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‘Independent’ Ukrainian ‘kill list’ actually run by Kiev, backed by Washington

Myrotvorets lists thousands of “saboteurs”, “separatists”, “terrorists” and “traitors”. Sometimes, it has crossed out their photographs once they had been killed, with the label “liquidated”.

Mint Press, MAY 12TH, 2023, DAVID MILLER

Late last year, my name was added to a blacklist published online by the Ukraine Center for Countering Disinformation. I joined over ninety others deemed to be “speakers who promote narratives consonant with Russian propaganda.“

These included Manuel Pineda and Clare Daly, both leftist Members of the European Parliament (MEP); Also counted are people on the right, such as Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, neocon and former IDF officer Edward Luttwak, a slew of rightist MEPs; Ex CIA officer, Ray McGovern; former military and intelligence figures such as Scott Ritter and Douglas McGregor, as well as academics such as John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs. Journalists on the list included Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson and Eva Bartlett, Roger Waters from Pink Floyd, and even actor Steven Seagal.

What was my crime? It said my “pro-Russian narrative” was claiming that “NATO’s proxy war with Russia is taking place in Ukraine”. Of course, a NATO proxy war is exactly what is happening there, as this article will only further confirm.

The listing helpfully provided a link with the evidence, an article I wrote for Mayadeen English called “How disinformation works: Western intelligence agencies global war on the left.” It contained a single, 176-word  paragraph on Ukraine titled “‘Russian Disinformation’ or Ukrainian lies?” It recounted several examples of Ukrainian misinformation and concluded that “Anyone who mentions any particular truth is derided for echoing Putin’s ‘talking points’.” In the event I was actually denounced as an “information terrorist” who might be guilty of “war crimes.”

Being added to the blacklist concentrates the mind wonderfully on the forces ranged against the possibility of truth and justice in the crisis-ridden West. When I was first accused, over a decade ago now, of antisemitism, my response was to intensify my research and writing activities on the organizations involved in defaming me. Since then I have produced a long catalog of work on the Zionist movement as well as on Western propaganda activities. Of course, the defamatory attacks encourage an atmosphere where social media threats can be made. But the issue of Nazism in Ukraine will be seen in retrospect as a defining issue of our era and it is important to remember that the reason I and many others are threatened by the Ukraine government and their NATO backers is because we in turn threaten to expose them for what they are: Nazi collaborators.

As it turns out, the covert “kill list” website is a product of the Ukraine regime, effectively funded by the CIA (amongst others) and is hosted by NATO. One extraordinary thing is that many American citizens, including ex-military and intelligence operatives, are included, as well as a significant number of citizens of NATO member countries. Perhaps the most remarkable element is that NATO has hosted the site (and a collection of affiliated websites) on its servers in Brussels. At the same time as NATO think tank the Atlantic Council boasts that Henry Kissinger is on its Board of Directors, NATO also hosts a kill list website on which Kissinger appears.

As it turns out, the covert “kill list” website is a product of the Ukraine regime, effectively funded by the CIA (amongst others) and is hosted by NATO. One extraordinary thing is that many American citizens, including ex-military and intelligence operatives, are included, as well as a significant number of citizens of NATO member countries. Perhaps the most remarkable element is that NATO has hosted the site (and a collection of affiliated websites) on its servers in Brussels. At the same time as NATO think tank the Atlantic Council boasts that Henry Kissinger is on its Board of Directors, NATO also hosts a kill list website on which Kissinger appears.

•Psb-news.org (3 April 2015)
•Psb4ukr.ninja (19 April 2015)
•Psb4ukr.net (7 May 2015)
•Psbr4ukr.xyz (8 November 2015)
•Report2psb.online (19 August 2017)

These were used either as mirror sites, as digest news from the site, or, in the case of the last one, a form for reporting suspects. The Myrotvorets.center domain name was first registered on 7 November 2015 and the site was live by February 2016.

Three people are associated with these domains and they provide valuable clues to who and what was involved in the kill list site. They are:

Victor/Viktor Garbar is a longstanding Maidan activist and co-ordinator of the Maidan Monitoring Information Center…………………………………….

Vladimir/Volodymyr Kolesnikov is a webmaster and developer.  …………

Oksana/Oxana Tinko………..

OPERATION BUTTERFLY – THE PROTOTYPE KILL LIST

Tinko is also the registrant of a series of domains that appear to be components of the Myrotvorets project and one that appears to have been a prototype. It is particularly stark in its intention to use the website to kill traitors or “terrorists”. ……………….

Operation Butterfly website FAQs make it clear that it considers calling “for separatism or changes in the constitutional system” a crime. ……………………………………..

Myrotvorets lists thousands of “saboteurs”, “separatists”, “terrorists” and “traitors”. Sometimes, it has crossed out their photographs once they had been killed, with the label “liquidated”. This, for instance, happened after the murder of Daria Dugina in Moscow in August 2022. Today the Myrotvorets site houses links to two other domains which appear to be integral parts of the operation. One – ordilo.org – is titled “STORAGE OF INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMES AGAINST UKRAINE”. The other – identigraf.center – allows various categories of users to submit images of individuals for facial recognition scanning. Tinko registered both domains.

THE NATO CONNECTION

Kolesnikov and Tinko were successive registrants on Natocdn.work (from March 11, 2015).  Tinko registered a follow on domain Natocdn.net (28 January 2019). These obscure-sounding web addresses were used to host the files needed for the Myrotvorets site as can be seen by examining the “page source”(right-click in Chrome and select “View page source”) on the site including in versions held in the Internet Archive. The first domain name (.work) was previously used to host both the original and succeeding Myrotvorets web sites. Thus it is in the page source on psb4ukr.org on 15 December 2015 just before the launch of the myrotvorets.center website, and is in the latter page source when it was first captured in the internet archive on 25 February 2016. The archive also shows that the latter domain was later hosted via Natocdn.net.

