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Microsoft deal propels Three Mile Island restart, with key permits still needed

By Reuters, September 21, 2024

Sept 20 (Reuters) – Constellation Energy (CEG.O), opens new tab and Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab have signed a power deal to help resurrect a unit of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in what would be the first-ever restart of its kind, the companies said on Friday.

Key regulatory permits for the plant’s new life, however, haven’t been filed, regulators say.

Big tech has led to a sudden surge in U.S. electricity demand for data centers needed to expand technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud computing. ……………………………………..

Power from the plant would be used to offset Microsoft’s data center electricity use, the companies said.

A relaunch of Three Mile Island, which had a separate unit suffer a partial-meltdown in 1979 in one of the biggest industrial accidents in the country’s history, still requires federal, state and local approvals.

Constellation has yet to file an application with federal nuclear regulators to restart the plant.

“It’s up to Constellation to lay out its rationale for justifying restart, so we’re prepared to engage with the company on next steps,” said Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) spokesperson Scott Burnell.

Constellation said it expected the NRC review process to be completed in 2027.

BILLION DOLLAR BET

The deal would help enable a revival of Unit 1 of the five-decades-old facility in Pennsylvania that was retired in 2019 due to economic reasons. Unit 2, which had the meltdown, will not be restarted.  https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/constellation-inks-power-supply-deal-with-microsoft-2024-09-20/

September 22, 2024 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

UN overwhelmingly votes to sanction Israel, impose arms embargo

The vote passed with 124 states in favor of ending the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank

SEP 19, 2024,  https://thecradle.co/articles/un-overwhelmingly-votes-to-sanction-israel-impose-arms-embargo

The UN General Assembly voted on 18 September overwhelmingly in favor of ending Israel’s illegal occupation in the West Bank. 

The Palestinian-drafted resolution called on Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months, including the presence of illegal settlements and hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers.

The vote passed with 124 in favor and 43 abstentions. Washington and Tel Aviv voted against the resolution, along with 14 others.

The resolution urged states to “take steps towards ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel … where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The issue of Palestine is “the permanent responsibility” of the UN until it is solved in accordance with international law, the resolution states.

It also cites an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July regarding the illegality of Israel’s West Bank occupation. Additionally, it calls on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to issue a report on the resolution’s implementation three months into its adoption.

This was the first resolution officially advanced by Palestine since it took its seat among UN member states for the first time this month after being granted additional privileges following a General Assembly vote in May. 

It was co-sponsored by 50 states at the General Assembly, including Turkiye.

Prior to the vote, Washington attempted to lobby states against voting in favor of it. 

Washington’s UN envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Tuesday urged UN members to vote against the resolution, telling reporters in New York that the Palestinian document has “a significant number of flaws,” claiming it goes “beyond the ICJ ruling” and does not recognize that “Hamas is a terrorist organization.”

Similarly, Israel’s envoy to the UN, Danny Danon, urged member states to vote against the resolution, calling it “an attempt to destroy Israel through diplomatic terrorism” and “ignores the truth, twists the facts and replaces reality with fiction.”

The Israeli Knesset passed a vote on 18 July, completely rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, including statehood as part of any future peace agreement.

Several countries, including Spain, Norway, and Ireland, recognized Palestine as a state in late May amid mounting criticism of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. 

September 22, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

US Military Policy Is Stoking the Risk of Nuclear War on Korean Peninsula

As Trump and Harris bicker over North Korea, the US military lays plans that could bring nuclear tensions to a brink.

By Ju-Hyun Park , Truthout, September 19, 2024

U.S. politicians can’t stop talking about Kim Jong Un. The two major party conventions have come and gone, with both presidential candidates mentioning the North Korean leader by name. At the Republican National Convention (RNC), Donald Trump claimed Kim had endorsed him, adding, “He misses me.” Just weeks later at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Kamala Harris alluded to her opponent’s claims, declaring before an enraptured audience that the “tyrant” Kim is “rooting for Trump.”

Neither candidate told the truth. The North Korea’s state news agency was swift to respond to Trump back in June, clarifying the position of the government with characteristically pointed remarks: “No matter what administration takes office in the U.S., the political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this.”

The fact-free treatment of North Korea by both parties is a sign of how the electoral cycle has reduced the Korean crisis to a political football. This is especially dangerous in a time when the risk of war in Korea is at its highest in decades. Significantly, neither Republicans nor Democrats seem interested in a public discussion about the concrete situation in Korea, or the major escalations the U.S. is undertaking there.

While the news cameras and the eyes of the electorate were trained on the DNC in Chicago, the U.S. military executed one of the largest war games on Earth in Korea: Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS). UFS is the latest name for an annual series of military exercises conducted by the Combined Forces Command, the command structure under which the military of South Korea answers to U.S. generals. (The U.S. has had operational wartime command of South Korea’s armed forces since 1950.) Originating in 1976, UFS and its predecessors routinely deploy tens of thousands of troops, along with U.S. “strategic assets” such as aircraft carriers, heavy bombers and nuclear submarines.

This is a major, and widely misunderstood, component of the unfinished Korean War — that for over half a century, some of the largest military maneuvers on Earth are conducted on an annual basis in Korea within sight of the border bisecting the peninsula. Although the U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK), South Korea’s official name, insist these exercises are defensive, many of them rehearse the invasion and occupation of North Korea.

These “war games,” by their very nature, look identical to the first steps of a real invasion. This year’s UFS featured a whopping 48 individual war drills, deploying 19,000 South Korean troops, 200 military aircraft and an unknown number of U.S. soldiers. What’s more, this year’s war games took place in the context of another significant escalation: emergent plans to potentially redeploy U.S. nuclear weapons to Korea.

