations only in eight named locations.
Rishi Sunak argues that “nuclear
is the perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain”, helping
meet net zero goals with reliable, domestically produced power. A
consultation on overhauling planning rules published on Thursday says that
rather than ministers specifying sites, developers will be asked to
identify locations for such reactors based on a new list of safety and
environmental criteria. Only “population density” and “proximity to
military activities” will rule out nuclear plants, meaning they cannot be
built in areas with more than 5,000 people per square kilometre. This would
rule out cities and most towns, and is designed to “minimise the risk to
the public” in the event of a radioactive spill.
All other criteria will
be discretionary, including size, flood risk, proximity to civil airports,
the natural beauty, ecological importance or cultural heritage of the site.
“Sites may still be considered suitable for nuclear deployment even where
they fail to fully meet individual discretionary criteria, although not
fully addressing multiple discretionary criteria may cumulatively lead to a
site being considered unsuitable,” the consultation says. Officials
believe developers are likely to want to site plants near industrial
estates needing power and heat, or in areas that have skilled workers and
grid connections. “The government particularly encourages applications to
develop on former industrial and brownfield land,” the consultation says.
Times 11th Jan 2024
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nuclear-power-plants-built-uk-plans-2024-rv5qxhzg2
No to nuclear power: stop the expansion
The UK government hopes to plough ahead with its biggest expansion of nuclear power for decades, despite major concerns over safety, cost, the legacy of nuclear waste, and its link to nuclear weapons.
A long-awaited plan was unveiled by ministers on Thursday and follows a commitment made at COP28 last November to triple nuclear power production by 2050. The roadmap includes plans by government and the nuclear industry to cut red tape in order to “accelerate new nuclear projects,” build another nuclear reactor in addition to Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, and make investment decisions on new nuclear projects every five years from 2030 to 2044. £300 million has also been made available to launch a high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) programme – making Britain the only country in Europe after Russia to commercially produce such a fuel.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak lauded his nuclear plan as the “perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain” adding “it’s green, cheaper in the long term and will ensure the UK’s energy security for the long-term.” But is it?
Britain’s two existing nuclear projects – Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C – have been beset with problems since the beginning. A 2015 forecast of Hinkley Point put the project at around £25 billion. These costs have since spiralled by 30 percent to £33 billion and the start date for the plant is likely to be in the early 2030s instead of 2027. Sizewell C is also struggling to attract private financing and the government has already spent over £1 billion on the project. Energy consumers too will pay more: a Regulated Asset Base (RAB) funding model proposed to help fund the project will add a levy to customer bills years before the plant ever starts to generate electricity.
Safety standards within Britain’s nuclear industry have also been under the spotlight recently. The Guardian’s Nuclear Leaks investigation revealed a litany of safety concerns at the Sellafield nuclear waste site including: crumbling infrastructure at some of the site’s most dangerous areas; security breaches; and a toxic workplace culture including harassment of whistleblowers. The scandal has already led to senior management leaving.
Sellafield remains Europe’s most toxic nuclear site and efforts to build a new underwater nuclear waste dump in Cumbria or Lincolnshire have so far failed to achieve community support.
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said:
“The nuclear lobby was an obvious presence at last November’s COP28 summit and the UK government is working overtime to sell to the public the myth that nuclear power is the answer to the climate crisis and Britain’s energy needs. The evidence points in the opposite direction as renewables are cheaper, faster to deliver, and cleaner. Meanwhile, Hinkley Point C is seriously delayed and overbudget and the government thinks it’s ok to bill consumers twice for Sizewell C: once through taxation and again through a levy on consumer bills. Even if these projects were brought in on time and on budget, it still doesn’t solve the issue of Britain’s shocking record when it comes to safety, as shown in the recent Sellafield Leaks, or with what to do with nuclear waste. We must also bear in mind the main reason this government is so in favour of nuclear power: it helps to normalise Britain’s nuclear weapons and ensures a steady stream of skilled personnel to maintain and manufacturer them. Anyone who tells you any different is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.”
New Revelations Shed More Light On Sabotage Of Iran Nuclear Program
Tuesday, 01/09/2024, Iran International Newsroom, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202401095698
The malware that disrupted Iran’s nuclear program in 2010 was delivered by a Dutch engineer working at the enrichment plant in Natanz, a Dutch daily has claimed.
