This week’s news – not from the nuclear-military-industrial-complex
Some bits of good news – Australia quadruples the size of marine reserve near Antarctica. The world’s spending to fight global lead poisoning just doubled. Seoul’s Han River is being restored
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TOP STORIES
Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff: Middle East Exploding, Ukraine Crumbling, US to Take Action? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXDz1PdMWao.
“Escalation dominance” and the new nuclear threat: We face more than 1,000 Holocausts.
Israeli retaliation threat sparks call in Iran for nuclear weapons.
Japanese anti-nuclear organisation awarded 2024 Nobel Peace Prize – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCm3CStSao8
Radiation: Updated findings provide insights into radiation exposure’s impact on cancer risk.
Renewable Energy Surge Lowers UK Blackout Risk.
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Climate. Unprecedented peril: disaster lies ahead as we track towards 2.7°C of warming this century. The climate crisis threatens societal collapse—how many more hurricanes will it take for us to wake up?
Biodiversity. WWF: Average wildlife populations have fallen 73 per cent in 50 years.
Noel’s notes. Vitriolic hatred of Arabs and Russians versus THINKING and practical military strategy. The “tech bros” are going to have a global party with AI in warfare. Should we let them be in control?. How in the hell do you cope with Facebook?
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AUSTRALIA. Albanese and Dutton team up on toxic AUKUS nuclear waste deal. One of Australia’s largest unions, the ETU, questions Australia’s billion-dollar nuclear price tag. Australia’s evolving nuclear posture: avoiding a fait accompli (Part 1 of 2).
Labor springs surprise nuclear power committee to call Coalition bluff on energy policy. John Hewson –The opposition leader’s nuclear bullshit. More Australian nuclear news at https://antinuclear.net/2024/10/10/australian-nuclear-news-headlines-oct-7-14/
NUCLEAR ITEMS
ART and CULTURE. One Horrible Year on from October 7 2023, a Bleak Reflection. ATROCITIES. Israel: Simply no red lines at all. Let’s remember the365 days of genocide as well as October 7 attack. Israeli Snipers Routinely, Deliberately Shoot Palestinian Kids In The Head. As Israel Extends Its Genocide Into the West Bank, It Targets and Kills Children. Patrick Lawrence: Truths That Come Out Like the Sun. ECONOMICS. Rolls-Royce mini nuke arm posts wider £78mln loss. Rolls-Royce suffers £78m loss on mini-nukes amid UK rollout delays. EDF Seeks to Raise Up to £4 Billion to Help Fund Construction of UK’s Hinkley Nuclear Plant.
EDF reportedly seeking up to £4bn from investors to finish Hinkley Point C.
EDUCATION. Financing new nuclear. Governments paying the price?- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/10/12/1-b1-financing-new-nuclear-governments-paying-the-price/
Nuclear lobby takes over tertiary education, with blatant lies about “clean” “green” nuclear.ENERGY. Nuclear – not the way ahead.
Renewables based systems are reducing blackouts in UK and USA!
China to head green energy boom with 60% of new projects in next six years.
Japan PM Ishiba eyes more renewables, less nuclear in energy mix.ENVIRONMENT. Farmers warn over Hinkley Point C’s saltmarsh plan. EDF bosses grilled over River Severn salt marsh plans at ‘prickly’ meeting. Nuclear plant ‘will decimate fish stocks’.
LEGAL. Are DOE and NNSA Complying with the National Environmental Policy Act?. MEDIA. “The First Live-Streamed Genocide”: Al Jazeera Exposes War Crimes Filmed by Israeli Troops Themselves.US-Backed Israeli Military Forces Have Executed Numerous Journalists Since October 7.
Brutal lessons of 1984 nuclear bomb drama Threads. BBC viewers urge everyone to watch ‘bleak’ war film that has only ever been shown four times. “Threads” brings nuclear war fears to a new audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgT4Y30DkaA&t=11sOPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Planned nuclear plant in a Kenyan top tourist hub and home to endangered species sparks protest. Nuclear power stations are neither wanted nor needed in Scotland.
PEACE. UK and Ireland partners congratulate 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner. PERSONAL STORIES. Palestine Talks | Medea Benjamin ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB_OxrjJsRA) POLITICS. As Milton bears down on Floridians, Joe and Bibi bear down on Iranians. Israeli Protesters Call for Ceasefire in Anti-War Demonstrations – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGw3XTLhIpk.
Kamala Harris’ foreign policy agenda music to war party, anathema to swing state voters.
Hinkley Point C saltmarsh plans ‘a disaster‘, say MPs.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Biden Officials Say Ceasefire Talks Are Suspended as Harris Names Iran Top Enemy. Biden Allowing Israel to March US Into War With Iran.
IAEA Missing in action, on Israeli nuclear strike threats, Iranian outlet argues.
NATO state’s PM pledges to block Ukrainian membership.SAFETY. Canada’s false ‘solution’ for used nuclear fuel waste. Canada’s nuclear watchdog green-lights operation of aging Pickering reactors to 2026 – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/?s=Canada%E2%80%99s+nuclear+watchdog+green-lights
Ukraine wants UN nuclear watchdog to place foreign observers near all its nuclear plants.SECRETS and LIES. Is This The Last October 7 Where We’ll Be Able To Speak The Truth?Fulsome bribery to communities – from Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO).
SPINBUSTER. Sellafield’s “Social Impact Multiplied” Wins Greenwash Award for “The Edge” Water Sports Centre in Contaminated Harbour. TECHNOLOGY. On Army bases, nuclear energy can’t add resilience, just costs and risks. URANIUM. DoE awards next-gen nuclear fuel contracts backwards. WASTES. Securing a nuclear waste disposal site for the future. A desire to leave not a ‘compelling need’ under nuke dump compo scheme say Nuclear Waste Services.
WAR and CONFLICT. Slaughter In Gaza And Lebanon As War With Iran Approaches. Report: US Considers Launching Airstrikes Against Iran To Support Israeli Attack.
Carnegie nuclear expert James Acton explains why it would be counterproductive for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear program.Israel may attack Iran’s nuclear sites to target weapons: See map.
Blinken approved Israeli attacks on Gaza aid convoys: Report. “Greater Israel:” Cabinet Minister Plots Seizure of Territory from 6 Neighbors, including Lebanon.
‘Russia doesn’t want to use nuclear weapons’: The view from wartime Moscow.WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. US arms dealers witness ‘record profits’ from Israel’s year-long genocide in Gaza, war on Lebanon.
US’ next-gen nuclear submarines suffer delay with costs soaring past $130 billion.
Could small modular reactors be used to create nuclear warheads?.
Will Israel cross the red line of targeting Iran’s nuclear sites?
Ultimately, that reality as to whether or not Israel decides to strike Iran’s nuclear programme or other targets in response to recent missile attacks on the Jewish state will come down to Netanyahu and his government. That in itself, say some observers, should be cause for real concern.
Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian has said he wants to re-engage with the west to resolve the nuclear standoff and secure sanctions relief to boost his country’s economy. But clearly any Israeli strike would almost certainly result in a total shift in Iran’s nuclear doctrine.
Tehran may see the actual weaponisation of its nuclear programme as the only option left that can guarantee the security of the Iranian regime,”
DAVID PRATT, 13th Oct 2024
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/24648329.will-israel-cross-red-line-targeting-irans-nuclear-sites/
As speculation mounts over Israel’s next move, Foreign Editor David Pratt examines that most dangerous of retaliatory options
Even just a few weeks ago, the idea of crossing such a red line in the Middle East conflict would have been considered unlikely.
But as the war in the region this past year has repeatedly shown, such boundaries and limits have become increasingly meaningless.
Talk of a potential Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is a case in point.
Certainly there’s no shortage right now of hawkish analysts and commentators who think that this is the ideal moment for Israel to destroy the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.
“The country’s breakout time to a bomb is down to one to two weeks,” claimed American political scientist and national security strategist Matthew Kroenig, writing in Foreign Policy magazine last week.
