Swiss nuclear power plants are running out of staff
After warning Switzerland over two years ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recommends the authorities develop a roadmap to deal with the impending problem of labour shortage in Swiss nuclear power plants.
This content was published on December 3, 2023 – 14:17December 3, 2023
Switzerland’s existing nuclear power plants are on the verge of having their lifetimes extended from 50 to 80 years. But now a problem is threatening to thwart these plans.
The search for skilled labour is becoming increasingly challenging, as reported by the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday. There are currently over 40 vacancies at the Beznau, Gösgen and Leibstadt nuclear power plants.
A team of experts from the IAEA warned Switzerland back in October 2021. In a report, the agency concluded that the search for personnel was one of the biggest challenges for Swiss nuclear plants and for the supervisory authority itself…………………https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/swiss-nuclear-power-plants-are-running-out-of-staff/49027136
A blank cheque for France’s Industrial Centre for Geological Disposal (Cigéo) does not prove that it is safe.
In September 2022, 32 organizations and 30 residents jointly filed an
appeal contesting the declaration of public utility (DUP) which was granted
to the Cigéo project (deep geological burial project for the most
radioactive waste) by decree on July 7, 2022.
This decision allowed the
National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (ANDRA) to acquire the
missing land control for surface installations and the plumbness of
underground works, i.e. approximately 3,500 hectares (the equivalent of the
surface area of Lille) and to expropriate if necessary.
More than a year
later, on December 1, 2023, the Council of State rendered its decision.
Despite all the uncertainties and inaccuracies of the impact study of the
Cigéo project, ANDRA has succeeded in painting with scientific virtues the
fact that it is unable to provide precise evaluations, even with a
Declaration of ‘Public Utility (DUP) of 6,000 pages and almost 30 years of
studies.
It was enough for the Agency to affirm that it will do its best to
precisely identify the impacts of its project and to analyze and counter,
as the construction of Cigéo progresses, all their consequences. We do not
understand how such a project was able to obtain a DUP when it lacks so
much precise “basic” information. Let us remember: the declaration of
public utility facilitates land control, or even the start of work on other
so-called “preparatory” developments for Cigéo and allows the
industrial site to be physically anchored in the territory.
But for those
who read this decision a little too quickly, no, Cigéo is still not
“validated”. The project still needs to pass the stages of creation
authorization which, without giving up, we will attack by all means when
the time comes. We will at least have warned current decision-makers and
present generations and left messages for future generations, engraved in
stone in the archives of the Republic and its Councils.
Sortir du Nucleaire 1st Dec 2023
https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/CIGEO-un-blanc-seing-qui-ne-signifie-pas-son
US Sent Israel 15,000 Bombs Since October 7
The transfer has included thousands of 2,000-pound bombs that have been used to devastate Gaza.
By Kyle Anzalone / Antiwar.com, https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/03/us-sent-israel-15000-bombs-since-october-7/
The Wall Street Journal published details about the White House’s secretive arms transfers to Israel since October 7. The US has provided Israel with 57,000 artillery shells and 15,000 bombs, including over 5,000 with 2,000-pound warheads.
According to a list of weapons obtained by the Journal, the US has shipped Israel “more than 5,000 Mk82 unguided or ‘dumb’ bombs, more than 5,400 Mk84 2,000-pound warhead bombs, around 1,000 GBU-39 small diameter bombs, and approximately 3,000 JDAMs.”
The US has additionally shipped 57,000 155 MM shells to Israel. NBC News previously reported in October that Washington sent Tel Aviv artillery rounds that are cluster munitions.
Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and officer in the Marine Corps, described the weapons as those the US would use in non-urban areas. “They are kind of the weapons of choice for the fights we had in Afghanistan and Syria in open, non-urban areas,” he said. “The US may use them in more urban areas, but first it would do a lot of target analysis to make sure the attack was proportional and based on military necessity.”
By contrast, Gaza is about 140 sqare miles and home to 2.3 million people—one of the most densely packed regions on earth. Additionally, Israel has relied on an AI program to rapidly generate lists of suspected low-level Hamas members to target, without respect to civilians in proximity.
The Israeli policy has led to the widespread devastation of Gaza. At least 15,000 civilians have been killed. The number of dead Palestinian children exceeds the number of Hamas fighters Israel has claimed to kill by many thousands. Nearly 100,000 buildings in Gaza have been damaged by Israel’s bombing campaign, including the destruction of universities, hospitals, schools, and entire residential neighborhoods.
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Israel was killing civilians in Gaza at a “historic pace.” The outlet added that part of the explanation for the huge death toll was Tel Aviv’s willingness to drop 2,000-pound American-made bombs on various civilian centers.
Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon analyst who advises the Dutch organization PAX, told the Times that he’s never seen anything like it. “It’s beyond anything that I’ve seen in my career,” he said. Garlasco added that to find a historical comparison for so many large bombs in such a small area, one would have to “go back to Vietnam or the Second World War.”
Israeli officials and American politicians have attempted to justify Tel Aviv’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza by referring to the allied bombings of Tokyo during World War II. In a single night during the bombing of Tokyo, more than 100,000 people were burned to death by American napalm bombs.
The White House has made some requests to Tel Aviv to try to curb civilian casualties. However, the Biden administration has refused to condition future weapons shipments to Israel on reducing the civilian death toll.
The US has primarily relied on aircraft for quick shipment to Israel hundreds of millions of dollars in arms during the past two months. Unlike weapons shipments to Ukraine, the Biden administration has refused to provide the public with information on the arms it is providing to Tel Aviv.
