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The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Global Campaign Against Ocean Dumping of Nuclear Wastewater Worldwide Urgent Actions against Japan’s ocean dumping of nuclear wastewater on Aug 24th.

1. The USA

  • Los Angeles, Aug 23rd, 12 – 1 PM @ Japanese Consulate
  • New York, Aug 23rd, 12 – 1 PM @ Japanese Consulate  (E 49th St & Park Ave.)
  • Washington DC, Aug 25th, 11am @ Japanese Embassy
  • Seattle, Washington, Aug 26th, 2pm @ Seattle Downtown  ‘West Lake Park’

Organized by Global Candlelight Action

2. UK

  • North Wales, Aug 25th, 5pm @ Bangor pier

Organized by PAWB ( People Against Wylfa B) and CADNO

3. Germany

  • Berlin, Aug25th, 5 pm @ Brandenburg Gate
  • Frankfurt, Aug 26th, 3 pm @ Rathenauplatz (Goetheplatz)
  • Hamburk, September 9th

Organized by Global Candlelight Action

4. Fiji

  • Suva, Aug 25th, 10am @ Japanese Embassy

Organized by PANG, Alliance for Future Generations, Pacific Conference of Churches; FWRM, DIVA for Equality and others joining the March including the largest Indigenous women’s network. 

5. Japan

  • Tokyo, Aug 22nd @ Japanese PM house
  • Tokyo, Aug 23rd @ TEPCO
  • Fukushima Iwaki, Aug 27th 

Organized by Japanese CSOs alliances

6. Switzerland

  • Zurich, September 16th

Organized by Global Candlelight Action

7. Canada

  • Civil Zoom rally, on August 24, 5 pm

Organized by  civil society in Canada

8. Australia

  • Melbourne, Aug 26th (Sat), 5 pm @ Korea Society of Victoria

Organized by Global Candlelight Action

9. Korea

  • Seoul, Aug 23rd, 7pm @ Japanese Embassy
  • Seoul, Aug 24th, 7pm @ Japanese Embassy
  • Seoul, Aug 26th, 6pm @ Korea Press Center
  • 17 local cities nationwide in Korea hold a press conference and rallies from Aug 22nd~31st

Organized by Korean civil society alliances / Korean Peoples’ Action to Stop Dumping of Fukushima Daiichi Radioactive Water(KPA-SDFDRW)

August 24, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Ukraine likely to fail in key counteroffensive aim, says US intelligence

Roland Oliphant, Telegraph, Fri, 18 Aug 2023,  https://www.sott.net/article/483699-Ukraine-likely-to-fail-in-key-counteroffensive-aim-says-US-intelligence

Ukraine’s counter-offensive will likely fail in its key objective to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea this year, according to a US intelligence assessment briefed to members of Congress.

Instead, Ukraine’s attack is expected to stop some way short of the key city of Melitopol, the Washington Post reported, citing anonymous officials familiar with the assessment.

The reported assessment, which The Telegraph could not immediately verify, could foreshadow mutual recriminations between members of the pro-Ukraine alliance over the offensive’s slow progress.

Ukraine launched a long-planned counter-offensive in June. Its main objective was to reach the sea of Azov and sever Russia’s land bridge to the annexed Black Sea Crimean peninsula.

Ukraine and its allies hoped newly supplied Western equipment such as Leopard tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles would help achieve a breakthrough. But the assault immediately ran into stronger than anticipated Russian resistance and has struggled to make progress.

In an effort to reduce losses, analysts said Ukraine has now switched back to the strategy of smaller assaults and strikes on supply lines that eventually led to success in the southern Kherson region last year.

Melitopol, about 50 miles south of the current front line, is often called the “gateway” to Crimea and sits astride two roads and a railway controlling access to the peninsula. To reach it, the Ukrainians would have to puncture three layers of reinforced defensive lines and minefields, and bypass or capture several heavily fortified towns and villages en route.

Playing down tensions

In public, Ukrainian and Western officials generally seek to play down tensions over the slow progress of the fighting.

Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said on Thursday that Ukraine does not feel under pressure from Western allies to deliver quicker results.

But mutual recriminations have begun.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said in July that the operation was originally planned for spring but delayed for months because of insufficient weapons systems and munitions. That delay in turn gave the Russians time to dig in and sow minefields, he said.

Other critics have accused Western governments of hypocrisy for expecting Ukraine to achieve a combined-arms-style breakthrough without air superiority or long-range precision missiles to hit supply lines, minimum requirements for any similar Nato operation.

No ‘panaceas’

US and other Western officials have denied decisions on arms supplies have hampered the offensive.

A senior official in Joe Biden’s administration told the Washington Post the main issue remains piercing the Russian defensive lines and that there was “no evidence” F-16 fighters or longer-range missile systems such as ATACMS would have been a “panacea” to that problem.

Late last month, a German military intelligence report blamed slow progress on Ukraine’s generals splitting Western-trained brigades into small units to assault objectives, which it said negated advantages in force and firepower.

It said an “operational doctrine” particularly entrenched in senior officers with combat experience meant Nato training was not being put into practice.

The Biden administration gave the green light to European countries to provide F16 fighters and associated training to Ukrainian pilots and crews in May, following months of Ukrainian lobbying.

The United States on Friday formally assured Denmark and the Netherlands that it would give permission for F-16s to be exported to Ukraine when training is complete, but that is not expected to be until early next year.