“Hamas and Hezbollah are in no position to retaliate. And the Islamic Republic just asked for it. In fact, this may be the last best chance to keep Tehran from the bomb,” Kroenig concluded, in a rather alarmist if not entirely inaccurate assessment.
His view is typical of the kind that has found traction in certain quarters of late, including in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) earlier this month.
“If there were ever cause to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, this is it… the question for American and Israeli leaders is: If not now, when?” the newspaper asked.
For the moment, though, the execution of such a direct attack is not a strategy favoured by US President Joe Biden. Asked last week whether he would support a strike on Iran’s nuclear sites by Israel, Biden was seemingly unequivocal in his response
“The answer is no,” he told journalists, adding that the US will be “discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do”.
The problem with Biden’s answer, however, as recent events in the region have starkly shown, is that Washington hasn’t exactly overexerted itself when it comes to reining in Israel on previous red-line issues in Gaza and Lebanon. And even if it did, evidence to date suggests that Israel would pay little or no heed.
US election
The Biden administration’s reluctance to use serious leverage on Netanyahu, is compounded by the fact that we are barely a few weeks out from a knife-edge US presidential election.
In short, the last thing the President wants is to upset some Jewish voters at home and scupper the chances of his potential Democratic Party successor Kamala Harris, while letting Donald Trump back into the White House.
For the current US administration these domestic electoral priorities are blurring the urgency of this arguably very consequential moment between Israel and Iran – but that doesn’t change its undeniable reality.
Ultimately, that reality as to whether or not Israel decides to strike Iran’s nuclear programme or other targets in response to recent missile attacks on the Jewish state will come down to Netanyahu and his government. That in itself, say some observers, should be cause for real concern.
To begin with, it’s not as if Israel hasn’t done so before.
The Stuxnet cyber-attacks in 2010, said to be codenamed “Operation Olympic Games”, saw what was allegedly a joint Israeli-US effort using a computer virus that temporarily halted Iran’s nuclear programme.
Assassinations of Iran’s nuclear scientists and sabotage bombings, such as the 2021 explosion that caused a power failure at the vast fuel-enrichment plant at Natanz built deep underground, are other examples of such efforts.
But such attacks have never succeeded in stopping Iran’s nuclear ambition indefinitely.
As an article complied by two researchers from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) defence and security think tank recently highlighted, such indirect attacks “allowed Israel to repeatedly roll the clock back on Iran’s nuclear progress while maintaining some level of credible deniability and avoiding further military escalation”.
In doing so it has allowed both sides to largely remain within the “rules” established by Israel and Iran in conducting their “shadow war”, the RUSI experts concluded in their assessment published in the online Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
But events of the past year have moved that “shadow war” much more into the open and the stakes have never been higher for both sides and others caught up in the region and beyond.
So, are we perhaps on the brink of seeing a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities of the kind that the Israeli military and security establishment has planned and rehearsed for over two decades now?
According to a recent analysis in The Economist magazine, at least twice in the past, in 2010 and 2011, Israel’s generals have been ordered by prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu to prepare for imminent strikes on Iran.
In both cases, however, the security chiefs questioned the legality of the order, given without the necessary cabinet authorisation, and Israel stepped back from going to war with Iran.
But today there is a very different mood in Israel’s corridors of power.
With a coalition government and cabinet laced with ultranationalist right-wing politicians itching for a showdown with Israel’s arch enemy, garnering political approval for a direct attack on Iran’s facilities these days is almost a given.
Momentum
ON the ground also, whether it be its erosion of Iran’s Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon or onslaught against Hamas in Gaza, some of Israel’s military chiefs sense they have momentum and now is the moment to deal a blow as Iran stands on the threshold of producing a nuclear weapons capacity.
Writing recently on social media, Naftali Bennett, a hardline Israeli nationalist and former prime minister who once described himself as to the right of Netanyahu, added his unequivocal voice to the chorus of hawks wanting to strike now.
“Israel has now its greatest opportunity in 50 years, to change the face of the Middle East,” insisted Bennett.
“We must act to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme, its central energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime.”
Bennett added: “We have the justification. We have the tools. Now that Hezbollah and Hamas are paralysed, Iran stands exposed.”
But many analysts maintain that a direct strike on such targets would be a step too far. Hitting the likes of the Natanz enrichment facility, for example, would constitute an outright act of war by Israel.
And even if Israel took the decision to go ahead, such an operation is fraught with logistical challenges. To begin with there is the issue of distance. It is more than 1,000 miles from Israel to Iran’s main nuclear bases, and to reach them Israeli planes would have to cross the sovereign airspace of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and potentially Turkey.
Fuel, too, poses problems given that flying to the targets and back would take all of Israel’s aerial refuelling capability and leave little or no margin for error, according to a report by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS).
Then there is the question of Iranian air defence. According to the CRS report, Israeli bombers would need to be protected by fighter jets. That would require a strike package totalling about 100 aircraft, according to the CRS report, equivalent to almost one-third of the Israeli air force’s 340 combat-capable aircraft.
Many of Iran’s nuclear facility sites are also dispersed around the country in heavily fortified locations deep underground including the biggest at Natanz and the second-biggest plant at Fordow.
Doing significant damage would require large numbers of bunker-busting bombs and missiles. As the recent strikes in Beirut that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah showed, Israel does have such weapons but they are not necessarily powerful enough to destroy the more heavily protected Iranian nuclear facilities.
Military analysts say that the only conventional weapon capable of destroying such underground facilities is the giant precision-guided bomb GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) that can plough through 190 feet of earth before detonating, according to the US military.
Given that US help and supply of this weapon would not appear forthcoming for now, the question then is whether Israel itself has such capabilities. While never openly acknowledging it has its own nuclear capacity, it’s widely accepted that Israel does and therefore most likely would have the ability to produce the sort of bunker-buster bombs needed to destroy Iran’s underground enrichment plants.
But weaponry and operational capacity aside, it remains the geopolitical implications that will be at the forefront of any decision to carry out such strikes.
Missile bases
Some reports suggest that several Israeli security chiefs are counselling caution and would much prefer any strikes to focus on other targets such as Iran’s missile bases from where the recent attacks on Israel were launched.
Iran’s main ports, specifically the oil terminals, could also be a target, weakening an already shaky economy impacted by international sanctions.
But the US is wary of this given its potential effect on oil prices, especially with a presidential election looming.
Israel, of course, might also choose to go for Iran’s political leaders or senior military figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with some analysts indicating that perhaps a repeat of the devastating pager bomb-type operation used to kill Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon might be deployed.
All of these are retaliatory options but the nuclear facilities strike is by far the most extreme, and one that would likely provoke an all-out war with Iran and throw the region ever deeper into chaos and uncharted political territory.
Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian has said he wants to re-engage with the west to resolve the nuclear standoff and secure sanctions relief to boost his country’s economy. But clearly any Israeli strike would almost certainly result in a total shift in Iran’s nuclear doctrine.
As RUSI analysts concluded in their recent assessment published in the online Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Tehran could well double down on its decision to build nuclear weapons in response to a limited Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities.
“Tehran may see the actual weaponisation of its nuclear programme as the only option left that can guarantee the security of the Iranian regime,” the analysts said.
As if to confirm that assessment, just last week a hardline Iranian MP was reported to have said that 39 of the country’s politicians had signed a letter addressed to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, saying the country should strengthen its defence doctrine by including nuclear weapons.
A possible shift in Iran’s nuclear doctrine was also underscored by a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an interview he gave to an Iranian news agency.
“Some politicians have already raised the possibility of changes in [Iran’s] nuclear strategic policies,” said Brigadier General Rasoul Sanaei-Rad.
“Moreover, such actions (an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear plants) would cross regional and global red lines … any potential response from Iran would undoubtedly reflect on this and have an impact,” warned Sanaei-Rad, hinting that Iran could retaliate by targeting Israel’s nuclear facilities. As all this dangerous brinkmanship plays out between Israel and Iran, US political dynamics remain the constant backdrop. While the Biden administration – for now – has made clear that it doesn’t support a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the mood could well change were Donald Trump re-elected in the coming months.
