OPPENHEIMER AUTHOR ENDORSES NORTON BILL – Nuclear Abolition and Conversion Act, H.R. 2775
New York (August 16, 2023) more https://www.nuclearban.us/kai-bird/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kai-bird–
Kai Bird, co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on which Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie is based, issued the following statement endorsing a bill by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), the Nuclear Abolition and Conversion Act, H.R. 2775:
“My book chronicles the birth of the nuclear age. Since the first nuclear testing and bombing in 1945, the man-made nuclear danger has continually increased. Now, today’s 13,000 atomic weapons are unthinkably destructive, indiscriminate, climate-altering devices that can be unleashed by design, by sabotage, or by accident. Therefore, I strongly endorse Congresswoman Norton’s Nuclear Abolition and Conversion Act, H.R. 2775. The bill calls for the US to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as a first step to safely, fairly, verifiably eliminating all nuclear weapons from all countries, and eventually converting the nuclear weapons jobs, brainpower, money, and infrastructure to genuine climate solutions and other pressing human needs.”
“Kai Bird is keenly aware of how the nuclear arms race started, and where it has taken us,” said Vicki Elson of NuclearBan.US. “He has said that ‘humanity missed a crucial opportunity at the outset of the nuclear age’ to eliminate the risk of nuclear catastrophe. But with this new movie reminding us of the urgency, and the Nuclear Ban Treaty offering a sensible pathway to global disarmament, maybe it’s not too late.”
The bill’s original co-sponsors are Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Mark Pocan (D-WI).
Poisoning the planet
Radioactive water dump is just latest example our reckless destruction of habitat
By Linda Pentz Gunter, 20 Aug 23, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/08/20/poisoning-the-planet/
Much has been made — and rightly so — about the potential impact on human health and the Japanese fishing industry if Japan moves forward with its proposal to dump 1.2 million cubic meters — that’s 1.3 million tons —of radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site.
Unfortunately, this looks likely to happen sometime this month or next despite the worldwide outcry. But when I say “happen”, that rather suggests a one-off dump. Instead, the discharge of these liquid nuclear wastes could go on for at least 17 years according to the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, but likely longer as decommissioning work at the site is expected to take at least 30-40 years.
It is perfectly right and reasonable that the Japanese fishing community sees its livelihood under threat from this proposal. Indeed, it has already taken a hit, as imports of Japanese fish stock to South Korea were down by 30% in May, before the dumping even began. This was clearly driven by jitters around the on-going safety of Japanese fish supplies once those radioactive discharges get underway.
And Pacific Island nations, along with an international team of scientific experts, have equally decried the plan as premature, unnecessary and in need of far greater confidence and further study before such discharges are executed, if ever.
But there is a greater moral issue here, one that speaks to humankind’s reckless and selfish behavior on planet Earth ever since mechanization and the various so-called industrial revolutions began.
For almost three centuries in the developed world, we have continuously and wantonly destroyed vast areas of precious habitat for numerous species. We have clear cut forests, sliced the tops off mountains, broken open the earth to mine minerals, exploded atomic weapons, spewed mercury and carbon into our air, drilled for oil, sprayed pesticides at will and filled the oceans with plastics, to name just a few environmental atrocities.
The toxic mess these activities leave behind has been dumped into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans, or on the lands where the less influential and powerful amongst us live — in the United States almost always in communities of color or on Native American reservations.
One of the worst offenders on this list is nuclear waste. In keeping with our heedless irresponsibility we have kept making lethal radioactive waste without the slightest idea how to safely manage or store it for the longterm. For years, barrels of the stuff were dumped into the sea, until a 1994 amendment to the London Dumping Convention, put an end to it.
But of course the nuclear industry found a way around this. Routine liquid discharges through a pipe circumvented this law. Institutions such as the LaHague reprocessing site on the northern French coast, have discharged radioactive liquids (and gases) for decades. Didier Anger, the now retired expert activist on the environmental crimes at La Hague, uses this history to warn us urgently and eloquently of the folly of discharging nuclear waste into our oceans.