For more than a decade, no one knew how the virus Stuxnet –widely believed to be an American-Israeli creation– had found its way to the control systems of Iran’s most sensitive and tightly watched nuclear facility in Natanz.
In 2019, two investigative journalists, one Dutch and one American, published a report in Yahoo News, suggesting that the virus had been released by “a mechanic working for a front company doing work at Natanz”, who in reality worked for AIVD, the Dutch intelligence agency.
At the time, the authors believed the mole to be Iranian. But the investigative report in the Dutch daily Volkskrant has named him as Erik van Sabben.
According to the report, van Sabben was married to an Iranian woman and worked in Dubai for a company that serviced Iran’s oil and gas industry. So he could have been the perfect recruit. And he was indeed recruited by AIVD in 2005 at the request of US and Israeli secret services.
The US and Israel have never acknowledged involvement in the cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear program, but most experts share the view that such a sophisticated cyberweapon could have been developed by Israel and the United States only as part of a joint sabotage campaign known as Operation Olympic Games, which is still unacknowledged.
The new report comes at a time when Iran has once more accelerated its enrichment program, turning its back on a secret deal many diplomats say the regime had made with the Biden administration in 2023 to cap the enrichment at 60-percent purity in exchange for the release of billion of dollars of its money in Iraq and South Korea.
Iran is reported to have enough highly enriched uranium to make three nuclear bombs, if enriched further during a few weeks. The UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA) has repeatedly raised concern about Iran’s enrichment levels –which experts say has no civilian justification.
In its latest report (December 2023), the IAEA stated that Iran is enriching to up to 60%, close to the roughly 90% that is required to make a nuclear weapon. One place this is being done is the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz complex –the very same facility Stuxnet targeted almost 15 years ago.
Stuxnet is believed to have had affected the control systems at Natanz enrichment facilities, forcing a change of speed in the centrifuges’ rotor and causing breakdown.
The extent of the damage it caused is not known with certainty. It seems to have been significant enough, though, to force the nuclear authorities in Iran to halt uranium enrichment several times.
In November 2010, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then-president of Iran, confirmed for the first time that a cyberweapon had hit the country’s nuclear facilities. “They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts,” he said.
Fingers were pointed at “the Americans” and “the Israelis”, especially after two Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated. But no reasonable explanation was given as to how the malware had entered the facilities.
More than a decade later, Volkskrant has offered an explanation –but little consolation for those who, according to the new report, spent around “one billion dollars” on a malware that they hoped would set back Iran’s nuclear program, although the operation undoubtedly slowed down Iran’s efforts for a while.
Nuclear Free Local Authorities question the Chief Constable on alleged misconduct among Civil Nuclear Constabulary
Following the December 2023 revelations in The Guardian alleging misconduct
amongst some officers of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and a ‘toxic work
culture’ amongst police and civilian staff employed at the Sellafield
nuclear complex, the Chair of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities
wrote to the Chief Constable outlining our concerns and offering him an
‘opportunity’ to respond. The letter sent 3 January and the response of 8
January are reproduced below.
NFLA 10th Jan 2024
Ministers told to say how Sizewell C will be funded as new nuclear plan launched.
Government announced plans to build third new nuclear plant, even
though existing plan for reactor yet to be decided. Ministers are facing
demands to reveal the timetable for a final investment decision in Sizewell
C before a general election is called after the Government committed to
building a third major nuclear plant.
The Government announced plans to
build a new large scale nuclear power station that will be able to provide
energy to more than six million homes, even though the final funding for an
existing proposal in Suffolk has yet to be secured. Energy minister Andrew
Bowie faced calls from Labour to reveal the timetable for a final
investment decision in the Suffolk power station before the end of
Parliament.
Shadow business minister Sarah Jones insisted it was “all
well and good talking about commitments to new stations in the next
Parliament” before demanding what the timetable is for the Sizewell C
investment decision. Ms Jones urged Mr Bowie to give a “categorical
promise” that the final decision will come before the election, adding:
“Time is running out.” Mr Bowie replied: “We remain committed to
making that decision by the end of this Parliament, and in fact on Hinkley
Point C we are very proud of the progress that is being made.” The new
station is expected to be built at Wylfa in Anglesey, north Wales, with
firms from South Korea, the US and France expected to bid for the scheme.