Trump presidency
ISRAEL is already emboldened by its military and intelligence successes against Iran’s proxy Hezbollah. Its resolve might be further strengthened were there to be a Trump presidency willing to support an Israeli strike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.
A Trump win, of course, is far from certain and even if it did come to pass, his taking over of the White House is sometime off yet. Meanwhile, the pressure on Israel to respond decisively to Iran grows by the day.
Many analysts still maintain that Iran’s nuclear facilities are – for now – a step too far in Israel hitting back.
But if Israel’s military strategy to date is anything to go by then only the naïve or foolish would dismiss the notion that it’s best to expect the unexpected in this widening conflict.
The only thing certain here is that Israel’s retaliation is coming and as defence minister Yoav Gallant made clear last week, it will be “deadly, precise and above all surprising”. Those words in themselves are ominous enough to ponder for the moment.
Renewable Energy Surge Lowers UK Blackout Risk
The risk of blackouts in the winter months in the U.K. has fallen to its lowest in four years thanks to the rise of the country’s renewable energy capacity.
To ensure a steady supply of electricity to households, Neso will encourage consumers to reduce their energy use during peak times by offering financial incentives through its demand flexibility scheme.
By Felicity Bradstock – Oct 12, 2024
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Renewable-Energy-Surge-Lowers-UK-Blackout-Risk.html
- The UK has significantly reduced its blackout risk by increasing renewable energy capacity and diversifying its energy sources.
- The closure of the UK’s last coal-fired power plant marks a major milestone in the country’s transition to clean energy.
- The government is actively encouraging energy conservation during peak times to further enhance grid stability.
The U.K. has been gradually boosting its energy security by increasing its renewable energy capacity while continuing to produce natural gas. It has done this while also moving away from the ‘dirtiest’ fossil fuel, coal. The diversification of the U.K.’s energy mix is helping the island country to develop its resilience and help it accelerate the green transition. Now, the government must ensure that the country’s transmission infrastructure is prepared for an influx of new clean energy projects in the coming years, and can reliably deliver clean energy to tens of millions of households across the U.K.
The risk of blackouts in the winter months in the U.K. has fallen to its lowest in four years thanks to the rise of the country’s renewable energy capacity. The National Energy System Operator predicts that the U.K.’s winter power supplies will outpace demand by nearly 9 percent this year. Neso is the new company in charge of keeping the lights on, which was bought by the government in September from National Grid for $825.5 million. The boost in the power supply margin is supported by the recent deployment of large-scale battery storage projects, small-scale renewables and imported electricity, according to Neso.
As well as producing greater quantities of clean energy at home, the U.K. has also begun importing renewable energy from Denmark through the world’s longest high-voltage power cable – the Viking power link. This cable now provides clean electricity for around 2.5 million U.K. homes, showing the significant potential for clean power sharing across countries.
The optimistic forecast comes in spite of the closure last month of the U.K.’s last coal-fired power plant. At the beginning of the year, the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal plant was used to provide 2.3 percent of the country’s electricity supply during a period of cold weather. Britain kept its coal facilities on standby following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on Russian energy, mainly natural gas, to ensure there would be power even in the face of severe gas shortages. However, there will be no such backup this year, and, according to Neso, no such need for a backup.
Gas reserves across Europe have been restored to around 95 percent full. The U.K. is no longer dependent on Russia for its gas, having doubled down on its long-standing relationship with Norway for its LNG supply. Britain will now import gas via Norwegian pipelines and tanker from the U.S. and Qatar during the winter months to use in its power plants, factories and residential buildings. To ensure a steady supply of electricity to households, Neso will encourage consumers to reduce their energy use during peak times by offering financial incentives through its demand flexibility scheme.
The U.K. was finally able to close its last coal-fired power plant in September, a target which was stated during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, after 142 years of reliance on coal. The U.K. was the birthplace of coal power, and it is the first G7 country to end coal production. The rapid transition away from a dependence on coal is impressive given that coal contributed 39 percent of the U.K.’s power in 2012. The U.K. established its first legally binding climate targets in 2008, which supported the phasing out of coal. In 2015, the then-energy and climate change secretary, Amber Rudd, stated that the country would stop using coal within the next decade. This has been made possible by the rapid expansion of the U.K.’s renewable energy capacity, with green energy rising to contribute over half of the country’s power in the first half of 2024, from just 7 percent in 2010.
Most of the U.K.’s electricity came from renewable energy sources for the first time in 2020, at around 43 percent. The green energy mix consists mainly of wind, solar, bioenergy and hydroelectric sources. In 2023, wind power contributed 29.4 percent of the U.K.’s total electricity generation, biomass contributed 5 percent, solar power accounted for 4.9 percent and hydropower added 1.8 percent of the mix. While the U.K. is currently depending on a mix of homegrown green and fossil fuel energy, as well as imports of energy from renewables and natural gas, the government plans to dramatically increase its renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade to solidify the country’s energy security. This includes increasing offshore wind output to 50 GW and solar capacity to 70 GW, as well as developing new nuclear plants.
Investing in the diversification of the U.K.’s energy mix has helped the country boost its energy security, as well as move away from a heavy reliance on fossil fuels. As the U.K. undergoes a green transition, the government is working in collaboration with utilities and regulators to ensure that the country does not face shortages, particularly in the winter months. This is further supported by strong energy agreements with other countries in Europe, North America and the Middle East, which will help to alleviate the burden of instability associated with renewable energy sources.
Book: THE FALL OF ISRAEL: The Degradation of Israel’s Politics, Economy & Military
“Israel is in deep trouble at home and abroad. It has become an apartheid state that is executing a genocide in Gaza. The Fall of Israel does an outstanding job explaining the causes and the evolution of the disastrous path that Israel is on.
Dan Steinbock, https://www.claritypress.com/product/the-fall-of-israel/ 15 Oct 24
The path to the obliteration of Gaza was paved by the confluence of a set of longstanding forces. This great conjuncture has transformed Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories while driving the region to the edge. In The Fall of Israel, Dr Dan Steinbock connects the dots among these lethal headwinds. What makes The Fall of Israel unique is its comprehensive scope. It covers Israel’s political, economic, social and military changes, the shifts in the Palestinian struggle for sovereignty, Israel’s degradation into apartheid rule, the attendant atrocities, the regional and global reverberations and the human and economic costs, both prior and subsequent to Israel’s fatal war on Gaza. There, its nightmarish actions have led to the engagement of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, renewed international boycotts, and massive domestic and international protests.