At times, the liquid wastes from La Hague, measured at the discharge point by vigilant groups such as Greenpeace, could have been classified as high-level radioactive waste that would normally require a deep geological repository.
As we approach the moment when radioactive liquids are once more poured into the sea, this time in Japan, imposing a toxic burden on the creatures who are already struggling to survive there, we must ask whether human beings have some sort of divine right of kings to trash the habitat of other living things?
The answer should surely be ‘no’. That humans can generate a radioactive mess and “dispose” of it into some other creatures’ habitat, poisoning their environment is, frankly, both arrogant and abhorrent.
We have already done this everywhere and it has come with a terrible price to other creatures as well as to ourselves. The destruction and contamination of habitat has led to mass extinctions. The US has lost three billion birds since 1970. That’s one in four birds. We may have thought the birds were back in abundance during the start of the covid pandemic, but that was just us hearing what’s left of them more clearly, in the quiet of lockdown.
Bees, who perform around 80% of all pollination, are dying out and hives collapsing, all due to human activities. These include pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, air pollution, and, of course, the climate crisis.
Absent these and other essential members of the web of life, our own extinction is not far behind.
We need to stop this behavior and we need to stop it now. We should do it not only for ourselves but for the countless innocent creatures who should not be expected to offer up their homes as our dustbins.
Loading up the Pacific Ocean with liquid radioactive waste — whether it dilutes and disperses or not — is a crime of immorality representative of so many that have come before. If we are truly to change our plundering, polluting and profligate ways, banning the radioactive water dump at Fukushima would be an excellent place to start.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.
Niger is Far From a Typical Coup
Rather than send troops in response to the coup, France and the U.S. seem to favor a “Rwanda” type solution applied in Mozambique earlier this year, writes Vijay Prashad. Only this time ECOWAS would apply force.
SCHEERPOST, By Vijay Prashad / Peoples Dispatch 20 Aug 23
In July 26, 2023, Niger’s presidential guard moved against the sitting president—Mohamed Bazoum—and conducted a coup d’état. A brief contest among the various armed forces in the country ended with all the branches agreeing to the removal of Bazoum and the creation of a military junta led by Presidential Guard Commander General Abdourahamane “Omar” Tchiani. This is the fourth country in the Sahel region of Africa to have experienced a coup—the other three being Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali
The new government announced that it would stop allowing France to leech Niger’s uranium (one in three lightbulbs in France is powered by the uranium from the field in Arlit, northern Niger). Tchiani’s government revoked all military cooperation with France, which means that the 1,500 French troops will need to start packing their bags (as they did in both Burkina Faso and Mali).
Meanwhile, there has been no public statement about Airbase 201, the US facility in Agadez, a thousand kilometers from the country’s capital of Niamey. This is the largest drone base in the world and key to US operations across the Sahel. US troops have been told to remain on the base for now and drone flights have been suspended. The coup is certainly against the French presence in Niger, but this anti-French sentiment has not enveloped the US military footprint in the country.
Hours after the coup was stabilized, the main Western states—especially France and the United States—condemned the coup and asked for the reinstatement of Bazoum, who was immediately detained by the new government. But neither France nor the United States appeared to want to lead the response to the coup. Earlier this year, the French and US governments worried about an insurgency in northern Mozambique that impacted the assets of the Total-Exxon natural gas field off the coastline of Cabo Delgado. Rather than send in French and US troops, which would have polarized the population and increased anti-Western sentiment, the French and the United States made a deal for Rwanda to send its troops into Mozambique. Rwandan troops entered the northern province of Mozambique and shut down the insurgency. Both Western powers seem to favor a “Rwanda” type solution to the coup in Niger, but rather than have Rwanda enter Niger the hope was for ECOWAS—the Economic Community of West African States—to send in its force to restore Bazoum.