Killing Peace

The Korean War was concluded with a ceasefire rather than a permanent peace treaty, making it the longest war in U.S. history. For over 50 years, relations between North and South Korea were structured through the paradigm of independent, peaceful reunification — a mutual commitment to nonviolently end both the Korean War and the division of the Korean people. And since the late 1980s, relations between the U.S. and North Korea were also based on the framework of denuclearization. Both of these diplomatic paradigms have now crumbled. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://truthout.org/articles/us-military-policy-is-stoking-the-risk-of-nuclear-war-on-korean-peninsula/

September 22, 2024 Posted by | North Korea, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The World Would Be Better off Without NATO, Revisited

CounterPunch, by Eve Ottenberg, September 20, 2024

The hyper-capitalist terror state that plots to rule the world keeps its fist in a mailed glove called NATO. But NATO is in trouble. As its massive, disastrous Ukraine adventure fails, a key member, Turkey, applied to, uh, essentially join the other side, namely BRICS. When Ankara does so, how will that work? One foot in the Washington-dominated axis and the other in the Moscow and Beijing camp? That could require some political acrobatics, but Turkey has performed thus before. We got a smaller show of that with the spring 2022 Istanbul negotiations to settle the Ukraine War, until Boris “To the Last Ukrainian” Johnson, doubtless at Joe “Proxy War” Biden’s behest, scuttled them.

Things got stupendously worse September 12, with Anthony “World War III” Blinken’s trip to Kiev, along with his British sidekick, foreign secretary David Lammy, to promise long-range, possibly precision missiles to Volodymyr Zelensky, to strike deep into Russia. 

At once Russian president Vladimir Putin took to the airwaves to announce that this would put NATO at war with Russia and that Moscow would adjust its plans accordingly. Never a good sign; one, in fact, that conjures images of bombed, radioactive American, Russian and European cities. But this was a reminder of Russia’s long-standing military policy: if existentially threatened, anything can happen. In short, one of the adults in the room had spoken. And Biden, with unexpected sanity, responded like an adult: no strikes deep into Russia. Let’s all hope to God, the west, Washington in particular, stops playing with fire – as one Kremlin bigwig accurately put it.

As for the Ukraine War itself, well, it’s a catastrophe for Kiev and for NATO. The stinging realization that Washington, the CIA in particular, bit off more than it can chew has commenced wounding the swelled heads of the more intelligent decision-makers in the imperial capital. Now, of course, Moscow is only interested in peace on the harshest terms for Ukraine, a change in posture, and not for the good for the west, thanks to the insane Ukrainian incursion into Russia.

It is unlikely that Recep Erdogan and Naftali Bennett can ride to the rescue, as they attempted two and a half years ago. In those elapsed years, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have perished, tens of thousands of Russian ones have too, Europe has swung into an economic and political tailspin, Germany’s broke (Deutschland boasted 10,702 corporate insolvencies in the first quarter of 2024 alone, a scalding indictment of its Russophobic foreign policy), NATO’s cupboards are bare of weapons, and Washington is losing interest. Quite the time for Ankara to approach BRICS – perhaps the first rat leaving the waterlogged Titanic. Can Hungary and Slovakia be far behind?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Obviously, the western decision to bring Ukraine into NATO was a catastrophic, colossal blunder. As Kiev loses, out-manned and out-gunned by Moscow, this can only focus the very legitimate criticism on NATO that it has essentially done nothing besides make very bloody trouble since the end of the cold war (vide NATO crimes in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya). Numerous American diplomatic and security state luminaries vociferously cautioned against NATO expansion after 1991. They were ignored. American presidents, in their supreme arrogance, starting with Bill “Bomb Belgrade” Clinton, broke Washington’s promise to Mikhail Gorbachev and expanded NATO right up to Russia’s doorstep. Evidently, they thought they could do so with impunity. They were wrong. Their gamble not only risks WWIII, it destroyed a country, Ukraine. Time to mothball NATO, so it can never cause such a catastrophe and endanger the entire world again.

Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest book is Busybody. She can be reached at her website. https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/20/the-world-would-be-better-off-without-nato-revisited/

September 22, 2024 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Failed Machismo: Israel’s Pager Killings

September 20, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/failed-machismo-israels-pager-killings/
With each ludicrously diabolical move, Israel’s security and military services are proving that they will broaden the conflict ignited when Hamas breached the country’s vaunted security defences on October 7. Notions such as ceasefire and peace are terms of nonsense and babble before the next grand push towards apocalyptic recognition.

The pager killings in Lebanon and parts of Syria on September 17 that left almost 3000 people injured and 12 dead were just another facet of this move. On September 18, a number of walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah were also detonated, killing 14. (The combined death toll continues to rise.)

In keeping with the small script that always accompanies such operations, the coordinated measure to detonate thousands of deadly pagers had Mossad’s fingerprints over it, though never officially accepted as such. It featured the use of the Apollo AR924 pager, adopted by Hezbollah as a substitute for smartphone technology long compromised by Israeli surveillance.

The group had ordered 5,000 beepers made by the Taiwanese Gold Apollo manufacturer in the early spring, most likely via BAC Consulting, a Hungarian-based company licensed to use the trademark. According to a Reuters report, citing a “senior Lebanese source”, these had been modified “at the production level.” Mossad had “injected a board inside the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means. Even with a device or scanner.”

The manner of its execution stirred sighs of admiration. Here was Israel’s intelligence apparatus, caught napping on October 7, reputationally restored. French defence expert Pierre Servent suggested that, “The series of operations conducted over the last few months marks their big comeback, with a desire for deterrence and a message: ‘we messed up but are not dead.’” A salivating Mike Dimino, former CIA analyst and plying his trade at Defense Priorities, a US-based think tank, admired the operation as one of “classic sabotage” that would have taken “months if not years” to put into play and proved to be “[i]ntelligence work at its finest.

While admired by the security types as bloody, bold machismo, this venture remains politically stunted. However stunning a statement of power, it only promises temporary paralysis. It’s true that Hezbollah is in disarray regarding its communications, the extent of the compromise, and pondering the nightmarish logistics of it all. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has every reason to feel rattled. But the pretext for an escalation, the temptation to reassert virility and strength, has been set, thereby creating the broader justification for a move into Lebanon.

The broader war, the death, and the calamity, beckons, and an excited DiMino proposes that, “If you were planning a ground incursion into Lebanon to push Hezbollah N[orth] of the Litani, this is exactly the sort of chaos you’d sow in advance.” An unnamed former Israeli official, speaking to Axios, confirmed that the modified pagers had been originally intended as a swift, opening attack “in an all-out war to try to cripple Hezbollah.” Their use on September 17 was only prompted by Israeli concerns that their operation might have been compromised.