The letters CDN perhaps refer to a Content Delivery Network, a device to speed up the delivery of web pages when they are searched from an otherwise remote location, such as the California based name servers also used by the site. In fact, the Natocdn.net domain is hosted at none other than the official website NATO.int, based at its headquarters in Brussels…………………………………………….

It is also noteworthy, however, that a Ukraine Ministry of Defense psyops Powerpoint from 2015, leaked in the same month of that year (April), refers to the NATO cyber center as one of seven Western groups with which it had “cooperation”.

Nevertheless, the link to the NATO servers remained in the page source of the Myrotvorets websites. It was not until the NATO connection became an issue again in late August 2022 that anything was done about this. This was after Henry Kissinger had been added to the site in May. Then on August 24, independent journalist Eva Bartlett (who was named on both the Myrotvorets and Center for Countering Disinformation lists) reported that the page source code for Myrotvorets included links to resources held at psb4ukr.natocdn.net. Later, on October 14, she drew attention to the fact that Elon Musk had been listed on the site briefly after he threatened not to continue supplying his Starlink system to the Ukraine military for free. Musk responded “Is this list real?” Within eight days the page source links to natocdn.net were gone.

……………………………………. More than one hundred links to natocdn.net were still there on October 21, 2022 at 22:35 but were all gone by the next morning at 09:14. Even after the incriminating text was removed, however, IP tracking sites show the domain natocdn.net is still, at the time of writing (Archive version), mounted on servers at NATO headquarters in Brussels. In fact, many of the image files used to make up the site are still hosted at that URL including the gory front page collage of alleged dead Russian soldiers. (Archive version).

But what of Informnapalm.org – the other site which appears to have been hosted on nato.int? The evidence suggests that Myrotvorets is a project of InformNapalm.

INFORMNAPALM AS A UKRAINE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE “SPECIAL PROJECT”

InformNapalm presents itself as a volunteer-run intelligence service. But this is a deception. A Ukrainian Ministry of Defense PowerPoint presentation leaked in 2015 refers to it as a “special project” of the ministry, along with a number of others who themselves stand in need of further investigation.

Corroborating information comes in the form of the identity of the person who registered the domain name informnapalm.org – the aforementioned Vladimir Kolesnikov on March 29 2014, six months before the first of the kill list domains were registered…………………………. Myrotvorets is, therefore, a project of InformNaplam which is, in turn, a ”special project” of the Ministry of Defense.

Other links between the two projects include that Oksana Tinko, in registering the domain Myrotverots.center, used her informnapalm.org email address…………..

Tinko is fond of displaying Nazi and Banderite imagery on her social media. There is a swastika on her Github page and her Facebook profile features a background with the red and black colors of Bandera and a star of David together with a reptilian dressed as an orthodox Jew.

The journalist George Eliason who excavated much of the story of InformNapalm reports that the people involved are “mostly Pravy Sektor” (Right Sector), in other words far right supporters of Stepan Bandera.  Pravy Sektor uses the red and black colors of Bandera in its flag, just as Tinko does on her Facebook profile. In late 2019 Myrotvorets proudly displayed a portrait of Bandera on its homepage to mark the Nazi collaborator’s birthday.

picture below is not from Myrotvorets

In the early days of the Myrotvorets project the InformNapalm logo was prominently displayed. It was still there on May 13, 2016, but was gone by August of that year.  This may have been because of its publication of the list of thousands of journalists’ names which caused significant backlash and led to a statement that “taking into account the reaction… the Center ‘Peacemaker’ made a difficult decision to close the site.” The site did not shutter, however. By 2017, Myrotvorets continued to boast of its links with InformNapalm,……………..

It would appear that InformNapalm is the parent or coordinating body for an evolving team of pro-Ukrainian hackers, researchers, journalists and devotees of the far right.

………………………… PROMETHEUS

It is a matter of public record that InformationNapalm has been funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA proxy. For example, in its now deleted list of funding for UKraine, the NED reported that $100,000 was given to a project of “Prometheus”. t would “conduct open-source investigations that monitor and spotlight external Russian military actions and post them on its popular and trusted website, https://informnapalm.org”. The Prometheus domain Prometheus.ngo was also registered by Volodymyr Kolesnykov on March 11, 2016.

Prometheus advertises two “information partners” in its operation, InformNapalm and The Ukraine Media Crisis Center. InformNapalm, created in early 2014, obviously only became a project of Prometheus after the latter was created in 2016.

The Ukraine Crisis Media Center is of course another Western-funded project.  It even admits to a long list of Western State funding on its website (including USAID, Embassies of the U.S., Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Germany), as well as military/intelligence funding agencies such as the NED, NATO, the U.K. based Institute for Statecraft (a military intelligence cut out), regime change enthusiasts at the Soros network of foundations and the Open Information Partnership an MI6 funded project from the U.K., in which Bellingcat and other MI6 contractors were/are involved.

An avalanche of Western cash has been showered on such organizations, all of which appear to have gone to some trouble to disguise their real origins and connections (including to each other), not to mention their affiliations to the Banderite far right.

BACK TO NATO

InformNaplam boasts in its list of achievements of working closely with NATO run groups ……………………………………..