“Israel is in deep trouble at home and abroad. It has become an apartheid state that is executing a genocide in Gaza. The Fall of Israel does an outstanding job explaining the causes and the evolution of the disastrous path that Israel is on. This book deserves to be widely read by anyone interested in understanding contemporary Israel.”—JOHN MEARSHEIMER, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago and co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
“This impressive book provides a comprehensive and incisive answer to the question how we got to where we are in Israel and Palestine today. In a very accessible manner, Steinbock narrates the making of a messianic and theocratic Israel which is a menace for the Palestinians, the region and no less important, to itself. Its downfall as the book predicts is neigh, but on the way, it wreaks havoc and destruction. This is the picture world leaders must be aware of and challenge before it is too late.” —ILAN PAPPE, Professor of History, Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies, Author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
“Eight years ago I said that Israel would not be a state in 20 years; today I reaffirm that prognosis adding only that it won’t take 12 more years. Many of my reasons for reaching that conclusion — and indeed far more — are elaborated in The Fall of Israel. Apparently, not many Americans want to know these truths — they’re too nuanced, complex, and damning; but if you happen to be in that group of us who believe strongly in the rule of law — U.S. domestic law and international humanitarian and criminal law in particular — and in democracy, then you need to read this book. When you finish, I hope you will understand that our current national path leads us straight to hell. “—LAWRENCE WILKERSON, Col, USA (Ret) and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
The Fall of Israel is one of the most comprehensive academic books on the Palestinian crisis. . .This book thoroughly and accurately explains significant facts about the objectives and crimes of Zionism, the likes of which are rarely found in previous academic works.”—SEYED HOSSEIN MOUSAVIAN, Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist, Princeton University
“Dr. Steinbock’s research illuminates what the public is reluctant to digest: Namely that Israel operates in open rebellion against international law, refusing to live in peace with Palestine’s native population and with neighboring States.”—ALFRED DE ZAYAS, Former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order
“Dr Steinbock’s book The Fall of Israel is an illuminating and intelligent contribution to our understanding of the events in the Middle East.”—DR. ERKKI TUOMIOJA, Historian and longest serving Minister for Foreign Affairs, Finland, who had a prominent role as the spokesman for European foreign policy
“The Fall of Israel explains excellently how 76 years of repression and suffering for the Palestinians has been facilitated by the unconditional American support for Israelf.”—MOGENS LYKKETOFT, Former Danish Foreign Minister and President of the United Nations General Assembly 2015-2016
“Vital reading for anyone concerned with this issue, and provides perceptive insight that is sorely needed.” —JONATHAN KUTTAB, international human rights attorney, co-founder of Nonviolence International and co-founder of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq
Israel intensifies genocide in Gaza and deepens killings in Lebanon
Mike Head @MikeHeadWSWS, 12 October 202, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/10/12/qbdw-o12.html
Armed to the teeth by the Biden-Harris administration in the US, the Israeli regime is re-intensifying its slaughter in refugee camps, schools and hospitals in northern and central Gaza, even as it expands its invasion and bombardments in Lebanon, including the centre of Beirut.
In the most recent attacks in Gaza, at least 22 people were killed yesterday in an air strike in Jabalia—the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps—in northern Gaza. Dozens were injured, with some ambulances unable to help rescue efforts due to fuel shortages.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued virtually impossible orders for residents, hospitals and healthcare centres across the area to evacuate, placing thousands of people, including healthcare workers and their maimed patients, directly in danger.
A strike on a school sheltering displaced people in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah also killed at least 28 people, including a child and seven women, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where bodies were taken. It said several other people were wounded.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 61 Palestinians were killed and 231 were wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period.
Thousands of people are trapped in Jabalia as Israeli forces continue to attack the area, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said. “Nobody is allowed to get in or out, anyone who tries is getting shot,” Sarah Vuylsteke, MSF project coordinator, said in a post on X.
The Israeli army issued evacuation orders for residents in the camp on October 7, “while carrying out attacks at the same time, preventing people from leaving the area safely,” MSF said.
Forced evacuations and bombing of neighbourhoods are turning Gaza’s north into “unhabitable ruins,” MSF added.
Haydar, an MSF driver inside the camp, said: “We were staying at the Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, but they bombed it. About 20 people were killed. I don’t know what to do, at any moment we could die. People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave.”
United Nations officials voiced concerns yesterday that the Israeli offensive, as well as evacuation orders in northern Gaza, might affect the second phase of a polio vaccination campaign set to start next week.
Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month after a baby was partially paralysed by the Type 2 polio virus in August, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
“I am, of course, concerned about the developments in the north, and specifically with these evacuation orders,” the World Health Organization’s representative in occupied Palestinian territory, Rik Peeperkorn, told reporters in Geneva.
Peeperkorn said three attempts by the UN health agency and its partners to assist and evacuate patients from northern Gaza hospitals under evacuation orders have been thwarted this week.
This renewed Israeli offensive, combined with systematic starvation and denial of medical access, underscores the genocidal intent of the Netanyahu government. By the official Gaza health statistics, the IDF has killed more than 42,000 people, mostly women and children over the past 12 months, but the true toll may be closer to 200,000, counting the unrecovered bodies beneath the rubble.
Israel’s assault on Lebanon is widening and deepening at the same time. On Thursday night, 22 people were killed and 139 wounded in strikes in the heart of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, said caretaker Prime Minister Najib Makati.
Videos published by local news channels showed chaotic scenes following the attacks on Ras el-Nabaa and al-Nuweiri in Beirut. The strikes hit densely-populated residential areas. Many residents left their apartments in the high-rise blocks in the area and gathered in courtyards as emergency services rushed to the scene.
Israel did not issue evacuation warnings ahead of the strikes, which were the deadliest on central Beirut since the IDF offensive began last month. The area is outside the city’s southern suburbs, which Israeli forces have already pulverised.
The bombardments allegedly targeted Wafiq Safa, who heads Hezbollah’s liaison and coordination unit working with the Lebanese government, and is therefore considered a political figure rather than a military one. That marks a heightening of the Israeli aggression.
A US-made munition was used in the strikes, the Guardian reported. The newspaper found remnants of a US-manufactured joint direct attack munition (JDAM) amid the debris of a building that was reduced to rubble.
According to the report, “JDAMs are guidance kits built by the US aerospace company Boeing that attach to large ‘dumb bombs’ ranging up to 2,000 lbs (900kg), converting them into GPS-guided bombs.”
Earlier in the day, Israel warned Lebanese civilians not to return to their homes in the south of the country. The IDF soldiers were pushing on with their ground “incursion” inside Lebanon, as its fighter jets attacked more than 110 targets in the country in a single day.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,169 people, wounded more than 10,000 and displaced more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon over the past year, the Lebanese government said in its daily update.
Israel’s flagrant assault on Lebanon, which it last invaded in 2006, was further demonstrated when an Israeli airstrike killed two Lebanese soldiers and wounded three others. That was just hours after the Israeli military fired on the headquarters of UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, for the second time in as many days.
Two UNIFIL soldiers were also injured on Friday by an Israeli strike near their monitoring watchtower.
In the statement posted to X, UNIFIL also said an IDF bulldozer knocked over barriers at a UN position near the “Blue Line,” the unofficial demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon.
“Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” the statement concluded.
UNIFIL has some 10,000 personnel, with Italy, France, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India among the biggest contributors. It was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion and was expanded after the 2006 Israeli invasion, allowing its troops to deploy along the Israeli border.
Various imperialist governments, including the US, UK, France, Italy and Spain, issued statements condemning the attacks on UNIFIL as serious violations of humanitarian international law and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ruled that UNIFIL personnel would replace the Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon.
But the same governments are continuing to facilitate and arm Israel’s barbarism.
US President Joe Biden reaffirmed his “ironclad” support for Israel during a 30-minute phone call with Netanyahu on Wednesday, the White House said. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, joined the call, which reportedly discussed Israel’s plans to strike Iran.
“The president affirmed Israel’s right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel over the past year alone, while emphasizing the need to minimize harm to civilians, in particular in the densely populated areas of Beirut,” the White House said.
The latter phrase is another desperate bid, in the face of widespread opposition among workers and youth in the US and globally, to cover up US imperialism’s responsibility for the ongoing slaughter in Lebanon, as well as Palestine. The US provides Israel at least $3.8 billion in military aid annually, and the Biden-Harris administration has authorised $14 billion in further assistance to its proxy to help fund the genocide and a wider war for domination over the resource-rich and strategic Middle East, directed against Iran, Russia and China.
On Wednesday, the Socialist Equality Party in the US hosted a live-streamed discussion to mark the one-year anniversary of the Gaza genocide, analysing the historical roots of the US-Israeli rampage in the Middle East and advancing a socialist strategy to stop it.
The event, featuring SEP National Secretary Joseph Kishore, WSWS Labor Editor Jerry White and WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North, referenced the centuries of colonial rule in the Middle East, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967, and the brutal US wars throughout the region since 1991.
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel
The Pentagon announced it would send the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery and its crew as Israel considered retaliatory attacks against Iran.
NY Times, By Helene Cooper, Reporting from Washington, Oct. 13, 2024
The United States is sending an advanced missile defense system to Israel, along with about 100 American troops to operate it, the Pentagon announced on Sunday. It is the first deployment of U.S. forces to Israel since the Hamas-led attacks there on Oct. 7, 2023.