It has so far rebuffed Ukrainian requests for ATACMS precision missiles.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Fukushima: wastewater from ruined nuclear plant to be released from Thursday, Japan says

Release plans approved by UN nuclear authority have caused outcry in China and concern for the reputation of Japan’s seafood

Guardian Justin McCurry in Tokyo 22 Aug 23

Japan is to begin releasing wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant from Thursday, in defiance of opposition from fishing communities, China and some scientists.

The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said that disposing of more than 1m tonnes of water being stored at the site is an essential part of the long and complex process to decommission the plant.

But the plan, announced by Kishida on Tuesday, has caused controversy because the water contains tritium, a radioactive substance that can’t be removed by the facility’s water filtration technology.

The decision comes weeks after the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), approved the discharge, saying that the radiological impact on people and the environment would be “negligible”.

South Korea and China banned seafood imports from some areas of Japan after Fukushima Daiichi suffered a triple meltdown in the March 2011 triple disaster along the country’s north-east coast.

The South Korean government recently dropped its objections to the discharge, but opposition parties and many South Koreans are concerned about the impact the discharge will have on food safety. China remains strongly opposed, while Hong Kong, an important market for Japanese seafood exports, has also threatened restrictions.

Some experts point out that nuclear plants around the world use a similar process to dispose of wastewater containing low-level concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides.

“Tritium has been released [by nuclear power plants] for decades with no evidential detrimental environmental or health effects,” said Tony Hooker, a nuclear expert from the University of Adelaide.

Greenpeace, however, has described the filtration process as flawed, and warned that an “immense” quantity of radioactive material will be dispersed into the sea over the coming decades.

The government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), also face opposition from local fishers, who say pumping water into the Pacific Ocean will destroy their industry.

In a meeting on Monday with Masanobu Sakamoto, the head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, Kishida attempted to reassure fishing communities that the discharge was safe………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/22/fukushima-wastewater-from-ruined-nuclear-plant-to-be-released-from-thursday-japan-says

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Much hype, enthusiasm, tax-payers’ largesse, for Britain’s “new nuclear”. (What could possibly go wrong?)

There would be up to £20 billion in subsidies, if needed, to get between five and eight SMRs up and running by early next decade, and about £160 million in grants to keep R&D ticking over into AMRs and nuclear fuels.

Britain fires starter’s gun on race to nuclear

In the second instalment of the Nuclear Option series, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is suddenly ready to shower billions of pounds on getting modular nuclear reactors up and running by the early 2030s.

Australian Financial Review Hans van Leeuwen, Europe correspondentAug 22, 2023 – London

The British government is ready to trowel more than £20 billion ($38 billion) of taxpayers’ money into turbocharging the country’s nuclear industry, as the daunting task of decarbonising the UK’s energy sector looms ever larger.

With offshore wind and solar unlikely to ensure Britain has uninterrupted baseload power, the official goal is to get 24 gigawatts of nuclear energy onstream by 2050 – up to a quarter of British power demand, up from 15 per cent now.

But hefty new gigawatt-scale nuclear power stations are struggling to get off the ground, so the government’s hopes are increasingly pinned on an early lift-off for small modular reactors (SMRs)

…………… …. Tom Greatrex, chief executive of Britain’s Nuclear Industry Association. says that although successive Downing Street administrations have all understood Britain’s flagging nuclear industry needs fresh legs, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is now gripped with urgency. And it has clocked the key catalysing role of taxpayers and public policy.

“The lesson from anywhere in the world where nuclear power has been deployed is that unless the state is actively involved in encouraging it to happen, it doesn’t happen,” Greatrex says.

“It is public policy that has driven it, basically because the infrastructure is so big and capital-intensive.”

The government recently unfurled a £170 million investment into hurrying up work on the embryonic but enormous Sizewell C, a 3.2-gigawatt nuclear reactor to be built by the mid-2030s. This came on top of £700 million in earlier subsidies.

But the real action must of necessity be elsewhere. Construction of the next big new nuclear reactor, the 3.2-gigawatt Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, has been subject to seemingly endless delays and cost blowouts. And of the five creaky old mega-reactors now operating, all but one will be shut in the next five years.

So, the focus is squarely on SMRs, which in theory can be rolled out more cheaply and snappily; and also on advanced modular reactors (AMRs), which use exotic new tech or methods that are still either largely on the drawing board or even just a glint in some scientist’s eye.

A week before the Sizewell announcement, the government confirmed it would set up a new agency, revelling in the Tory-boilerplate name of Great British Nuclear, to gee up the industry.

There would be up to £20 billion in subsidies, if needed, to get between five and eight SMRs up and running by early next decade, and about £160 million in grants to keep R&D ticking over into AMRs and nuclear fuels.

“I look forward to seeing the world-class designs submitted from all around the world through the competitive selection process, as the UK takes its place front and centre in the global race to unleash a new generation of nuclear technology,” energy minister Andrew Bowie trumpeted.

Leaders of the pack

At the front of the SMR pack is Rolls-Royce, leading a consortium that has already received £210 million in government grants. It has beefed up its SMR workforce to about 600 people.

……………………………………………. GE Hitachi is Rolls-Royce’s main rival. Media reports say it already has a BWRX-300 under construction and regulatory review in Canada, a.nd its model is under consideration in the US. The company claims to be the only contender with a realistic shot of getting an SMR operational by 2030.