These boasts put both the DFR Lab and Bellingcat in the frame as collaborators with the Nazi kill list, which is itself based on the OSINT techniques pioneered by both groups. Now that we know that the “volunteers” of Mirotvorets, InformNapalm and the Ukraine Hacker Alliance are a project of the Ukrainian government with significant NATO support, the role of the DFR Labs and Bellingcat appears to be part of that support for the Nazi kill list.

In the West, these Nazi collaborators and apologists attempt to push an altogether softer narrative. ……………..

……..the evidence here supports the contention that NATO is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. There is a link between the Nazi kill list and the blacklist to which I was added and that is that both are operations of the regime in Kiev. ………………………………….

Finally,  it seems likely a key reason why the Nazi kill list remains online is that it is protected by the regime, the U.S. government and NATO.

Professor David Miller is a non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University and a former Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol. He is a broadcaster, writer and investigative researcher; the producer of the weekly show Palestine Declassified on PressTV; and the co-director of Public Interest Investigations, of which spinwatch.org and powerbase.info are projects. He tweets @Tracking_Powe  https://www.mintpressnews.com/independent-ukraine-kill-list-actually-run-by-kiev-backed-by-washington/284639/

May 30, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | | 1 Comment

Review | Netflix drama review: The Days – Fukushima nuclear disaster series starring Koji Yakusho is an enthralling account of the 2011 event, with strong hints of HBO’s Chernobyl

  • Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster, caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, is the focus of this series produced by Warner Bros Japan
  • Koji Yakusho stars as Yoshida, who leads the response efforts on the ground, while Fumiyo Kohinata plays the Japanese prime minister

James Marsh, 29 May, 2023

4/5 stars

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster of 2011 is the subject of The Days, an enthralling new drama series starring Koji Yakusho, Fumiyo Kohinata and Yutaka Takenouchi.

The eight-episode series, produced by Warner Bros Japan, re-enacts the catastrophic impact of the Tohoku earthquake, the largest such event recorded in Japan’s history, which caused a giant tsunami to hit the country’s eastern seaboard on the afternoon of March 11, 2011.

The combination of these events, which struck the power plant with great force and in quick succession, triggered the most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

Creator Jun Masumoto cites three specific publications as primary sources: The Yoshida Testimony, station manager Masao Yoshida’s first-hand account of events; the official Fukushima Nuclear Accident Analysis Report; and journalist Ryusho Kadota’s bestselling book On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi, for which he interviewed more than 90 people who responded to the accident.

…………………………………………………….. The Days will start streaming on Netflix on June 1.  https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3222130/netflix-drama-review-days-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-series-starring-koji-yakusho-enthralling

May 30, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, media, Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

U.S. planning test reactor to run on weapons-grade uranium.

Use of highly enriched fuel in civilian reactor would contravene decades-old nonproliferation policy

23 MAY 2023, BYADRIAN CHO,  https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-planning-test-reactor-run-weapons-grade-uranium

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is planning a small test reactor that would burn a large amount of weapons-grade uranium, according to the project’s draft environmental assessment. The experiment, to be built in a cost-sharing arrangement, would provide data for a new type of power reactor being developed by TerraPower and Southern Company Services. But the use of highly enriched uranium, first reported by Physics Today, would contravene the U.S. policy of removing HEU from civilian reactors around the world to keep it from being made into bombs.

The decision is “discouraging,” says Edwin Lyman, a physicist and director for nuclear safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “When the U.S. preaches the nonproliferation gospel, it should practice what it preaches.” Alan Kuperman, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, says, “There was not by any means adequate public disclosure by the department that they were planning to contradict
5 decades of U.S. nonproliferation policy.”

Neither DOE nor Idaho National Laboratory (INL), where the test reactor will be built, would comment on the issue

The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) would differ dramatically from conventional power reactors. They consume uranium fuel enriched to roughly 4% uranium-235, the fissile isotope, and encased in metal rods. Some uranium atoms split or fission to release energy and neutrons, which then split other uranium atoms in a chain reaction. Pressurized water flows around the rods both to slow the neutrons so that they split atoms more effectively and to carry heat to steam generators that ultimately drive turbines to generate electricity.

The MCRE would instead be cooled by molten salt, into which the uranium would be dissolved. In theory, a molten salt reactor could burn used fuel from conventional reactors and generate less long-lived radioactive waste, Kuperman says. Because the salt would not slow the neutrons, the reactor would need fuel with higher enrichment, which would generate more neutrons.

TerraPower’s commercial reactor would use fuel enriched to as much as 19% uranium-235, so-called high-assay, low-enriched fuel. But the MCRE will run on HEU enriched to greater than 90%—630 kilograms of it. That’s hundreds of times more than some research reactors use and enough to make dozens of bombs, Kuperman estimates. The uranium is leftover from another research reactor that ran at INL from 1969 to 1990, he says.

Running on HEU should enable the MCRE to produce the data needed to design and license the molten-salt power reactor while remaining relatively small and inexpensive, Lyman says. DOE would cover $90 million of the MCRE’s $113 million cost, and the reactor would start up in a few years. But its thrifty design would cost the United States credibility, says John Tierney, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “This is going to be seen as hypocritical by many, many people.”

In the 1950s and ’60s, the U.S. helped build research reactors around the world, providing HEU for many of them. In the 1970s, it changed course and led efforts to remove HEU from those reactors and repatriate it. Of the 171 research reactors that ran on HEU, 71 have switched to low-enriched fuel and
28 have shut down, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency—although five U.S. research reactors still use HEU.

The issue highlights a tension between DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, which is eager to develop new reactors, and its National Nuclear Security Administration, which controls nuclear weapons and works for nonproliferation, Kuperman says. He and others have drafted a letter to DOE and President Joe Biden’s administration to encourage them to reconsider the plan. “If they make the wrong decision, I think they’re going to undermine much more of the nonproliferation regime than they realize.”