A day after the coup, ECOWAS condemned the coup. ECOWAS encompasses fifteen West African states, which in the past few years has suspended Burkina Faso and Mali from their ranks because of the coups in that country; Niger was also suspended from ECOWAS a few days after the coup. Formed in 1975 as an economic bloc, the grouping decided—despite no mandate in its original mission—to send in peacekeeping forces in 1990 into the heart of the Liberian Civil War. Since then, ECOWAS has sent its peacekeeping troops to several countries in the region, including Sierra Leone and Gambia. Not long after the coup in Niger, ECOWAS placed an embargo on the country that included suspending its right to basic commercial transactions with its neighbors, freezing Niger’s central bank assets that are held in regional banks, and stopping foreign aid (which comprises forty percent of Niger’s budget).
The most striking statement was that ECOWAS would take “all measures necessary to restore constitutional order.” An August 6 deadline given by ECOWAS expired because the bloc could not agree to send troops across the border. ECOWAS asked for a “standby force” to be assembled and ready to invade Niger. Then, ECOWAS said it would meet on August 12 in Accra, Ghana, to go over its options. That meeting was canceled for “technical reasons.” Mass demonstrations in key ECOWAS countries—such as Nigeria and Senegal—against an ECOWAS military invasion of Niger have confounded their own politicians to support an intervention. It would be naïve to suggest that no intervention is possible. Events are moving very fast, and there is no reason to suspect that ECOWAS will not intervene before August ends.
Coups in the Sahel
When ECOWAS suggested the possibility of an intervention into Niger, the military governments in Burkina Faso and Mali said that this would be a “declaration of war” not only against Niger but also against their countries…………………………………………………………………………….. https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/20/niger-is-far-from-a-typical-coup/
Austria cautions against nuclear power in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The following is a statement delivered by George-Wilhelm Gallhofer, diplomat at the Austrian Mission to the United Nations, on behalf of the Government of Austria, on 8 August 2023, during the First Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2025 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Vienna, Austria.
Austria fully respects the inalienable right of all Parties to the NPT to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. At the same time, Austria calls on all States to limit “the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” to those applications not raising concerns for possible military applications. This is specifically laid out in Art. IV of the NPT, which simultaneously requires conformity with Article I and II.
In this regard, we see the use of nuclear power differing significantly from any other application of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Any expansion of nuclear power necessarily increases the risk of proliferation while applications in health, agriculture, imaging and physical measurement do usually not raise this risk.
For this reason, full scope safeguards and ideally an Additional Protocol must accompany each nuclear program.
Let me also caution against advertising nuclear power as an appropriate source of electricity to combat negative climate effects and answer to the climate crises. The comparatively low CO2 emissions of nuclear power do not compensate for disadvantages inevitably connected to nuclear power. Let me give you three examples:
1) The safe and permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel is still unresolved. To date, not a single repository for such waste is in operation worldwide. Even if such repositories were to become operational in the foreseeable future, today’s knowledge cannot guarantee the safe enclosure required for hundred thousands of years.
2) We cannot completely exclude severe accidents from nuclear power plants involving large and early releases of radionuclides with significant adverse consequences, including contamination even on the territory of other countries.
3) There is only a limited supply of uranium and thorium available and a nuclear “fuel cycle” does not exist so far. If there would be such a cycle, it would trigger more challenges regarding safety, security and safeguards
This list is by far not exhaustive but underlines my previous point: Austria does not consider nuclear power to be compatible with the concept of sustainable development. In our view, reliance on nuclear power is neither a viable nor a cost-efficient option to combat climate change. Both the polluter-pays principle and the precautionary principle are grossly violated in nuclear power use……………………………………………………………….. more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/08/20/revisiting-the-inalienable-right/
Germany will ‘never’ place troops in Ukraine – Scholz
The chancellor says it is his aim to prevent a war with Russia amid talk of long-range missile deliveries to Kiev
https://www.rt.com/news/581498-germany-scholz-never-troops-ukraine/ 20 Aug 23
Germany will not get involved in the Ukraine conflict, but will continue to supply Kiev with weaponry, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said. The comment comes amid a public discussion on whether Berlin should supply long-range Taurus missiles to Kiev.
