UK’s Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer srongly resisting Boris Johnson’s push for costly nuclear power.
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s nuclear fallout sparks fresh delays to
UK energy security strategy. The Prime Minister is pushing for six to seven
new large nuclear power stations, but the Chancellor is concerned about the
massive cost. The proposals are being strongly resisted by the Treasury,
with the Chancellor concerned that the vast investment in nuclear would not
provide the taxpayer with value for money.
It has meant that the energy
package has been kicked further down the road, despite Mr Johnson having
previously pledged to publish the proposals at the start of the month. The
plans are also expected to include ways to produce more energy from
renewables, and increase North Sea oil and gas production. The Prime
Minister’s spokesman denied that they were being delayed because of a
disagreement, instead stating that it was “important we get these things
right”.
iNews 28th March 2022
Spending £4bn on a new nuclear station at Sizewell will not solve the government’s energy problems
Spending £4bn on a new nuclear station at Sizewell will not solve the government’s energy problems
Instead of sensible short-term measures to help those facing energy poverty, the government is focusing on a technology with a track record of failure Prospect Magazine
ByNick Butler March 30, 2022In the face of surging energy prices and the prospect of more problems as Europe turns off Russian gas supplies, the UK government is struggling to find a coherent energy policy. The latest move, a £4bn investment in the proposed new nuclear station at Sizewell, is both a mistake and an irrelevance. Private investors who are being asked to stump up the majority of the £20bn total cost should politely decline the offer
……………………………………………………………..There are no instant solutions but on and offshore wind and solar power could be increased relatively quickly at a reasonable cost. The government could also accelerate its investment in developing the crucial technology for energy storage. This would capture more of the power produced by every wind turbine and limit the need for back-up plants (usually requiring more gas) to deal with the times when the wind is not blowing. On top of this, direct support for simple measures to enable people to use energy more efficiently would limit demand and cut bills.
Instead of such sensible short-term measures, ministers have chosen to focus on a technology which has a track record of failure and which, even if it could be made to work, will take at least a decade to provide any new electricity supplies………….
Of all the available options, however, the choice of EDF’s European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) technology is the worst from any perspective.
In 2009, EDF promised investors and the government at the time that the EPR to be built at Hinkley would produce power at a cost of less than £50 per MWhr. By Christmas 2017, we were told Hinkley would be onstream and providing the power to cook our Christmas turkeys. We were the turkeys for believing such claims.
Hinkley is still being built and 2027 now looks like the earliest date for production to begin. In France, the comparable EPR development at Flamanville—which was due onstream in 2013—is still unfinished, having experienced a series of crucial technical problems. In both cases the costs have overrun the original budgets by many billions.
Hinkley, if it ever comes onstream, will charge consumers £92.50 per MWhr index linked from 2013 when the deal was agreed. While the costs of renewables such as offshore wind have fallen dramatically over the last decade, the costs of nuclear power from Hinkley have continued to rise. After almost a decade of inflation, that price has already risen to around £110. Who knows what it will be in 2027?………….. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-technology/spending-4bn-on-a-new-nuclear-station-at-sizewell-will-not-solve-the-governments-energy-problems
How would a nuclear winter impact food production?
How would a nuclear winter impact food production? Phys Org by Jeff Mulhollem, Pennsylvania State Univers 30 Mar 22, ” ………………………………………………………………. The research acknowledges what has been widely agreed upon for decades: In higher latitude countries—such as nuclear powers the U.S. and Russia—there would be no agricultural production and little food gathering possible in a nuclear winter after an all-out conflagration. If warring countries unleashed large portions of their nuclear arsenals, the resulting global, sun-blocking cloud would turn the ground to permafrost.
” ………………………………………………………………. The research acknowledges what has been widely agreed upon for decades: In higher latitude countries—such as nuclear powers the U.S. and Russia—there would be no agricultural production and little food gathering possible in a nuclear winter after an all-out conflagration. If warring countries unleashed large portions of their nuclear arsenals, the resulting global, sun-blocking cloud would turn the ground to permafrost.