The two are very likely to feature on Great British Nuclear’s short-list, which will be compiled by the end of the year. Other contenders could include Nuscale and Westinghouse.

The lucky winners will get access to the government’s subsidy scheme, which could be worth £20 billion if that’s what it takes.

It’s unclear exactly what form this largesse will assume. It could use the “regulated asset base” model, where investors are given a guaranteed minimum return, funded by a levy on consumer energy bills.

Another model might involve “strike prices”: a guaranteed price per unit, to smooth out the risks and uncertainty involved in committing so much capital upfront.

Whatever the capital cost, it won’t be as much as required for a mega-reactor: perhaps £2 billion to get an SMR up and running, as opposed to the £20 billion-plus for Sizewell C, thanks to the SMR’s modular, factory-based construction method. The catch, of course, is that you get just 50 to 500 megawatts of energy, rather than 3.2 gigawatts.

“It’s the economics of volume versus the economics of scale,” Greatrex says.

The initial batch of SMRs will almost certainly be built on the site of decommissioned larger reactors: communities there are socialised to nuclear; there are good grid connections; and the geography favours PWRs. This could help overcome a raft of potential political, planning or permit obstacles.

Dark horses

While the SMRs bolt towards an early-2030s target, the government hopes to back other horses in slower time. The AMRs might use technologies that ultimately prove more efficient, such as MoltexFlex’s molten-salt reactor. Or they might have different applications, such as local start-up U-Battery………………………….

U-Battery ‘s key backer, Urenco, ultimately couldn’t pull in investors, and in March handed the intellectual property to the government-backed National Nuclear Laboratory.

Other AMRs have higher-profile investors: TerraPower has Bill Gates; NewCleo has Italy’s Agnelli family. Most are working across multiple markets. X-Energy, for example, is using US funding to build a pilot of its gas-cooled pebble-bed reactor in Texas, which it says would allow it to roll out quickly in Britain…………………

The government has fired the starter’s gun, and the race in Britain is on. There’s bipartisan political support and investor interest, so Greatrex’s only anxiety is that Westminster might become distracted.

“It’s about maintaining momentum and focus. When something is at the top of the agenda it gets that attention and focus,” he says. “But if that focus is lost, that drive and commitment is lost? Then things could go back to taking a very long time.”  https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/britain-fires-starter-s-gun-on-race-to-nuclear-20230726-p5dr9r

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Exposure to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation Linked to Solid Cancer Mortality

Elana Gotkine Aug 21, 2023  https://www.applevalleynewsnow.com/news/health/exposure-to-low-dose-ionizing-radiation-linked-to-solid-cancer-mortality/article_6ed70b06-3ba4-549e-828c-e2892b462550.html

  (HealthDay News) — Protracted exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation is associated with an increased risk for solid cancer mortality, according to a study published online Aug. 16 in The BMJ.

David B. Richardson, Ph.D., from the University of California in Irvine, and colleagues examined the effect of protracted low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation on the risk for cancer in a multinational cohort study involving workers in the nuclear industry in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Participants included 309,932 workers with individual monitoring data for external exposure to ionizing radiation, with follow-up of 10.7 million person-years.


The researchers identified 103,553 deaths, including 28,089 due to solid cancers. There was a 52 percent increase in the estimated rate of mortality due to solid cancer with cumulative dose per Gy, which lagged by 10 years. The estimate of association was approximately doubled on restriction of the analysis to the low cumulative dose range (0 to 100 mGy) and with restricting the analysis to workers hired in more recent years, when estimates of occupational external radiation were more accurate. The estimated magnitude of the association was modestly affected by exclusion of deaths from lung cancer and pleural cancer, indirectly indicating that the association was not substantially confounded by smoking or asbestos exposure.

“The study provides evidence in support of a linear association between protracted low-dose external exposure to ionizing radiation and solid cancer mortality,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text

August 23, 2023 Posted by | health | 2 Comments

EDF Warns of French Nuclear Output Cuts in Weekend Heat Wave

Bloomberg, By Francois De Beaupuy, August 22, 2023

Electricite de France SA will probably have to reduce nuclear output over the coming weekend as a heat wave affecting a large part of the country warms rivers used for cooling some of its reactors.

Due to the high temperatures forecast on Rhone river, production restrictions are likely to affect production at its Tricastin power plant — where two of its four 900-megawatt reactors are already………….(Subscribers only) more https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-21/edf-warns-of-french-nuclear-output-cuts-in-weekend-heat-wave#xj4y7vzkg

August 23, 2023 Posted by | climate change, France | Leave a comment

Japan’s nuclear wastewater – should we be worried?

August 22, 2023  https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/leaders/2023/08/945792/nst-leader-japans-nuclear-wastewater

FUKUSHIMA is a dreaded word in the region because what happens there doesn’t stay there. There in Japan on March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami, in that order, knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power plant, releasing untreated radioactive water into the sea.

Given the state of the nuclear plant technology then — or even now — there wasn’t the time for the radioactive elements to self-destruct. The human mind, including the Japanese ones, for some reason didn’t perceive that calamities can happen all at once.

The Fukushima disaster is such a tale of instantaneous conjunction of calamities. On a visit to the disaster zone on Sunday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was quoted by news agency AFP as saying that he was refraining from “commenting on a concrete timing of the release into the ocean at this point in time”, leaving ample room for a prime ministerial hint that it will be soon.

