Stop Sizewell C campaigners query the government’s planning judgment , especially on costs

Stop Sizewell C campaigners yesterday questioned how the Government can
make an impartial planning judgement on the project if it is intending to
invest in it. The Planning Inspectorate’s report containing its
recommendation on the proposals is expected to be made public in late May.
Previous estimates have put the cost of Sizewell C at about £20bn – less
than the plant being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset – though the figure
could rise with global inflationary pressures.
East Anglian Daily Times 27th March 2022
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/business/sizewell-c-government-to-take-stake-8785356
Biden administration shuts down Trump-era nuclear cruise missile program
Biden administration kills Trump-era nuclear cruise missile program
After conducting the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review, the Biden administration has chosen to end the sea-launched cruise missile program, a senior Pentagon official said. Breaking Defense
By VALERIE INSINNAon March 28, 2022 WASHINGTON: In a rare political win for non-proliferation advocates, the Biden administration has cancelled the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile-Nuclear program, one of the two new nuclear weapons greenlit by the Trump administration.
The Pentagon’s fiscal year 2023 budget request, released today, zeroes out funding planned for the so-called SLCM-N program, according to a senior defense official who spoke to reporters about the spending proposal.
“Really this decision came out of the Nuclear Posture Review,” the official said. “There was direction from the president to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our defense strategy. That [decision to cancel SLCM-N] was a component.”
The determination is the latest in a back-and-forth spanning multiple administrations about the utility of a nuclear-armed cruise missile that could be launched from destroyers or Virginia-class attack submarines that typically use conventional weapons.
The Obama administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review called on the Navy to sunset the nuclear-version of its Tomahawk cruise missile, which was retired by 2013, according to the Federation of American Scientists.………………………..
Despite the cancellation of SLCM-N, funding for other nuclear programs flourished in the FY23 request.
| When asked about the fate of the W76-2, the senior defense official responded that there is “no change there,” hinting that the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review — due to be released in the coming weeks — will continue to support the low-yield warhead.According to a department fact sheet on the budget, the Pentagon requested a total of $34.4 billion across the nuclear enterprise for FY23, including $4.8 billion for nuclear command, control and communications.The Navy requested $6.3 billion for the Columbia-class submarine, its leg of the nuclear triad. Meanwhile, the Air Force is also modernizing its two components of the triad, asking $5 billion for the B-21 bomber program and $3.6 billion for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program that will replace Minuteman III intercontinental missiles https://breakingdefense.com/2022/03/biden-administration-kills-trump-era-nuclear-cruise-missile-program |
Nearly half of Americans concerned about nuclear war amid Russia-Ukraine invasion
Nearly half of Americans concerned about nuclear war amid Russia-Ukraine invasion
by: The Associated Press via Nexstar Media Wire
Mar 28, 2022 WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia’s war on Ukraine has most Americans at least somewhat worried that the U.S. will be drawn directly into the conflict and could be targeted with nuclear weapons, with a new poll reflecting a level of anxiety that has echoes of the Cold War era.
Close to half of Americans say they are very concerned that Russia would directly target the U.S. with nuclear weapons, and an additional three in 10 are somewhat concerned about that, according to the new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Russian President Vladimir Putin placed his country’s nuclear forces on high alert shortly after the Feb. 24 invasion.
Roughly nine in 10 Americans are at least somewhat concerned that Putin might use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine, including about six in 10 who are very concerned……… https://www.wfxrtv.com/news/russia-ukraine-conflict/nearly-half-of-americans-concerned-about-nuclear-war-amid-russia-ukraine-invasion/
Hinkley Point C nuclear project faces mor.e delays, increased costs
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| Hinkley Point C faces more delays amid Ukraine crisis. Developer EDF warns war may trigger even higher costs for Britain’s flagship nuclear power station. The UK’s £23bn new flagship nuclear power plant is at risk of becoming more expensive and being plagued by delays as its developer EDF blamed challenges including the conflict in Ukraine. EDF is carrying out a “new comprehensive review” of the costs and timeframes of Hinkley Point C, which it is building in Somerset with updates expected in the summer. The majority French state-owned company had already raised cost estimates in 2017, 2019 and again in 2021 amid the pandemic, with the project currently set to cost between £22bn and £23bn and start generating power in mid-2026. It was originally forecast to cost £18bn. The developers have to foot the bill for cost overruns at the project, but it comes as EDF is in talks with the UK Government about building a second new power plant, Sizewell C in Suffolk, which could see households take on more risk for overruns. The Prime Minister is believed to want nuclear power to supply about a quarter of Britain’s electricity by 2050. That could imply about six large stations similar to Hinkley will be needed by 2050. In a sign of its commitment to the technology, the Government is planning to take a 20pc equity stake in the Sizewell C project. In documents filed with French financial authorities, EDF said of Hinkley Point C: “Due to the difficulties encountered by the project, notably on civil performance and marine works, and the increase in risks such as the Ukrainian conflict, Brexit, Covid, supply chain disruption and inflation, a new comprehensive review to update the costs and schedule estimates announced in January 2021 is underway and is expected to be finalised by summer 2022.” Telegraph 27th March 2022https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/03/27/hinkley-point-c-faces-fresh-cost-overrun-ukraine-crisis/ |
Forest fires erupt around Chernobyl nuclear plant 

Forest fires erupt around Chornobyl nuclear plant, https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3441388-forest-fires-erupt-around-chornobyl-nuclear-plant.html Forest fires have broken out in the exclusion zone around the Chornobyl nuclear power plant because of combat actions. More than 10,000 hectares of forests are burning, which may cause increased levels of radioactive air pollution.
Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Liudmyla Denisova wrote this on Facebook, Ukrinform reports.
Fire control and extinguishing is impossible due to the seizure of the exclusion zone by Russian troops, she wrote.
As a result of combustion, radionuclides are released into the atmosphere, which are transported by wind over long distances, which threatens radiation to Ukraine, Belarus and European countries. Due to windy and dry weather, the severity and area of fires will grow, which can lead to large-scale fires, which are difficult to deal with even in peacetime.
Denisova warned that the flames could engulf spent nuclear fuel storage facilities and nuclear waste storage facilities located in the Chornobyl zone.
She called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to “send experts and firefighting equipment to Ukraine as soon as possible to prevent irreparable consequences not only for Ukraine but for the whole world.”
“Catastrophic consequences can be prevented only by immediate de-occupation of the territory by Russian troops. Therefore, I call on international human rights organizations to take all possible measures to increase pressure on the Russian Federation to end military aggression against Ukraine and de-occupy high-risk areas,” she wrote.
Caitlin Johnstone – yes, it’s a proxy war

NATO is a “sphere of influence”. It’s an extension of US imperial power. One of many.
You don’t get to unilaterally create a global dynamic and then cry when other countries respond accordingly. It’s like the US making international law meaningless by continually flouting it with zero consequences and then claiming another country violated international law.
Yes It’s A Proxy War: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/yes-its-a-proxy-war-notes-from-the?s=w Caitlin Johnstone, Mar 27
To be clear, evidence is mounting that this is a proxy war deliberately instigated and perpetuated by the US empire with the goal of ousting Putin. Which means that, despite all the narrative window dressing and spin, this war is just more US regime change interventionism.
Saddam Hussein was not a nice person, and he did bad things. This doesn’t change the fact that Bush’s regime change war was a tremendous evil which unleashed unforgivable horrors, and that it was done because Saddam became inconvenient for the US empire. The same is happening here.
As a result of deliberately provoking this war, the US empire has:
- Manufactured international consent for unprecedented economic warfare geared toward ousting Putin
- Drawn Moscow into another Afghanistan-like military quagmire
- Guaranteed immense profits for the war industry
- Cut in on Russia’s fossil fuel business
- Made Europe further subservient to US interests
People say “This is not a proxy war! How dare you call this a proxy war?”
Pouring billions of dollars worth of weaponry into a foreign nation to be used by CIA-trained fighters with the direct ongoing assistance of US military intelligence is in fact the exact thing that a proxy war is. That is what those words mean.
Continue readingUkraine war – the Nazi factor
Make Nazism Great Again https://www.opednews.com/articles/Make-Nazism-Great-Again-by-Pepe-Escobar-Azov-Battalion_Nazis_War-In-Ukraine-220325-46.html
By Pepe Escobar , 25 Mar 22,
The supreme target is regime change in Russia, Ukraine is just a pawn in the game – or worse, mere cannon fodder.
All eyes are on Mariupol. As of Wednesday night, over 70% of residential areas were under control of Donetsk and Russian forces, while Russian Marines, Donetsk’s 107th batallion and Chechen Spetsnaz, led by the charismatic Adam Delimkhanov, had entered the Azov-Stal plant – the HQ of the neo-Nazi Azov batallion.
Azov was sent a last ultimatum: surrender until midnight – or else, as in a take no prisoners highway to hell.