Speaking at an event organized by the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper on Friday, Scholz was asked whether there is a danger of Germany becoming “actively involved in the war.” He replied by saying that it is his “aim to prevent this,” and that this is why there are “no German soldiers in Ukraine and there won’t be any.”
The chancellor said, however, that Berlin will continue to supply Ukraine with weapons. He added that each decision in this respect has been taken cautiously and in coordination with allies. According to Scholz, the West does not want the conflict to develop into a “war between Russia and NATO.”
Earlier this month, Ukrainian lawmaker Egor Chernev said that many of his German colleagues were in favor of providing Kiev with the Taurus missile, which has a range of around 500km.
Chernev claimed that a broad consensus on the issue had been reached among German political parties, and that Ukraine is now awaiting an official decision.
Germany’s RTL and n-tv commissioned a poll which indicated that 66% of Germans are opposed to the idea, with only 28% in favor.
Ukraine has been asking Germany for this type of missile since at least late May, though senior officials, including Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, have so far rejected the requests.
The German leadership, however, also hesitated for several months on Leopard battle tank deliveries, before eventually acquiescing in late January.
With Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive falling short of initial expectations, as acknowledged by senior officials in Kiev and Western capitals, NATO member states have vowed to continue to support the country for ‘as long as it takes.’
Russia has warned Western nations that by sending weapons to Ukraine, they are only prolonging the conflict, while increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between NATO and Moscow.
The Pentagon Is Spending $1 Billion a Year on ‘Directed Energy Weapons’
Washington is interested in the weapons but worries they’ll end up in the ‘valley of death’ if the Pentagon isn’t careful.
By Matthew Gault, 02 June 2023,
The Pentagon is spending $1 billion a year developing laser and microwave weapons, and Washington is worried that money will go to waste.
According to new reports from the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. military faces serious challenges trying to get what it calls directed energy weapons out, but should consolidate efforts so that the weapons don’t fall into what it called the “valley of death.”
The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force have all worked to develop various kinds of direct energy weapons. The most prominent are high energy lasers (HEL) and high power microwaves (HPM) weapons……………………………………………. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkagjk/pentagon-is-spending-dollar1-billion-a-year-on-directed-energy-weapons
General Mark Milley had a point – USA should have pushed for peace talks on Ukraine
Politico, By ALEXANDER WARD, LARA SELIGMAN, MATT BERG and ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL 08/18/2023
The conversation about Ukraine’s counteroffensive has shifted from one of excitement to disappointment, as Kyiv’s slow gains lead some U.S. officials and insiders alike to whisper: Should we have listened to Gen. MARK MILLEY?
In November, the Joint Chiefs chair said Ukraine’s strong military position and upcoming winter season combined to make a good time to consider peace talks. Plus, operations to expel Russian forces out of the whole of Ukraine –— which VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY demands — had a slim chance of success. Administration officials immediately scrambled to assure their counterparts in Kyiv that Milley was riffing and not reflecting a secret sentiment in the White House.
But listen to Milley lately, and you can hear the implicit “I told you so.”
“If the end state is Ukraine is a free, independent, sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come,” he told The Washington Post this week. “That’s gonna take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives — maybe, possibly — through some sort of diplomatic means.”
One U.S. official, who didn’t want to run afoul of the administration by offering real views on the record, said the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington. Ukraine’s tactics to preserve troops and equipment, Russia’s dug-in positions and the fight on multiple fronts have led to slow advances, shifting a possible breakthrough further into the future.