Nasrallah, in his September 19 speech, complemented the dark mood. “Israel’s foolish Northern Command leader talks about a security zone inside Lebanese territory – we are waiting for you to enter Lebanese territory.” He also promised that the only way 120,000 Israelis evacuated from the North could return safely “is to stop the aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

Every resort to force, every attempt to avoid the diplomatic table, is another deadly deviation, distraction and denial. It is also an admission that Israel remains incapable of reaching an accord with the Palestinians and those who either defend or exploit their dispossession and grief.

On a granular level, the wide flung nature of the operation, while audacious in its execution, also suggests an absence of focus. The target range, in this case, was violently expansive: not merely leaders but low-level operatives and those in proximity to them. The result was to be expected: death, including two children, and broadly inflicted mutilations. In humanitarian terms, it was disastrous, demonstrating, yet again, the callousness that such a conflict entails. Bystanders at marketplaces were maimed. Doctors and other medical workers were injured. Lebanon’s hospital system was overwhelmed.

Human Rights Watch notes that international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby–traps precisely because such devices could place civilians in harm’s way. “The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known,” opined Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at HRW, “would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction.”

Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, to which both Lebanon and Israel are parties, offers the following definition of a booby-trap: “any device or material which is designed, constructed or adapted to kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object or performs an apparently safe act.”

Quibbling over matters of international humanitarian law is never far away. Over the dead and injured in rarified air, disputatious legal eagles often appear. While the use of such devices “in the form of harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material” is prohibited by Article 7(2) of Amended Protocol II, the legal pedants will ask what constitutes specific design and construction. Ditto such issues as proportionality and legitimate targeting.

Jessica Peake of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, is mercifully free of quibbles in offering her assessment: “detonating pagers in people’s pockets without any knowledge of where those are, in that moment, is a pretty evident indiscriminate attack” and also a violation of the rule of proportionality.

The calculus of such killings and targeting enriches rather than drains the pool of blood and massacre. Its logic is not one of cessation but replication. No longer can Israel’s military prowess alone be seen as a reassurance against any retaliation and whatever form it takes. October 7 continues to cast its dispelling shadow. Deterrence through sheer technological power, far from being asserted, has been further weakened.

September 22, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling on Ukraine sounds different this time

Christian Science Monitor, By Fred Weir, Special correspondent, September 19, 2024, Moscow

Over the course of the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has drawn several “red lines” – with ostentatious references to Russia’s huge strategic nuclear arsenal – only to seemingly do nothing when these lines are crossed by Ukraine or its Western backers

Red lines:

But when Mr. Putin warned last Thursday that Moscow will consider it a direct act of war by NATO if British, French, or U.S.-made missiles are used by Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia, he said this time is different.

Why We Wrote This

The Kremlin has had little success invoking its nuclear arsenal to deter Ukraine and the West from deploying new tactics and modern equipment to stop Russia’s invasion. But that may be changing.

Many Russian experts agree. And for now, Washington seems to be heeding his threat and holding off on permitting Ukraine to use the weapons.

“Russia’s frustration has been growing because the West appears to have lost all fear of nuclear war. Deterrence is absent,” says Sergei Strokan, an international affairs columnist with the Moscow daily Kommersant. During the Cold War, he says, that fear drove both sides to the bargaining table, aiming to limit conflicts and control nuclear weapons.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/World/Europe/2024/0919/putin-ukraine-war-russia-nuclear-war-ww3?fbclid=IwY2xjawFZl3RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTcSiRBIOeirIFfIogP4ISJt2uGrRaPn6u1PExNVwAUriNd55aENjnbTHw_aem_YYAKI4JyPWZbXh1b5xaDcw

September 22, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

MIT Coalition for Palestine Announces Major Divestment Win

09/17/2024,  https://nlgmass.org/mit-coalition-for-palestine-announces-major-divestment-win/

The MIT Coalition For Palestine announces a major divestment win for its Scientists Against Genocide (SAGE) movement : MIT has ended the MISTI-Israel Lockheed Martin Fund. This is the first known shutdown of an American-Israeli weapons manufacturer partnership at a U.S. university since the war on Gaza has begun, and MIT has chosen to end this partnership despite renewing its other MISTI projects. The Fund had been a project by MIT International Science and Technology Initiative Israel (MISTI-Israel) to connect students and researchers at MIT to the global arms manufacturer’s Israeli offices. 

Lockheed Martin has unquestionably profited from the genocide in Gaza, supplying the Israeli government with Hellfire missiles, attack aircraft, and heavy artillery directly used in destroying Palestinian lives, homes, and society, as well as enabling torture camps and a regime of apartheid. This win is a testament to the sustained pressure from activists, including MIT labor’s refusal to abet the apartheid state via contributing to its weapons research. NLG is proud to have supported and represented MIT SAGE via legal representation and legal observation, especially when they were under threat of police violence and unlawful arrests during the encampment of Apr-May 2024. 

Israeli forces continue to escalate in their terror, and MIT maintains ongoing, direct research funding links to the Israeli military supply chain. MIT Coalition for Palestine will continue to fight and resist against the genocidal regime: the NLG will continue to support that fight. No science for apartheid, and free Palestine

September 22, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear in Australia would increase household power bills

Report Nuclear Electric Grid Energy Policy Australia

September 20, 2024, Johanna Bowyer and Tristan Edis, https://ieefa.org/resources/nuclear-australia-would-increase-household-power-bills

Key Findings

Typical Australian households could see electricity bills rise by AUD665/year on average under the opposition Coalition’s plans to introduce nuclear to the country’s energy mix.

IEEFA analysed six scenarios based on relevant international examples of nuclear power construction projects; in every scenario, bills increased by hundreds of dollars.

For households that use more electricity, bills could rise more – for a four-person household, the bill rise was found to be AUD972/year on average across nuclear scenarios and regions. 

The cost of electricity generated from nuclear plants would likely be 1.5 to 3.8 times the current cost of electricity generation in eastern Australia.