That implies a major game-changer in the Ukrainian battlefield; Mariupol is finally about to be thoroughly denazified – as the Azov contingent long entrenched in the city and using civilians as human shields were their most hardened fighting force.
There’s no intention whatsoever in Washington to facilitate a peace plan in Ukraine – and that explains Comedian Zelensky’s non-stop stalling tactics. The supreme target is regime change in Russia, and for that Totalen Krieg against Russia and all things Russian is warranted. Ukraine is just a pawn in the game – or worse, mere cannon fodder.
This also means that the 14,000 deaths in Donbass for the past 8 years should be directly attributed to the Exceptionalists. As for Ukrainian neo-Nazis of all stripes, they are as expendable as “moderate rebels” in Syria, be they al-Qaeda or Daesh-linked. Those that may eventually survive can always join the budding CIA-sponsored Neo-Nazi Inc. – the tawdry remix of the 1980s Jihad Inc. in Afghanistan. They will be properly “Kalibrated” city and using civilians as human shields were their most hardened fighting force.
A quick neo-Nazi recap
By now only the brain dead across NATOstan – and there are hordes – are not aware of Maidan in 2014. Yet few know that it was then Ukrainian Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov, a former governor of Kharkov, who gave the green light for a 12,000 paramilitary outfit to materialize out of Sect 82 soccer hooligans who supported Dynamo Kiev. That was the birth of the Azov batallion, in May 2014, led by Andriy Biletsky, a.k.a. the White Fuhrer, and former leader of the neo-nazi gang Patriots of Ukraine.
Together with NATO stay-behind agent Dmitro Yarosh, Biletsky founded Pravy Sektor, financed by Ukrainian mafia godfather and Jewish billionaire Ihor Kolomoysky (later the benefactor of the meta-conversion of Zelensky from mediocre comedian to mediocre President.)
Pravy Sektor happened to be rabidly anti-EU – tell that to Ursula von der Lugen – and politically obsessed with linking Central Europe and the Baltics in a new, tawdry Intermarium. Crucially, Pravy Sektor and other nazi gangs were duly trained by NATO instructors.Biletsky and Yarosh are of course disciples of notorious WWII-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, for whom pure Ukrainians are proto-Germanic or Scandinavian, and Slavs are untermenschen.
Azov ended up absorbing nearly all neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine and were dispatched to fight against Donbass – with their acolytes making more money than regular soldiers. Biletsky and another neo-Nazi leader, Oleh Petrenko, were elected to the Rada. The White Fuhrer stood on his own. Petrenko decided to support then President Poroshenko. Soon the Azov battalion was incorporated as the Azov Regiment to the Ukrainian National Guard.
They went on a foreign mercenary recruiting drive – with people coming from Western Europe, Scandinavia and even South America.
That was strictly forbidden by the Minsk Agreements guaranteed by France and Germany (and now de facto defunct). Azov set up training camps for teenagers and soon reached 10,000 members. Erik “Blackwater” Prince, in 2020, struck a deal with the Ukrainian military that would enable his renamed outfit, Academi, to supervise Azov.
It was none other than sinister Maidan cookie distributor Vicky “F**k the EU” Nuland who suggested to Zelensky – both of them, by the way, Ukrainian Jews – to appoint avowed Nazi Yarosh as an adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The target: organize a blitzkrieg on Donbass and Crimea – the same blitzkrieg that SVR, Russian foreign intel, concluded would be launched on February 22, thus propelling the launch of Operation Z.
All of the above, in fact just a quick recap, shows that in Ukraine there’s no difference whatsoever between white neo-Nazis and brown-colored al-Qaeda/ISIS/Daesh, as much as neo-Nazis are just as “Christian” as takfiri Salafi-jihadis are “Muslim”.
When Putin denounced a “bunch of neo-Nazis” in power in Kiev, the Comedian replied that it was impossible because he was Jewish. Nonsense. Zelensky and his patron Kolomoysky, for all practical purposes, are Zio-Nazis.
Even as branches of the United States government admitted to neo-Nazis entrenched in the Kiev apparatus, the Exceptionalist machine made the daily shelling of Donbass for 8 years simply disappear. These thousands of civilian victims never existed.
U.S. mainstream media even ventured the odd piece or report on Azov and Aidar neo-Nazis. But then a neo-Orwellian narrative was set in stone: there are no Nazis in Ukraine. CIA offshoot NED even started deleting records about training members of Aidar. Recently a crappy news network duly promoted a video of a NATO-trained and weaponized Azov commander – complete with Nazi iconography.