A nuclear war would cause global blockage of the sun for several years due to injections of black carbon soot into the upper atmosphere, covering most of the planet with black clouds, the researchers said. Computer models predict that a large nuclear war, primarily between Russia and the U.S., could inject upwards of 165 million tons of soot into the upper atmosphere from more than 4,000 nuclear bomb explosions and ensuing wildfires.
Such a nuclear war could result in less than 40% of normal light levels near the equator and less than 5% normal light levels near the poles, with freezing temperatures in most temperate regions and severe precipitation reductions—just half of the worldwide average—according to the study. Post-catastrophe conditions, which could last 15 years in some wet tropical forests such as those in the Congo and Amazon basins, could cause a 90% reduction in precipitation for several years after such an event.
But tropical forests would offer an opportunity for limited food production and gathering by local inhabitants because, despite the dense soot clouds, the region would be warmer. In the study, researchers classified wild, edible plants into seven main categories, augmented by forest insects: fruits, leafy vegetables, seeds/nuts, roots, spices, sweets and protein.
In a nuclear winter, the study shows, the following foods would be available in varying degrees in tropical forests: konjac, cassava, wild oyster mushroom, safou, wild spinaches, vegetable amaranths, palms, mopane worm, dilo, tamarind, baobab, enset, acacias, yam and palm weevil.
The researchers chose 33 wild, edible plants from a list of 247 and considered their potential for cultivation in tropical forests in post-nuclear war conditions. Their selections were complicated by the fact that in the tropics there are relatively few food-bearing plants that are both drought tolerant and shade or low-light tolerant.
Post-catastrophe conditions would be unlivable for humans in many areas around the world, and agriculture may not be possible, the researchers concluded. This study shows how just a few of the many tropical wild, edible plants and insects could be used for short-term emergency food cultivation and foraging after an atmospheric soot injection from a catastrophic event such as a nuclear war……………… https://phys.org/news/2022-03-nuclear-winter-impact-food-production.html
EDF announces another delay and cost overruns to Hinkley Point C nuclear project
French energy giant EDF has revealed it will have to announce new delays
and cost overruns for its Hinkley Point C nuclear plant project in the UK.
The latest setback follows conflict in Ukraine, supply chain disruption and
inflationary pressures.
EDF last updated its construction schedule in
January 2021, when it said the UK’s first new nuclear plant to be built
in decades would be delayed by six months to June 2026. It revealed costs
would rise by an additional £500m to £23bn.
Originally, the plant was
expected to open in 2025 and had a construction budget of £18bn. However,
like similar nuclear new-build projects in Flamanville, France and
Olkiluoto, Finland, it has been subject to repeated delays and spiralling
costs. In a note to its 2021 annual report, EDF arued risks to schedule and
cost at completion targets had increased. The energy firm cited the ongoing
impact of the pandemic, Brexit, lower-than-expected civil performance and
tensions in global building materials markets.
22 Mar 22, https://www.cityam.com/edf-announces-another-delay-to-hinkley-point-c-nuclear-plant/
City AM 28th March 2022
Boris Johnson beholden to the nuclear industry. That’s going to cost UK bigtime – Chancellor Sunak not happy.
Boris Johnson’s flagship energy strategy has been held up over a row
with Rishi Sunak about funding a new generation of up to eight nuclear
power stations costing the public more than £13bn.
The strategy, which has
been delayed for a month, was due to be published this week but has now
been pencilled for 5 April after disagreement about the multibillion-pound
cost of new nuclear plants and amid ongoing tensions between the prime
minister and his chancellor, as well as the wider cabinet.
Johnson has told the nuclear industry that he wants 25% of electricity generation to come
from nuclear power by 2050, up from 16% now. Whitehall sources told the
Guardian this shift could require the building of about eight new nuclear
power stations. Draft targets suggest ministers are looking at 30GW of
nuclear power capacity, meaning a huge building programme would be needed,
as capacity is due to fall to 3.6GW as plants are decommissioned.