Some 500 Olympic-size swimming pools of wastewater, accumulated over 12 years after the disaster, are expected to be released into the Pacific Ocean. The fact that it would be a slow release over 10 years registered no effect in the region’s dread meter.

The region is on dread-watch, but much of it is coated with diplomatic niceties. China has been the most vociferous in opposing the release of the wastewater into the ocean. In China, dread comes mixed with geopolitical anger, given that Tokyo is a tango partner of Washington.

If a taste of Chinese animus is needed, here is one quote from a Beijing official, gleefully circulated by the Western media: Japan is treating the sea as its sewer. An interesting take, we must say, now that all nations without exception are treating the seas as their sewer.

How many marine lives were destroyed or how many people have ingested radioactive materials through seafood after the accident 12 years ago is hard to tell. Nuclear literature tells us if the water isn’t treated properly, dangerous isotopes can have devastating effects, including DNA-damaging ones. Should we fear? Yes and no. Start with yes.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the operator of the crippled nuclear plant, and Japanese regulators stand accused of negligence, notwithstanding the earthquake and tsunami. Now that Tepco and the government are saying the 1.34 million tonnes of wastewater planned to be released into the Pacific Ocean is safe, many in Japan don’t believe them. Both are victims of trust deficit.

Kishida, though he wasn’t prime minister when disaster struck in 2011, is in need of reputation management advice. Not just to repair the trust deficit at home, but also abroad.

China has banned seafood from Fukushima and considering a wider ban. Others in the region are beginning to be infected by China’s isotope fear, not because of Beijing’s geopolitics, but because of the nightmarish outcome of radioactive contamination. If the dread grows, it will cripple more than Fukushima.

Now for the no, our second response to Japan’s release of the treated wastewater into the ocean. The world shouldn’t fear because the Japanese guarantee that the dangerous radioactive elements have been filtered out and comes stamped with the approval of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency

Unless, of course, if the world has reasons to believe that the IAEA, too, comes branded with a trust deficit.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

End Nuclear Testing Forever, Says Secretary-General in Message for International Day

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for the International Day against Nuclear Tests, observed on 29 August:

Since 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear tests have inflicted terrifying suffering on people, poisoned the air we breathe and ravaged landscapes around the world.

On the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, the world speaks with one voice to end this destructive legacy.

This year, we face an alarming rise in global mistrust and division.  At a time in which nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons are stockpiled around the world — and countries are working to improve their accuracy, reach and destructive power — this is a recipe for annihilation.

A legally binding prohibition on nuclear tests is a fundamental step in our quest for a world free of nuclear weapons.  The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, though not yet in force, remains a powerful testament to humanity’s will to lift the shadow of nuclear annihilation from our world, once and for all.

In the name of all victims of nuclear testing, I call on all countries that have not yet ratified the Treaty to do so immediately, without conditions.

Let’s end nuclear testing forever.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Japanese fishing industry leader is “greatly concerned” over the pending disharge of Fukushima radioactive water into the ocean.

 The leader of a Japanese fisheries industry group told officials on Monday
he was “greatly concerned” about the discharge of treated radioactive water
set to be released into the sea from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.

The government is expected to decide soon, perhaps within days, when to
start releasing the water, equivalent to the contents of 500 Olympic-size
swimming pools, despite objections at home and abroad to the plan.

 Reuters 21st Aug 2023

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-pm-kishida-meet-with-fishermens-group-monday-afternoon-jiji-2023-08-21/

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Japan, oceans | Leave a comment

Biden’s rival, Robert F. Kennedy Junior, labels F-16s for Ukraine ‘a disaster for humanity’

21vAug 23 ,  https://www.rt.com/news/581543-kennedy-ukraine-f16-delivery/1

Supplying US-made fighter jets to Kiev would only benefit the defense industry, RFK Jr. says

The looming delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not prevent the “collapse” of the country’s military and will only benefit the military-industrial complex, Democrat presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Junior has claimed.

The Ukrainian conflict should be resolved through negotiations, RFK Jr. argued in a thread on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), stating that supplying F-16s to Kiev was a “great decision for the defense industry, but a disaster for Ukraine and humanity.”

“F-16s won’t stop the collapse of the Ukrainian military (which some experts say is imminent). These planes require a lot of training and maintenance. This isn’t the movies,” Kennedy stressed.

The presidential hopeful has long-opposed the enduring Western aid to Ukraine, spearheaded by Washington, arguing that the US should admit its “failure” in the country and focus on domestic issues instead. Kennedy’s criticism of the fighter-jet delivery comes after Washington enabled its European allies to re-export older planes to Ukraine, and hours before the move was officially announced by Denmark and the Netherlands.

The upcoming delivery was heralded by Dutch PM Mark Rutte on Sunday as he hosted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at a military airbase in Eindhoven.

“Today we can announce that the Netherlands and Denmark commit to the transfer of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine and the Ukrainian Air Force, including cooperation with the United States and other partners once the conditions for such a transfer have been met,” Rutte said at a press conference.

Simultaneously, the Danish Ministry of Defence released a statement confirming its pledge to provide Kiev with F-16s from its inventory, once certain “conditions” are met. The conditions “include, but are not limited to, successfully selected, tested and trained Ukrainian F-16 personnel as well as necessary authorizations, infrastructure and logistics,” it said.