Australia’s main federal opposition, the Liberal-National Coalition, has proposed building seven nuclear power plants across the country, including both large-scale reactors and small modular reactors (SMRs). This report seeks to detail the likely impact on household consumers’ electricity bills from such a plan, based on recent real-world experience from construction costs for nuclear power plants around the world.

Rather than use theoretical projected costs, we have calculated the potential electricity bill impact for a range of nuclear cost recovery scenarios, based on the following real-world examples:

Finland: Olkiluoto Unit 3. France: Flamanville Unit 3. UK: Hinkley Point C. US: Vogtle Units 3 and 4.US SMR: NuScale SMR. Czech Republic: Dukovany proposed plant expansion.

The first four scenarios are based on actual, recent nuclear power plant construction costs and timeframes for countries in liberal democracies where costs are transparent. Commenting on nuclear construction cost estimates, electricity market economist Professor Paul Joskow states: “The best estimates are drawn from actual experience rather than engineering cost models.”

In the case of SMRs, no plants have been successfully completed in a democratic country, so we instead used the one example of a binding contract offer to build such a plant in the US, the now-cancelled NuScale project. We also used this approach for assessing the costs for a proposal to build South Korean APR technology (a design that the Coalition has cited for potential implementation in Australia) in a separate democratic country with laws protecting labour rights, outside of its country of origin – the Czech Republic.

Household electricity bills impact

We found that electricity bills would need to rise in order for nuclear costs to be recovered. The chart below illustrates the resulting increase in typical household power bills if nuclear power plants with similar costs and characteristics to the international examples were built in Australia. The average bill increase was AUD665/year across states and nuclear scenarios for households with a median level of electricity consumption. The lowest impact is equivalent to bill increases of AUD260-AUD353 per year, linked to estimated costs for the pre-construction project Dukovany, which is highly likely to underestimate final costs. The lowest impact from a nuclear plant successfully completed (Vogtle) is AUD383-AUD461 per year for an average household. Meanwhile, the UK experience with Hinkley Point C indicates electricity bill rises of more than AUD1,000 per year are possible.

Figure 1 [on original]: Increase in typical household electricity bill to recover cost of nuclear plants based on different countries’ experience (AUD/year)

The range of costs is wide due to the significant cost differentials for large-scale nuclear in different countries, and the significant cost uncertainty for SMR technology, which is still under development. The impact in each state can vary due to differing typical electricity consumption levels in each state, and different electricity bill cost structures.

For households using more electricity than the median level, the bill increases from nuclear would be higher. For example, for a four-person household the bill impact would be AUD972/year on average across nuclear scenarios and states, and for a five-person household AUD1,182/year.

How nuclear costs are reflected on electricity bills

These results might come as surprising to some, because large-scale nuclear is a mature technology currently in use across a wide range of countries. In addition, misinterpreted data on retail electricity prices (which also include the costs of powerlines and taxes, not just generators and so is misleading) can show some cases of nations that use nuclear who have lower retail prices than Australia.

However, in almost all cases around the world, the cost of nuclear power plant construction and financing is not fully reflected in market prices for power. This is because either nuclear power plants are very old and their costs are largely depreciated, or governments have acted to recover the costs either through taxpayers, or via levies which are independent of electricity markets – for example in France, the UK and Ontario, Canada. In other jurisdictions, such as a number of US states including Georgia where the Vogtle power plant is located, there isn’t actually an electricity market in operation, with consumers instead served by a regulated monopoly without any competitive choice.

The Coalition has outlined something different, ruling out taxpayer subsidies and stating that any government investments in nuclear plants would receive a commercial return. This implies that the Coalition expect that wholesale electricity market prices will be sufficient for nuclear power plants in each state to recover their construction costs plus a commercial level of return. The Coalition has also outlined that these nuclear power plants would operate at full capacity almost all of the time. Therefore, power prices would need to average out at the level a nuclear plant needs to be commercially viable – to recover their costs – almost all of the time.

High costs of recent nuclear projects

The reason bills increased in this study is because recent large-scale nuclear projects across Europe and North America involved very high costs. The European Pressured Reactor (EPR) program had promised to deliver more efficient, safer nuclear power. However, the three recent projects (Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3 and Hinkley Point C), which have either just been completed or are under construction, have all faced construction challenges, delays and cost-blowouts. If plants with similar costs and characteristics were built in Australia, they would require a levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) between AUD250 per megawatt-hour (MWh) and AUD346/MWh to recover their costs.

A few other types of reactors are being built or considered internationally of a similar design to what the Coalition indicates might be built in Australia: the South Korean APR1000 design proposed at Dukovany in the Czech Republic; and a Westinghouse AP1000 design recently completed at Vogtle in the US. The Vogtle plant experienced seven years of delays and actual capital costs (excluding financing costs) 1.7 times the original estimates. Those plants present LCOEs of between AUD197 and AUD220 per MWh in an Australian context – noting the Dukovany costs are only initial pre-construction estimates and could rise.

Based on NuScale, we estimate that the LCOE of nuclear SMR in an Australian context would be AUD289/MWh – but could be far higher if construction extends beyond the 3.25 years used in this study – as financing costs increase as construction timelines extend.

Capital costs (excluding financing costs) of recent nuclear power builds have tended to blow out by a factor of between 1.7 and 3.4, leading to financial difficulties for companies involved. All conventional nuclear projects built in recent years in the US and Europe – Vogtle, Olkiluoto 3, Hinkley Point C and Flamanville 3 – have contributed to financial difficulties for companies involved. Westinghouse, which was the technology provider for Vogtle, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2017. France’s AREVA, who was the original technology provider for Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3 and Hinkley Point C, came close to bankruptcy over 2015, which required a French Government-sponsored bail-out.

The chart below [on original] details the wholesale market prices required for each of the recently constructed or quoted nuclear plants to be commercially viable, relative to the current wholesale electricity costs being passed through in household electricity bills in the regions of Victoria, NSW, South East Queensland (SEQ) and South Australia (SA).