The Nakba 2.0: Issa Amro’s Insider Account of Israeli Torture in Hebron
By Alan Macleod and Mnar Adley / MintPress News
Coming back to his house on October 7, world-renowned activist Issa Amro was dragged away by 15 armed Israelis, blindfolded, gagged, and cuffed so tightly he now needs an operation on his hands. The settlers and soldiers kept him imprisoned for days, beating and torturing him, constantly simulating his execution.
Speaking with MintPress News, Amro told the story of what life is like for Palestinians living in the West Bank city of Hebron. “In my city where I live now, since October 7, there is a curfew,” he told Mnar Adley and Alan MacLeod.
But this curfew is far more restrictive than others. Palestinian families – those who have not already fled the genocidal Israeli violence – are given only six hours a week to leave their homes. They are not even allowed out into their own yards. This means that school has stopped, work has ended, and life is on pause.
In those six hours, Palestinian families must buy all their food, pick up essentials such as medicine and conduct any social activities. But being outside is dangerous, as they have to pass though multiple checkpoints with armed guards and AI smart shooters pointing guns at them. Violence from vigilante settler groups is also a danger.
“It’s scary to walk alone between armed soldiers and armed settlers, all of them pointing their guns at you. Then, when you come back, it takes them five to ten minutes to search every person,” Amro said, revealing that the guards wanted to go so far as to cut open his potatoes and tomatoes to check for “weapons.”
“It’s a kind of jail” right now, Amro said, although he notes that being in jail is considerably safer than being a Palestinian in Hebron right now.
Issa Amro is an activist and the co-founder of the grassroots group Youth Against Settlements. He has led campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience against apartheid and Israeli occupation and has been recognized and given awards by international organizations, including the United Nations. He joins MintPress to chronicle recent Israeli attempts to force Palestinians from their homes and their ancestral land.
While leaving the house is extremely dangerous, staying inside is barely safer. Amro and others have experienced Israeli raids where troops tell Palestinians that they have 24 hours to leave or they will be murdered.
“History is repeating itself,” Amro told Adley and MacLeod today, “Now I understand why my people left in 1948,” referencing the Israeli genocide of three-quarters of a million Palestinians from their land in order to create the state of Israel.
It is no exaggeration to call the current Israeli actions genocidal. Indeed, senior Israeli politicians are directly comparing it to the events of 1948. Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, for example, described his country’s actions as the “Gaza Nakba 2023.” “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” he told local outlet Channel 12 on Saturday. “From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war – as the Israeli army seeks to do in Gaza – with masses between the tanks and the soldiers,” he added.
In this conversation, Amro provides a crucial first-hand perspective rarely heard in corporate media. Watch the full interview only at MintPress News.
IAEA experts record explosions near two Ukrainian nuclear power plants
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts in Ukraine have
recorded explosions near two nuclear power plants (NPP) on the night of
28-29 November. “IAEA experts based in Ukraine reported sound of military
activity overnight in proximity of Khmelnitsky NPP, not just at the
Zaporizhzhia NPP, Director General Rafael Grossi said today [29 November].”
Pravda 30th Nov 2023
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/11/30/7430978/
Emerging Risks 30th Nov 2023
Here Are Details of Burns-Zelensky Meeting That You Won’t See on Mainstream Media
CIAGATE, DEC 2, 2023, https://ciagate.substack.com/p/here-are-details-of-burns-zelensky?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1685806&post_id=139329769&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
The issue to carry on providing military and financial support to Ukraine remains one of the hot topics on Capitol Hill. And if the aspirations of the Democrats to give the American taxpayers’ money to Zelensky remain stable (more than 75%), the voices inside the Republican Party about the need to finally end it are increasingly heard.
Regular postponements of the voting dates in the U.S. Congress on the allocation of billions of dollars for the provision of “emergency assistance” to Ukraine reflect serious inter-party contradictions on this matter. Thankfully, the Democrats have not been able to gain any advantages to date.
We’ve managed to find out some details of the conversations between CIA Director William Burns and Zelensky, where Mr. Burns personally warned the
Ukrainian president about the “upcoming financial difficulties” that Kyiv will face shortly.
Burns mentioned that the Democratic Party is going through a tough time, and Biden needs to focus on the presidential election now. In this regard, the CIA Director hinted to Zelensky that more funds allocated to Ukraine must be transferred back to the United States “to ensure democracy’s triumph.” He recalled that if Trump wins the presidency, the financial assistance may end by the beginning of 2025.
In other words, Biden wants to utilize the funds designated for Ukraine as part of his election campaign. Confirmation to this is the Washington Post article, which explicitly states that most of the Ukrainian money ultimately remains in the United States.
Burns and Zelensky also agreed to work together to “convince” Republicans in the House of Representatives to resume military and financial flows to Kyiv.
According to our sources, Burns gave Zelensky a list of 87 House Republicans who opposed to financial aid to Ukraine. Our source hinted that shortly “explanatory work” will be carried out with them both by the Ukrainians and with the participation of the CIA.
We had to find indirect confirmation of this information. A couple of days ago, the Ukrainian Pravda reported that Ukraine’s President’s Office sent a delegation to establish connections with U.S. Republicans.
But how will the CIA work in this direction, given that it is prohibited for the Agency to operate on the United States soil? Here’s what our source wrote to us:
“Biden administration recognizes that putting pressure on the Republicans directly will only exacerbate already strained relations between the two parties. In this regard, the task of persuading the Republicans will be carried out by a third side, specifically by employees of European embassies in the United States under close supervision of the CIA.”