While the U.S. still backs Ukraine’s fight, the official said, “We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks………………………………… more https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/08/18/milley-had-a-point-00111878
Risk of cancer death after exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation underestimated, suggests nuclear industry study
by British Medical Journal, 16 Aug 23, https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08-cancer-death-exposure-low-dose-ionizing.html
Prolonged exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation is associated with a higher risk of death from cancer than previously thought, suggests research tracking the deaths of workers in the nuclear industry, published in The BMJ.
The findings should inform current rules on workplace protection from low-dose radiation, say the researchers.
To date, estimates of the effects of radiation on the risk of dying from cancer have been based primarily on studies of survivors of atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of the Second World War.
These estimates are used to set the level of protection required for workers regularly exposed to much lower doses of radiation in the nuclear industry and other sectors such as health care.
But the latest data from the International Nuclear Workers Study (INWORKS) suggest that risk estimates, based on the acute exposures among atomic bomb survivors to an extremely high dose of radiation, may underestimate the cancer risks from exposure to much lower doses of ionizing radiation delivered over a prolonged period in the workplace.
The researchers therefore tracked and analyzed deaths among 309,932 workers in the nuclear industry in the UK, France, and the US (INWORKS) for whom individual monitoring data for external exposure to ionizing radiation were available.
During a monitoring period spanning 1944 to 2016, 103,553 workers died: 28,089 of these deaths were due to solid cancers, which include most cancers other than leukemia.
The researchers then used this information to estimate the risk of death from solid cancers based on workers’ exposure to radiation 10 years previously.
They estimated that this risk increased by 52% for every unit of radiation (Gray; Gy) workers had absorbed. A dose of one Gray is equivalent to a unit of one Joule of energy deposited in a kilogram of a substance.
But when the analysis was restricted to workers who had been exposed to the lowest cumulative doses of radiation (0-100 mGy), this approximately doubled the risk of death from solid cancers per unit Gy absorbed.
Similarly, restricting the analysis only to workers hired in more recent years when estimates of occupational external penetrating radiation dose were more accurate also increased the risk of death from solid cancer per unit Gy absorbed.
Excluding deaths from cancers of the lung and lung cavity, which might be linked to smoking or occupational exposure to asbestos, had little effect on the strength of the association.
The researchers acknowledge some limitations to their findings, including that exposures for workers employed in the early years of the nuclear industry may have been poorly estimated, despite their efforts to account for subsequent improvements in dosimeter technology—a device for measuring exposure to radiation.
They also point out that the separate analysis of deaths restricted to workers hired in more recent years found an even higher risk of death from solid cancer per unit Gy absorbed, meaning that the increased risk observed in the full cohort wasn’t driven by workers employed in the earliest years of the industry. There were also no individual level data on several potentially influential factors, including smoking.
“People often assume that low dose rate exposures pose less carcinogenic hazard than the high dose rate exposures experienced by the Japanese atomic bomb survivors,” write the researchers. “Our study does not find evidence of reduced risk per unit dose for solid cancer among workers typically exposed to radiation at low dose rates.”
They hope that organizations such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection will use their results to inform their assessment of the risks of low dose, and low dose rate, radiation and ultimately in an update of the system of radiological protection.
More information: Cancer mortality after low dose exposure to ionising radiation in workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States (INWORKS): cohort study, The BMJ (2023). DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2022-074520
Journal information: British Medical Journal (BMJ)
Japan’s nuclear plants are short of storage for spent fuel. A remote town could have the solution.
Chugoku Electric’s plan to build a nuclear power plant in Kaminoseki has been stalled for more than a decade since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, delaying subsidies for the remote town, whose population is aging and shrinking.
“The town will only get poorer if we just keep waiting,” Kaminoseki Mayor Tetsuo Nishi – “We should do whatever is available now.”
ByMARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press, https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/japans-nuclear-plants-short-storage-spent-fuel-remote-102373016 August 19, 2023
TOKYO — A Japanese town said Friday it has agreed to a geological study to determine its suitability as an interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel.