[Figure 2: Current wholesale energy cost (WEC) component of current household bills compared to commercial price to recover nuclear plant costs in Australian context (AUD/MWh)]

Australia would likely face even higher large-scale nuclear costs than these recent international examples, due to the country’s limited nuclear capability and the small size of any potential Australian nuclear build-out program. With seven nuclear power stations proposed (two of them SMR-only), all at separate sites, there will be limited scope to achieve learning-based cost reductions like those seen in a large continuous build program, for example the build program in South Korea on which CSIRO’s GenCost costings are based. South Korea has built 26 reactors since the 1970s. Further, the assumptions in this report have provided an optimistic levelised cost of electricity for nuclear, for example using a 60-year economic lifetime, 93% capacity factor, and a low discount rate.

Our analysis suggests household power bills would need to rise significantly for nuclear power plants to become a commercially viable investment in the absence of substantial, taxpayer-funded government subsidies. In IEEFA’s opinion, any plan to introduce nuclear energy in Australia – such as that proposed by the Coalition – should be examined thoroughly, with particular focus on the potential impact on electricity system costs and household bills, and with detailed analysis of alternative technologies such as renewables and firming.

September 22, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, business and costs | Leave a comment

Peter Dutton and the pursuit of fame.


21 September 24  https://theaimn.com/peter-dutton-and-the-pursuit-of-fame/

Peter Dutton is the leader of Australia’s opposition party – the Liberal-National Coalition.

Which is pretty noteworthy and important, anyway. But of course, he would be more important if he is elected as Prime Minister in 2025. But is that enough fame for him?

Dutton aspires to a greater, global, significance. He would be the first world leader to introduce the commercial, peaceful, advanced nuclear industry to not just a country, but to an entire continent. And not to some “third-world” “undeveloped” country “in need of charity” – but to a prosperous, privileged, purportedly well-educated, and still mainly white population.

For the global nuclear industry – that would be a first! And not just any old first, but an extremely timely one. Just released this week, The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024 describes an industry on life support. Even back in 2016 Former World Nuclear Association executive Steve Kidd spoke to this problem, noting that “the industry is essentially running to stand still.”

For Australia to adopt a government-run nuclear industry involving both large and small nuclear reactors across a continent – what a wonderful shot in the arm for the global nuclear lobby. And Dutton – what a hero!

Dutton would be famous not just in Australia, but world-wide

Is this why Peter Dutton is promoting his nuclear policy?

I can’t think of any other reason.

Australia, especially in the State of South Australia, is becoming a world leader in renewable energy use – particularly in decentralised household rooftop solar, but also in large solar and wind programmes. Of course, Australia’s mining magnates are pretty happy with Dutton’s plan, as it will mean more mining, not just of uranium, but of coal and gas in the decades before nuclear power actually comes into use.

So – look – it’s a winner for Dutton’s fame.

And if that doesn’t work, there’s fame in another way

The last Liberal Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is a great contender for the worst Prime Minister in Australian history. Just a few of his achievements to merit this award were:

Economically, the nuclear power programme, added to the continuing AUKUS nuclear deal, could pretty well bankrupt Australia. Although Dutton claims that nuclear power will be cheap, he’s given no costings, and the over-riding opinion of energy and economics experts is that nuclear power would be the most expensive form of energy for Australia.

Environmentally, Dutton’s plan includes advanced nuclear reactors, which will require plutonium or enriched uranium – so this brings virtually eternal radioactive pollution into Australia (something that has been nearly avoided up until now). It also brings the hazards of nuclear weapons proliferation, and terrorism targets.

So – it’s a bold venture for Peter Dutton, to centre his election campaign on promoting the nuclear industry. He is to be commended for bravery in taking such a big risk.

If Dutton carries this through, as Prime Minister, he will rapidly gain world fame.

But also, as far as Australia is concerned, he could beat Scott Morrison into history as the nation’s worst Prime Minister.

Dutton’s big risk is that he might not get elected in 2025, and vanish very quickly from history.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

Selling War: How Raytheon and Boeing Fund the Push for NATO’s Nuclear Expansion

World Beyond War, By Alan Macleod, Mint Press, September 20, 2024

To “counter Russia’s nuclear blackmail,” the Atlantic Council confidently asserted, “NATO must adapt its nuclear sharing program.” This includes moving B-61 atomic bombs to Eastern Europe and building a network of medium-range missile bases across the continent. The think tank praised Washington’s recent decision to send Tomahawk and SM-6 missiles to Germany as a “good start” but insisted that it “does not impose a high enough price” on Russia.

What the Atlantic Council does not divulge at any time is that not only would this drastically increase the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear war, but that the weapons they specifically recommend come directly from manufacturers that fund them in the first place.

The B-61 bombs are assembled by Boeing, who, according to its most recent financial reports, gave tens of thousands of dollars to the organization. And the Tomahawk and SM-6 are produced by Raytheon, who recently supplied the Atlantic Council with a six-figure sum.

Thus, their recommendations not only put the world at risk but also directly benefit their funders.

Unfortunately, this gigantic conflict of interest that affects us all is par for the course among foreign policy think tanks. A MintPress News investigation into the funding sources of U.S. foreign policy think tanks has found that they are sponsored to the tune of millions of dollars every year by weapons contractors. Arms manufacturing companies donated at least $7.8 million last year to the top fifty U.S. think tanks, who, in turn, pump out reports demanding more war and higher military spending, which significantly increase their sponsors’ profits. The only losers in this closed, circular system are the American public, saddled with higher taxes, and the tens of millions of people around the world who are victims of the U.S. war machine.

The think tanks receiving the most tainted cash were, in order, the Atlantic Council, CSIS, CNAS, the Hudson Institute, and the Council on Foreign Relations, while the weapons manufacturers most active on K-Street were Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics.

These think tanks directly affect conflicts around the world. CSIS, for example, are among the loudest advocates for arming Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, even as the latter carries out a genocide in Palestine. A recent report lays out a shopping list of U.S. weapons that would help the Israeli military, including Excalibur artillery projectiles, JDAM bomb guidance systems, and Javelin missiles. Those weapons are manufactured by Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin, respectively, all of whom are among CSIS’ top funders.