Kiev has long-demanded modern aircraft, as well as other, increasingly sophisticated weaponry, from its Western backers, arguing the planes would help it turn the tide of the conflict with Russia, which has been going on since February 2022. Moscow has repeatedly urged the collective West to stop the military deliveries, arguing they would only prolong the hostilities rather than change their ultimate outcome.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, USA elections 2016, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US derides wimpy Ukrainians that have become ‘casualty adverse’

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 21 Aug 23

The US has come up a clever way of masking their contempt of the Ukrainian military in their failed counteroffensive against Russia.

Dismayed that Ukraine is squandering US weapons by hurling them at Russian forces instead hurling themselves at the well-fortified invaders, armchair US military are calling the Ukrainians ‘casualty adverse’, a nice way of calling them ,cowards. US/UK war games ahead of the June counteroffensive envisioned Ukraine taking large casualties in order to reclaim Donbas so they could start brutalizing Donbas Ukrainians again.

That was OK for the US war party. Hey, didn’t that work for England and France during trench warfare during WWI? Apparently, US strategists forgot those allies lost a few million soldiers to take at best a few hundred yards. The Ukraine general staff shot back: “We simply don’t have the resources to do the frontal attacks that the West is imploring us to do.”

The US knew Ukraine had neither the human nor explosive resources to regain territory, a US precondition for ending the war thru negotiations. That makes the US proxy war against Russia, shedding only Ukrainian blood and only destroying the Ukrainian economy, a grotesque US moral crime that must be resisted by every peace loving American.

President Biden has painted the US into a corner of death and despair he spent the last half century leading up to promoting American empire and exceptionalism. It may be too late for the electorate to inspire an epiphany in Biden to pivot to peace.

But we must try.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Oppenheimer Imperative: Normalising Atomic Terror

Resilience becomes part of the semantics of contemplated, and acceptable mass homicide. Emphasis is placed on the bounce-back factor, the ability to recover, even in the face of such weapons.

To be tactical is to be somehow bijou, cute, and contained, accepting mass murder under the guise of moderation and variation. One can be bad, but bad within limits.

Australian Independent Media, by Dr Binoy Kampmark, 20 Aug 23 https://theaimn.com/the-oppenheimer-imperative-normalising-atomic-terror/#comment-1092670

The atomic bomb created the conditions of contingent catastrophe, forever placing the world on the precipice of existential doom. But in doing so, it created a philosophy of acceptable cruelty, worthy extinction, legitimate extermination. The scenarios for such programs of existential realisation proved endless. Entire departments, schools of thought, and think tanks were dedicated to the absurdly criminal notion that atomic warfare could be tenable for the mere reason that someone (or some people) might survive. Despite the relentless march of civil society against nuclear weapons, such insidious thinking persists with a certain obstinate lunacy.

It only takes a brief sojourn into the previous literature of the nuke nutters to realise how appealing such thinking has proven to be. But it had its challenges. John Hersey proved threatening with his 1946 New Yorker spectacular “Hiroshima”, vivifying the horrors arising from the atomic bombing of the Japanese city through the eyes of a number of survivors.

In February 1947, former Secretary of War Henry Stimson shot a countering proposition in Harper’s, thereby attempting to normalise a spectacularly vicious weapon in terms of necessity and function; the use of the bombs against Japan saved lives, as any invasion would have cost “over a million casualties, to American forces alone.” The Allies, he surmised, “would be faced with the enormous task of destroying an armed force of five million men and five thousand suicide aircraft, belonging to a race which had already amply demonstrated its ability to fight literally to the death.”

Inadvertent as it was, the Stimson rationale for justifying theatrical never-to-be-repeated mass murder to prevent mass murder fell into the bloodstream of popular strategic thinking. Albert Wohlstetter’s The Delicate Balance of Terror chews over the grim details of acceptable extermination, wondering about the meaning of extinction and whether the word means what it’s meant to, notably in the context of nuclear war. 

 “Would not a general thermonuclear war mean ‘extinction; for the aggressor as well as the defender? ‘Extinction’ is a state that badly needs analysis.” Wohlstetter goes on to make a false comparison, citing 20 million Soviet deaths in non-atomic conflict during the Second World War as an example of astonishing resilience: the country, in short, recovered “extremely well from the catastrophe.”

Resilience becomes part of the semantics of contemplated, and acceptable mass homicide. Emphasis is placed on the bounce-back factor, the ability to recover, even in the face of such weapons. 

These were themes that continued to feature. The 1958 report of the National Security Council’s Net Evaluation Subcommittee pondered what might arise from a Soviet attack in 1961 involving 553 nuclear weapons with a total yield exceeding 2,000 megatons. The conclusion: 50 million Americans would perish in the conflagration, with nine million left sick or injured. The Sino-Soviet bloc would duly receive retaliatory attacks that would kill 71 million people. A month later, a further 196 million would die. In such macabre calculations, the authors of the report could still breezily conclude that “[t]he balance of strength would be on the side of the United States.”

Modern nuclear strategy, in terms of such normalised, clinical lunacy, continues to find form in the tolerance of tactical weapons and modernised arsenals. To be tactical is to be somehow bijou, cute, and contained, accepting mass murder under the guise of moderation and variation. One can be bad, but bad within limits. Such lethal wonders are described, according to a number of views assembled in The New York Times, as “much less destructive” in nature, with “variable explosive yields that could be dialed up or down depending on the military situation.”