Government sources said that Chinese firms will be blocked from any bidding
process, to avoid any risk to the country’s critical infrastructure.
iNews 11th Jan 2024
Cancelled NuScale contract weighs heavy on new nuclear
Paul Day, 11 Jan 24, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/cancelled-nuscale-contract-weighs-heavy-new-nuclear-2024-01-10/
- Summary
- The failure of a high profile small modular reactor (SMR) contract in the United States has prompted concerns that Gen IV nuclear may be further off than expected.
NuScale, the first new nuclear company to receive a design certificate from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for its 77 MW Power Module SMR, said in November it was terminating its Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) with the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS).
UAMPS serves 50 community-owned power utilities in the Western United States and the CFPP, for which the Department of Energy approved $1.35 billion over 10 years subject to appropriations, was abandoned after the project failed to attract enough subscriptions.
NuScale shares tumbled 37% to less than $2 on the day of the news, November 8, and have remained largely between $2.5 and $3.5 since then. The shares hit highs of nearly $15 in August 2022 just three months after going public.
The CFPP had aimed to build NuScale SMR units at a site near Idaho Falls to be operable by 2029 though concerns arose that some at UAMPS members may be unwilling to pay for power from the project after NuScale raised the target price to $89/MWh in January, up from a previous estimate of $58/MWh.
The cancellation came shortly after another advanced reactor developer, X-Energy and special purpose acquisition company Ares Acquisition Corporation, called off a $1.8-billion deal to go public citing “challenging market conditions (and) peer company trading performance.”
The work with UAMPS had helped advance NuScale’s technology to the stage of commercial deployment, President and CEO John Hopkins said.
However, the failure of the much-anticipated proof case for advanced nuclear alongside the X-Energy market retreat left many questioning whether next generation nuclear could live up to its promises.
“Almost all these kinds of MoUs and contracts, as we saw with the NuScale contract, are just not worth the paper they’re written on. There are so many off ramps and outs for both sides and no one’s willing to expose themselves to the downside risk of projects that go way over budget cost and take too long,” says Ted Nordhaus, Founder and Executive Director of The Breakthrough Institute.
Nordhaus co-wrote a piece for The Breakthrough Institute, ‘Advanced Nuclear Energy is in Trouble’, a scathing criticism of policy efforts to commercialize advanced nuclear which, it says, to date have been entirely insufficient.
The nuclear industry was keen to ‘whistle past the graveyard’ of recent developments and efforts to commercialize the new generation of reactors ‘are simply not on track’, the Breakthrough piece said.
Mounting challenges
There are five areas that pose mounting challenges for the industry, according to Breakthrough; high interest rates and commodity prices, constrained supply chains, a regulatory regime that penalizes innovation, project costs versus system costs, and fuel production.
High interest rate and commodity costs in the last couple of years have hit the industry especially hard due to long project lead times. Nuclear supply chains are struggling to rebuild as tight regulation forces many materials to be tracked from certified mine to certified manufacturer.
The regulatory regime, meanwhile, continues to cut and paste large nuclear reactor regulations on to the small reactor designs, whether it makes sense to do so or not, Nordhaus wrote.
Delivery costs for small nuclear are relatively low due to the relatively small volumes of steel and mortar needed, but system costs must factor in safety regulation which is stricter than other types of energy projects. Proponents argue this makes it harder to compete with fossil fuels and renewables, which pay little to no cost for polluting or intermittency, the Institute says.
Advanced nuclear fuel production, meanwhile, had been outsourced to Russia for decades and is only now being hastily reassembled in the United States for the new reactors, with developers such as Terrapower forced to push delay their commercialization timelines due to a lack of fuel.
“Taken together, these developments suggest that current efforts are unlikely to be sufficient to deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear energy,” The Breakthrough Institute said.
Investor case
e
Over recent years, nuclear power has been recognized as an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investible asset, taking its place alongside renewables in the European taxonomy and successfully raising cash through green bonds in Canada.
Such classifications allow nuclear companies to attract funds from investors looking to build increasingly popular clean energy portfolios.