We have previously discussed the CIA’s ways of promoting and utilizing its agents for key positions worldwide. Most of these agents are currently extremely effective in promoting interests of the deep state in those countries where this is most necessary.
In our past material, we wrote about the connections of the president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, with the CIA. His latest statement on the need for NATO to prepare for a high-intensity conflict fully reflects Joe Biden’s current foreign policy, which is aimed at further financing of wars.
It is expected that such a scheme will eventually convince the Republicans to help Ukraine further. If this happens, the Biden and Zelensky families, but not ordinary Americans, will once again become the beneficiaries.
Here’s the full CIA list of “objectionable Republicans”:
1. Ben Cline, VA
2. Eric Crawford, AR
3. Scott Franklin, FL
4. Kay Granger, TX
5. Alexander Mooney, WV
6. August Pfluger, TX
7. Guy Reschenthaler, PA
8. Chris Stewart, UT
9. Jodey Arrington, TX
10. Ron Estes, KS
11. John Moolenaar, MI
12. Nathaniel Moran, TX
13. Jason Smith, MO
14. Lisa McClain, MI
15. Brian Babin, TX
16. Troy Balderson, OH
17. Jim Banks, IN
18. Aaron Bean, FL
19. Andy Biggs, AZ
20. Dan Bishop, NC
21. Lauren Boebert, CO
22. Josh Brecheen, OK
23. Tim Burchett, TN
24. Michael Burgess, TX
25. Eric Burlison, MO
26. Kat Cammack, FL
27. Jerry Carl, AL
28. Michael Cloud, TX
29. Mike Collins, GA
30. James Comer, KY
31. Elijah Crane, AZ
32. Warren Davidson, OH
33. Byron Donalds, FL
34. Jeff Duncan. SC
35. Chuck Edwards, NC
36. Mike Ezell, MS
37. Pat Fallon, TX
38. Brad Finstad, MN
39. Michelle Fischbach, MN
40. Scott Fitzgerald, WI
41. Russel Fry, SC
42. Russ Fulcher, ID
43. Matt Gaetz, FL
44. Bob Good, VA
45. Lance Gooden, TX
46. Paul Gosar, AZ
47. Marjorie Greene, GA
48. Michael Gest, MS
49. Harriet Hageman, WY
50. Diana Harshbarger, TN
51. Kevin Hern, OK
52. Clay Higgins, LA
53. Erin Houchin, IN
54. Wesley Hunt, TX
55. Ronny Jackson, TX
56. Mike Johnson, LA
57. Jim Jordan, OH
58. John Joyce, PA
59. Doug LaMalfa, CA
60. Anna Paulina Luna, FL
61. Morgan Luttrell, TX
62. Tracey Mann, KS
63. Thomas Massie, KY
64. Mary Miller, IL
65. Carol Miller, WV
66. Cory Mills, FL
67. Barry Moore, AL
68. Gregory Murphy, NC
69. Troy Nehls, TX
70. Ralph Norman, SC
71. Andrew Ogles, TN
72. Scott Perry, PA
73. Bill Posey, FL
74. Mattew Rosendale, MT
75. Chip Roy, TX
76. George Santos, NY
77. Keith Self, TX
78. Pete Stauber, MN
79. Elise Stefanik NY,
80. Greg Steube, FL
81. Thomas Tiffany, WI
82. William Timmons, SC
83. Jefferson Van Drew, NJ
84. Beth Van Duyne, TX
85. Randy Weber, TX
86. Roger Williams, TX
87. Ryan Zinke, MT
A sobering analysis of the Canadian plan for small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) and their toxic waste problem
“We found that small modular reactors will generate at least nine times more neutron-activated steel than conventional power plants. These radioactive materials have to be carefully managed prior to disposal, which will be expensive.” The study concluded that, overall, small modular designs were inferior to conventional reactors with respect to radioactive waste generation, management requirements, and disposal options.
Canada does not have a permanent solution to deal with the radioactive waste that has already been produced
Nuclear Power and SMR Development
Story by The Canadian Press • 11h (December 1, 2023) , Carol Baldwin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wakaw Recorder
In August it was announced that Ottawa had approved up to $74 million in federal funding for small modular reactor (SMR) development in the province. Jonathan Wilkinson, Federal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, made the announcement at the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. The funding will support pre-engineering work and technical studies, environmental assessments, regulatory studies, and community and Indigenous engagement to help advance the SMR project, Natural Resources Canada said.
On November 20, Dustin Duncan, Saskatchewan’s minister responsible for SaskPower, was joined by Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith as SaskPower announced it had signed a five-year master services agreement with Ontario Power Generation and its subsidiary Laurentis Energy Partners. Duncan said the deal will allow for the development of a Canadian fleet of SMRs.
“To have an agreement that allows us to tap into that expertise and knowledge from a jurisdiction and organizations that have a great deal of expertise and history in the nuclear sector is critically important for Saskatchewan to carry forward with,” he said. What he failed to acknowledge, however, is that Ontario’s expertise and knowledge is with the older and much larger CANDU reactor. SMR technology is a newly developed field and Ontario itself is still in the process of building its first SMR.