The journal Nature prefers a grimmer assessment, suggesting the ultimate calamity of firestorms, excessive soot in the atmosphere, disruption of food production systems, the contamination of soil and water supplies, nuclear winter, and broader climatic catastrophe.

Some of these views are teasingly touched on in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a three-hour cross narrative jumble boisterously expansive and noisy (the music refuses to leave you alone, bruising the senses). While the idea of harnessing an exceptional, exterminating power haunts the scientific community, the Manhattan Project is ultimately functional: developing the atom for military purposes before Hitler does. Once developed, the German side of the equation becomes irrelevant. The urgent quest for creating the atomic weapon becomes the basis for using it. Once left to politics and military strategy, such weapons are normalised, even relativised as simply other instruments in inflicting destruction. Oppenheimer leaves much room to that lunatic creed, though somehow grants the chief scientist moral absolution.

This is a tough proposition, given Oppenheimer’s membership of the Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee that would, eventually, convince President Harry Truman to use the bombs. In their June 16, 1945 recommendations, Oppenheimer, along with Enrico Fermi, Arthur H. Compton and Ernest O. Lawrence, acknowledged dissenting scientific opinions preferring “a purely technical demonstration to that of a purely military application best designed to induce surrender.” The scientific panel proved unequivocal: it could “propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

In the film, those showing preference for a purely technical demonstration are given the briefest of airings. Leo Szilard’s petition arguing against a military use “at least not until the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender” makes a short and sharp appearance, only to vanish. As Seiji Yamada writes, that petition led a short, charmed life, first circulated in the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, only to make its way to Edward Teller at Los Alamos, who then turned it over to Oppenheimer. The petition was, in turn, surrendered to the Manhattan Project’s chief overseer, General Leslie Groves, who “stamped it ‘classified’ and put it in a safe. It therefore never reached Truman.”

Nolan depicts the relativisation argument in some detail – one that justifies mass death in the name of technical prowess – during an interrogation by US circuit judge Roger Robb, appointed as special counsel during the 1954 security hearing against Oppenheimer. In the relevant scene, Robb wishes to trap the hapless scientist for his opposition to creating a weapon of even greater murderous power than the fission devices used against Japan. Why oppose the thermonuclear option, prods the special counsel, given your support for the atomic one? And why did he not oppose the remorseless firebombing raids of Tokyo, conducted by conventional weapons?

Nolan also has the vengeful Lewis Strauss, the two-term chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, moan that Oppenheimer is the less than saintly figure who managed to get away, ethically, with his atomic exploits while moralising about the relentless march about ever more destructive creations. In that sentiment, the Machiavellian ambition monger has a point: the genie, once out, was never going to be put back in.

August 22, 2023 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Lethal weapons to Ukraine – endless war prioritised over diplomacy: Address to United Nations Security Council

 https://popularresistance.org/danny-haiphong-addresses-un-security-council-on-natos-ukraine-aid/ On August 17, 2023, Danny Haiphong spoke to spoke the latest convening of the United Nations Security Council on the dangers that Western arms to Ukraine poses to international peace and stability. He said,

“Today I am here as a journalist who has dedicated the last ten years of my life writing about and speaking out against the long record of human rights abuses and war crimes committed by my country of birth, the United States. I don’t consider this a hobby or even a profession but rather a duty to all of humanity and those who want to see a better and more peaceful future. I am here to as a US citizen who has witnessed tens of billions of US tax dollars go to funding and arming a proxy war against Russia while people in the US, ordinary people, suffer from rising levels of poverty, homelessness, suicide and economic insecurity.”

August 22, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Most ‘experts’ pushing for endless conflict in Ukraine share a common benefactor.

the top 50 think tanks received over a billion dollars from the US government and its defense contractors and manufacturers, including some of the biggest beneficiaries of weapons production today ‘for Ukraine’. The top recipients of this funding include the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America Foundation, RAND Corporation, Center for a New American Security, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Stimson Center.

A whopping 85% of media quotes on US military involvement come from someone paid by the defense industry

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.

rachelmarsden.com 20 Aug 23

Experts with important-sounding titles linked to academic-sounding entities have been shaping hearts and minds in the press, both at home and abroad, in favor of endless conflict in Ukraine. Guess what deep-pocketed benefactor lurks beneath the surface? 

During the Iraq War, the Pentagon backed retired generals to make the rounds of TV and radio shows as ‘military analysts’ to promote the Bush administration’s agenda in the Persian Gulf. It was like inviting Ronald McDonald on a program to debate and discuss the merit of Big Macs. You could almost see the strings attached to the puppets, linked to the military-industrial complex that benefited from war without an off-ramp.

Fast forward 20 years, and the sales tactics have drastically changed. The generals have been replaced by various experts with academic credentials, typically linked to one or more ‘think tanks’. Far from the neutral academic centers of intellectual integrity that the names suggest, these entities are little more than laundromats for discreet special interests. I should know – I used to be a director of one.

Every Wednesday, some of the highest-ranking figures of the Bush administration would come to our Washington, DC office to deliver their main agenda points for the week, requesting assistance in placing and promoting them to both grassroots activists sympathetic to the cause and to the general public. The experts within the think tank were hired based on political litmus tests, no doubt to ensure that their views aligned with the organization’s. When they no longer do, you’re either fired or you leave.