President Biden directed Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, and its crew, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement on Sunday.
The move will put American troops operating the ground-based interceptor, which is designed to defend against ballistic missiles, closer to the widening war in the Middle East. It comes after Iran launched about 200 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 and as Israel plans its retaliatory attack.
The THAAD battery, a mobile defense system, will give the Israel Defense Forces another layer of protection to defend cities, troops and installations from short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles like those deployed by Iran in its last attack…………………………………………………………………………………
late last month, the Pentagon said that it would send a “few thousand” American troops to the Middle East as Israel intensified its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, with one official putting the figure between 2,000 and 3,000. The United States also sent a THAAD battery along with other air defense systems to the region weeks after the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/13/us/politics/us-missile-defense-iran-israel.html?unlocked_article_code=1.R04.e14E.qqRr91Mg9WWs&smid=em-share—
We’re Spending 2 Trillion Dollars on Weapons That Must Never Be Used
By Donald A. Smith, PhD. Using my lyrics and Udio.com for the music, I created this military march about the risk and costs of the nuclear modernization program. 14 Oct24
Audio on original https://progressivememes.org/war/We-are-Spending-Two-Trillion-Dollars-on-Weapons-That-Must-Never-Be-Used.html
We are spending two trillion dollars
on weapons that must never be used.
Nuclear missile modernization they call it.
The waste and risks cannot be excused.
Two trillion dollars, and what does it buy?
Weapons of extinction to light up the sky.
Corruption and greed keep the war machine alive.
If the weapons are ever used, no one will survive.
Politicians grin, saying "jobs will be made"
While the truth is that we're all being played.
For every job made building weapons of war,
Money spent elsewhere creates two or three times more.
We’re spending 2 trillion dollars on death's quiet plan,
Building bombs in the shadows, buried deep in the land.
Sentinel missiles standing ready to fly.
If they ever launch, we’ll watch the world die.
We tore up arms treaties, walked away from the deals.
Now the money flows faster, greased by power’s appeal.
What’s the true cost when we flirt with the flame?
It’s humanity’s end, in this high-stakes game.
Cost overruns soar and the profits are high.
Politicians line pockets, with kickbacks that satisfy.
What are the opportunity costs? And who’s made more safe?
The end of the world is the risk that we face.
We are pawns in a system that’s broken and blind,
Building weapons of war that will wipe out mankind.
For some jobs and for profit, for power and gain,
We face a future of deprivation, death and pain.
We are spending 2 trillion dollars, but it’s all for the few.
As we edge toward the brink, what can we do?
A system so broken, with the darkest design,
Where we gamble existence, for the sake of their bottom line.
“Israel must be expelled from the United Nations”
International legal expert Fabio Marcelli makes the case that, following the attack on UN peacekeepers, the conditions are ripe for a UN General Assembly vote on Israel’s expulsion from the latter
Thomas Fazi, Oct 13, 2024, https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/israel-must-be-expelled-from-the—
Israel must be expelled from the United Nations: the conditions are ripe
by Fabio Marcelli, international legal expert, research director of the Institute for International Legal Studies of the Italian National Research Council and member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Originally published in Italian on the website of Il Fatto Quotidiano.
The deliberate and criminal attack on the Italian Sassari Brigade and other UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) international contingents marks a new and unprecedented stage in Netanyahu’s efforts to devastate the neighbouring peoples of Israel, threaten global peace, and lead his own country to self-destruction, which now seems closer than ever.
[Italian Defense] Minister Crosetto’s condemnation of the attack as a war crime is commendable, as is his commitment that UNIFIL will not yield to blackmail or threats and will continue to carry out its mission. His assertion that Italy does not take orders from Israel is also notable.
However, it is crucial to closely monitor the fulfilment of this commitment, especially given the contradictory stance of the Meloni government, which has consistently supported Israel’s crimes. This contradiction becomes even more apparent when Western-supplied weapons, including a significant contribution from Italy’s military-industrial complex, are used against Italian forces. Unfortunately, Crosetto’s position seems unlikely to bring about meaningful consequences, especially given the silence from other Italian leaders, such as prime minister Giorgia Meloni and president Sergio Mattarella — a silence that must be harshly criticised considering the severity of the affront to Italy and the dangers to global peace.
UNIFIL must remain on the ground and, indeed, should be strengthened and equipped with appropriate equipment and weapons to effectively respond to any potential Israeli aggression. Similarly, steps should be taken to establish a comparable military protection force in Gaza and the West Bank to ensure the safety of the Palestinian people, who have paid a huge price in blood and continue to pay it every day in terms of civilians killed, mutilated and subjected to starvation, thirst and lack of medical supplies, denied by the genocidal occupation.
At the core of the expanding conflict, which now poses a serious threat to global peace, lies the persistent violation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. This ongoing crisis stems from over fifty years of impunity granted to Israeli governments that have continually defied international law and the UN — and are now brutally attacking the organisation, declaring Secretary-General Guterres persona non grata and bombing his peacekeeping forces, including the cream of the Italian Armed Forces.
Given such sustained and repeated criminal behaviour, there are grounds for Israel’s expulsion from the United Nations. According to Article 6 of the UN Charter, “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”.
However, it is clear that Western states in the Security Council, particularly the United States — complicit in Netanyahu’s criminal actions — will use their veto power to block such a proposal, once again obstructing the proper functioning of the international organisation and the enforcement of international law. Nonetheless, it would be equally important for the UN General Assembly to vote on such a resolution, giving free expression to the condemnation of Israel that now comes from the vast majority of the world’s countries as well as from international public opinion.
Such a declaration of principle should be followed by the imposition of sanctions under Article 41 and, if these measures prove insufficient, it could lead to multilateral military action under Article 42. This would complete the procedural steps outlined in Chapter VII of the Charter to end threats to international peace and security.
The adoption of these measures by the General Assembly and by a large number of states represents a necessary response to the grave threat to world peace posed by the criminal policies of the Netanyahu government, determined to provoke a nuclear conflict to avoid legal accountability, as well as by the equally criminal complicity of Western nations, led by the United States, today headed by a president who is a shadow of himself and therefore the shadow of a shadow.
Moreover, there are significant precedents in international law since World War II, such as the “Uniting for Peace” resolution adopted by the General Assembly when the Security Council failed to act. Such measures must now be considered in the face of the current danger to international peace.
Japan PM Ishiba eyes more renewables, less nuclear in energy mix
New leader plans stimulus package for ‘structural transformation of the economy’
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Saturday stressed Japan’s potential to
develop renewable energy sources and vowed to raise their share in the
country’s overall power supply, indicating he will prioritize
decarbonization as his government prepares an economic stimulus plan.
“Japan has large untapped potential for renewable energy development,
including geothermal, wind and small-scale hydroelectric power,” Ishiba
said in an interview with Nikkei Asia.
Nikkei Asia 12th Oct 2024 https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Japan-PM-Ishiba-eyes-more-renewables-less-nuclear-in-energy-mix
Google Pivots to Nuclear Reactors to Power Its Artificial Intelligence
Science Alert, 15 October 2024, Glenn Chapman,
Google on Monday signed a deal to get electricity from small nuclear reactors to help power artificial intelligence.
The agreement to buy energy from reactors built by Kairos Power came just weeks after word that Three Mile Island, the site of America’s worst nuclear accident, will restart operations to provide energy to Microsoft………………………………………..
Insatiable AI
Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are rapidly expanding their data center capabilities to meet the AI revolution’s computing needs while also scouring the globe for sources of electricity………………………………….
However, the technology is still in its infancy and lacks regulatory approval, leading companies to seek out existing nuclear power options……………………………..
Is it safe?
………………………………… This area faces severe strain from data centers’ massive energy consumption, raising concerns about grid stability as AI demands increase.
Amazon’s AWS agreed in March to invest $650 million in a data center campus powered by another Pennsylvania nuclear plant.