Nuclear power does have a long history in Canada, with the first plant, the Nuclear Power Demonstration Reactor in Rolphton, Ont., going online in the early 1960s. Today, larger nuclear-generating stations in Ontario and New Brunswick supply about 15 percent of Canada’s electricity. However, accidents like those at Chalk River, Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima invariably bring up questions about safety and environmental impacts. President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Rumina Velshi, has said in promoting SMRs, that when it comes to new builds the technology has improved safety by incorporating a passive system that is supposed to shut the reactor down if ‘things go wrong.’
While the CANDU reactors in operation in Canada and around the world do have a good safety record, SMRs are recent technology and many in the public are skeptical of the ‘infallibility’ of new technology. That skepticism is perhaps, not misplaced, according to a study. A study published at the end of May 2022, in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” concluded that “most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal,” said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperations (CISAC). The study found that, because of their smaller size, small modular reactors will experience more neuron leakage than conventional reactors. This increased leakage affects the amount and composition of their waste streams.
“We found that small modular reactors will generate at least nine times more neutron-activated steel than conventional power plants. These radioactive materials have to be carefully managed prior to disposal, which will be expensive.” The study concluded that, overall, small modular designs were inferior to conventional reactors with respect to radioactive waste generation, management requirements, and disposal options. (https://news.stanford.edu/2022/05/30/small-modular-reactors-produce-high-levels-nuclear-waste/#) There are literally dozens of different models of SMRs and reports on this study did not identify which models it examined. SaskPower hosted an online and call-in event on October 5th, 2023, to engage the public with the development of a small modular reactor site in the province, but studies like this by an entity that seemingly has nothing to gain from a positive or negative study outcome, will not reassure people that the new build will be a safe neighbour in their community.
A research paper compiled by Esam Hussein, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Regina, agreed that some SMRs identified as integral reactors do have a higher leakage of neutrons and thermal energy due to a higher surface-to-volume ratio, but the boiling water reactors, such as the one chosen by SaskPower, do not experience the same leakage rate. At the end of his paper, he quotes a discussion paper of the CNSC which states that most “SMR concepts, although based on technological work and operating experience from past and existing plants, propose to employ several novel approaches. Novel approaches can affect the certainty of how the plant will perform under not only normal operation but also in accident conditions, in which predictability is paramount to safety.” In other words, SMRs are new and there is no guarantee about what hazards may or may not come into play.
Another concern that should be considered when advancing nuclear power generation, is that Canada does not have a permanent solution to deal with the radioactive waste that has already been produced and is sitting in temporary storage at the plants where it was produced. CNSC president Velshi has said work is being done to change that through a deep geological repository, but after ten years of work to locate and create one it still does not exist.
According to authors Kerrie Blaise and Shawn-Patrick Stensil, roughly 20 years ago it was recognized that for any type of revival and expansion of the nuclear industry, there needed to be a plan to manage the stockpiles of radioactive waste that had been accumulating since the 1960s. In 2002, the Nuclear Fuel Management Act was passed by the federal government, which then led to the creation of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, whose mandate was to develop and implement a management plan. The fundamental assumption in all the management options considered was that ‘the volume of used nuclear fuel which needs to be managed was assumed to be limited to the projected inventory from the existing fleet of reactors’ (Nuclear Waste Management Organization 2004).
Put simply, when it came to planning for a repository for nuclear waste, the plan did not count on an increase in the number of nuclear plants and the resultant increase in the amount of nuclear waste. [Chapter 11, Small Modular Reactors in Canada: Eroding Public Oversight and Canada’s Transition to Sustainable Development, J.L. Black-Branch and D. Fleck (eds.), Nuclear Non-Proliferation in International Law-Volume V (chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://cela.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Blaise-Stensil-Ch11-Small-Modular-Reactors.pdf)]
Government and industry proponents portray SMRs as a needed component in a low-carbon society and notably every press conference and news release is filled with assurances that the technology is safe. Nevertheless, recent events at federal and province levels of government involving interference, cover-up, and withholding of information have left a sense of distrust amongst many in the public. Trust once lost can be a difficult hurdle to overcome.
Closer to nuclear plant than ever, latest Korean quake renews calls to retire aging reactors
A 4.0 magnitude earthquake struck Gyeongju at dawn on Thursday only 10 km from a nuclear plant.
A shallow, magnitude 4.0 earthquake hit the city of Gyeongju in North Gyeongsang Province at 4:55 am on Thursday. It was the second biggest quake Korea has seen this year, following a 4.5 magnitude quake that occurred 52 km off the coast of Donghae, Gangwon Province, on May 15. The Gyeongju quake is the biggest to strike on land in Korea this year.
As the quake occurred not too far from the city’s Wolsong nuclear power plant, critics of nuclear power are becoming more vocal about safety concerns. Many are calling for the immediate decommissioning of aging nuclear power plants at a time when operators are trying to extend their lifespans.
Gyeongju saw a much larger quake of 5.8 magnitude in September 2016, the largest to be recorded in the area, but the recent quake’s epicenter was a mere 10.1 km away from the Wolsong nuclear plant, while the 2016 quake’s epicenter was 27 km away from the plant.
…………………………….. A study published by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on faults in the southeastern region (North and South Gyeongsang provinces, Busan, Ulsan) revealed 14 active faults that have the potential to produce an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude or larger. The study was published in early 2023. Based on earthquake magnitude and proximity, five of these 14 faults were judged to have the potential to affect the structural integrity of the Wolsong plant. These faults are referred to as “faults for consideration in seismic design.”
Among the 16 nuclear plants operating in regions along the southeastern coast, only Shinkori nuclear power plants unit Nos. 3-6, which were built relatively recently, were designed to withstand an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude or larger (0.3 g).