Why “denazification” makes sense
The Banderastan ideology harks back to when this part of Ukraine was in fact controlled by the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Russian empire and Poland. Stepan Bandera was born in Austro-Hungary in 1909, near Ivano-Frankovsk, in the – then autonomous – Kingdom of Galicia.
WWI dismembered European empires into frequently non-viable small entities. In western Ukraine – an imperial intersection – that inevitably led to the proliferation of extremely intolerant ideologies.
Banderastan ideologues profited from the Nazi arrival in 1941 to try to proclaim an independent territory. But Berlin not only blocked it but sent them to concentration camps. In 1944 though the Nazis changed tactics: they liberated the Banderanistas and manipulated them into anti-Russian hate, thus creating a destabilization force in the Ukrainian USSR.
So Nazism is not exactly the same as Banderastan fanatics: they are in fact competing ideologies. What happened since Maidan is that the CIA kept a laser focus on inciting Russian hatred by whatever fringe groups it could instrumentalize. So Ukraine is not a case of
“white nationalism” – to put it mildly – but of anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism, for all practical purposes manifested via Nazi-style salutes and Nazi-style symbols.
So when Putin and the Russian leadership refer to Ukrainian Nazism, that may not be 100% correct, conceptually, but it strikes a chord with every Russian.
Russians viscerally reject Nazism – considering that virtually every Russian family has at least one ancestor killed during the Great Patriotic War. From the perspective of wartime psychology, it makes total sense to talk of “Ukro-nazism” or, straight to the point, a “denazification” campaign.
How the Anglos loved the Nazis
The United States government openly cheerleading neo-Nazis in Ukraine is hardly a novelty, considering how it supported Hitler alongside England in 1933 for balance of power reasons.
In 1933, Roosevelt lent Hitler one billion gold dollars while England lent him two billion gold dollars. That should be multiplied 200 times to arrive at today’s fiat dollars. The Anglo-Americans wanted to build up Germany as a bulwark against Russia. In 1941 Roosevelt wrote to Hitler that if he invaded Russia the U.S. would side with Russia, and wrote Stalin that if Stalin invaded Germany the U.S. would back Germany. Talk about a graphic illustration of Mackinderesque balance of power.
The Brits had become very concerned with the rise of Russian power under Stalin while observing that Germany was on its knees with 50% unemployment in 1933, if one counted unregistered itinerant Germans.
Even Lloyd George had misgivings about the Versailles Treaty, unbearably weakening Germany after its surrender in WWI. The purpose of WWI, in Lloyd George’s worldview, was to destroy Russia and Germany together. Germany was threatening England with the Kaiser building a fleet to take over the oceans, while the Tsar was too close to India for comfort. For a while Britannia won – and continued to rule the waves.
Then building up Germany to fight Russia became the number one priority – complete with rewriting of History. The uniting of Austrian Germans and Sudetenland Germans with Germany, for instance, was totally approved by the Brits.
But then came the Polish problem. When Germany invaded Poland, France and Britain stood on the sidelines. That placed Germany on the border of Russia, and Germany and Russia divided up Poland. That’s exactly what Britain and France wanted. Britain and France had promised Poland that they would invade Germany from the west while Poland fought Germany from the east.
In the end, the Poles were double-crossed. Churchill even praised Russia for invading Poland. Hitler was advised by MI6 that England and France would not invade Poland – as part of their plan for a German-Russian war. Hitler had been supported financially since the 1920s by MI6 for his favorable words about England in Mein Kampf. MI6 de facto encouraged Hitler to invade Russia.
Fast forward to 2022, and here we go again – as farce, with the Anglo-Americans “encouraging” Germany under feeble Scholz to put itself back together militarily, with 100 billion euros (that the Germans don’t have), and setting up in thesis a revamped European force to later go to war against Russia.
Cue to the Russophobic hysteria in Anglo-American media about the Russia-China strategic partnership. The mortal Anglo-American fear is Mackinder/Mahan/Spykman/Kissinger/Brzezinski all rolled into one: Russia-China as peer competitor twins take over the Eurasian land mass – the Belt and Road Initiative meets the Greater Eurasia Partnership – and thus rule the planet, with the U.S. relegated to inconsequential island status, as much as the previous “Rule Britannia”.
England, France and later the Americans had prevented it when Germany aspired to do the same, controlling Eurasia side by side with Japan, from the English Channel to the Pacific. Now it’s a completely different ball game.