May 30, 2023 Posted by | Uranium, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Pacific islanders are not convinced that the release of Fukushima wastewater is safe

“………………………………………..Selling the water release plan to the Pacific

Nuclear experts from South Korea, which has been hostile to the planned discharge, have this week been given an unprecedented six-day personalised tour of the Fukushima plant.

The prime minister of the Cook Islands and chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Mark Brown, said there had been an increase in “more intense dialogue” with Japan, and he was presently happy with the level of transparency………………..

Dozens rally against water release

However, a series of public relations disasters by TEPCO have fuelled public distrust in the plan.

There have been numerous cases where TEPCO failed to reveal that tainted water had leaked into the sea.

Local media also exposed that most water storage tanks did contain water still contaminated with dangerous radioactive elements, such as the cancer-causing strontium-90, despite TECPO’s assurances this was not the case.

TEPCO now says about a third of the tanks are ready for release, and water not up to standards will be reprocessed until it is.

“They don’t provide true information,” said Gen Hirai, a protester who gathered outside the company’s headquarters in May.

“It’s a company that blocks information to citizens.”

What do surrounding countries think of the plan?

Earlier in May, the Solomon Islands reportedly rebuked an offer from Japan to step up maritime cooperation, citing the planned Fukushima discharge.

“Japan keeps emphasising the significance of maritime security, they still decided to dump the radioactive wastewater into the ocean,” the Solomon Star reported from a government source.

Whereas Papua New Guinea (PNG) is reportedly softening its stance to accept Japan’s position.

But PNG Prime Minister James Marape couldn’t be drawn on whether the country would support Japan’s plan, saying it was “another conversation.”…………..  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-26/treated-fukushima-water-to-flow-into-pacific-oaten/102380592

May 30, 2023 Posted by | OCEANIA, oceans | Leave a comment

Thawing glaciers around Everest show critical need to stop greenhouse emissions

 Helen Clark – former prime minister of New Zealand: Global temperature
rises mean that Everest, in common with mountains across the Himalayas, is
undergoing unprecedented and irreversible change. The 79 glaciers that
surround Everest have thinned by more than 100 metres (328ft) in just six
decades, and the rate of thinning has nearly doubled since 2009.

Communities at the top of the world are crying out to world leaders for
help. Humanity has a mountain to climb in reaching the aspirations of the
Paris Agreement. The only hope is for concerted global action to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions dramatically to save the world’s snow and ice
before it is too late.

 Times 29th May 2023

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/as-everest-shows-action-on-climate-change-is-critical-lswbmvlps

May 30, 2023 Posted by | ASIA, climate change | Leave a comment

Taiwan Considers Keeping Nuclear Reactors on Emergency Standby

Cindy Wang and Stephen Stapczynski, Mon, May 29, 2023 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/taiwan-considers-keeping-nuclear-reactors-022439242.html

(Bloomberg) — Taiwan is considering keeping nuclear power plants on standby in case of emergencies, signaling a loosening of policy to phase out the energy source.The government plans to maintain shut reactors so that they could be restarted in an emergency, Taipei-based United Daily News reported, citing Vice President Lai Ching-te, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate. It’s the first time the government has signaled it’s possible to restart plants, United Daily News said.

The use of nuclear as backup generation would be unusual because of the high costs and safety measures required. Taiwan’s plans to phase out its last remaining atomic plant by 2025 go against a global resurgence of the technology to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The island is also seeking to reduce coal consumption, leaving the government under pressure to build out gas-powered generation and offshore wind to avoid power shortages.

A restart strategy would only be needed in extreme emergencies, such as external blockades or serious natural disaster, and would need to be safe and have consensus among lawmakers and the public, Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua told reporters on Monday.

Taiwan got about 11% of its power from nuclear in 2021, according to state-owned Taiwan Power Co. It has two operating reactors that started in the 1980s and which are slated to close next year and in 2025.

May 30, 2023 Posted by | ENERGY, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Sea level rise will “disappear” California’s famed beaches

 California is known for golden sands and endless waves, but much of the
state’s famous shoreline could vanish in the future. That’s according
to a new study, which found that between 25% and 70% of California beaches
might be washed away by the end of the century, leaving only cliffs or
coastal infrastructure in their wake.

 Guardian 27th May 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/27/california-beaches-erosion-2100-study

May 30, 2023 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Insurance giant halts sale of new home policies in California due to wildfires

 The insurance giant State Farm, America’s biggest car and home insurer
by premium volume, will halt the sale of new home insurance policies in
California, citing wildfire risk and inflation of construction costs.
Starting on Saturday, the company will not accept insurance applications
for business and personal lines property and casualty insurance. The
company will still accept auto insurance applicants.

 Guardian 27th May 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/27/state-farm-home-insurance-california-wildfires

May 30, 2023 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

‘Cold feet’: Big problems emerge in controversial US-Australia submarine deal

The US seems to be getting cold feet over giving Australia one of its most secret weapons, with a new report revealing eight critical, unanswered questions.

The first USS Virginia-class submarine entered service in 2004. Since then, another 37 have been built or ordered. And an unknown number of those completed before 2017 incorporate low-grade steel supplied under a quality-control corruption scandal.

Jamie Seidel  https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/cold-feet-big-problems-emerge-in-controversial-usaustralia-submarine-deal/news-story/80ffc6683018f7eaa4bf417559fe673e 29 May 23

US Congress appears to be getting cold feet over giving Australia one of its most secret weapons.