Kaminoseki, a small town in the southwestern prefecture of Yamaguchi, said it would accept the offer of a survey by Chugoku Electric Power Co., one of two major utility operators, along with Kansai Electric Power Co., whose spent fuel storage pools are almost full.
The Japanese government is promoting the greater use of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy source, but the country’s nuclear plants are running out of storage capacity.
The problem stems from Japan’s stalled nuclear fuel recycling program to reprocess plutonium from spent fuel for reuse. The government has continued to pursue the program, despite serious technical setbacks. A plutonium-burning Monju reactor failed and is being decommissioned, while the launch of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in northern Japan has been delayed for almost 30 years.
After the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, many reactors were temporarily taken offline and their restarts delayed, helping to reduce the spent fuel stockpile.
However, when Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government decided to reverse a phaseout and maximize nuclear power as clean energy, concerns over the lack of storage space were rekindled.
Earlier this month, Chugoku put forward a proposal to build a storage facility jointly with Kansai Electric, but the plan was met by angry protests from residents, who surrounded the mayor and yelled at him.
Chugoku Electric’s plan to build a nuclear power plant in Kaminoseki has been stalled for more than a decade since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, delaying subsidies for the remote town, whose population is aging and shrinking.
“The town will only get poorer if we just keep waiting,” Kaminoseki Mayor Tetsuo Nishi told a televised news conference Friday. “We should do whatever is available now.”
Kansai Electric, Japan’s largest nuclear plant operator, is urgently seeking additional storage for spent fuel: the cooling pools at its plants are more than 80% full. The company pledged to find a potential interim storage site by the end of this year.
About 19,000 tons of spent fuel, a byproduct of nuclear power generation, is stored at power plants across Japan, taking up about 80% of their storage capacity, according to the economy and industry ministry.
The continuation of spent fuel reprocessing program and the delay have only added to Japan’s already large plutonium stockpile, raising international concern. Japan also lacks a final repository for high-level nuclear waste.
An intermediate facility is designed to keep nuclear spent fuel in dry casks for decades until it is moved to a reprocessing or to a final repository. Experts say it is a much safer option than keeping it in uncovered cooling pools at their plants.
If the storage is actually built, it will be the second such facility in Japan. The only other one is in Mutsu, near Rokkasho, which is reserved for Tokyo Electric Power Co. and a smaller utility.
Lukashenko shares thoughts on future of Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/581437-lukashenko-ukraine-interview-recap/— 18 Aug 23
Kiev should sue for peace before it loses the remnants of its sovereignty, the leader of Belarus said in an interview
Ukraine needs to stop the war and start rebuilding its statehood on a healthier foundation before it ceases to exist completely, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko on Thursday.
1 Ukraine could lose everything
Ukraine could lose all of its territory if it chooses to continue fighting, Lukashenko said, insisting that Kiev should first “end the war” in order to preserve its statehood. “Yes, you can continue to struggle for these territories,” he said, pointing to Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye on the map. “I’m not telling you to give them up or anything. But choose another method. If you fight for these territories, you will lose those,” he added, pointing to the areas further west.
2 Conflict was avoidable
“The war was avoidable… at any point in time. It can be stopped now and it could have been avoided then,” Lukashenko said, noting that in 2015, he was at the heart of events and facilitated communication between then-President of Ukraine Pyotr Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Minsk agreements should have been implemented. We agreed on everything… But they were ignored,” he said, adding that Putin was “100% ready” to implement the agreements, but Poroshenko was “afraid that the wrong people would have been elected” if Donbass returned to Ukraine as an autonomous region.
3 Belarus will go to war if Ukrainians cross the border
Lukashenko stated that Minsk will “keep helping our ally Russia,” but if “Ukrainians do not cross our border, we will never get involved in this hot war.” He went on to say that dozens of NATO and other countries are backing Ukraine with military coordination, intelligence, and training, as well as ammunition and weapons supplies, while “only Belarus is openly helping Russia.”