Of the eight UK plants currently in operation, all but one are due to be switched
off by 2030. Each new plant would require the government to take a minority
stake in the project to reduce the risk to developers, and substantial cash
outlay to encourage investment.
Despite Johnson’s keenness for new
nuclear power, Sunak is concerned about the cost to the taxpayer, or extra
costs added to soaring energy bills. The Treasury has already promised
£1.7bn of direct cash for a single large-scale nuclear project – the
£20bn Sizewell C – as well as £120m for a new Future Nuclear Enabling
Fund, which aims to address barriers to entering the sector.
Building eight plants could cost more than £13bn in initial investment costs from the
government if the same amount of investment were to be put in, according to
a Whitehall source. However, the government is also pushing for the nuclear
industry to reduce its build costs.
Guardian 28th March 2022
Frenzy for selling bunkers, but they might not be much use, really.
‘Our top search term is nuclear’: US bunker sales soar as anxiety over Russia rises, Guardian, Bradley Garrett, 31 Mar 2022
Gary Lynch is the CEO of Rising S Company in Texas. When I first visited his warehouse in 2018, I watched his crew assemble, deliver, and bury a handful of bunkers in people’s backyards every month. The bunkers are thick plate steel boxes that are welded together like a giant Lego set – the size of the bunker limited only by a client’s resources.
Sales, he says, have spiked 1,000% since that time as anxieties around the pandemic, civil unrest, climate change and war have driven more buyers to his company………………………………………..
Business has never been so good. My inbox has been flooded in recent weeks by emails from preppers sensing an opportunity. One from the California-based Vivos Group, cautioned “…with all hell now breaking loose in Ukraine, and the beginning of what may be WW3, you are probably wishing you had secured a Vivos bunker”…………………………………………………………
bunkers fail to keep out many other threats.
Larry Hall, the developer who built Survival Condo, the most expensive and lavish private bunker in the world, almost died last year after contracting the Delta variant. A bunker doesn’t act as an effective bulwark against disease, and he never ended up pulling residents in and shutting the blast doors in any case, given the incremental and unpredictable spread of the virus.
It’s also the case that many of those who sell bunkers meant to assuage our anxiety are shysters. A few of the bunkers I have tried to visit never existed. The Oppidum in the Czech Republic and Vivos Europa One in Germany, for instance, turned out to be little more than a CGI pipe dreams. (The latter, offering $2m apartments in “shell condition” is described on the company’s website as “operational” but “ready for improvements”.) Some of these places had collected deposits from clients and never finished building. In one case, at Trident Lakes in Texas, the founder, John Eckerd, was arrested by federal agents after accepting a $200,000 wire transfer for the build-out that he thought was coming from a Colombian drug cartel. Eckherd was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison.
That’s why many of the preppers I’ve met are moving away from purchasing bunkers and towards a simpler model for resilience that mitigates almost all threats: they’ve sought rural properties where long-term stability could be achieved in off-grid communities, ranches and rural redoubts, where they learned to grow food away from (mostly urban) areas that are both geopolitical targets and sites for social friction……………………………..
Nuclear catastrophe threatened, as fires sweep through forests towards Chernobyl site
Chernobyl radiation fears as 25-acre forest fire burns towards nuclear plant. Fears are growing of a nuclear disaster after Russian troops began shelling the Ukrainian town where staff working at the Chernobyl plant live.
Russian shelling has lead to wildfires breaking out across Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, it has been claimed. It is believed that 25acres of the forest surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear site – which is under
Russian control – are now ablaze.
Officials are concerned the fire couldsweep through the forest and tear through the power plant, leading to anuclear disaster and “irreparable consequences” for Ukraine and the “whole world”.
Mirror 27th March 2022
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-chernobyl-radiation-fears-forest-2656779
Ukraine Negotiations: No Fly Zone, Nukes, Neutrality, and Disarmament
Humanity will be sleepwalking to its doom unless the great powers negotiate nuclear disarmament, and to collaborate to stanch the climate chaos that haunts humanity’s future.