Joint Action of Gyeongju Citizens Opposing Nuclear Power, a local anti-nuclear power activist group, released a statement that opposes attempts to extend the lifespan of the already aging Wolsong power plant……….
“The Wolsong nuclear power plant’s construction was based on faulty inspections of the geological integrity of the ground and surrounding region. Its earthquake-resistance designs are subpar, and today’s earthquake only magnifies our concerns about the plant’s safety,” the statement said
.“The South Korean government must begin the processing of shutting down Wolsong power plant units 2,3 and 4, as they are exposed to the risks of active faults,” the statement continued……………. https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1118764.html
Operators extend Finnish, Swedish nuclear reactor outages
OSLO, Nov 30 (Reuters) – The ongoing outages at Finland’s OL3 and Sweden’s Ringhals 4 nuclear reactors were extended on Thursday, operators TVO and Vattenfall said in market messages on power bourse Nord Pool, pushing up electricity prices at a time of high demand.
OL3 is now expected to restart at 1800 GMT on Thursday. The reactor, Europe’s largest with a capacity of 1,600 megawatt (MW), suffered an unexpected “rapid shutdown” during testing on Wednesday, operator TVO has said.
OL3 had originally been expected to be offline for eight hours, but the restart was since delayed several times.
In Sweden, Vattenfall extended an outage at Ringhals 4 with a capacity of 1,130 MW by two full days to 2259 GMT on Saturday.
The reactor had tripped on Wednesday morning due to a valve failure, with troubleshooting ongoing, according to the market message on Nord Pool.
The Nordic region has been hit by unusually cold weather in late November, pushing up demand for heating and boosting power prices.
Reporting by Terje Solsvik; editing by Nora Buli
Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power station shuts down again
Olkiluoto 3 shuts down again. The nuclear power plant’s third reactor has
faced some disruption since it started production in March 2022. Production
at the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor shut down on Wednesday, when a fault was
discovered. “In a fault ride-through test, a momentary short circuit is
created near the power plant in the network, causing a dip in voltage,”
said the plant’s operator Teollisuuden Voima (TVO). The shutdown comes just
hours after a reactor at Sweden’s Ringhals plant also shut down, taking
more power out of the Nordic energy market.
YLE 29th Nov 2023
Freezing consequences for Mississippi River as nuclear units down
Fox 9, By Corin Hoggard, November 30, 2023
RED WING Minn. (FOX 9) – For the first time in 25 years, both units at the Prairie Island nuclear energy plant are down for repairs………………………………………………………..
Right now, the current is strong enough that the river’s all water not ice, but with both units at the plant shut down, locals expect this entire river to freeze solid………………………….. more https://www.fox9.com/news/freezing-consequences-for-mississippi-river-as-nuclear-units-down
“Nuremberg Trial” for Israel’s Crimes Against Palestinians?
, https://www.thepostil.com/a-nuremberg-trial-for-israels-crimes-against-palestinians/
Make no mistake. Israel has committed massive crimes in Gaza and in the West Bank against the Palestinians. When will the thousands killed get justice? Or are we all supposed to just go on with our lives and pretend that it’s all the pursuit of “the right of self-defense?” Who are these IDF snipers who anonymously shoot children, and no one is even curious to know who these killers are? Is this the way of war now, according to the “international rules based order” that we should be so proud of in the West, which is supposedly the hallmark of our “civilization?”
A day of reckoning will come. There are good men and women who are wokring to make that a reality.
And what are we to make of our politcal class that utters not a peep about the slaughter that Netanyahu is doing, but who earlier could not get the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for President Putin fast enough, because Putin was assumed to have “kidnapped” Ukrainian orphans that they might have a decent life in Russia. But Netanyahu can kill as many children as he wants, since that is not a crime according to the “rule of law,” so the “jurists” at the ICC stay busy identifying “Russian crimes” that might be spotted at the backs of their cereal boxes.
Kurt Tucholsky was paraphrasing a French joke when he observed that “the death of one person: that’s a catastrophe. One hundred thousand dead: that’s a statistic!”
What Israel has done for over a month in Gaza is now a matter of statistics, for they have killed over 15,000 so far, more than 4000 of them children. It is the Palestinian Holocaust, because there are many more thousands buried under all those pancaked buildings where people once lived. And now that the Israeli assault continues, many thousands more will die.
Given these grim statistics, it becomes more and more important to remember the one person, rather than mention in passing the vast number of the now faceless thousands dead.
One such person was Elham Farah, a Christian Palestinian, living in Gaza, where she had taught music all her life. She was 84 years old and was the daughter of the Palestinian poet, Hannah Farah.
On November 12, 2023, an Israeli sniper shot her in the leg, as she came out of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, where she had been sheltering to escape the bombing. She wanted to make sure that her home had not been hit. A sniper was waiting who are trained to shoot in the leg.
Those inside the church tried to rescue her, as she cried out for help, but people were afraid of Israeli snipers who long have had a reputation for being merciless. Elham Farah bled to death over several days. No one came to help her because of the sniping. She had just survived the bombing of Saint Porphyrios, the 850-year-old church in Gaza, which took the lives of 18 other Christians. Is such a death for a gentle old lady acceptable to those who see themselves as “civilized?” And why no one even knows about the crimes of Israeli snipers is unimaginable.
The hell unleashed by the Herod of our time in the Holy Land escapes the mind’s ability to describe horror—to see little children torn apart by bombs, dropped by pilots in their sophisticated flying machines is beyond the reach of words…
Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry: and sending killed all the menchildren that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying:
A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not (Matthew 2:16-18).