U.S. arms are being used daily to carry out illegal and deadly attacks against civilian populations in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, making arms manufacturers directly complicit in war crimes.

One example of this is the recent Israeli bombing of the Al Mawasi humanitarian zone in Gaza. Israel dropped three one-ton MK-84 bombs on the camp, killing at least 19 people. Dozens more are still missing.

According to the UN, MK-84 bomb blasts rupture lungs, tear limbs and heads from bodies, and burst sinus cavities up to hundreds of meters away.

The MK-84 bombs were produced in the U.S. by General Dynamics and sent to Israel with Washington’s blessing. General Dynamics has made huge profits from the slaughter; the D.C.-based arms manufacturer’s stock price has jumped by 42% since October 7.

Conflicts and Conflicts of Interest

Think tanks are an essential part of K-Street, the collective term for the assembly of lobbyists, trade associations and other organizations that attempt to alter government policy……………………………………………………………………………………

There is obviously a massive conflict of interest if groups advising the U.S. government on military policy are awash with cash from the arms industry. This study attempts to quantify that conflict of interest. It analyzed the top 50 most influential foreign policy think tanks in the U.S., according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Global Go to Think Tank Index, and tracked the funding of these 50 organizations to ascertain how much money each received from the weapons industry. A comprehensive funding spreadsheet containing all the numbers used in this study can be found here.

Figures were taken from each group’s websites, funding lists, and financial declarations for the last financial year available. In total, the arms industry donated at least $7.8 million to those think tanks.

This, however, is certainly a significant underestimate for several reasons. ……………………………….

Tanks and Think Tanks

The results were both worrying and unsurprising, as this study found that giant arms manufacturers quietly bankrolled many of the largest and most influential groups advising the U.S. government on its foreign policy. The Atlantic Council alone is funded by 22 weapons companies, totaling at least $2.69 million last year. Even a group like the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, established in 1910 as an organization dedicated to reducing global conflict, is sponsored by corporations making weapons of war, including Boeing and Leonardo, who donate tens of thousands of dollars annually.

The five think tanks that received the most funding from the arms industry are: The Atlantic Council, $2.69 million; Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), $2.46 million; Center for a New American Security (CNAS), $950,000; Hudson Institute, $635,000; and the Council on Foreign Relations, $300,000.

At least 36 weapons manufacturers provided funding to major American think tanks. The most “generous” among them were Northrop Grumman, $1.07 million; Lockheed Martin, $838,000; General Atomics, $510,000; Leonardo S.p.A., $485,000; and Mitsubishi, $443,000.

When presented with these findings, peace activist David Swanson, author of “War is a Lie,” appeared disgusted but not surprised. Swanson described the role of arms industry-funded think tanks as such:

They have to build up through endless repetition and through debates that remain within their bizarre parameters the idea that wars are won, that wars are defensive, that nuclear weapons deter wars, that enemies cannot be spoken with, that weapons spending is a public service that nations should do to the maximum extent possible while stripping funding away from human needs, and similar outrageous pieces of nonsense.”

He Who Pays the Piper

It is no coincidence that the groups receiving the most weapons industry money are home to some of the most hawkish, pro-war voices to be found anywhere. The arms industry, like all corporations, does not donate out of the goodness of their hearts but is instead looking for a return on their investments.

Influential think tanks like CSIS are certainly giving their benefactors bang for their buck, consistently agitating for more military spending and more war around the world, whatever the consequences.

………………………..European countries, CSIS also insisted, must “pull their weight” in NATO, transforming their societies into ones every bit as militarized as the U.S., for the sake of “global democracy.”

Meanwhile, writing in The Atlantic, Eliot A. Cohen, CSIS’ Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, demanded an escalation in the West’s involvement in Ukraine. “We need to see masses of Russians fleeing, deserting, shooting their officers, taken captive, or dead. The Russian defeat must be an unmistakably big, bloody shambles,” he wrote, adding that “To that end, with the utmost urgency, the West should give everything that Ukraine could possibly use.”

This included long-range missiles and F-16 and F-35 fighter jets.

What neither Cohen nor the Atlantic noted, however, was that the weapons he demanded to be bought and sent to Ukraine are made by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, groups that directly fund CSIS……………………….

the relentless pro-war voices were hardly limited to CSIS. In fact, every think tank taking substantial arms industry cash maintained a notably hawkish stance. The Atlantic Council, for instance, policed European nations’ NATO spending in an attempt to pressure them to purchase more arms and has advocated that the U.S. create a new “Indo-Pacific intelligence coalition” that would ramp up tensions with China. CNAS, meanwhile, has claimed that the U.S.’ supposedly muted response to “Chinese provocations” has eroded its “credibility” on the world stage.

Speaking on what think tanks have achieved, Swanson told MintPress:

They’ve normalized the idea of measuring war spending as a percentage of an economy, and the idea that there is no such thing as too much of it. They’ve normalized the idea of only one solution to all problems, even problems created by that one solution, namely war. [And] they present endlessly endlessly endlessly ‘defensive alliance NATO’ with not a soul noticing that NATO’s wars have all been blatantly aggressive.”

The American public is generally skeptical of war. Surveys show that two-thirds of the country wants Washington and Ukraine to directly engage in diplomacy with Russia, even if that means conceding Ukrainian territory. Most Americans are against sending more U.S. troops to the Middle East as well, even if it were only to “defend Israel.”

They hold these positions despite what they are constantly told in the media. A study by the Quincy Institute found that, when discussing Ukraine, 85% of all think tanks quoted in major outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal received funding from the military-industrial complex. Most prominent among these were CSIS and the Atlantic Council.

Making a Killing from Killing

In his hit 1970 song, “War,” Edwin Starr claimed that the practice was a “friend only to the undertaker.” But war has also been excellent news for weapons contractors. In the past five years, General Dynamics’ stock price has jumped by 103%, Lockheed Martin’s by 107%, and Northrop Grumman’s by 110%.

Arms industry shareholders have seen massive returns on investment, thanks to the actions of a nation addicted to conflict. The United States has been engaged in warfare for 231 of its 248 years as an independent country. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, a U.S. government institution, America has launched 469 foreign military interventions between 1798 and 2022 and 251 since 1991 alone. This has included special operations, targeted assassinations of foreign leaders, military coups, and outright invasions and occupations of other countries.