While Russian forces grind away at Ukrainian resistance, there is glee in Washington that Moscow may have trapped itself in an Afghanistan-like quagmire.
Zelensky has repeatedly appealed for NATO to impose a no-fly zone, an appeal that has found resonance in Congress.
Fortunately, thus far NATO leaders have bowed to the reality that enforcing a no-fly zone against Russia would inevitably trigger World War III, in the form of genocidal or omnicidal nuclear exchanges.
Enforcing a no-fly zone, would require attacking Russian anti-aircraft installations and shooting down Russian planes, to which Russia would respond in kind. Yet, in the track II discussion, a senior American warned that the longer the war continues, and as the Russian military is degraded, the temptation to impose a no-fly zone will grow.
Ukraine Negotiations: No Fly Zone, Nukes, Neutrality, and Disarmament https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/03/28/ukraine-negotiations-no-fly-zone-nukes-neutrality-and-disarmament
Ukrainian and Russian lives will continue to be shattered until either a ceasefire or completion of successful negotiations are announced.
JOSEPH GERSON, March 28, 2022 Regardless of whether we agree with him or not, President Biden’s statements that Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power and that Putin is a war criminal have compounded already complex negotiations to end Moscow’s devastating and nationally self-defeating war of aggression.
With Russia’s military advances in Ukraine stymied, and with the mounting death tolls, we are receiving contradictory reports about the state of Russian-Ukrainian diplomacy. Ukraine’s lead negotiator Mykailo Podolyak reports that the negotiations with Moscow are “absolutely real”, but that the Kremlin hasn’t pulled back from its most ambitious war aims. Negotiations, he has said, could continue for months. Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, Brig. General Kyrylo Budanov is less optimistic, reporting that the negotiations are “vague and unpredictable”.
Continue readingUSA’s Air Force transforming away from ”unnecessary” aircraft towards more nuclear weapons
More Nuclear, Less Ground Attack in Biden’s Air Force Budget Request
The 2023 spending proposal calls for retiring 150 planes, shifting funds, and reconfiguring for possible war with China or Russia. Defense One MARCUS WEISGERBER and TARA COPP | MARCH 28, 2022
U.S. Air Force leaders want to shed hundreds of “unnecessary” aircraft and drones and spend more on nuclear and high-tech weapons they say are better suited for a war with China or Russia.
They lay out their proposal in the service’s $169 billion 2023 spending request, which is $13.2 billion higher than last year’s request.
The weapons they prioritize—nuclear and long-range strike—reflect an unsteady year in which China launched a hypersonic missile around the globe and Russia put its own nuclear forces on heightened alert while invading Ukraine.
The Air Force’s budget request is “more about transformation now than it is about evolutionary change. What drives that is the threat. We need to move aggressively,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters before the budget rollout.
To do so, the service is asking for approval to retire 150 aircraft, including eight E-8 JSTARS radar planes, 21 A-10 attack planes, 33 F-22 training jets, 15 E-3 Sentry AWACS-carrying radar planes, 13 KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, 10 C-130H cargo aircraft and 50 T-1 trainers. The Air Force will also reduce its total uniformed personnel number by 4,900 airmen as a result of the cuts, Kendall said. …………………….. In research-and-development, the service is requesting an additional $2.5 billion for the air and land legs of the nuclear triad; a little more than $1 billion of that increase is for ground based strategic deterrent Minuteman III replacement missiles. It also seeks $929 million for the long range standoff weapon, up from $609 billion last year, and $577 million for hypersonic prototyping of the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon and hypersonic attack cruise missile.
The Air Force is also asking for an additional $1.7 billion for initial production of an unknown number of the next generation B-21 stealth bomber……………………. https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/more-nuclear-less-ground-attack-bidens-air-force-budget-request/363683/
43rd anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident
Today marks the 43rd anniversary of Three Mile Island nuclear accident https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/today-marks-the-43rd-anniversary-of-three-mile-island-nuclear-accident/article_eeb55904-ae9d-11ec-8e5a-07c5df9c0e70.html LANCASTERONLINE | Staff 28 Mar 22
Today marked the 43rd anniversary of the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the nation’s worst nuclear accident.