The donors, many of whom were well-known millionaires and billionaires driven by a passion for certain issues, would come straight out and ask for bang for their buck in exchange for the opening of their wallets. In some cases, an entire project or department would be mounted at the think tank with the understanding that it would be fully funded by a single donor. These rich, influential folks typically had business or investment interests that benefited from shaping the establishment narrative in their favor, and they wanted to do so without leaving any footprints. What better way than to have it all fronted by a shiny veneer of expert credibility?

So while the generals of the Iraq War era had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer in representing the interests of the military-industrial complex, the new salesmen of endless armed conflict in Ukraine have overwhelmingly adopted the more subtle model. A study published in 2020 found that the top 50 think tanks received over a billion dollars from the US government and its defense contractors and manufacturers, including some of the biggest beneficiaries of weapons production today ‘for Ukraine’. The top recipients of this funding include the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America Foundation, RAND Corporation, Center for a New American Security, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Stimson Center.

Some of these black boxes are more ideologically-driven than others. The Heritage Foundation, for example, leans overwhelmingly neoconservative and interventionist. Others, like the Atlantic Council and German Marshall Fund, are effectively force multipliers for NATO talking points. But the RAND Corporation also houses systems analysts and scientists specializing in space and computing. The fact that not all of these entities – or even the people who work within some of them – can be tossed into the same basket and labeled mere parrots for the special interests of their organization’s benefactors helps to muddy the waters.

In an analysis published in June of media coverage related to US military involvement in Ukraine, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft found that, when a think tank is cited regarding the issue, 85% of the time it’s a think tank with “financial backing from the defense industry.” Taken at face value, this risks being interpreted by the general public as expert ‘consensus’ on the need for US taxpayers to continue flooding Ukraine with weapons, unaware that it’s really just a bunch of Pentagon-backed actors agreeing with each other about the need to pursue the most profitable course of action on behalf of their War Inc. sugar daddies. Just like when climate scientists, who have parlayed climate change into endless funding and a perpetual justification for their existence, aren’t going to kill their cash cow by arguing that the climate can’t be controlled by man and that throwing cash at the issue – or at them – is futile.

Many of the Ukraine think tank experts are quick to attack analysis and information published on platforms they don’t like – such as RT – as ‘Russian-backed’. You’d have to be living under a rock these days to not know that RT is linked to Russia. No transparency issues there.

But there is far less transparency around their own organizations’ financing. Where is their insistence on being above board about the use of defense industry cash to influence not just the general public but the course of the conflict itself? Around a third of top foreign policy think tanks don’t disclose this Pentagon funding, according to the Quincy Institute. Nor is it unheard of for these experts to springboard from these establishment-friendly platforms and the public notoriety they provide, right into public office – where they can translate the same agenda that they promoted into actionable policy. Isn’t it important for voters to consider the powerful hidden hand who helped to get them there?

August 22, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Threat from the skies: India steps up the fight against a major space danger.

By B R Srikanth, a veteran Bengaluru-based journalist reporting on space and defense, 21 Aug 23,  https://www.rt.com/india/581397-india-space-debris-cleaning-mission/

New Delhi’s ambitious space plans include tackling the problem of floating debris, countless pieces of which orbit the Earth

A spectacular display of celestial fireworks? The momentous arrival of aliens? Or was it a work-in-progress sci-fi flick?

These questions weighed heavily on many minds as Melbourne’s night sky lit up for almost a minute on the night of August 7. The flame raced across the sky before breaking into blazing fragments. A sonic boom shook the ground for a couple of seconds, setting off a panic among residents. A day later, the Australian Space Agency confirmed it was space junk, likely “remnants” of a giant Russian rocket which had hoisted a new navigational satellite into orbit.

A few weeks earlier, a six-foot high cylindrical object, perhaps the fuel tank of an Indian rocket, had washed ashore at Green Head Beach, 250 km north of Perth, Australia. The artificial lighting, the loud explosion, and the large fuel tank found there reignited one question: How to vacuum-clean the graveyard in the deep, dark heavens to safeguard assets worth billions of dollars?

Such assets include satellites circling the Earth at 300 km to 36,000 km, in support of telecommunications, broadcasting, meteorology, civil aviation, telemedicine, distance education, and even espionage (by military satellites launched without fanfare).

Space junk

Outer space contains hundreds of dead satellites, millions of fragments of old satellites and rockets, and even paint flakes; each is hurtling through space at an incredible speed of 10 km a second, with a lethal punch of a 550-pound object. NASA estimates there are around 23,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball, half a million pieces the size of a marble or up to a centimeter, 100 million pieces one millimeter and larger.

Example of space junk include a glove lost by Edward Higgins White during America’s first spacewalk, Michael Collins’ camera lost near Gemini 10, a thermal blanket lost during STS-88, the first space shuttle mission, garbage bags jettisoned by cosmonauts during Mir’s 15-year life, a wrench, and a toothbrush.

Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams lost her camera during her spacewalk from the space shuttle in 2007, and astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper lost a briefcase-sized tool bag during her spacewalk the following year.