4 Russia has enough firepower
Lukashenko also rejected as “complete nonsense” the notion that Putin is pressing him to become more involved in the conflict. He observed that Russia has more than enough manpower and firepower to reach its goals, saying, “an additional 70,000 troops will change nothing.”
5 Putin withdrew troops from Kiev to avoid civilian casualties
The Belarusian leader dismissed suggestions that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky protected Kiev and that the Ukrainian army repulsed the early Russian invasion, calling the idea a “fairy tale… cooked up by mass media and Zelensky himself, in order to present him as a hero.” Lukashenko claimed that, at the time, Putin told him Kiev could be captured “right away, instantaneously, but a huge number of people will die.”
Lukashenko noted that Ukrainian forces had deployed not only tanks but multiple-launch rocket systems in the streets of Kiev, near “kindergartens, schools, hospitals,” and other public buildings. “You probably know that the Russian troops, who were on the outskirts of Kiev, withdrew from there. Did [Zelensky] destroy the Russian army there? No… He was sitting in a root cellar at the time,” Lukashenko said.
6 Main Russian objective already achieved
Moscow has already reached the principal aim of its military operation in Ukraine, the Belarusian president continued, explaining that “Ukraine will never be so aggressive towards Russia after this war ends, as it was before. Ukraine will be different. People in power [there] will be more cautious, smart – more cunning if you will.”
7 Zelensky ready to surrender western Ukraine to Poland
Lukashenko believes that in order to get Ukraine into NATO, Zelensky might go as far as to surrender part of the country’s territory under a Polish protectorate. However, he said “Ukrainians themselves will not let it happen.”
If they come in, they will not go away, because Americans are standing behind Poland. Well, this will be Polish territory. Why would NATO not accept them in this case? It will already be Polish territory,” Lukashenko said.
“This is unacceptable for us and for Russians. It is necessary to preserve Ukraine’s integrity, so that the country will not be sliced up and divided by other countries. Negotiations come next,” he added.
8 Ukraine is not Zelensky, and Zelensky is not Ukraine
Lukashenko claimed that Ukrainians are increasingly disenchanted with Zelensky, who is not a “national hero,” but an image created for international audiences by the Western propaganda machine, drawing parallels to how, before the Soviet Union’s collapse, the West “went into raptures about Gorbachev” in a similar fashion.
“People in Ukraine are beginning to see things clearly. And millions of people who fled the country are raising their voices saying that they want to return home and asking why the war is still going on,” he said. “There is a growing understanding that Zelensky should find a way out of this situation, to put it mildly.”
9 Only the United States benefits from the war
The Belarusian leader said the US-led forces seek to weaken Russia with the help of Ukraine. “It does not bother them that the Slavic peoples are fighting with each other, and killing each other. It is beneficial for them. Thus, having weakened Russia, they will get closer to China from this side. That’s their rationale. Zelensky is playing along. But in the end, Ukraine – a flourishing, beautiful country blessed with natural resources – will cease to exist.”
‘The Greatest Fighting Force in Human History’ – The Perpetual Wars You Aren’t Supposed to Notice
byEDITOR August 17, 2023
By William J. Astore / TomDispatch.com
In his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” he tweeted, connecting that claim to the U.S. having patriots of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds “who bravely volunteer to defend our country and our values.”
The nuclear industry needs to show it can deliver economically viable big reactors in time and on budget.
Power projects in the west are too often delayed and over budget
Ft.com THE EDITORIAL BOARD 18 Aug 23
A UK parliamentary committee recently urged the government to come up with a strategy, rather than vague targets, to more than triple nuclear generating capacity by 2050. In the US, the Vogtle 3 unit began delivering electricity to Georgia’s power grid — the first reactor the country has built from scratch in more than three decades. Yet the fact that Vogtle 3 and the coming unit 4 might also be among the last big US reactors to be built is a sign of the questions over such plants, despite their promise……………………………….
nuclear is much more expensive than renewables, whose cost has come down sharply, even when everything runs smoothly, which it rarely does. The challenge of safely storing nuclear waste has not been entirely resolved. And recent experience in Europe and the US is almost entirely of projects being completed late and over budget. That has put off private investors, too.