Meanwhile, it’s pressing ahead with plans to redesign its nuclear submarines to suit America’s specific needs – not Australia’s.

The Congressional Research Service report, Navy Virginia Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, pulls no punches about the core project behind former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s 2021 defence collaboration announcement.

The document, issued late last week, specifies eight critical unanswered questions of concern.

• When will the deal be authorised?

• Will it approve the sale of two, or “some other number” of US submarines?

• When will these submarines be removed from the US Navy?

• Will they be old submarines? Newly-built submarines? Or a mix of both?

• How much will Australia pay? And how much will it subsidise the upgrade of US shipyards?

• Can the US meet its own submarine needs as well as those of Australia?

• Will the project make any difference in deterring China?

• What are the risks versus the benefits of giving Australia such immensely secret nuclear and submarine technology?

“Selling three to five Virginia-class boats to Australia would reduce the size of the US Navy’s SSN force by three to five boats,” the report states.

Seller’s remorse?

The report says sceptics of the deal believe “it could weaken deterrence of potential Chinese aggression if China were to find reason to believe, correctly or not, that Australia might use the transferred Virginia-class boats less effectively than the US Navy would”.

That’s not just a matter of the skills and training of Australian submariners.

It’s also an admission of concern that this may effectively mean the US had lost two to five submarines if Canberra doesn’t automatically participate in US conflicts.

“Australia might not involve its military, including its Virginia-class boats, in US-China crises or conflicts that Australia viewed as not engaging important Australian interests,” the report warns.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said as much in March when he revealed Australia had “absolutely not” promised to do Washington’s bidding when it came to Taiwan.

And that would diminish US Naval fleet numbers even further, unless the Australian submarines were replaced.

Sceptics of the SSN AUKUS pathway might argue that it would be more cost-effective for US SSNs to perform both US and Australian SSN missions while Australia invests in other types of military forces, so as to create a capacity for performing other military missions for both Australia and the United States.”

But behind the debate is a simple equation of supply and demand.

“In a nutshell, the challenge for the industrial base – both shipyards and supplier firms – is to ramp up production from one ‘regular’ Virginia-class boat’s work per year … to the equivalent of about five ‘regular’ Virginia-class boats’ work per year.”

It adds that no such additional purchase orders have yet been made and that doubts surround the ability of US naval yards to meet the extra demand. The US has only two shipyards capable of building nuclear-powered submarines.

The report warns that – even under pre-AUKUS plans – the US Navy’s desire to sustain a minimum of 66 nuclear attack submarines is likely to be unachievable.

The current number of 49 is expected to fall to 46 by 2028, with existing building programs only lifting this number to 60 by 2052.

Buyer beware?

The first USS Virginia-class submarine entered service in 2004. Since then, another 37 have been built or ordered. And an unknown number of those completed before 2017 incorporate low-grade steel supplied under a quality-control corruption scandal.

But the US Navy has since shifted production towards a bigger version of the submarine. A 25m-long hull section will be added to carry four large vertical launch tubes. This allows the design to carry extra Tomahawk cruise missiles or drones.

The Congressional report puts the cost of these at $US4.3 billion ($6.5 billion) each.

And the US Navy has this year requested another modified version of the submarine.

Designated the “Modified VIRGINIA Class Subsea and Seabed Warfare (Mod VA SSW) configuration”, this design is no longer optimised for the attack submarine role.

Instead, it will be equipped to conduct seabed sabotage operations against infrastructure such as undersea internet cables.

This version will cost about $US5.4 billion ($8.1 billion).

Australia may offset some of the cost of buying US submarines and upgrading US submarine facilities by providing a new base for US and UK operations.

London and Washington hope to begin basing nuclear attack submarines at HMAS Stirling, near Perth, in 2027.

This “Submarine Rotational Forces – West” facility will play host to year-long visits from both nations to provide training for ADF personnel and a support base for operations in the Indian Ocean, Andaman Sea and South China Sea.

“This rotational force will help build Australia’s stewardship,” a senior Biden administration official said earlier this month.

“It will also bolster deterrence with more US and UK submarines forward in the Indo-Pacific.”

High stakes game

The Beijing-controlled South China Morning Post news service has released previously secret details of a submarine incident in January 2021.

Quoting a Chinese military research paper, it says three US surveillance planes had engaged in a “hunt” for People’s Liberation Army submarines.

One of the aircraft, it claims, was met with a “significant” military response when it closed to within 150km of Hong Kong.

“The PLA, which was conducting a naval exercise in the area, responded swiftly by sending out a counter force, the size and nature of which remains classified,” the Post states.

“The two forces were so close that the US military ‘self-destroyed’ its floating sonars to prevent the sensitive devices from falling into China’s hands.”

US Indo-Pacific Command told The War Zone that one of its P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft had been intercepted in the South China Sea. It denied it had breached any international boundaries.

“The US P-8A that flew on 5 Jan 2021 was intercepted twice in international airspace between Woody Island and Hainan Island roughly 500km from Hong Kong,” a statement reads.

“US and allied aircraft routinely fly in international airspace to maintain situational awareness and reinforce international norms.”

Hainan Island houses one of China’s main naval bases. This includes piers and dry-docks suited to its new aircraft carriers. And tunnels have been dug into the side of a rocky peninsula to house submarines.

Military analysts regard China’s submarine technology as being “decades” behind that of the US and Russia.

But Moscow’s precarious international position after its invasion of Ukraine has raised fears it may be willing to swap the technology with Beijing for material support.