Rama” or “Ramah” is the name of several Palestinian towns, and “Rachel” stands in for all mothers whose children have been slaughtered by the powerful. Such killing was “righteous revenge” because the Hamas razzia of October 7th was fabricated as brutal, with beheaded babies and babies in ovens, when it was the IDF that did most of the slaughter of Israelis that day. Why the need to lie by Israel? The full truth about what really happened on October 7th is now coming out: Hamas killed IDF soldiers in combat. It was not a “terrorist” attack:
Thus on October 7th:
The IDF killed anything that moved;- Many Israeli captives were still alive, two days after October 7;
- Israelis were killed by the IDF with heavy shelling of houses and cars;
- Most of the civilian deaths happened because of the IDF;
- It was a razzia by Hamas because most of the captives taken were IDF officers.
And in the West, we have the war enthusiasts, eagerly cheering on Netanyahu and his ilk to kill more, to kill without compunction, for there will be no red lines drawn, because Israel is for “civilization,” because that is how you fight wars, by killing as many babies as you can with bombs.
Perhaps in the months or even years ahead, there will come a time for a “Nuremberg Trial” for the murderers that are now in power in Israel—and for the IDF soldiers snipers who shot down Elham Farah and the two liitle Christian Palestinian boys, and also for the many “journalists” and “scholars” who justified and whitewashed the crimes against humanity now permanently recorded for the world to see. Remember, they did hang Julius Streicher, even though he perosnally had killed no one.
‘Let us be a lesson’, say Kazakhs wary of return to nuclear testing
Reuters. By Mariya Gordeyeva, November 30, 2023
- Summary
- Treaty banning nuclear weapons tests was signed in 1996
- President Putin has revoked Russia’s ratification
- Many Soviet-era nuclear tests were conducted in Kazakhstan
- Radiation from the tests affected health of local people
SARYZHAL, Kazakhstan, Nov 30 (Reuters) – As Russia warns of the rising risk of nuclear war, and relations with the United States sink into a deep freeze, communities close to the vast Soviet-era nuclear testing site in northern Kazakhstan have a message for leaders: “Let us be a lesson.”
Hundreds of tests were carried out between 1949 and 1989 on the barren steppe near the city of Semey, formerly known as Semipalatinsk, close to the Kazakh-Russian border. The effect of radiation had a devastating impact on the environment and local people’s health, and continues to affect lives there today………………………..
“Let our suffering be a lesson to others,” said Serikbay Ybyrai, local leader in the village of Saryzhal, who saw tests being carried out some 20 km (12 miles) away when he was a boy. “If this (testing) resumes, humanity will disappear.”
When devices were detonated above ground – until 1963 when tests went underground – authorities would order local people out of homes and schools because of fears that ground tremors might cause buildings to collapse.
“I remember I was about five years old,” said Baglan Gabullin, a resident of Kaynar, another village that lived under the shadow of nuclear testing.
He recalled how adults would instruct him and his friends not to look in the direction of the blast.
“We were small, so on the contrary, out of curiosity we looked. The flash was yellow at first, and then the black mushroom grew,” he said.
Kazakh authorities estimate up to 1.5 million people were exposed to residual radioactive fallout from testing. Over 1 million received certificates confirming their status as victims of tests, making them eligible for an 18,000-tenge ($40) monthly payout.
‘EVERYONE STARTED DYING’
Maira Abenova, an activist from the Semey region who set up a non-governmental organisation protecting the rights of nuclear test victims after losing most family members to diseases she said were related, urged politicians not to allow nuclear escalation.
“As someone living with the consequences of what you could call 40 years of nuclear warfare, I think we can tell the world what we have gone through,” she said.
There is little reliable data on the specific health impact of testing in Kazakhstan.
But scientists say exposure to radioactive material on the ground, inhalation of radioactive particles in the air and ingestion of contaminated food including local livestock contributed to increased cancer risk and cases of congenital malformation.
In Saryzhal, a village of around 2,000 people living in small white-painted homes surrounded by blue wooden fences, Gulsum Mukanova recalls how she and other children would watch above-ground explosions, known as atmospheric tests.
“We were children, everything was interesting to us,” she said. “We would stare at those mushrooms.
“My father died at the age of 58; then my elder brother died, then my sister,” added Mukanova, who is in her mid-60s. “Everyone started dying.”
Gabullin, speaking near a small monument to victims of nuclear tests erected in Kaynar, also said losses were common.
“There were about 300 tractor drivers who worked with me … now only two or three are alive. All died of cancer and leukaemia,” he said. “Even the schoolchildren who worked for me then, now they are 50-53 years old, they are already dying.”……….
While villages such as Kaynar and Saryzhal were exposed to direct radiation, steppe winds carried nuclear fallout across an area the size of Italy.
Much of the territory, pockmarked with lakes resulting from blast craters, is still considered too contaminated to inhabit or cultivate.
CONTAMINATION LASTS FOR GENERATIONS
About 450 tests were carried out there, more than 100 of them atmospheric tests and the rest underground. The latter were used after a 1963 treaty went into force banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in space or underwater, and are considered less harmful.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Moscow no longer had access to the Kazakh site. Its main equivalent today is in Novaya Zemlya, an active military site on an Arctic archipelago in Russia’s far north.
Nuclear experts said that any testing today would likely be underground, which carries environmental and health risks.