So Ukraine, with its pathetic neo-Nazi gangs, is just an – expendable – pawn in the desperate drive to stop something that is beyond anathema, from Washington’s perspective: a totally peaceful German-Russian-Chinese New Silk Road.
Russophobia, massively imprinted in the West’s DNA, never really went away. Cultivated by the Brits since Catherine the Great – and then with The Great Game. By the French since Napoleon. By the Germans because the Red Army liberated Berlin. By the Americans because Stalin forced to them the mapping of Europe – and then it went on and on and on throughout the Cold War.
We are at just the early stages of the final push by the dying Empire to attempt arresting the flow of History. They are being outsmarted, they are already outgunned by the top military power in the world, and they will be checkmated. Existentially, they are not equipped to kill the Bear – and that hurts. Cosmically.
What is the risk of a nuclear accident in Ukraine?
What is the risk of a nuclear accident in Ukraine? A radiation expert
speaks from Kyiv. Vadim Chumak monitored radiation after Chernobyl. He
explains what could go wrong now, and says he’s “old enough to
sacrifice” his life.
Of particular worry is that if a nuclear catastrophe
strikes, scientists might not be able to monitor it or measure its impacts,
says Chumak, who works on ways to monitor radiation exposure and played a
key role in dose assessment following the Chernobyl disaster, when a
nuclear reactor at the site exploded in 1986. Today, he remains close
enough to Kyiv to help should a nuclear disaster result from Russia’s
invasion.
MIT Technology Review 25th March 2022
U.S. Peace Council Statement on Russia’s Military Intervention in Ukraine

U.S. Peace Council Statement on Russia’s Military Intervention in Ukraine
The US with its NATO allies have not only provoked this tragedy but have sought to prolong it in their refusal to engage in negotiations for a ceasefire, Portside, March 26, 2022, U.S.PEACE COUNCIL
What we all hoped would not happen has happened. The Russian Federation sent troops into Ukraine on February 24 in response to decades of relentless US-led NATO provocation. The present situation puts many serious, fundamental questions before the global peace movement.
A fierce propaganda campaign, long simmering with Russiagate and the onset of a new Cold War, demonizing the Russian president and state has intensified. Wholesale condemnation of Russia has assumed global proportions, instigated by the US and allies, and supported by their sycophantic media. Alternative views and voices of opposition to the official anti-Russian narrative have been suppressed or shut down.
Not surprisingly, many people subjected to this toxic bombardment of massive imperialist propaganda have placed all the blame on Russian aggression. Various reasons are given to justify their, in our view dangerous, position. Let us look at some of these justifications and assess the degree of their moral, legal, and political validity.
Applying the UN Charter
The first and most morally justifiable reason given is the argument that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is in violation of the Charter of the United Nations. Based on this fundamental principle, shouldn’t the U.S. Peace Council, a staunch supporter and advocate of the Charter, also condemn Russia as a violator?
Let us look at the UN Charter to see whether we can firmly decide that Russia is in violation:
Article 2
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
Article 51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations….
Looking at Article 2, especially paragraph 4, it can be argued that Russia is in violation. But based on Article 51, the Russian Federation has invoked its right to self-defense and has duly informed the Security Council. Russia presents important arguments in favor of its use of force under Article 51.
The Ukraine government has acted as the US and NATO’s proxy in hostilely encircling the Russian Federation. Ukraine military and paramilitaries have attacked Donetsk and Lugansk since 2014, resulting in the deaths of some 14,000 of their own people, many of whom were Russian speakers and some Russian citizens. Most recently, Russia discovered an imminent Ukrainian government plan for a large-scale invasion of the Donetsk and Lugansk that border Russia. Russia now recognizes these two republics as independent states, after they asked Russia to aid in their defense.
Russia clearly asked for security guarantees from the US and NATO, which refused to adequately respond to Russia’s concerns. Ukraine was planning to host US/NATO nuclear weapons on its territory that could reach Moscow in a matter of five minutes. This took place in the alarming context of the US decision in 2019 to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia.
If this is not an act of war against Russia, what is it? Aren’t those who are complicit in an act of murder equally guilty of murder? This is not to say that Russia was right in its decision. Rather we are insisting that the UN Charter should be applied to Ukraine on the basis of facts, as a specific case with a given historical background.
Second, the United Nations itself has been unsuccessful in upholding its own Charter in the face of blatant violations by the NATO states. Here, our intention is not to justify the Russian action, but to provide a realistic context for the need to uphold the UN Charter.