Nuclear energy has staunch opponents due to concerns about radioactive waste disposal, the potential for catastrophic accidents, and the high costs associated with plant construction and decommissioning……….. https://www.sciencealert.com/google-pivots-to-nuclear-reactors-to-power-its-artificial-intelligence
TODAY: How in the hell do you cope with Facebook?
This what happened today.
- Oct 14, 2024 We removed your post
Noel Christina Wauchope
Oct 14, 2024
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/uk-and-ireland-partners-congratulate-2024-nobel-peace-prize-winner/
You shared this on your profile
2. Facebook removed my post about “Threads” brings nuclear war fears to a new audience- . https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2dp8197y3eo
Noel Christina Wauchope, Oct 14, 2024
3 . Face book removed this one (hardly surprising – they can’t cope with criticism.
FACEBOOK hits a new low – removing a post that congratulated the Nobel Peace Prize winners ! I didn’t read their “reasons”. But I guess, as usual, I have “offended community standards” by saying something negative about nuclear. Oct 14, 2024 We removed your post Noel Christina Wauchope Oct 14, 2024 https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/uk-and-ireland-partners-congratulate-2024-nobel-peace-prize-winner/ You shared this on your profile
You shared this on your profile
This goes against our Community Standards on spam.
So – now I have put up a new post – in the hopes they won’t expel me.
I am thinking of becoming a very sweet nice person. How could I have, all these years, said things unpleasant about the most successful new technologies? Sorry, everyone. I won’t offend again. Because I really would like to stay on this lovely social media.
And guess what? Facebook has not removed this one, and have not yet kicked me out!
Can we possibly beat these bastards with humour?
The climate crisis threatens societal collapse—how many more hurricanes will it take for us to wake up?
As a new scientific report warns that the world is on the ‘brink of an irreversible climate disaster’, why do politicians and the media seem so uninterested?
By Alan Rusbridger, October 11, 2024, https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/environment-news/climate-change/68197/how-many-more-hurricanes-before-we-wake-up-to-the-climate-crisis
It took a dangerous category 3 hurricane in Florida to force climate change onto some, but not all, newspaper front pages. Normally this is a subject for gentle condescension.
You’ll have read a dozen such pieces. Climate change is genuine—there’s no denying that—but let’s be real about so-called “net zero”. We need to be “financially prudent as well as environmentally responsible”, as the Times intoned this week in endorsing BP’s retreat from agreed targets. We must stand against the politicisation of the weather, as Florida governor Ron De Santis is fond of speechifying. Blah, blah, blah, as Greta Thunberg would say.
A mega storm lashing into Florida is difficult to ignore: well-off Americans as victims, lots of vivid film footage etc. And so Hurricane Milton will receive many more eyeballs and clicks than, say, the 1,700 people killed in 2022 when torrential flooding hit Pakistan, submerging a third of the country and affecting 33m people. For some reason this was considered not so newsworthy.
News judgements over such things can be fickle. The day before Milton made landfall a group of respected scientists issued a report which warned that “the future of humanity hangs in the balance” and that we could be facing “partial societal collapse”.
Now, it’s been some time since I worked in daily news, but this feels like what we call “a story”. Not just a story, but what is known in the trade as a “marmalade-dropper”—a story so gripping that it could lead to a distracted breakfast accident. The internal machinations of the Conservative party are important, sure, but how do they compare with the future of humanity?
The report was barely covered. Did any news editor deign to glance at this academic paper, in the journal Bioscience? If they had, they might have been struck by the very startling language of the scientists who wrote it.
“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” it began. “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperilled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.”
Let’s imagine a range of news desk reactions to this alarming news. The first might be a stifled yawn—as in “we’ve heard all this before, tell us something new.” The second might be to question: “Who are these so-called experts?”
There’s something in the first reaction: we have, indeed, heard dire warnings before—albeit not always in such stark terms. As to the second, the 14 authors are easily Googled: they come from top-notch universities around the world. The journal, published by Oxford University Press, comes from the American Institute of Biological Sciences. I think we can call this kosher.
But there are two deeper problems with the way the media thinks about climate change. The first is that it has become the subject of ideology more than science. Our imaginary news editor will have to factor in any prejudices his/her editor, or proprietor, may have in regard to the climate crisis. If the general newsroom feeling—arrived at by a process of mysterious osmosis—is that it’s all a load of overblown woke nonsense, then our news editor will ignore the story. The science doesn’t stand a chance.
The second problem is that journalism is most comfortable when looking in the rearview mirror. Something that happened yesterday is news: something that might, or might not, happen in 30 years’ time is prediction.
How can journalism adapt so that it can—with the assistance of experts—look forward as well as back? “I think journalism has to help us imagine and comprehend the true scale of what will happen if we don’t change course,” is how Wolfgang Blau, who created an Oxford University programme in climate journalism, puts it. It is sometimes referred to as “anticipatory journalism”.
But there are plenty of things in the here and now to be covered. One question might be, “Who is funding Kemi Badenoch?” The information is hiding in plain sight. Her register of interests shows that she’s accepted £10,000 for her leadership campaign from the chair of a climate science denial group.
Let’s make this really easy. Google the excellent research outfit desmog.com and you’ll find that climate campaigners have done the heavy lifting already, investigating the donation from Neil Record, a millionaire Tory donor and founder of the investment firm Record Financial Group. He is chair of Net Zero Watch (NZW), the campaign arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).
“Based in 55 Tufton Street, Westminster, the GWPF is the UK’s leading climate science denial group,” reports desmog. The GWPF’s director Benny Peiser has suggested it would be “extraordinary anyone should think there is a climate crisis”, while the group has also expressed the view that carbon dioxide has been mischaracterised as pollution, when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet”.
What’s more, it turns out—and thanks to Bloomberg for this nugget of information—that Badenoch has been running her leadership campaign from Mr Record’s home. While she has declared the £10,000 donation from Mr Record, the use of the house has not been declared. A spokesman for the candidate suggested she had done nothing wrong.
Badenoch has previously criticised the UK’s climate targets, calling them “arbitrary” in a 2022 interview. Badenoch has previously suggested that she would be in favour of delaying the UK’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050. She argued that new fossil fuel licences were compatible with the UK’s climate targets.
Badenoch’s rival for the Tory leadership, Robert Jenrick, has also been examined by desmog, which found a growing record of attacks on climate action. He denounces “net zero zealotry” and has labelled the UK’s net zero target as “dangerous fantasy green politics unmoored from reality.” He has supported the opening of new coal mines.s previously critic.
Worth covering? Perhaps by the same newshounds who have so enthusiastically gone in search of the generous donors who have kept Labour’s top team in smart suits, Taylor Swift tickets and football freebies?
Hurricane Milton will soon be off the front pages. Normal service will resume. But it’s hard, once you’ve read it, to dislodge the spectre of “partial societal collapse” if we continue to pretend climate change isn’t an urgent threat to our way of life. We will all have to adapt—including politicians and journalists.
Alan Rusbridger is the editor of Prospect and the former head of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. He was editor of the Guardian from 1995 to 2015.
Patrick Lawrence: Truths That Come Out Like the Sun
This is official abuse. I am abused. You are abused. And as we are abused we watch Palestinians, other human beings, suffer.
l it makes you conclude there is simply no lower limit to the Zionists’ depravity while you wonder—as many of us have this past year—what it means to be human.
October 13, 2024 , https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/13/patrick-lawrence-truths-that-come-out-like-the-sun/
I read the other day the latest paper put out by those good people who run the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute. It is called “United States Spending on Israel’s Military Operations and Related U.S. Operations in the Region, October 7, 2023–September 30, 2024” and has all sorts of information in it. Since the Zionist state began its latest assault on the Palestinians of Gaza a year ago, the Biden regime has spent $22.76 billion financing it, and this is a very conservative figure even by the three authors’ reckoning.