And China’s newest diesel-electric “Yuan” class submarines reportedly demonstrate new levels of quietness, carry advanced sonars and “might be actually pretty good at anti-submarine warfare,” says Hudson Institute Center for Defence Concepts and Technology senior fellow Bryan Clark.

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel

May 29, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

Public health expert says Fukushima waste water release a retrograde step

ABCNewsAustralia 30 May 23 Operators of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which was destroyed by a massive tsunami followed by nuclear meltdowns in March 2011, are set to release treated wastewater into the ocean in coming months.

Public health expert Tilman Ruff says the danger with dumping the contaminated water is that it could settle on the sea floor or concentrate up the food chain.

May 29, 2023 Posted by | OCEANIA, oceans | Leave a comment

Atmospheric Testing of Nuclear Weapons in the 1950s and 1960s

May 27, 2023, Dr Ian Fairlea,  https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/atmospheric-testing-of-nuclear-weapons-in-the-1950s-and-1960s/

Radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s caused the greatest exposure of man-made radiation to humankind.

The radiation dose to the world’s population from these tests was estimated by UNSCEAR in 1993 at 30 million person-sieverts, which was 50 times more than the 600,000 person-sieverts from the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

The cumulative explosive power of the tests corresponded to 545 million tons of TNT, equivalent to 40,000 atomic bombs of the size dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

However surprisingly few epidemiological studies of the possible health effects of atmospheric testing have ever been conducted. The few that were carried out had inconclusive results: no clear signature of raised leukemias, for example, was observed. But we should always apply the strict rule in epidemiology that absence of evidence does not provide evidence of absence (Altman and Bland, 1993). It just means that we have not been able to find the evidence yet.

However Dr Alfred Körblein, an independent researcher in Germany, has just found clear evidence. He has just published (Körblein, 2023) the results of his own statistical study of data on infant deaths from UNSCEAR (1993) data and other sources. He concluded that, after the atmospheric bomb tests, infant deaths definitely increased both in the United States and in Europe including the UK. He hypothesised this was an effect of radioactivity from bomb fallout (from strontium-90) on the immune systems of pregnant women.

In more detail, what Körblein’s study shows is that the bomb tests resulted in very high levels of radioactive fallout which remained suspended in the northern hemisphere for years afterwards. He reproduces charts showing high levels of strontium-90 fallout: similar levels of radioactive caesium-137, carbon-14, iodine-131, hydrogen-3 (tritium) and other nuclides would also have occurred at the same time.

These radionuclides would have been inhaled and ingested by everyone in the northern hemisphere, including pregnant women. We know that the immune systems of developing embryos and fetuses in pregnant women are extremely sensitive to radiation. The evidence produced in the study clearly shows increased levels of perinatal deaths (between >24 weeks’ gestation and 7 days after birth) and neonatal deaths (within 28 days of birth) in several countries including the UK. In other words, the radioactivity from these bomb tests is thought to have produced teratogenic effects in the offspring of pregnant women in the years during and following the bomb tests.

Körblein concludes that “atmospheric nuclear weapons testing may be responsible for the deaths of several million babies in the Northern Hemisphere”. I agree with his analysis and his sobering conclusion.  Here is a rough cross-check. If we accept the dose modelling carried out by UNSCEAR in their 1993 estimate of 30 million person-sieverts (which I accept) and apply a commonly-used risk factor for fatal cancer of 10% per Sv, then we arrive at a crude figure of 3 million deaths – similar to Korblein’s estimate.

REFERENCES


Altman DG and Bland JM (1995) Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. British Medical Journal. 311 (19 August): 485. doi:10.1136/bmj.311.7003.485.

Körblein A (2023) Statistical modeling of trends in infant mortality after atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. PLoS ONE 18(5): e0284482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284482

UNSCEAR (1993) United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. UNSCEAR 1993 report to the General Assembly. United Nations, New York.

May 29, 2023 Posted by | children, Reference, weapons and war | 1 Comment

CAN PAK-INDIA NUCLEAR DETERRENCE HOLD?

The nuclearisation of South Asia can be analysed from different angles.

Dawn Ejaz Haider May 28, 2023 

Exactly 25 years ago, on May 28, Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests (a sixth was done on May 30). The tests were a response to India’s five nuclear tests, conducted on May 11 and 13. Both governments, after the tests, declared a moratorium on further testing. A quarter century since May 1998, they have stuck to the moratorium, though neither has signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

………………………………..We should be less sanguine about deterrence holding in all situations. Indeed, there’s now growing literature about the world being “on the cusp of a Third Nuclear Age” where a number of factors are likely to make the old belief in deterrence increasingly problematic if not entirely untenable.

This article primarily deals with India and Pakistan, a nuclear dyad in conflict. But some of the observations here are also applicable to other NWSs, including those whose possession of nuclear weapons have been “legitimised” by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

WHAT IS THE THIRD NUCLEAR AGE?

In a 2021 article for European Journal of International Security, titled Strategic non-nuclear weapons and the onset of a Third Nuclear Age, Andrew Future and Benjamin Zala describe the Third Nuclear Age as the combination of Second Nuclear Age thinking — i.e., deployment of Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons (SNNWs) — “with the return of the kind of major power competition associated with the First Nuclear Age.” This combo, as experts have begun to note, is highly dangerous.

…………………………………………………………………………………….. we are witnessing the use of info war by both Ukraine/NATO and Russia. Misinformation and disinformation campaigns, as is now widely known, serve to undermine trust in public institutions and governments. They are also essential tools in influencing perceptions.

INTEGRATION, AI AND THE KILL CHAIN

While the SNNW technologies [ Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons ] are disrupting the battlefield by getting increasingly more accurate and sophisticated, there’s the additional problem of cross-tech/cross-platform integration that is concentrating and increasing firepower devastatingly.

Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) are also likely, by most accounts, to take the human out of the decision-making loop. This is not hypothetical, since multiple such systems are being tested and prototypes developed. Another problem is the presence of SNNWs in a nuclear environment, such as between a nuclear dyad.

Since they “constitute an employable and credible weapon system that can engage the sources of enemy power directly, skipping the tactical and operational levels of warfare”, nuclear adversaries can use them thinking that they could keep the conflict below the nuclear threshold. Also, in the case of NWSs there’s no way of knowing whether these weapons carry conventional warheads.

Cross-platform integration and the introduction of AI — what we can call the Internet of Military Things — is changing the concept of the decision-making speed and what the militaries call the kill chain (it also throws up many ethical issues). Up until now, the kill chain was a series of processes, executed sequentially. With AI, we are now looking at overlapping some of those phases and completing them in parallel, to reduce the execution time of the chain.

In other words, the weapon is fired first, the find and fix processes overlap the flight time, and the final target designation is sent to the weapon in flight, through a SATCOM channel. Now bring AI into this and combine it with hypersonic missiles and you get an idea of how much time will be reduced on the kill chain.

In August 2020, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States conducted a simulated experiment. It pitted a Heron-developed AI pilot against a top F-16 human pilot. The AI pilot beat the human pilot in a 5-0 sweep in dogfight and manoeuvres.

While some of these technologies are expensive, others are not. The cost of many will steadily come down further as they proliferate (drones are a case in point, as is cyber and digital expertise). At this point, there are almost no regulatory frameworks for a number of emerging technologies.

Integration and the digital environment has also brought other risks. In a January 2018 report, the Royal Institute of International Affairs warned that US, British and other nuclear weapons systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This is far from an abstract threat.

……………………………………………………………………………………………….. This is not all. In a January 2023 edited volume, The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age, professors Vipin Narang and Scott D Sagan point to what they call the “declining confidence in deterrence.”

Gathered in the book are some of the top world experts trying to analyse the presence of nuclear weapons in a new age: growing prevalence of personalist dictatorships; incomplete or incorrect information; states facing multiple nuclear adversaries (regional subsystems) and operating in a novel information environment where misinformation can be maliciously planted or otherwise spread rampantly; states possessing small nuclear arsenals which they fear may not be reliable or survivable or over which they may not retain firm command and control.

As they put it: “Each of these factors alone, and especially in combination, generate risks that our standard strategies of nuclear deterrence are simply unequipped to manage or address.”

This is just a bird’s-eye view of a much larger and complex body of literature, a corpus that is increasing in volume, not as an exercise in alarmism but in analysing the emerging, uncertain trends.


INDIA-PAKISTAN, A CONFLICT DYAD

Some might say that it will be a while before some of these advanced technologies will get to these shores. They are wrong.

UAVs are already here, as are missile defences and precision, long-range artillery.

India is already seeking to bolster its anti-ballistic and cruise missile defences, developing MIRVs (multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles), hypersonic glide vehicles (reducing the already very short missile flight times) and fielding SSBNs (ship submersible ballistic nuclear), essentially, nuclear-powered submarines which can carry ballistic and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

These systems can both be non-nuclear and nuclear — i.e., they can carry tactical and strategic warheads………………………………………..

There are a number of additional risk factors as far as India and Pakistan are concerned: they are locked in a conflictual model; they have had multiple armed confrontations; both are nuclear-armed with growing arsenals and capabilities; since 2014, but more so since 2016, there is no dialogue framework between the two (covert channels notwithstanding);………………………………………


This environment is known. But it also feeds into another set of problems that increases the likelihood of a conflict:

a: India’s stated doctrine of limited conflict;

b: India’s movement away from the declaratory no-first use policy, as contained in its 2003 doctrine, to what can now only be described as a non-stated first-use policy; and

c: India’s poor record of handling weapon systems and platforms, which increases the risk of accidental conflict.

COLD START AND LIMITED WAR

India’s doctrine of limited war has a high probability of a spiral. ………………………………….

At the politico-strategic levels, relations remain tense, with little to no dialogue between the two sides since August 5, 2019, when India unilaterally and illegally revoked the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir, in violation of UN Resolutions. Past experience suggests that deteriorating relations result in a higher probability of conflict between the two sides


INDIA’S NO-FIRST USE IS A SHAM

India’s 2003 Nuclear Doctrine declares that India is wedded to no-first use (NFU) — i.e., India will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, unless it is attacked with nuclear weapons. The NFU declarations, as experts have widely argued, are political, not operational statements.

ACCIDENTS, MORE ACCIDENTS…………………………………………………………………..

As noted by one Indian analyst, “the Indian military services over the last several years have witnessed many high profile tragedies and mishaps.” During PAF’s Operation Swift Retort on February 27, 2019, while there was a dogfight going on over the skies along the Line of Control, Indian ground air defence shot down one of its own Russian Mi-17V5 ‘Hip’ medium-lift helicopters, killing six service officials and one civilian.

In two other incidents, “India’s indigenous Arihant [nuclear] submarine [was left] out of commission for many months in 2018; and a fire and explosion on board an Indian Kilo-class submarine in 2013…killed 18 crew members.”