Nuclear will also benefit from government schemes such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is expected to subsidize new nuclear through Production Tax Credits (PTC) and Investment Tax Credits (ITC) on first-of-a-kind (FOAK) and nth-of-a-kind (NOAK) builds.
With billions of dollars earmarked for clean technologies and mounting concerns over missing emission targets, certain aspects of the nuclear industry have attracted new investors; Uranium spot prices have nearly doubled in the last year as bets are made on rising demand.
However, with all this tailwind, new nuclear has not been attracting the cash it needs. That’s partly due to developers’ lack of focus on development activities, according to Fiona Reilly, CEO of energy consultancy FiRe Energy.
“They’re so focused on the technology that they’re often not focusing on the commercial aspect. How to be more efficient, how to be more effective. What’s your risk register look like; corporate risks as well as technical risks? What’s your legal structure? Where is the money coming from?” says Reilly.
“They seem to think that if they have this great technology, then the market will finance the projects. How the project will reach financial close and make a return for investors does not always appear to be a key feature.”
The NuScale failure with UAMPS and X-Energy’s cancelled offering are just further bad signs for the market, and came just as the international nuclear community said they need to triple capacity by 2050 at the COP28 summit in Dubai.
“We’ve got to start building a mix of large and small reactors for different applications and, once we can start proving projects can be built in a commercial and efficient way, then you can start talking about targets,” says Reilly.
“You can’t set targets like these when we’re not even building the first reactors in many countries.”
800+ Global Groups Back South Africa’s Genocide Case as ICJ Prepares for Hearing
byEDITORJanuary 9, 2024
“The very least states can do is to submit Declarations of Intervention as a small part of fulfilling their obligations under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention,” said a peace coalition.
SCHEERPOST, By Julia Conley / Common Dreams January 9, 2024
An international peace coalition announced Monday that more than 800 civil society organizations from across the globe have endorsed its sign-on letter distributed to world governments, urging leaders to join South Africa in formally accusing Israel of genocidal violence at the United Nations’ highest judicial body.
When Common Dreams first reported on the sign-on letter last Wednesday, just over 100 groups had joined the call.
The surge of support comes as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, is scheduled to hold a hearing on South Africa’s case on Thursday and Friday.
The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine (ICSGP)—which includes the National Lawyers Guild, the Black Alliance for Peace, World Beyond War, and Progressive International, among other groups—is calling on governments to “reinforce [South Africa’s] strongly worded and well-argued complaint by immediately filing a Declaration of Intervention” at the court.
The declarations could increase the likelihood that the ICJ sides with South Africa in the case, says the coalition.
In recent days, Turkey, Malaysia, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which represents 57 member-states, have all endorsed South Africa’s 84-page claim, which details genocidal rhetoric in public statements made by high-level Israeli officials as well as the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza.
“The South African filing before the ICJ marks a critical juncture which tests the global will to salvage the laws and systems which were designed to safeguard not merely human rights, but to preserve humanity itself.”……………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/09/800-global-groups-back-south-africas-genocide-case-as-icj-prepares-for-hearing/
Japan’s NRA orders probe on quake damage at Shika nuclear power plant
Japan Times, 11 Jan 24
The Nuclear Regulation Authority has ordered its secretariat to thoroughly investigate the cause of damage to a nuclear power plant from the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula on Jan. 1.
The regulatory watchdog gave the order at a regular meeting on Wednesday.
According to Hokuriku Electric Power, the quake measured an upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale at the basement of the No. 1 reactor building of its Shika nuclear power plant in Ishikawa Prefecture.
The temblor caused oil to leak from two transformers. The company also could no longer measure radiation levels at up to 18 of its 116 monitoring posts around the plant after the earthquake.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the NRA secretariat presented data from Hokuriku Electric showing ground movements resulting from the quake at the plant’s two reactors had experienced sharper accelerations than the maximum levels expected for the facilities, although it did not find any immediate threats to safety.
Both reactors have been idled since 2011, the company said, adding that the quake did not cause any radiation leaks or have any effect on cooling operations in their spent fuel pools……………………………………………………………. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/01/11/japan/science-health/japan-regulator-probe-on-nuke-plant/
Reporters without shame: Top ‘media rights’ organization ignores rampant killings of Gaza journalists
Eva Bartlett, RT, Sun, 07 Jan 2024
At the end of 2023, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans Frontieres, RSF), the international organization ostensibly advocating for freedom of information, released its annual report. The paper massively downplays the widespread and deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists in the Israel-Gaza war.