Since the end of the Soviet Union, when the US became the sole superpower, Washington has blatantly ignored the UN Charter in its drive to impose global “full spectrum” dominance. We should understand NATO as more than just an “alliance” of nominally sovereign states, but as an imperial military integrated under US command.
Let us look at two of the relevant articles of the UN Charter that have been trampled upon by the imperialist powers since the end of the century:
Article 6.
A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.
Article 25.
The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.
US, NATO, and their allies have increasingly violated these and other articles of the UN Charter over the past two decades. Here are just a few examples:
— In 1999 for 78 days, NATO attacked, dropped 28,000 bombs, and shattered Yugoslavia into pieces without the consent of the United Nations.
— In 2001, as a response to the 9/11 attack, US declared an indefinite “war on terror,” affecting at least 60 countries, including seven targeted for illegal regime change.
— In 2003, US and the members of its “coalition of the willing” illegally attacked and invaded Iraq in defiance of the UN Security Council.
— In 2011 US, UK, and France unilaterally and without the consent of the UN Security Council attacked Libya and killed its leader, Moammar Qaddafi.
— Starting in 2011, US, NATO, and regional allies started a proxy war in Syria by arming and funding terrorist groups, a war which is still taking innocent lives.
— In 2014, the US staged a coup with the help of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine and established a pro-NATO government, which led to the massacre of Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine.
— Throughout this period, the US and its European allies have imposed illegal unilateral economic sanctions on more than 40 countries of the world, causing the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
— And, of course, one should mention the illegal occupation and annexation of Syrian and Palestinian territories by Israel with full support of the United States.
The crisis facing us in Ukraine today is a result of the UN’s inability to uphold its charter against such illegal actions by the sole superpower and its NATO allies, which has enabled US/NATO to push Russia and other targeted nations of the world into such an impossible situation.
Yes, we should defend the UN Charter, but not selectively as imperialism hypocritically wants us to. We should not allow ourselves to be duped by imperialism’s “blame the victim” narrative when the victim is forced to defend itself.
Inter-Imperialist War………..
False Equivalency of US/NATO and Russian Roles
As a peace organization, we cannot principally agree with the escalation of the Ukraine conflict to the level of military confrontation. However, we oppose the one-sided position of condemning Russia alone………………..
NATO’s success in its effort to expand to the Ukraine-Russia border would create a hellish world and lead to the possibility of a nuclear war. Let us not forget that the story would not end there, and Belarus could be the next target. So, it is imperative for the peace movement to do everything we can to guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality and US/NATO’s recognition of it.
U.S. Peace Council Assessment
The US with its NATO allies have not only provoked this tragedy but have sought to prolong it in their refusal to engage in negotiations for a ceasefire. While no one wins in a war, the US has had the most to gain: further unifying NATO under US domination, reducing Russian economic competition in the European energy market, justifying increasing the US war budget, and facilitating sales of war materiel to NATO vassals. A Europe further divided between the EU/UK and Russia benefits none but the imperial US.
On the basis of this assessment of the present situation in Ukraine, the U.S. Peace Council raises the following immediate demands, in order of priority and urgency:
1. Immediate ceasefire and dispatch of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including the self-proclaimed independent republics.
2. Recognition of the neutrality of Ukraine.
3. Withdrawal of foreign militaries, weapons, and equipment – including mercenaries – from Ukraine.
4. Resumption of negotiations for a permanent settlement of internal conflicts in Ukraine with the participation of all parties concerned.
U.S. Peace Council
March 24, 2022 https://portside.org/2022-03-26/us-peace-council-statement-russias-military-intervention-ukraine
Re-Visiting Russiagate In Light Of The Ukraine War
Caitlin Johnstone, Substack, 28 Mar 22,

The president of the United States has confirmed what Consortium News and others have been reporting since the beginnings of Russsiagate in 2016, that the ultimate U.S. aim is to overthrow the government of Vladimir Putin.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said on Saturday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
It’s hard to believe that the last president spent his term pouring weapons into Ukraine, shredding treaties with Russia and ramping up cold war escalations against Moscow which helped lead us directly to the extraordinarily dangerous situation we now find ourselves in, and yet mainstream liberals spent his entire administration screaming that he was a Kremlin puppet.
A lot of anti-empire commentary is rightly going into criticizing how the Obama administration paved the way to this conflict in Ukraine with its role in the 2014 coup and support for Kyiv’s war against Donbass separatists. But what’s getting lost in all this, largely because Trumpites have been using their mainstream numbers to loudly amplify criticisms of the role of the Obama and Biden administrations in this mess, is what happened between those two presidencies which was just as crucial in getting us here.