A combination of human error and malfunctioning controls resulted in a partial meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor and caused tens of thousands of Central Pennsylvania residents to be evacuated or to flee the area for several days in 1979.
Unit 2 never was reopened and has been placed in monitored storage until the Unit 1 reactor is closed and decommissioned.
In 2017, Exelon announced preliminary plans to close the facility unless a buyer was found; after no sale was reached, Unit 1 was officially shut down in December of 2019. Decommissioning is expected to last until 2079.
Scientists caught off guard by massive ice shelf collapse in ‘coldest, driest’ part of Antarctica
Scientists caught off guard by massive ice shelf collapse in ‘coldest, driest’ part of Antarctica
A huge ice shelf has collapsed in Antarctica, coinciding with a period of intense and unseasonal heat which may have been “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.
Space Force Gets Roughly 40% Increase in Biden Request
Space Force Gets Roughly 40% Increase in Biden Request
A constellation of satellites will track ground vehicles, improve launch trajectories, and better nuclear command-and-control.TARA COPP | MARCH 28, 2022
The Space Force is requesting $24.5 billion in the 2023 budget, roughly 40 percent more than in last year’s request. Officials said the jump reflects the urgency to launch and defend satellites that can spot a hypersonic missile, track a moving truck, assure U.S. nuclear command and control, and more. ………
The budget request also includes $566 million for the Space Force’s evolved strategic SATCOM program, which ensures survivable strategic communications for the presidential fleet and DOD’s nuclear command and control aircraft.
“Our general posture has been to assume essentially impunity in space,” Kendall said. “We could put up expensive systems in small numbers, not worrying too much about [them] getting attacked—that era is over.”……………….. https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/space-force-gets-40-increase-biden-request/363687/
Washington Should Think Twice Before Launching a New Cold War
Heightened rhetoric about Russia and China seeking to undermine American influence will only reinforce Washington’s support for repressive regimes. The consequences of that could, in turn, prove to be potentially disastrous: a growing chorus of pundits and policymakers has suggested that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the beginning of a new Cold War. If so, that means trillions of additional dollars for the Pentagon in the years to come coupled with a more aggressive military posture in every corner of the world. March 27, 2022 William D. Hartung, Nick Cleveland-Stout, Taylor Giorno TOM DISPATCH
Before this country succumbs to calls for a return to Cold War-style Pentagon spending, it’s important to note that the United States is already spending substantially more than it did at the height of the Korean and Vietnam Wars or, in fact, any other moment in that first Cold War. Even before the invasion of Ukraine began, the Biden administration’s proposed Pentagon budget (as well as related work like nuclear-warhead development at the Department of Energy) was already guaranteed to soar even higher than that, perhaps to $800 billion or more for 2023.
Some supporters of higher Pentagon spending have, in fact, been promoting figures as awe inspiring as they are absurd. Rich Lowry, the editor of the conservative National Review, is advocating a trillion-dollar military budget, while Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council called for the United States to prepare to win simultaneous wars against Russia and China. He even suggested that Congress “could go so far as to double its defense spending” without straining our resources. That would translate into a proposed annual defense budget of perhaps $1.6 trillion. Neither of those astronomical figures is likely to be implemented soon, but that they’re being talked about at all is indicative of where the Washington debate on Pentagon spending is heading in the wake of the Ukraine disaster.
Ex-government officials are pressing for similarly staggering military budgets. As former Reagan-era State Department official and Iran-Contra operative Elliott Abrams argued in a recent Foreign Affairs piece titled “The New Cold War”: “It should be crystal clear now that a larger percentage of GDP [gross domestic product] will need to be spent on defense.” Similarly, in a Washington Post op-ed, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates insisted that “we need a larger, more advanced military in every branch, taking full advantage of new technologies to fight in new ways.” No matter that the U.S. already outspends China by a three-to-one margin and Russia by 10-to-one.