“Underground testing can also have severe consequences,” said Alicia Sanders-Zakre of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
“Radioactive particles can vent into the air, and there is also the potential for contamination of groundwater,” she told Reuters, adding that Russia’s position was that it did not intend to test at this time.
“What’s so dangerous about radioactive contamination is that it lasts for generations.”
($1 = 459.0000 tenge)
Additional reporting by Olzhas Auyezov in Almaty and Gloria Dickie in London; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Timothy Heritage https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/let-us-be-lesson-say-kazakhs-wary-return-nuclear-testing-2023-11-30/
What lies behind Benjamin Netanyahu’s lies and Hamas’s evasions?
The official version of the Hamas-Israel war raises more questions than it answers. Here, the author highlights seven major contradictions. On reflection, Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu, far from being enemies, are acting in concert with no regard for the lives of Palestinians or Israelis. Behind them, the United States and the United Kingdom are pulling the strings.
VOLTAIRE NETWORK | PARIS (FRANCE) | 28 NOVEMBER 2023 by Thierry Meyssan
We are reacting to the attack on Israel on October 7 and the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza on the basis of the information available to us. However, we feel that the official version of the Israeli government and Hamas is a lie.
Seven major questions remain unanswered:
1. How did Hamas manage to dig and build 500 kilometers of tunnels at a depth of 30 meters without arousing suspicion?
Tunnel-drilling equipment is considered to have both civilian and military uses. It is not manufactured in Gaza and cannot be brought in under any circumstances, unless there is complicity within the Israeli administration.
The excavated earth (1 million m3) was not detected by aerial surveillance. Even supposing it had been scattered in many different places and mixed in with the soil from other construction sites, it is impossible for the Israeli intelligence services not to have detected anything for twenty years.
Tunnel ventilation equipment is not considered to be for military use. It is possible to bring it into Gaza, but the quantity required should have attracted attention.
The reinforced concrete needed to solidify the walls is not manufactured in Gaza. It too is not considered military equipment, but the quantity required should have attracted attention.
2. How could Hamas stockpile such an arsenal?
Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has large quantities of rockets and handguns at its disposal. Hamas may have manufactured parts of the rockets itself, but it has managed to import thousands of handguns into Gaza, mainly from the Ukraine, despite high-performance scanners. This seems impossible without complicity within the Israeli administration.
3. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu dismiss all those who warned him?
Egypt’s Minister of Intelligence, Kamel Abbas, personally phoned him to warn of a major Hamas attack.
His friend, Colonel Yigal Carmon, Director of Memri, personally warned him of a major Hamas attack.
The CIA sent Israel two intelligence reports warning of a major Hamas attack.
Defense Minister Yoav Galland was fired in July because he warned the government of the “perfect storm” prepared by Hamas.
4. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu demobilize the security forces on the evening of October 6?
The Prime Minister had authorized the Security Forces to stand down for the holidays of Sim’hat Torah and Shemini Atzeret. At the time of the attack, therefore, there were no personnel available to monitor the security fence around Gaza.
5. Why did security officials remain locked up at Shin Bet headquarters that morning?
The Director of Counterintelligence (Shin Bet), Ronen Bar, had called a meeting of the heads of all the security services for 8 a.m. on October 7, to examine the second CIA report warning of a major Hamas operation in preparation.
However, the attack began at 6.30 a.m. on the same day. Security officials didn’t react until 11am. What did they do during this interminable meeting?
6. Who triggered the “Hannibal directive” in this way, and why?
When the Security Forces began to react, the IDF was ordered to apply the “Hannibal directive”. This stipulates that enemies must not be allowed to take Israeli soldiers hostage, even if it means killing them. An Israeli police investigation confirms that the Israeli air force bombed the crowd fleeing the Supernova Rave Party. A significant proportion of those killed on October 7 were therefore not victims of Hamas, but of Israeli strategy.
In theory, the “Hannibal directive” only applies to soldiers. Who decided to bomb a crowd of Israeli civilians, and why?
It is not possible today to determine with any certainty which Israelis were killed by the attackers and which were killed by their own army.
7. Why are Western forces threatening Israel?
The Pentagon has deployed two naval groups, around the USS Gerald Ford and the USS Eisenhower, and a cruise missile submarine, the USS Florida. Haaretz even mentioned a third aircraft carrier. America’s allies (Saudi Arabia, Canada, Spain, France, Italy) have installed fighter-bombers in the region.
These forces are not installed to threaten Turkey, Qatar or Iran, which the Western press accuses of being involved in the Hamas attack, but off the coast of Israel, in Beirut and Hamat. They are encircling Israel. And Israel alone.
WHAT LIES BEHIND THESE MYSTERIES?
Obviously the version defended by both Hamas and Israel is false. We must consider other possible explanations so as not to be manipulated by either one or the other.
Let’s formulate a hypothesis. There is nothing to say whether it is the correct one, but it is compatible with the factual elements, which is not the case with the version shared today by everyone. So it’s better than that one. It is obviously extremely shocking, but only those who are able to answer the previous 7 questions can dismiss it.
This interpretation is based on an analysis of the complex structure of Hamas, whose rank-and-file fighters are unaware of what their leaders are up to. There it is :
The entire operation of Hamas and Israel is led by Americans, perhaps under the direction of the Straussian Eliott Abrams [1] and his Vandenberg Coalition (Think Tank which succeeded the Project for a New American Century). The Muslim Brotherhood and the Revisionist Zionists, who apparently are waging a cruel war, are in reality accomplices at the expense of the rank-and-file Hamas fighters, the Palestinian people and Israeli soldiers. Here is their plan: Hamas is presented as the only effective resistance force to the oppression of the Palestinians, but it lets Israel liquidate the hope of a Palestinian state, while the Muslim Brotherhood, crowned with the sacrifice of the Palestinians, takes power in the Arab world.