The report’s announcement, titled, “Round-up: 45 journalists killed in the line of duty worldwide – a drop despite the tragedy in Gaza,” excludes most of the Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in 2023, particularly in the past few months. It claims 16 fewer journalists were killed worldwide in 2023 than in 2022. This doesn’t reflect reality.
The report claims that (as of December 1, 2023), only 13 Palestinian journalists were killed while actively reporting, noting separately that 56 journalists were killed in Gaza, “if we include journalists killed in circumstances unproven to be related to their duties.”
Other sources put the overall number of Palestinian journalists killed in the enclave much higher. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on December 1 that 73 journalists and media workers had been killed, citing to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS).
While The Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) December 20, 2023 numbers are lower (at least 61 Palestinian journalists killed since October 7), CPJ at least didn’t disregard dozens of slain Palestinian journalists like RSF did.
In fact, in contrast to RSF’s cheerful “things are much better for journalists than previous years” tone, CPJ emphasized that in the first 10 weeks of Israel’s war on Gaza, “more journalists have been killed than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year.” It voiced its concern about, “an apparent pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military.”
It isn’t clear how RSF discerns which circumstances were “unproven to be related” to the duties of slain Gazan journalists, nor who is “actively reporting” when Gaza is under relentless Israeli bombardment and suffers frequent internet cuts. In fact, given the nonstop Israeli bombing (and sniping) throughout the strip, it would be nearly impossible to discern whether journalists were reporting (including from their homes) at the time of their death.
However, in the methodology section near the end of its more detailed report, RSF notes it “logs a journalist’s death in its press freedom barometer when they are killed in the exercise of their duties or in connection with their status as a journalist.”
Many Palestinian journalists in Gaza have received death threats from officers in the Israeli army precisely due to their status as journalists. And many of those threatened have subsequently been killed, along with family members, when Israeli airstrikes targeted their homes or places of shelter.
We also have the precedent in prior wars (in 2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021) of Israel bombing Gazan media buildings (including one I was in in 2009) with varying severity, damaging and finally destroying two major media buildings in 2021. This is clearly intended to stop the flow of reports from Gaza under Israeli bombs, and so is the killing of journalists.
On December 15, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate criticized the RSF report, going as far as accusing RSF of complicity with Israel’s war crimes against Palestinian journalists through whitewashing.
This is the same PJS whose statistics the UN’s OCHA cites, statistics which PJS says are “accurate and based on professional and legal documentation that follows the highest standards in documenting crimes against journalists.” This documentation includes journalists who Israeli airstrikes targeted in their homes, killed precisely because they are journalists.
In response, RSF claimed it, “did not yet have sufficient evidence or indications,” to state that any more than 14 journalists in the Gaza Strip (as of December 23, the date of its response) “had been killed in the course of their work or because of it.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Israel threatens journalists, kills family members
Many Gaza journalists report being threatened by the Israeli army. CPJ noted it is “deeply alarmed by the pattern of journalists in Gaza reporting receiving threats, and subsequently, their family members being killed.”
One such incident followed a threat to Al-Jazeera Arabic reporter Anas Al-Sharif. CPJ noted he had received multiple phone calls from officers in the Israeli army instructing him to cease coverage and leave northern Gaza. Additionally, he received voice notes on WhatsApp disclosing his location. His 90-year-old father was killed on December 11 by an Israeli airstrike on their home in the Jabalia refugee camp.
On November 13, CPJ noted, “eight family members of photojournalist Yasser Qudih were killed when their house in southern Gaza was struck by four missiles. Qudih survived the attack.”
On October 25, an Israel airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of Gaza killed the wife, son, daughter, and grandson of Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief for Gaza, Wael Al Dahdouh.
The popular young independent journalist, Motaz Azaiza, reported receiving multiple threats from anonymous numbers urging him to cease his coverage, CPJ reported, noting that another Al-Jazeera correspondent, Youmna El-Sayed, said her husband received a threatening phone call from a man who identified himself as a member of the IDF and told the family “to leave or die.”