That same paper has a remarkable graph showing the growth of U.S. military aid to Israel (grants and loans, in constant 2024 dollars) during the 65 years from 1959, when it was zero, to this year, when it reached $18 billion. There was a sharp spike in the years following the 1967 war, when the policy cliques in Washington began to consider the Zionist state a strategic asset in the region.
And then I read a related paper the people at Watson finished recently. “The Human Toll: Indirect Deaths from War in Gaza and the West Bank, October 7, 2023 Forward” measures and analyzes, as the introduction explains, “the impact on population health of the destruction of public infrastructure, livelihood sources, reduced access to healthcare, water, and sanitation, and environmental damage.” Then, beginning with the next sentence, the paper starts to hit you hard:
For instance, 96 percent of Gaza’s population (2.15 million people) faces acute levels of food insecurity. According to an October 2, 2024, letter to President Biden from a group of U.S. physicians, 62,413 people in Gaza have died of starvation.
As it happens I had already read the letter the Watson report mentions, an open letter that 99 physicians and other American medical professionals wrote to President Biden and Vice–President Harris after serving in Gaza this past year. It reads in part:
This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908….
With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child.
The physicians’ letter seems to be one of numerous put out by this group under the title, “Gaza Healthcare Letters.” Among the organizers is Feroze Sidhwa, a West Coast trauma surgeon who has been energetically getting out the truth of the Gaza crisis for some time. This newest letter arrived (and my thanks to both) via John Whitbeck, an American attorney who puts out an informative blog from his home in Paris, and Dave DeCamp’s excellent piece in Antiwar.com.
Well, right after I read the physicians’ letter and the DeCamp piece and the Costs of War material, I watched the documentary Al Jazeera’s investigative unit put out Oct. 3 as a sort of one-year-on project. “Investigating war crimes in Gaza” is an hour and 20 minutes of gut-turning footage so powerful it makes you conclude there is simply no lower limit to the Zionists’ depravity while you wonder—as many of us have this past year—what it means to be human.
My advisory: The Al Jazeera documentary is very difficult to watch but we must, as a matter of conscience and, for those who have spent the year flinching, as a rite of passage. We must let the truth push itself in our faces. My partner’s advisory: Don’t watch it before you go to bed.
Read more: Patrick Lawrence: Truths That Come Out Like the SunA day or so after I saw the Al Jazeera film, having already read the Watson reports, the open letter, and the DeCamp commentary, I read Brett Murphy’s latest piece in ProPublica. “Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel” lays out the whole awful tale: Here, by way of leaked diplomatic cables, email, and Murphy’s interview work, we see how obsessed all those corrupt flunkies at State were (and are) to get weapons and more weapons to terrorist Israel, at times under pressure from the arms lobbies, while ignoring vast accretions of evidence that these supplies should have been blocked by law because of the Israelis’ genocidal crimes. By the time I read of this I had already seen Murphys’ earlier report that Secretary of State Blinken had suppressed and then lied to Congress about two State Department reports on some of these derelictions.
This is official abuse. I am abused. You are abused. And as we are abused we watch Palestinians, other human beings, suffer.
You have to admire Brett Murphy for his perspicacity in delivering these truths to us. Even a few years ago I would have said I hope The New York Times picks this guy up. No more of that. I hope for Murphy’s sake, and the sake of his readers, The Times keeps its befouled hands off a fine journalist—and for the sake, I will add, of his fineness.
A day or so after I saw the Al Jazeera film, having already read the Watson reports, the open letter, and the DeCamp commentary, I read Brett Murphy’s latest piece in ProPublica. “Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel” lays out the whole awful tale: Here, by way of leaked diplomatic cables, email, and Murphy’s interview work, we see how obsessed all those corrupt flunkies at State were (and are) to get weapons and more weapons to terrorist Israel, at times under pressure from the arms lobbies, while ignoring vast accretions of evidence that these supplies should have been blocked by law because of the Israelis’ genocidal crimes. By the time I read of this I had already seen Murphys’ earlier report that Secretary of State Blinken had suppressed and then lied to Congress about two State Department reports on some of these derelictions.
This is official abuse. I am abused. You are abused. And as we are abused we watch Palestinians, other human beings, suffer.
You have to admire Brett Murphy for his perspicacity in delivering these truths to us. Even a few years ago I would have said I hope The New York Times picks this guy up. No more of that. I hope for Murphy’s sake, and the sake of his readers, The Times keeps its befouled hands off a fine journalist—and for the sake, I will add, of his fineness.
On Friday morning I awakened to a report in Middle East Monitor—again courtesy of John Whitbeck, who likes to make sure we get off to a bushy-tailed start—that one Matthew Brodsky, a former adviser to the White House, has just called for the Israelis to carpet-bomb an Irish contingent of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon “and then drop napalm over it.” Altogether sound. And in keeping, too: The day of the Middle East Monitor’s report the Israelis shelled—knowingly, with intent—buildings in southern Lebanon from which U.N. peacekeepers operate.
Matthew Brodsky now survives in the Zionist reaches of Think Tank Land in Washington. He is said no longer to advise the White House. Whether he still briefs Congress, the State and Defense Departments and the National Security Council, as he has in the past, is unclear. Either way, as Chas Freeman, the distinguished former ambassador, points out, this is the kind of person who climbs through the bureaucratic scene in Washington and ends up in advisory roles by dint of extremism dressed up as expertise.
After thinking about all this reading and viewing in so short a time I didn’t want to think about anything for a while. Then I thought of a famous adage of Aeschylus that I used to keep on my desk: “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
Suffering, pain, despair. Then I thought of something else. Failing in my recall, I thought of whoever it was who said “The truth is like the sun.. It always comes out.”
The Israelis are not at war with the Palestinians of Gaza, just as the Reich was not at war with the Jews of Europe. Genocide is something different, and it is always important to name things properly if we are to understand them as they are. But there has indeed been a war raging this past year. It is not as bloody as what Palestinians now endure, and what the Lebanese now seem to be in for, but it is arguably just as consequential. This is our war for the truth against those who would bury it in the cause of distorting events, burying reality itself and, specifically, of shielding those who conduct the genocide in Gaza. It is a war in the cause of lifting a heavy lid so that the truth can do its work, the work it always does, its work in defense of the human cause.
“Our war,” “we.” I am wary of these words. Who are “we” in any given case? But there is a “we” now, a very big, crowded “we.” And we are getting there. We are winning our war. This is what I draw from the past week’s journalism as I have reviewed it. A solidly documented true story takes shape out of all the day-to-day reporting of the past year. It is all in the record now, or will be, a coherent whole—this while all the official lies and the corporate media lies are exposed. Let us not miss the significance here. Can we not conclude the truth is proving once again as persistent as the sun?
A case in point: On Oct. 10, The Times published a piece I found reviving of the spirit under the headline, ‘Relentless’ Israeli Attacks on Gaza Medical Workers Are War Crime, U.N. Panel Says. Beneath this was an account of a U.N. commission’s report that found Israel guilty of “relentless and deliberate attacks” on hospitals and other medical facilities, on doctors and other medical professionals, and on civilian patients. The pithy passage in the statement of Navi Pillay, formerly the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights and the director of the commission:
Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s health care system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.
This is the truth rising to the surface. Do you think Pillay’s commission would have studied conditions in Gaza and drawn its conclusions without the prompt of the medical people now speaking out, chiefly via independent media? Do you think The Times would have published this piece if circumstances, an accumulation of truths too large to inter or ignore, had not forced it to do so?
At the end of Atrocity Inc., Max Blumenthal urges those who viewed the footage to speak out and to continue doing so as long as this is possible—until the law, he means to say, prohibits free speech. Implicit in this, if I read him correctly, is the conclusion I have just suggested: It matters, our war is going well, and it is no use waiting for The Times to tell us so.
Will the truths now emerging at an increasing and encouraging rate reach some critical mass such that either Israel or the U.S. will change policy? It may seem bitter to ask this question, given Israel’s escalating barbarities and Washington’s indifference even to common decency. But we must not miss the extent to which Israel is destroying itself before our eyes and dragging the U.S. down with it—both in large part because the truth of this crisis has turned world opinion against these two rogue states.