The heads of Hamas’s military and political branches are both subordinate to the Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, the successor to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, yet nobody talks about him. From his point of view, the Brotherhood will be the big winner of the “Flood of Al-Aqsa”, even if Gaza is razed to the ground and the Palestinians driven from their land.
Hamas is now divided into two factions. The first, under the leadership of Ismaël Haniyeh, follows the Brotherhood’s line. It seeks neither to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation, nor to found a Palestinian state, but is dedicated to building a Caliphate over all the countries of the Middle East. The second, under the leadership of Khalil Hayya, has abandoned the Brotherhood’s ideology, and is fighting to put an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israelis.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a political secret society, organized by British intelligence services on the model of the United Grand Lodge of England [2]. It was gradually taken over by the CIA to the point of being represented on the US National Security Council. After the collapse of the Islamist regimes of the Arab Spring, the Brotherhood fractured into two trends. The London Front, led by Guide Ibrahim Munir (who died a year ago), proposed a way out of the crisis by leaving the political arena and securing the release of prisoners in Egypt. The Istanbul Front, led by interim leader Mahmoud Hussein, advocates, on the contrary, changing nothing and continuing the struggle to establish a Caliphate. A third group is attempting to establish an intermediate position, putting forward the idea of abandoning politics until the prisoners have been released, only to return to it at a later date………………………… more https://www.voltairenet.org/article220078.html
‘The Gospel’: how Israel uses AI to select bombing targets in Gaza
Guardian 1 Dec 23 Harry Davies, Bethan McKernan and Dan Sabbagh in Jerusalem
Concerns over data-driven ‘factory’ that significantly increases the number of targets for strikes in the Palestinian territory.
srael’s military has made no secret of the intensity of its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. In the early days of the offensive, the head of its air force spoke of relentless, “around the clock” airstrikes. His forces, he said, were only striking military targets, but he added: “We are not being surgical.”
There has, however, been relatively little attention paid to the methods used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to select targets in Gaza, and to the role artificial intelligence has played in their bombing campaign.
As Israel resumes its offensive after a seven-day ceasefire, there are mounting concerns about the IDF’s targeting approach in a war against Hamas that, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, has so far killed more than 15,000 people in the territory.
The IDF has long burnished its reputation for technical prowess and has previously made bold but unverifiable claims about harnessing new technology. After the 11-day war in Gaza in May 2021, officials said Israel had fought its “first AI war” using machine learning and advanced computing.
The latest Israel-Hamas war has provided an unprecedented opportunity for the IDF to use such tools in a much wider theatre of operations and, in particular, to deploy an AI target-creation platform called “the Gospel”, which has significantly accelerated a lethal production line of targets that officials have compared to a “factory”.
The Guardian can reveal new details about the Gospel and its central role in Israel’s war in Gaza, using interviews with intelligence sources and little-noticed statements made by the IDF and retired officials.
This article also draws on testimonies published by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, which have interviewed several current and former sources in Israel’s intelligence community who have knowledge of the Gospel platform.
Their comments offer a glimpse inside a secretive, AI-facilitated military intelligence unit that is playing a significant role in Israel’s response to the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on 7 October.
The slowly emerging picture of how Israel’s military is harnessing AI comes against a backdrop of growing concerns about the risks posed to civilians as advanced militaries around the world expand the use of complex and opaque automated systems on the battlefield.
…………………………………..a short statement on the IDF website claimed it was using an AI-based system called Habsora (the Gospel, in English) in the war against Hamas to “produce targets at a fast pace”.
The IDF said that “through the rapid and automatic extraction of intelligence”, the Gospel produced targeting recommendations for its researchers “with the goal of a complete match between the recommendation of the machine and the identification carried out by a person”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
However, experts in AI and armed conflict who spoke to the Guardian said they were sceptical of assertions that AI-based systems reduced civilian harm by encouraging more accurate targeting.
A lawyer who advises governments on AI and compliance with humanitarian law said there was “little empirical evidence” to support such claims. Others pointed to the visible impact of the bombardment.
“Look at the physical landscape of Gaza,” said Richard Moyes, a researcher who heads Article 36, a group that campaigns to reduce harm from weapons.
“We’re seeing the widespread flattening of an urban area with heavy explosive weapons, so to claim there’s precision and narrowness of force being exerted is not borne out by the facts.”
According to figures released by the IDF in November, during the first 35 days of the war Israel attacked 15,000 targets in Gaza, a figure that is considerably higher than previous military operations in the densely populated coastal territory. By comparison, in the 2014 war, which lasted 51 days, the IDF struck between 5,000 and 6,000 targets.
………………………“We prepare the targets automatically and work according to a checklist,” a source who previously worked in the target division told +972/Local Call. “It really is like a factory. We work quickly and there is no time to delve deep into the target. The view is that we are judged according to how many targets we manage to generate.”
A separate source told the publication the Gospel had allowed the IDF to run a “mass assassination factory” in which the “emphasis is on quantity and not on quality”. A human eye, they said, “will go over the targets before each attack, but it need not spend a lot of time on them”.
For some experts who research AI and international humanitarian law, an acceleration of this kind raises a number of concerns……………………….. more https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/the-gospel-how-israel-uses-ai-to-select-bombing-targets
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