RSF bias: Not only in Palestine
Whereas RSF only reluctantly, as an afterthought, mentioned Palestinian journalists killed in “circumstances unproven to be related to their duties,” in a 2021 report on Syria, it stated, “at least 300 professional and non-professional journalists have been killed while covering artillery bombardments and airstrikes or murdered by the various parties to the conflict,” since 2011, going on to say, “this figure could in reality be even higher.……………………………………………………………………
In 2017, Stephen Lendman wrote of RSF’s attempt to shut down a panel sponsored by the Swiss Press Club in which British journalist Vanessa Beeley would be participating. “An organization that defends freedom of information is asking me to censor a press conference,” the club’s executive director Guy Mettan said at the time. He refused to cancel the event.
RSF’s 2023 roundup also didn’t include two Russian journalists killed this year, one by a Ukrainian cluster bomb strike and the other by a Ukrainian drone attack (targeting journalists).
Sputnik pursued the matter and reported that RSF, “refused to give any comments to Sputnik” citing “editorial policy.”
Journalist Christelle Neant likewise noted RSF’s glaring omission of the Russian journalists. She wrote about the body’s funding from various governments, and more notably from regime change agencies: the Open Society foundation, The Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
RSF’s notorious funders explain why it cherry picks or inflates its reports. The borderless organization has lines it won’t cross. It reports a grain of truth but otherwise whitewashes the crimes of Israel and Washington. https://www.rt.com/news/590224-gaza-journalists-israel-killed/
Japan’s Hokuriku Elec reports second oil leak from Shika nuclear plant
Reuters, January 11, 2024
TOKYO, – Japan’s Hokuriku Electric Power (9505.T) on Wednesday reported a second oil leak at its Shika nuclear power station which was shaken by a powerful earthquake on New Year’s Day.
External radiation levels were not affected, the company said.
The magnitude 7.6 quake, which killed more than 200 people in the Hokuriku region, shook the idled Shika power station, which is located around 65 kilometres (40 miles) from the quake’s epicentre.
After a first oil leak detected on Sunday, a film of oil was detected on Wednesday in several gutters surrounding the main transformer of the No.2 reactor, the company said.
Also, an oil slick measuring about 100 meters by 30 meters was found floating on the sea in front of the power station, near the area where the first slick was observed.
Hokuriku Electric said it had placed oil absorption mats in the gutters and on oil fences in the coastal areas, and closed the drainage gate for rainwater after the latest leak.
The gate was opened on Tuesday because no additional oil was detected during monitoring patrols conducted three times a day.
“We regret that we should have been more careful in our decision,” Masayuki Nunotani, general manager of Hokuriku Electric’s nuclear energy division, told reporters.
The utility believes the second oil leak originated from a transformer during the Jan. 1 quake, but said it was still analysing further details…………………….. more https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japans-hokuriku-elec-reports-second-oil-leak-shika-nuclear-plant-2024-01-10/
Ukrainians will benefit from Zelensky’s fall – exiled opposition leader
Signs of The Times (SOTT) 10 Jan 2024
President Vladimir Zelensky is doomed to be ousted this year, having antagonized all of his domestic and foreign allies, exiled Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk has said. Zelensky’s demise, however, will be good for the Ukrainian people, he added.
Medvedchuk was the leader of the Opposition Platform – For Life party, which Zelensky’s government banned for allegedly being “pro-Russian.” He was arrested and forced out of Ukraine in a prisoner exchange with Moscow.
The politician has since been promoting a project, which would make his home nation a neutral state, prioritizing national interests, as opposed to being a Russian enemy.
In a column published on Wednesday, Medvedchuk blasted the incumbent Ukrainian president, branding him an “unfunny parody of a dictator,” whose weakness sends a signal to all “political predators to eat him.”
“Zelensky has antagonized everyone he could: big businessmen, whom he blacklisted as traitors and oligarchs, professional Nazis, who see his cowardice, the military, who sees his incompetence, and last but not least the people, who see his indifference and cruelty.”
Ukraine is in a deep crisis that is bound to lead to a national disaster once Western funding for the proxy war against Russia is reduced, he claimed.