More than half of all discretionary Federal spending goes to the military, whose budget is closing in on $1 trillion annually. American military spending rivals that of all other nations combined. The United States also maintains a network of around 1,000 bases around the world, including nearly 400 in a ring encircling China.

This feeds the insatiable appetites of weapons manufacturers, who, therefore, have even more money to spend buying influence and lobbying the government for more war and antagonistic policies that benefit them.

Part of their strategy is funding think tanks in Washington, D.C. For the likes of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, it is a no-brainer, an astute business investment. A few hundred thousand dollars per year spent bankrolling think tanks like CSIS, CNAS or the Atlantic Council translates into billions of dollars worth of more orders for tanks, ships and aircraft.

By 2016, the United States was bombing seven countries simultaneously. And yet, militarism and the danger to the planet have only increased since then. The U.S. is currently gearing up for potential wars against both Russia and China – two of the largest and most populous states on the planet, and both ones with large stockpiles of atomic weapons. A war with either would risk Armageddon.

This is all great news for the military-industrial-complex, however, who are making a killing. And that is why it is imperative that they be stopped; it is literally a life-and-death issue for all of us.

Feature photo | The North Atlantic Council meeting begins to fill during the meeting of Defence Ministerials at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, February 12, 2020. Photo |DVIDS

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.  
https://worldbeyondwar.org/selling-war-how-raytheon-and-boeing-fund-the-push-for-natos-nuclear-expansion/

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The 2024 World Nuclear Industry Status Report now released.

The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024 (WNISR2024) assesses on 513
pages the status and trends of the international nuclear industry. It
provides a comprehensive overview of nuclear power plant data, including
information on operation, production, fleet age, and construction.

The WNISR discusses the status of newbuild programs in existing as well as in
potential newcomer nuclear countries; notably in the Türkiye Focus which
provides critical context to the ongoing construction of the country’s
first nuclear power plant. A section is dedicated to ambitions and
prospects for nuclear deployment in Potential Newcomer Countries in Africa,
while Taiwan Focus covers the current situation and implementation of the
nuclear phaseout policy.

 WNISR 19th Sept 2024

https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2024-1046

September 21, 2024 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

World demands end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, in landslide UN vote

The vast majority of the world voted at the UN General Assembly to demand an end to Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory within 12 months, with 124 countries (64%) in favor, 14 (7%) against, and 43 (22%) abstentions.

GeoPOliticalEconomy, By Ben Norton, 19 Sept 24

The countries that voted against the resolution, in effect supporting Israel’s illegal occupation, were the United States, Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Malawi, Papa New Guinea, and Paraguay, plus the tiny Pacific island nations of Fiji, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Tonga, and Tuvalu.

These small island countries that consistently echo Washington’s unpopular votes in the UN are essentially unofficial US colonies, and mostly use the US dollar or Australian dollar as their currencies. Together, the six have a combined population of just over 1 million people, making them some of the smallest nations on Earth.

Among the large countries that abstained were India, Australia, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ethiopia.

However, in a break with Washington, a few longtime US allies voted in support of the resolution, most notably Japan, as well as France, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain…………………………….

The resolution was not controversial; it simply called for the implementation of a decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s top legal body.

On July 19, the ICJ issued a historic ruling stating:

– the State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful;

– the State of Israel is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible;

– the State of Israel is under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory;

– the State of Israel has the obligation to make reparation for the damage caused to all the natural or legal persons concerned in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;

– all States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The US government is essentially the only obstacle standing in the way of the implementation of international law, and the recognition of Palestine as a full UN member state.

In May, 143 countries voted in the General Assembly to admit Palestine as a full UN member. At present, it is only an observer state.

This May General Assembly vote came after an April session of the Security Council, in which the US used its veto power to kill a resolution that requested full membership for Palestine.

Since war broke out in Gaza in October 2023, Washington has repeatedly vetoed Security Council resolutions that call for peace and a ceasefire.

US President Joe Biden has strongly supported Israel as it has brutally bombed civilians in Gaza, in what UN experts say is a campaign of genocide.

In a press conference in Tel Aviv in October, Biden asserted that “if Israel didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it”, given how strategic the colonial state is for US imperial interests.  https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/09/19/end-israel-occupation-palestine-un-vote/

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

‘The Genocide Gentry’: Weapon Execs Sit on Boards of Universities, Institutions

“This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions,” said one campaigner.

Brett Wilkins, Sep 18, 2024, https://www.commondreams.org/news/u-s-universities-weapons-companies

A trio of human rights groups on Wednesday announced a new interactive initiative exposing what the coalition is calling a “Genocide Gentry” of weapons company executives and board members and “54 museums, cultural organizations, universities, and colleges that currently host these individuals on their boards or in other prominent roles.”

The coalition—which consists of the Adalah Justice Project, LittleSis, and Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE)—published a map and database detailing the “educational and cultural ties to board members of six defense corporations” amid Israel’s ongoing annihilation of Gaza, for which the U.S.-backed country is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.


” Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza and nearly 200 cultural heritage sites since October 2023, using bombs and weapons manufactured by the companies included in the Genocide Gentry research,” the coalition said. “As of April, these attacks have killed more than 5,479 students and 261 teachers and destroyed or critically damaged nearly 90% of all school buildings in Gaza.”

“Universities across the country including the likes of Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and New York University have remained largely silent on Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza,” the groups added. “Behind closed doors, these same universities are hosting executives and board members of the companies manufacturing the weapons used in these attacks as board members, trustees, and fellows.”

Members of the Genocide Gentry include:

  • Jeh Johnson, Lockheed Martin board of directors: Johnson is currently a Columbia University trustee, and sits on the board of directors at MetLife and U.S. Steel. Columbia University notably shut down student protests demanding divestment from weapons companies like Lockheed Martin.
  • Brian C. Rogers, RTX board of directors: Rogers is currently a trustee of the Harvard Management Company, tasked with managing the $50 billion endowment. Notably Harvard administrators have cracked down on students demanding divestment from weapons companies like RTX, formerly Raytheon.
  • Catherine B. Reynolds, General Dynamics board of directors: Reynolds is a trustee of the Kennedy Center and sponsors a fellowship at New York University, which has also cracked down on anti-genocide protests and recently enacted a policy equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

“Students on university campuses across the country have not only been demanding divestment, but transparency,” said Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project. “Transparency about their institutions’ investments, partnerships, donors, and decision-makers, and their connections to individuals and companies directly enabling and profiting off war and genocide.”