France’s EDF now says Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first new nuclear power station for almost 30 years, is likely to cost more than envisaged. EDF’s Flamanville-3 reactor in France is over a decade behind schedule. In the US, the $14bn original cost of Vogtle 3 and 4 has blown past $30bn.
Japan and South Korea have a better record, but Japan is not building overseas. South Korea’s Kepco, though it successfully built Abu Dhabi’s first nuclear plant, is facing a copyright lawsuit from America’s Westinghouse over using the same design elsewhere. China and Russia have completed multiple reactors largely on time, but few western nations want to buy from them.
Small modular reactors — cheaper and quicker to build — may start to play a role, but are still in development. So if nuclear power is to play the part many western governments envisage, the industry needs to improve financing, construction and supply chains, and demonstrate it can build big reactors within the time and resources allotted………………………………………………..
Many of the things engineers say are needed to keep nuclear costs down — better planning and communications, applying best practice — sound humdrum, but seem hard to achieve in real life. If “gigawatt-scale” reactors are to play their part in the west’s climate transition, the nuclear industry must be better at planning and execution. https://www.ft.com/content/2b5e0a50-dcf7-4932-a293-6fa82cebc027—
Back in another quagmire – in Biden’s relentless “Big Muddy” of Ukraine.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalitioin. Glen Ellyn IL 18 Aug 23
Biden to Zelensky: ‘Here’s another $24 billion to further destroy your country.’
Ignoring US public opinion, President Biden wants and will get another $24 billion in weapons and other aid to keep the Russo Ukraine war bleeding out Ukraine in perpetuity.
That will ratchet up US aid to a gargantuan $137 billion, about half of which are weapons that have proved nearly worthless in Ukraine’s failed war and counteroffensive. Most honest military and administration officials admit Ukraine wasn’t ready for a counteroffensive and has suffered staggering death and disability of his forces thrown against nearly overwhelming Russian defenses.
While there is only darkness ahead in the tunnel of America’s proxy war against Russia, the Commander in Chief says ‘more, more, more weapons, but not one negotiation.’ He’s requested a supplemental emergency spending bill of $40 billion. Fearing recent polling showing 55% of voters oppose more Ukraine aid, Biden packaged the $24 billion for Ukraine with $16 billion for the Homeland. Congress wouldn’t dare vote down that needed domestic dough, ensuring passage of the endless waste of our treasure to ensure more death and destruction in Ukraine.
Back in ’68, protest song maestro Pete Seeger penned ‘Waste Deep In The Big Muddy’. It was an allegory of an Army squad leader, The Big Fool’, who forced his troops to wade The Big Muddy, a stream too deep to cross. It was a perfect take on the Big Fool LBJ, who keep pouring troops into the meat grinder of Vietnam with no chance of victory.
Here we are 55 years on with another quagmire in The Big Muddy…and the current Big Fool in the White House says to push on.
Finland’s OL2 nuclear reactor off grid; power prices rise
Reuters, August 18, 2023
OSLO, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Finland’s OL2 nuclear power reactor was shut down early on Friday and will remain offline until Aug. 28 due to problems caused by increased moisture in the facility’s turbine, operator TVO said, helping to pushing up electricity prices.
There was no impact on nuclear safety, TVO added.
The outage comes at a time of low wind power generation that has already lifted Finnish prices, according to Refinitiv analyst Petter Engblom Nordby.
Electricity prices for Friday soared up to 270 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) for hours where demand is typically highest, far exceeding prices in other parts of the Nordics and continental Europe, data from power exchange Nord Pool showed……………….. Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo and Louise Rasmussen in Copenhagen, editing by Terje Solsvik https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/finlands-ol2-nuclear-reactor-off-grid-power-prices-rise-2023-08-18/
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