And if you think the Hollywood film ‘Gravity’, where a spacecraft is hit by a cloud of space debris (killing George Clooney’s character, and nearly marooning Sandra Bullock) was fiction, then consider that in 1996, a French satellite was hit and damaged by a French rocket that had exploded a decade earlier. Or that on February 10, 2009, a defunct Russian spacecraft collided with and destroyed a USA Iridium commercial spacecraft. The collision over northern Siberia added 2,300 pieces of large trackable debris and a bigger quantity of smaller trash to the existing space junk.

China did not help matters when in 2007 it used a missile to destroy an old weather satellite, creating 3,500 pieces of large debris. In 2016, a tiny piece of debris punched a hole in the solar panel of the European Space Agency (ESA) observation satellite, Copernicus Sentinel 1A. Even the Hubble Telescope’s solar array shows hundreds of tiny holes caused by dust-sized debris.

The risk of trash colliding with satellites could spiral higher in the future, K R Sridhara Murthy, Honorary Director and former vice president of Paris-based International Institute of Space Law (IISL), and a former senior scientist of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), told RT.

This is because a large number of private companies – SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon Kuiper, Guo Wang (China), Samsung (Korea), and Astrome Tech (India) plan to add a whopping 75,000 satellites within a decade to provide global communication networks (superfast internet services), and Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) to track ships (including those of pirates) among other benefits.

Though smaller than conventional satellites, they will crowd the low earth orbit (LEO), about 400 km from the ground, and multiply the number already in this sphere. “More companies are joining the race to position their satellites in orbit because the economics of satellite launch are changing drastically owing to reduction in the cost of putting a satellite into orbit and the deployment of reusable rockets,” Murthy added.

Need for self-discipline

Nations have not been unmindful of the hazards of space junk. The USA and the former USSR tracked objects measuring four inches or more from the Cold War era using a string of radars. NASA and the US Defense Department’s Space Surveillance Network (SSN) have cataloged more than 27,000 pieces of debris, and track each piece’s trajectory.

Not surprisingly, nations with ambitions in space, including India, are setting up facilities to track the burgeoning amount of trash. 

The importance of tracking can be gauged when even the voyage of a rocket into space is delayed by a couple of minutes to prevent debris from causing a disastrous impact on missions, Dr. Mylswami Annadurai, the “Moon man of India” and former director of ISRO’s Prof. U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, told RT. He said that ISRO delayed the launch of its rockets three times to avoid a piece of space junk: a one-minute delay in the blast-offs in 2011 and 2016 and a three-minute hold in 2014

All space agencies realize the need for self-discipline in outer space and try not to disturb the operations of other satellites when decommissioning an old and defunct one. “For example, we (ISRO) brought down Megha-Tropiques (a satellite designed jointly and launched by ISRO and CNES of France in 2011 to study tropical atmosphere in the context of climate change) last year with the help of fuel available onboard without causing damage to any other satellite,” Rao said.

Last month, Indian space scientists reduced the altitude of the last stage of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket as part of its initiative to avoid creating more space junk. “Left alone at a 536 km circular orbit, the PSLV4 stage would orbit the Earth for over 25 years. As the number of satellites in LEO (low earth orbit) is growing and the space around this orbit is of particular interest, the orbit of the spent PSLV4 was reduced to 300 km,” said the ISRO’s spokesperson.

“Everybody wants to clear outer Space of debris, but how to do it is a billion-dollar question,” K Sivan, former Chairman of ISRO, explained to RT. “We are part of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC). This international governmental forum coordinates global efforts to reduce debris by sharing research and identifying debris mitigation options.”

When Sivan was at the helm, ISRO established a radar at the Deep Space Network Station on the outskirts of Bengaluru as part of a project, called ‘Nethra’, to track junk in outer space and to share the data with other space agencies. Earlier, ISRO established the Multi-Object Tracking Radar at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, the country’s spaceport just off the eastern coast in Odisha, to track the trajectory of 10 pieces of space junk and share the data with IADC.

According to Sivan’s predecessor, Gopalan Madhavan Nair, options include preventing new debris, designing satellites to withstand the impact of minor pieces, and improving procedures such as using orbits with less trash.

“Earlier, we used to allow the last stage of our PSLV rocket, along with some fuel, to drift away after launching the satellite, but now we make sure that the fuel (propellant) is exhausted to prevent an explosion of the last stage, or it is used to push the last stage closer to the Earth. Eventually, the last stage will drift further down and burn on re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” he said, alluding to the recent manoeuver.

Clearing efforts

In 2018, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNDIR) proposed three A-SAT (anti-satellite) test guidelines for preventing junk in outer space. No consensus, however, has been reached among space-faring nations on the policies.

To mitigate the hazards of vast amounts of junk in outer space, the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, has launched a project to develop a sprawling net akin to the one used by fishermen, to trap and drag down the trash. Many private companies are working on similar methods to cart away the garbage through operations that could fetch them millions of dollars.

ESA has teamed up with a consortium led by Swedish start-up, ClearSpace, to remove all ESA-owned, defunct satellites in the LEO. Their mission, ClearSpace1, will be launched in 2025 to capture a 100-kg upper-stage left orbit after the second flight of ESA’s Vega launcher in 2013. During follow-up missions, ESA will attempt multi-object captures.

Other space agencies and private enterprises could follow suit, each with unique techniques to reduce the trash in outer space by 2050. Space scientists, however, feel new satellite observation methods, too, ought to be developed to forecast the trajectory of orbiting satellites and debris to avoid collisions.

August 22, 2023 Posted by | India, space travel | Leave a comment

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