Though it’s been scrubbed from mainstream liberal history, it was actually the Trump administration that began the US policy of arming Ukraine in the first place. Obama had refused forceful demands from neocons and liberal hawks to do so because he feared it would provoke an attack by Russia.
In a 2015 article titled “Defying Obama, Many in Congress Press to Arm Ukraine“, The New York Times reported that “So far, the Obama administration has refused to provide lethal aid, fearing that it would only escalate the bloodshed and give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a pretext for further incursions.”
It wasn’t until the Trump presidency that those weapons began pouring into Ukraine, and boy howdy are we looking at some “further incursions” now. This change occurred either because Trump was a fully willing participant in the agenda to ramp up aggressions against Moscow, or because he was politically pressured into playing along with that agenda by the collusion narrative which had its origins at every step in the US intelligence cartel, or because of some combination of the two.
In all the world-shaping news stories we’ve been experiencing lately, it’s easy to forget how the narrative that the Kremlin had infiltrated the highest levels of the US government dominated news coverage and political discourse for years on end. But in light of the fact that today’s major headlines now revolve around that exact same foreign government, this fact is probably worth revisiting.
The most important thing to understand about the Trump-Russia collusion narrative is that it began with western intelligence agencies, was sustained by western intelligence agencies, and in the end resulted in cold war escalations against a government long targeted by western intelligence agencies. It was the US intelligence cartel who initiated the still completely unproven and severely plot hole-riddled claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump. It was a “former” MI6 operative who produced the notorious and completely discredited Steele Dossier which birthed the narrative that Trump colluded with the Kremlin to steal the 2016 election. It was the FBI who spied on the Trump campaign claiming it was investigating possible ties to Russia. It was the US intelligence cartel which produced, and then later walked back, the narrative that Russia was paying Taliban-linked fighters to kill allied occupiers in Afghanistan which was leveraged by Democrats to demand Trump escalate further against Putin. It was even a CIA officer who just so happened to be in the right place at the right time that kicked off the flimsy impeachment narrative that Trump had suspended arms deliveries to Ukraine……………………
Day after day mainstream liberals were promised major revelations which would lead to the entire Trump family being dragged from the White House in chains, and day after day those promises failed to deliver. But what did happen during that time was a mountain of US cold war escalations against Moscow, a very good illustration of the immense difference between narrative and fact………………………..
And now here we are. Joe Lauria has an excellent new article out for Consortium News titled “Biden Confirms Why the US Needed This War” which lays out the evidence that the Ukraine invasion was deliberately provoked to facilitate the longstanding agenda to oust Putin and “ultimately restore a Yeltsin-like puppet to Moscow.” The US could easily have prevented this war with a little bit of diplomacy and a few low-cost concessions, but instead it chose to provoke a war that could then be used to manufacture international consensus for unprecedented acts of economic warfare against Russia with the goal of effecting regime change.
The U.S. got its war in Ukraine. Without it, Washington could not attempt to destroy Russia’s economy, orchestrate worldwide condemnation and lead an insurgency to bleed Russia, all part of an attempt to bring down its government. Joe Biden has now left no doubt that it’s true.
The president of the United States has confirmed what Consortium News and others have been reporting since the beginnings of Russsiagate in 2016, that the ultimate U.S. aim is to overthrow the government of Vladimir Putin.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said on Saturday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
This was all planned years in advance. Long before Biden’s presidency, and long before Trump’s. It is not a coincidence that we spent years being bombarded with anti-Russia propaganda in the lead-up to a massive confrontation with that same government. There’s no connection between the discredited allegation that Trump was a secret Kremlin agent and Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, yet the mainstream anti-Russia hysteria manufactured by the former is flowing seamlessly into mainstream opposition of the latter.
This is because this was all planned well in advance. We’re where we’re at now because the US empire brought us here intentionally. https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/re-visiting-russiagate-in-light-of?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU2MjE3LCJwb3N0X2lkIjo1MTE0MTM1NSwiXyI6IlBCbmJRIiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ4NDM3MzgwLCJleHAiOjE2NDg0NDA5ODAsImlzcyI6InB1Yi04MjEyNCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.sV_DF9_RZoNSYBEyBYnmKKu9W2xB_fClLi6qcluyOv4&s=r
We have a new energy crisis, and EFFICIENCY is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest and fastest way to address it.