“This research helps provide some of this transparency by illuminating just how embedded the interests of the weapons industry are within our institutions, so we can begin chipping away at the power and influence that they wield,” she added.

ACRE campaign director Ramah Kudaimi noted that “as part of its genocide since October 2023, Israel has targeted universities and cultural centers across Gaza, destroying campuses, museums, libraries, and more.”

“That this is all backed by the United States means U.S. educational and cultural institutions have a responsibility to consider what their role is in helping end these war crimes, and that starts with reconsidering their connections with the weapons companies profiting from the destruction,” Kudaimi said.

Munira Lokhandwala, director of the Tech and Training program at LittleSis, said: “This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions. Through this research, we show how the defense industry shapes and influences our civic and cultural institutions, and as a result, their silence around war and genocide.”

“We must ask our institutions: What role are you playing in whitewashing war and destruction by inviting those who profit from manufacturing weapons onto your boards and into your galas?” she added.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Education, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Are the World’s Ongoing Conflicts in Danger of Going Nuclear?

Global Issues, by Thalif Deen (united nations), Tuesday, September 17, 2024, Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 (IPS) – The constant drumbeat of nuclear threats seems never ending—emanating primarily from the Russians, Israeli right-wing politicians and North Koreans.

The threats also prompt one lingering question: Can there be a World War III without the use of nuclear weapons?

In a report August 27, Reuters quoted a senior Russian official as saying the West was playing with fire by considering allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles—and cautioned the United States that World War III would not be confined to Europe. 

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s longstanding foreign minister and former UN ambassador, said the West was seeking to escalate the Ukraine war and was “asking for trouble” by considering Ukrainian requests to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons.

Putting it in the right context, the Washington-based Arms Control Association (ACA) pointed out last week, “the global nuclear security environment could hardly be more precarious.”

Carol Giacomo, chief editor of Arms Control Today, the ACA’s flagship publication, said that weeks before the US elects a new president, the global nuclear security environment could hardly be more precarious.

“Russia continues to raise the specter of escalating its war on Ukraine to nuclear use; Iran and North Korea persist in advancing their nuclear programs; China is moving to steadily expand its nuclear arsenal; the United States and Russia have costly modernization programs underway; and the war in Gaza threatens to explode into a region-wide catastrophe entangling Iran and nuclear-armed Israel, among other countries,” she pointed out.

Meanwhile, Russia and China are refusing to enter arms control talks with the United States, new countries are raising the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons and decades of arms control treaties are unraveling.

The situation has also prompted Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Agency (IAEA), to warn, in an interview with The Financial Times on August 26, that the global nonproliferation regime is under greater pressure than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

The U.S. presidential election campaign has not engaged publicly on most of these issues in any serious way despite the fact that whichever candidate wins will, once inaugurated, immediately inherit the sole authority to launch U.S. nuclear weapons, wrote Giacomo, a former member of The New York Times editorial board (2007-2020).

Dr M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Graduate Program Director, MPPGA at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told IPS the dangers posed by nuclear arms, and the very powerful institutions and governments that possess these weapons of mass destruction, have never been greater.

“In the last 16 months, we have seen government officials from Russia (Dmitry Medvedev) and Israel (Amihai Eliyahu) threatening to use, or calling for the use of, nuclear weapons against Ukraine and Gaza respectively” he noted.

The rulers of these countries have already shown the willingness to kill tens of thousands of civilians. “Going further back, we can remember U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea. Coming from a person like Trump and a country like the United States that is the only one to use nuclear weapons in war, there is good reason to take such a threat with utmost seriousness”.

Such great dangers, he argued, can be ameliorated only with great visions, by people demanding that no one should be killed in their name, especially using nuclear weapons but not only using nuclear weapons.

This would require people to make common cause with people all over the world, and refuse to be divided by the “narrow nationalisms” that Albert Einstein identified as an “outmoded concept,” as far back as 1947…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.globalissues.org/news/2024/09/17/37679

September 21, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Putin ally warns West of nuclear war over Ukraine

By Reuters, September 20, 2024, Reporting by Reuters; writing by Mark Trevelyan and Guy Faulconbridge, Editing by William Maclean

Summary

Russian missile ‘could hit Strasbourg in minutes’

Volodin says Russia will use ‘more powerful weapons’

Lawmaker reinforces Putin warning

MOSCOW, Sept 19 (Reuters) – A close ally of President Vladimir Putin warned Western governments on Thursday that a nuclear war would ensue if they gave the green light for Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament and a member of Putin’s Security Council, was responding to a vote in the European Parliament urging EU countries to give such approval to Kyiv.

“What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons,” Volodin wrote on Telegram.

His message was entitled “For those who didn’t get it the first time” – an apparent reference to a warning by Putin last week that the West would be directly fighting Russia if it let Ukraine fire the long-range missiles onto Russian territory.

The Ukraine war has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which is considered to be the time when the two Cold War superpowers came closest to intentional nuclear war.

The outgoing head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, told The Times this week that the Kremlin leader had declared “many red lines” before but not escalated conflict with the West when they were crossed. Putin’s spokesman said his comment was dangerous and provocative.

In a non-binding resolution adopted on Thursday, the European Parliament asked EU countries to “immediately lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems delivered to Ukraine against legitimate military targets on Russian territory.”

Volodin wrote: “If something like this happens, Russia will give a tough response using more powerful weapons. No one should have any illusions about this.” He said it appeared to Moscow that the West had forgotten the vast sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in World War Two.

He said Europeans should understand that it would take Russia’s RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, known in the West as Satan II, just 3 minutes and 20 seconds to strike Strasbourg, where the European Parliament meets.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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