ELUSIVE COMMON GROUND

As nuclear weapons states outside the framework of the NPT, Pakistan and India have certain legal and normative responsibilities. Their civilian nuclear programmes are under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

India, which has a 123 Agreement with the United States, has been trying to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and is already a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime. Pakistan, for its part, has constantly argued against discriminatory approaches to non-proliferation and disarmament……………………………………………

The writer is a journalist interested in security and foreign policies. He tweets @ejazhaider

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 28th, 2023 more https://www.dawn.com/news/1756369/can-pak-india-nuclear-deterrence-hold?preview

May 29, 2023 Posted by | ASIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

More than 1,500 arrested at Extinction Rebellion protest in The Hague

 More than 1,500 climate protesters have been arrested by police in the
Netherlands after blocking a major motorway in The Hague. During the
protest, organised by Extinction Rebellion, activists walked onto the A12
highway demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Police fired water
cannon to try to disperse the crowds – but many came prepared in raincoats
and swimsuits. Most arrested protesters were released, but police said 40
would be prosecuted. Among those at Saturday’s protest were several Dutch
celebrities, including actress Carice van Houten, known for playing
Melisandre in TV series Game of Thrones. She was arrested but later allowed
to return home, Dutch news agency ANP said. Extinction Rebellion accused
police of using water cannon just 15 minutes after the start of the
blockade – but police said they had asked the activists to leave and gave
them a chance to do so before using the water cannon.

 BBC 27th May 2023

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65735289

 Guardian 27th May 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/27/more-than-1500-arrested-at-extinction-rebellion-protest-in-the-hague

May 29, 2023 Posted by | climate change, Legal | Leave a comment

Gordon Edwards explains and comments on Canada’s policy on radioactive waste and nuclear decommissioning

Until recently, Canada’s stated policy on radioactive waste management consisted of a flimsy 25-year-old statement of 143 words, making no mention of intermediate level waste (such as decommissioning waste) or plutonium extraction (reprocessing).

In 2019, a team of IAEA nuclear experts reviewed Canada’s nuclear regulatory practices and recommended that Canada produce an enhanced radioactive policy statement and articulate an accompanying national radioactive waste strategy for the first time ever.

In 2020 Canada accepted this recommendation and undertook a two year consultation period with hundreds of Canadian organizations and individuals. 

Non-governmental organizations overwhelmingly recommended that Canada should have radioactive waste management and decommissioning agency that is independent of the nuclear waste producers and agencies that promote nuclear power, such as the Natural Resources Department (NRCan).

They also recommended that reprocessing (plutonium extraction) be banned altogether and that careful consideration be given to establishing a classification of radioactive waste materials based on toxicity, mobility, longevity, and radioactive progeny. Special attention was paid to the need for a policy regarding intermediate level wastes such as those resulting from rector decommissioning operations.

In 2022 a draft policy was released for public comment and an alternative policy was recommended by Nuclear Waste Watch, incorporating the policy recommendations mentioned in the preceding paragraphs.

In March 2023, the government — through NRCan, the very department that is obligated to promote nuclear power and uranium mining — released its final radioactive waste and decommissioning policy. That document ignores almost completely the input from civil society over the course of the previous two years. The policy is verbose and rhetorical with very little substance, and with a pronounced pro-nuclear bias.

On May 25, Nuclear Waste Watch hosted a “debriefing” webinar to inform other groups who had also participated in the consultation process of the nature of the government’s policy, and the distressing fact that NRCan has relegated to the nuclear waste producers the task of constructing a radioactive waste strategy for Canada.

Here is a short slide show (bilingual) that summaries and briefly comments on the main features of the Canadian government’s radioactive waste policy:

Click to access Radwaste_Policy_2023.pdf

May 29, 2023 Posted by | Canada, decommission reactor | Leave a comment

Visiting a park is not paying respects: the appalling failure of the G7 to act on nuclear disarmament

1

By Linda Pentz Gunter

Seven super-hypocrites took a walk in a park recently and called it paying respects. If this sounds like the opening to a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, it may as well be. Because nothing tangible or real came of this caper.

The park was the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the visitors were the leaders of the G7 countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Afterwards, US president, Joe Biden, tweeted: “Today, my fellow G7 Leaders and I paid a visit to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park where we paid our respects.”

Walking in a park isn’t paying respects to the dead of Hiroshima, where at least 140,000 were killed (although estimates have never been certain) when the United States dropped the first of its two atomic bombs on Japanese citizens. 

Abolishing nuclear weapons is paying respects.

And the G7 haven’t paid. The US has never apologized for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. France and the UK (as well as the US) have not only never apologized, but have refused to acknowledge the true extent of the harm caused by their decades of atomic testing. Germany and Italy have not kicked the US nuclear weapons bases out of their countries.

At the close of the G7 summit, hosted by Japan and deliberately held in Hiroshima as a reminder of the horrific consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, the member countries released a joint statement — grandiosely entitled “G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament”. They prefaced it by saying they were issuing it in “a solemn and reflective moment’. 

But the statement, which never once acknowledges the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as the only genuine instrument for nuclear disarmament, is even worse than the “thoughts and prayers” offered after a mass shooting. In its protracted finger-pointing, principally directed at Russia, which is mentioned 11 times, the statement lays out a pathway toward the provocation of yet more violence, not disarmament, making the likelihood of nuclear war greater.

And with breathtaking hypocrisy, while also castigating North Korea, Iran and China, it conveniently fails to mention US plans to spend $1 trillion on revamping its nuclear weapons arsenal. 

Instead, the G7 claim that as long as nuclear weapons exist — and they will with these leaders in charge — they “should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war and coercion,” a failure demonstrated all too clearly by the situation in Ukraine.

As the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said in a press release after the G7 summit, the leaders “are evading their own responsibility for the current threat nuclear weapons pose to everyone.”……………………………………………………….. more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/05/28/visiting-a-park-is-not-paying-respects/

May 29, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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