| Energy efficiency’s time may have come. Amory Lovins is arguing for the mass insulation of buildings alongside a vast acceleration of renewables. “We should crank [them] up with wartime urgency. There should be far more emphasis on efficiency,” he says. He sees Vladimir Putin’s war inUkraine as an outrage, but possibly also a step towards solving the climatecrisis and a way to save trillions of dollars. “He has managed to bring about all the outcomes that he most feared, but he may inadvertently have put the energy transition and climate solutions into a higher gear. He demolishes the technology with statistics. “In 2020 the world added 0.4 gigawatts more nuclear capacity than it retired, whilst the world added 278 gigawatts of renewables – that’s a 782-fold greater capacity. Renewables swelled supply and displaced carbon as much every 38 hours as nuclear did all year. Where nuclear is cheap, renewables are cheaper still and efficiency is cheaper than that. There is no new type or size or fuel cycle of reactor that will change this. Do the maths. It is game over.” “Putin’s war is being financed by those who buy Russian fossil fuels. In the first two weeks the west has paid €8bn to Russia. We have a new energy crisis, and efficiency is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest and fastest way to address it,” he says. Guardian 26th March 2022https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/26/amory-lovins-energy-efficiency-interview-cheapest-safest-cleanest-crisis |
North Korea preparing for its first nuclear test in 5 years
North Korea ‘is preparing for its first nuclear test in five years’ just
days after testing ‘monster’ ballistic missile that can reach anywhere in
the US.
Daily Mail 27th March 2022
France’s nuclear energy output continues to slump

Falling nuclear output in France has spurred gas demand in the country and
is hampering EU moves to cut dependence on Russian supplies, according to
some analysts. “The underperformance of French nuclear power in the
Ukraine crisis is completely underestimated. The orders of magnitude are
dizzying” one analyst, who wished to remain anonymous, told Montel.
France, with 56 reactors – the world’s second-biggest nuclear
production capacity – has long been viewed as Europe’s powerhouse,
exporting output across the bloc. Now, that picture has changed with the
country’s nuclear availability plunging in recent months to its lowest
level in over 30 years.
Since 2015 France’s annual nuclear output has
slumped by around 100 TWh, TSO figures showed. In 2015, French reactors
generated 417 TWh. This year atomic output is forecast to drop to 295-330
TWh.
Montel 25th March 2022
https://www.montelnews.com/news/1308826/french-nuclear-slump-hinders-russian-gas-exit–analysts
Antarctic heat – a horrifying reminder of the future with global heating
“Shocking,” said the Met Office head; “bonkers,” according to an Antarctic researcher. The heat at both ends of the planet this week has scientists straining for adjectives. 40°C above normal in Antarctica,
30°C hotter than usual in the Arctic.
With temperatures so much above anything on record, scientists had to confirm that, no, it isn’t a typo:
this is really happening.
Last week, the Conger ice shelf, which sits off the East Antarctic coast and is around 1,200 square kilometers across, collapsed completely. Ice sheets hold back the flow of ice into the sea.
“If they collapse, then ice flow from inland accelerates and leads to sea level rise,” said Andrew Mackintosh, a scientist at Monash University in Australia.
A natural reaction to such news is to fear the ice sheets might collapse entirely. If the West Antarctic ice sheet collapsed into theocean, global sea-levels could rise several metres – much faster and
further than expected – swamping coastal cities. That is not likely to happen soon, but the polar heat is a horrifying reminder of the stakes involved.
Independent 25th March 2022
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/higher-food-prices-climate-crisis-b2043988.html
USA promises Israel that Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons
Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons, US promises Israel Antony Blnken seeks to reassure Israel and Gulf allies ahead of possible renewal of nuclear deal
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor, Mon 28 Mar 2022 The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has sought to reassure Israel and its Gulf allies that Iran will never acquire atomic weapons, ahead of the possible renewal of the nuclear deal with Tehran.
“When it comes to the most important element, we see eye to eye,” Blinken said at a news conference on Sunday with Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid. “We are both committed, both determined, that Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon.”
Blinken’s comments came before a meeting with four Arab foreign ministers at an extraordinary summit hosted by Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett – an event that in itself shows how the landscape of Israel’s relations with some Arab states has been transformed in the past 18 months, driven partly by fears about the imminent end of Iran’s economic isolation………………………………………
Speaking in Israel, Blinken nevertheless defended the principle of trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal, saying: “The US believes that a return to full implementation of the deal is the best way to put Iran’s nuclear programme back in the box that it was in, but has escaped from since the United States withdrew from that agreement…………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/27/iran-will-never-acquire-nuclear-weapons-us-promises-israel
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