There are the yet-to-be-written histories of our time to be considered. We all know George Orwell’s line in “1984”: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” It is essential, then, to get the record of our time set down accurately, truthfully, such that the way can open to proceeding in a new direction. Let us appreciate the power of the truthful work being done now, some of which I have reviewed, with this in mind.
Planned nuclear plant in a Kenyan top tourist hub and home to endangered species sparks protest
Daily Mail. By Associated Press, 12 October 2024
KILIFI, Kenya (AP) – Dozens rallied against a proposal to build Kenya’s first nuclear power plant in one of the country’s top coastal tourist hubs which also houses a forest on the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage site.
Kilifi County is renowned for its pristine sandy beaches where hotels and beach bars line the 165-mile-long coast and visitors boat and snorkel around coral reefs or bird watch in Arabuko Sokoke forest, a significant natural habitat for the conservation of rare and endangered species, according to the U.N. organization.
The project, proposed last year, is set to be built in the town of Kilifi – about 522 kilometers (324 miles) southeast of the capital, Nairobi. Many residents have openly opposed the proposal, worried about what they say are the negative effects of the project on people and the environment, leading to a string of protesters which at times turned violent.
Muslim for Human Rights (MUHURI) led the march Friday in Kilifi to the county governor´s office where they handed him a petition opposing the construction of the plant.
Some chanted anti-nuclear slogans while others carried placards with “Sitaki nuclear”, Swahili for “I don´t want nuclear.”
The construction of the 1,000MW nuclear plant is set to begin in 2027 and be operational by 2034, with a cost of 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($3.8 billion).
Francis Auma, a MUHURI activist, told the Associated Press that the negative effects of the nuclear plant outweigh its benefits.
“We say that this project has a lot of negative effects; there will be malformed children born out of this place, fish will die, and our forest Arabuko Sokoke, known to harbor the birds from abroad, will be lost,” Auma said during Friday´s protests.
Juma Sulubu, a resident who was beaten by the police during a previous demonstration, attended Friday’s march and said: “Even if you kill us, just kill us, but we do not want a nuclear power plant in our Uyombo community.”
Timothy Nyawa, a fisherman, participated in the rally out of fear that a nuclear power plant would kill fish and in turn his source of income. “If they set up a nuclear plant here, the fish breeding sites will all be destroyed.”
Phyllis Omido, the executive director at the Centre for Justice Governance and Environmental Action, who also attended the march, said Kenya´s eastern coastal towns depended on eco-tourism as the main source of income and a nuclear plant would threaten their livelihoods.
“We host the only East African coastal forest, we host the Watamu marine park, we host the largest mangrove plantation in Kenya. We do not want nuclear (energy) to mess up our ecosystem,” she said.
Her center filed a petition in Nov. 2023 in parliament calling for an inquiry and claiming that locals had limited information on the proposed plant and the criteria for selecting preferred sites. It also raised concerns over the risks to health, the environment and tourism in the event of a nuclear spill, saying the country was undertaking a “high-risk venture” without proper legal and disaster response measures in place. The petition also expressed unease over security and the handling of radioactive waste in a country prone to floods and drought.
The Senate suspended the inquiry until a lawsuit two layers filed in July seeking to stop the plant´s construction, claiming public participation meetings were rushed and urging the Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (Nupea) not to start the project, was heard………………………. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-13952403/Planned-nuclear-plant-Kenyan-tourist-hub-home-endangered-species-sparks-protest.html
Canada’s nuclear watchdog green-lights operation of aging Pickering reactors to 2026
Pressure tubes, which are six-metre-long rods that contain fuel bundles of uranium, are regarded as the major life-limiting component in CANDUs. They deteriorate as they age, gradually increasing their propensity to fracture, an event which could lead to a serious accident.
Matthew McClearn, October 11, 2024 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadas-nuclear-watchdog-green-lights-operation-of-aging-pickering/
Canada’s nuclear safety regulator again extended a crucial permit for the country’s oldest nuclear power plant on Friday, allowing it to continue operating beyond its original design life.
On Friday the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission authorized its owner, Ontario Power Generation, to operate the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station for an additional two years, to Dec. 31, 2026. The extended permit applies only to its newest four reactors, Units 5 through 8, which are collectively known as Pickering B. Those reactors entered service between 1983 and 1986.
The licence extension was granted by commissioners Timothy Berube, Marcel Lacroix and Andrea Hardie, who decided OPG would make adequate provisions for protecting the environment and public safety.
Canada’s homegrown reactor, the CANDU, was originally assigned a design life of 30 years, which had been incorporated into CNSC licensing requirements. If followed, they would have dictated that all four reactors shut down for major overhauls or decommissioning years ago. The CNSC, though, amended those rules and extended the station’s licence three times, while imposing more thorough inspection requirements on key components. The Pickering B reactors are now around 40 years old.
Pickering Station, located roughly 30 kilometres northeast of downtown Toronto, employs about 3,000 people and until recently supplied about 11 per cent of Ontario’s electricity. Nuclear power plants play a crucial role in the province’s grid, but their output has declined: Pickering Unit 1 shut down permanently last month, and Unit 4 is scheduled to follow in December. (The other two Pickering A units were idled permanently decades ago.)
OPG said Pickering B’s continued operation is needed because reactors at other stations are offline for overhauls.
Pressure tubes, which are six-metre-long rods that contain fuel bundles of uranium, are regarded as the major life-limiting component in CANDUs. They deteriorate as they age, gradually increasing their propensity to fracture, an event which could lead to a serious accident. Pressure tubes and related components are collectively known as fuel channels.
The main cause of that deterioration is called deuterium ingress, which is measured in parts per million (ppm) of hydrogen equivalent concentration. Previously, Pickering’s licence contained a condition that effectively capped hydrogen concentrations at 120 parts per million.
But in recent years a small number of pressure tubes in Canada have been found to have greatly exceeded that limit. The CNSC removed the 120 ppm limit from Pickering Station’s licence on Friday, and introduced a new requirement that OPG “implement and maintain an enhanced fitness for service program” for its fuel channels.
Familiar patterns of support and opposition emerged during public hearings held by the CNSC in June, with host municipalities emphasizing the plant’s economic importance. A deluge of submissions from nuclear industry contractors, lobbyists and unions also supported the plant’s continued operation, including the Society of United Professionals and the Canadian Nuclear Association.
The CANDU Operators Group, which represents utilities that use those reactors, wrote in a statement that experimental work had confirmed that the station’s fuel channels could operate safely until 2026, and that OPG “will continue with its exemplary safety record in every aspect of its operations.”
Environmental activists such as the Canadian Environmental Law Association recommended the CNSC reject the permit, partly owing to risks associated with the plant’s aging equipment.
“Old nuclear plants are particularly susceptible to accidents,” it wrote in its submission, adding that the dangers of allowing the plant to continue operating are “high and increasing.”
Sunil Nijhawan, a nuclear safety consultant and frequent intervenor before the CNSC, said that OPG’s own estimates showed “that the degradation of fuel channels is widespread; a number of component and system failure mechanisms are fast converging to put the reactor into unsafe operation territory.”
Several First Nations asserted that the plant’s continued operations required their consent, and some also raised concerns about aging pressure tubes. The Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation declared in a written statement that it was “not comfortable with the risk management methods being employed by the CNSC and OPG.”
The CNSC found that the licence extension “does not present any novel adverse impact on any potential or established Aboriginal claim or right.”
A second life is planned for the Pickering B reactors following the planned 2026 shutdown: In January, the Ontario government authorized OPG to begin a refurbishment that would return them to service in the mid-2030s.
1 This Month
25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5
From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
1st July – Webinar Waste of Space: The Environmental Harm of Military and Civil Space Activity st July, 7 pm
Report Launch Online: We are seeing an increasing exploitation of space for military and commercial purposes. This must change.
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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