Truth be told, current levels of Pentagon spending could easily accommodate even a robust program of arming Ukraine as well as a shift of yet more U.S. troops to Eastern Europe. However, as hawkish voices exploit the Russian invasion to justify higher military budgets, don’t expect that sort of information to get much traction. At least for now, cries for more are going to drown out realistic views on the subject.
Beyond the danger of breaking the budget and siphoning off resources urgently needed to address pressing challenges like pandemics, climate change, and racial and economic injustice, a new Cold War could have devastating consequences. Under such a rubric, the U.S. would undoubtedly launch yet more military initiatives, while embracing unsavory allies in the name of fending off Russian and Chinese influence.
The first Cold War, of course, reached far beyond Europe, as Washington promoted right-wing authoritarian regimes and insurgencies globally at the cost of millions of lives. Such brutal military misadventures included Washington’s role in coups in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile; the war in Vietnam; and support for repressive governments and proxy forces in Afghanistan, Angola, Central America, and Indonesia. All of those were justified by exaggerated — even at times fabricated — charges of Soviet involvement in such countries and the supposed need to defend “the free world,” a Cold War term President Biden all-too-ominously revived in his recent State of the Union address (assumedly, yet another sign of things to come).
Indeed, his framing of the current global struggle as one between “democracies and autocracies” has a distinctly Cold War ring to it and, like the term “free world,” it’s riddled with contradictions. After all, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates to the Philippines, all too many autocracies and repressive regimes already receive ample amounts of U.S. weaponry and military training — no matter that they continue to pursue reckless wars or systematically violate the human rights of their own people. Washington’s support is always premised on the role such regimes supposedly play in fighting against or containing the threats of the moment, whether Iran, China, Russia, or some other country.
Count on one thing: the heightened rhetoric about Russia and China seeking to undermine American influence will only reinforce Washington’s support for repressive regimes. The consequences of that could, in turn, prove to be potentially disastrous.
Before Washington embarks on a new Cold War, it’s time to remind ourselves of the global consequences of the last one.
Cold War I: The Coups
……… In 1954, the Eisenhower administration launched a coup that overthrew the Guatemalan government of President Jacobo Arbenz. His “crime”: attempting to redistribute to poor peasants some of the lands owned by major landlords, including the U.S.-based United Fruit Company. Arbenz’s internal reforms were falsely labeled communism-in-the-making and a case of Soviet influence creeping into the Western Hemisphere……In 1954, the Eisenhower administration launched a coup that overthrew the Guatemalan government of President Jacobo Arbenz. His “crime”: attempting to redistribute to poor peasants some of the lands owned by major landlords, including the U.S.-based United Fruit Company. Arbenz’s internal reforms were falsely labeled communism-in-the-making and a case of Soviet influence creeping into the Western Hemisphere.
In 1973, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger followed Eisenhower’s playbook by fomenting a coup that overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Chilean President Salvador Allende, installing the vicious dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet………..
Vietnam and Its Legacy
The most devastating Cold War example of a war justified on anti-communist grounds was certainly the disastrous U.S. intervention in Vietnam. ……………………………..
The defeat in Vietnam helped spawn what was called the Nixon Doctrine, which eschewed large-scale intervention in favor of the arming of American surrogates like the Shah of Iran and the Suharto regime in Indonesia. ………………….
Chief among this country’s blunders of that previous Cold War era was its response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a policy that still haunts America today……………………..
most of the Cold War policies outlined above, even though carried out under the rubric of promoting “freedom” in “the free world,” would undermine democracy in a disastrous fashion.
A New Cold War?
Cold War II, if it comes to pass, is unlikely to simply follow the pattern of Cold War I either in Europe or other parts of the world. Still, the damage done by the “good versus evil” worldview that animated Washington’s policies during the Cold War years should be a cautionary tale. The risk is high that the emerging era could be marked by persistent U.S. intervention or interference in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the name of staving off Russian and Chinese influence in a world where Washington’s disastrous war on terrorism has never quite ended.