Ukrainian citizens need to realize that Zelensky’s downfall “does not necessarily mean a defeat of the Ukrainian people.”Instead, the opposite is true, according to Medvedchuk. It will be a victory for them, since the president “has long betrayed them and is selling them out for cannon fodder.”
The column predicted hard times for the US, which Medvedchuk believes has lost its direction, and the EU, which he expects to be sacrificed by Washington to support the American economy.For Ukraine, it means no EU membership, and its citizens should know that “Europeans will have to give their financial goodies to the American elites, not Ukrainian refugees.”………………………………………………………………………………….https://www.sott.net/article/487699-Ukrainians-will-benefit-from-Zelenskys-fall-exiled-opposition-leader
CNN Admits ‘Disturbing’ Israel-Palestine Coverage Policy ‘Has Been in Place for Years’
“It’s Israel’s way of intimidating and controlling news,” said one critic.
Common Dreams, JULIA CONLEY, Jan 05, 2024
CNN has long been criticized by media analysts and journalists for its deference to the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces in its coverage of the occupied Palestinian territories, and the cable network admitted Thursday that it follows a protocol that could give Israeli censors influence over its stories.
A spokesperson for the network confirmed to The Intercept that its news coverage about Israel and Palestine is run through and reviewed by the CNN Jerusalem bureau—which is subject to the IDF’s censor.
The censor restricts foreign news outlets from reporting on certain subjects of its choosing and outright censors articles or news segments if they don’t meet its guidelines.
Other news organizations often avoid the censor by reporting certain stories about the region through their news desks outside of Israel, The Intercept reported.
“The policy of running stories about Israel or the Palestinians past the Jerusalem bureau has been in place for years,” the spokesperson told the outlet. “It is simply down to the fact that there are many unique and complex local nuances that warrant extra scrutiny to make sure our reporting is as precise and accurate as possible.”
The spokesperson added that CNN does not share news copy with the censor and called the network’s interactions with the IDF “minimal.”
But James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, said the IDF’s approach to censoring media outlets is “Israel’s way of intimidating and controlling news.”
A CNN staffer who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity confirmed that the network’s longtime relationship with the censor has ensured CNN‘s coverage of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and attacks in the West Bank since October 7 favors Israel’s narratives.
“Every single Israel-Palestine-related line for reporting must seek approval from the [Jerusalem] bureau—or, when the bureau is not
staffed, from a select few handpicked by the bureau and senior management—from which lines are most often edited with a very specific nuance,” the staffer said.
Jerusalem bureau chief Richard Greene announced it had expanded its review team to include editors outside of Israel, calling the new policy “Jerusalem SecondEyes.” The expanded review process was ostensibly put in place to bring “more expert eyes” to CNN‘s reporting particularly when the Jerusalem news desk is not staffed.
In practice, the staff member told The Intercept, “‘War-crime’ and ‘genocide’ are taboo words. Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as ‘blasts’ attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed.”
Meanwhile, reporters are under intensifying pressure to question anything they learn from Palestinian sources, including casualty statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The Ministry of Health is run by Hamas, which controls Gaza’s government. The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said in October, as U.S. President Joe Biden was publicly questioning the accuracy of the ministry’s reporting on deaths and injuries, that its casualty statistics have “proven consistently credible in the past.”
Despite this, CNN‘s senior director of news standards and practices, David Lindsey, told journalists in a November 2 memo that “Hamas representatives are engaging in inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda… We should be careful not to give it a platform.”………………………………………….
At least 22,600 people have been confirmed killed in Gaza and 57,910 have been wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. Thousands more are feared dead under the rubble left behind by airstrikes. In Israel, the death toll from Hamas’ attack stands at 1,139.
Jim Naureckas, editor of the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, noted that the Israeli government is controlling journalists’ reporting on Gaza as it’s been “credibly accused of singling out journalists for violent attacks in order to suppress information.”
“To give that government a heightened role in deciding what is news and what isn’t news is really disturbing,” he told The Intercept.
Meanwhile, pointed out author and academic Sunny Singh, even outside CNN, “every bit of reporting on Gaza in Western media outlets has been given unmerited weight which not granted to Palestinian reporters.”
“Western media—not just CNN—has been pushing Israeli propaganda all through” Israel’s attacks, said Singh. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-cnn-censor—
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