The United States already has more than 200,000 troops stationed abroad, 750 military bases scattered on every continent except Antarctica, and continuing counterterrorism operations in 85 countries. The end of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and the dramatic scaling back of American operations in Iraq and Syria should have marked the beginning of a sharp reduction in the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and elsewhere. Washington’s reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine may now stand in the way of just such a much-needed military retrenchment.
The “us versus them” rhetoric and global military maneuvering likely to play out in the years to come threaten to divert attention and resources from the biggest risks to humanity, including the existential threat posed by climate change. It also may divert attention from a country — ours — that is threatening to come apart at the seams. To choose this moment to launch a new Cold War should be considered folly of the first order, not to speak of an inability to learn from history. https://portside.org/2022-03-27/washington-should-think-twice-launching-new-cold-war
The entire world views it as I do; all except Kamikaze Joe and his puppeteers.. — The Goomba Gazette
The following are excerpts from CNN; one of the staunchest supporters of Kamikaze Joe. When the far left media starts getting on his ass, I would conclude the problem is absolutely severe. CNN Has Biden shaken international confidence in his so-far strong leadership in bringing the NATO alliance together in a united front against Moscow?
The entire world views it as I do; all except Kamikaze Joe and his puppeteers.. — The Goomba Gazette
- And will Putin be able to exploit disquiet over Biden’s comments in European capitals?
- Did the President’s comment dangerously escalate already high tensions in the worst confrontation between the West and Russia in decades?
- Will the notion that Biden hopes to topple Putin — even if the US says it’s not true — harden the embattled Russian leader’s resolve against negotiations or cause him to further escalate an already merciless war against civilians?
- Has Biden’s now stinging rhetoric about Putin effectively ruled out any future direct diplomacy or meetings between the world’s top nuclear powers — and could it endanger global peace if they can’t communicate in a future crisis that threatens humanity?
- Or will Biden’s human reaction to spending time with Ukrainian refugees soon be overtaken by the daily unfolding horror of the war or come to be seen as a strong moral stand that changed the way the world views the Russian leader? After all, ex-President Ronald Reagan’s call for then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” in Berlin was initially opposed by some of his own aides as too provocative.
- And finally, since Moscow already sees extraordinarily tough Western sanctions as economic warfare and given Putin’s deeply conspiratorial view of the West and its role in vanquishing the Soviet Union, can a few loose presidential words that rile up everyone in Washington really make things any worse?Because the United States has put itself into very precarious position electing this senile fool to the leader of the country, because of his disastrous decision making and uncontrollable disparaging remarks, it is imminent but there has to be a change………………
In the last few months Kamikaze has made some very disparaging remarks about Putin. Although they may be true, this is not path to a diplomatic solution.
What is the current nuclear arms pact between Russia and the US?
What is the current nuclear arms pact between Russia and the US? News Nation now, Sydney Kalich MAR 28, 2022
— In the aftermath of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia had agreed to multiple non-nuclear proliferation agreements.
Out of eight nuclear arms control agreements between Russia and the U.S., only one is still in effect. That is the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or “New START.”
The treaty limits nuclear warheads to 1,550 and limits the number of launchers and delivery systems. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin extended this deal in February of last year. It will be in effect until 2026.
But New START doesn’t cover the thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons. Those are less deadly nuclear weapons that could still kill thousands of people.
Notably, Ukraine actually had its own nuclear missiles until 1994 when the country agreed to give all its weapons to Russia in exchange for security assurances, which leaders say were violated by the 2014 invasion of Crimea.
This comes as top NATO leaders say any chemical attack by Russia on Ukraine would change the course of the war, but they are not saying whether NATO would take military action.
Russia and Ukraine are set to meet for peace talks Tuesday. Ukraine could declare neutrality and offer security guarantees to Russia to secure peace “without delay,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ……. https://www.newsnationnow.com/morninginamerica/current-nuclear-arms-pact/
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19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
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Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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