Sweden leads large-scale NATO air combat exercise over the Baltic — Anti-bellum
NATOAllied Air CommandMay 4, 2023 Swedish and Allied fighters undertake large-scale training in the Baltic Sea region Allied and Partner aircraft integrate over the Baltic Sea area during high intensity Swedish led large-scale Exercise Aurora, March 28. Exercise Aurora is a Swedish national exercise with international participants, including NATO members. The exercise is an important […]
Sweden leads large-scale NATO air combat exercise over the Baltic — Anti-bellum
May 5 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “The People Living Ultra Low-Carbon Lifestyles” • Surveys show that many people want to participate in climate actions, but putting a very low-carbon life into practice can mean be tricky: it can mean changing several aspects of daily life, particularly for the richer parts of society. What do truly low-carbon lifestyles […]
May 5 Energy News — geoharvey
The Antidote to Oliver Stone is Philippe Carillo’s Film “Fukushima Disaster: The Hidden Side of the Story”
This Week’s Featured Interview:
Libbe HaLevy, Host of Nuclear Hotseat, 3 May 23 https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/antidote-oliver-stone-fukushima-disaster/
- Philippe Carillo has made a 52-minute film that busts the myths of nuclear reactor safety that is clear, easily understood, and devastatingly powerful. Philippe is a French citizen currently living in the Vanuatu archipelago. While living in Paris, he worked on several major documentary projects for the BBC, 20th Century Fox, French National TV, and independent film productions. He moved to Hollywood in 2003 and made his first feature documentary in Hollywood in 2013, Inside the Garbage of the World. The film won 3 awards, was distributed worldwide, and inspired a wave of change regarding plastic pollution.
Philippe moved to Vanuatu in 2017 and has since made more than100 short films in that country. In 2022, he decided to finish his feature documentary about Fukushima which was started in 2016. That film, FUKUSHIMA Disaster – The Hidden Side of the Story, was the topic of our conversation.
I spoke with Philippe Carillo on Friday, April 14, 2023.
The rise of fascism, Ukraine, America at war with the world – journalists must speak up.
JOHN PILGER: Danger of war exists if we don’t speak up now
Independent Australia, By John Pilger | 2 May 2023
“………………………………………………………………………………… The rise of fascism in Europe is uncontroversial. Or “neo-Nazism” or “extreme nationalism”, as you prefer. Ukraine as modern Europe’s fascist beehive has seen the re-emergence of the cult of Stepan Bandera, the passionate anti-Semite and mass murderer who lauded Hitler’s “Jewish policy” which left 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews slaughtered. ‘We will lay your heads at Hitler’s feet,’ a Banderist pamphlet proclaimed to Ukrainian Jews.
Today, Bandera is hero-worshipped in western Ukraine and scores of statues of him and his fellow fascists have been paid for by the EU and the U.S., replacing those of Russian cultural giants and others who liberated Ukraine from the original Nazis.
In 2014, neo-Nazis played a key role in an American-bankrolled coup against the elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, who was accused of being “pro-Moscow”. The coup regime included prominent “extreme nationalists” — Nazis in all but name.
At first, this was reported at length by the BBC and the European and American media. In 2019, Time magazine featured the “White supremacist militias” active in Ukraine. NBC News reported, ‘Ukraine’s Nazi problem is real’. The immolation of trade unionists in Odessa was filmed and documented.
Spearheaded by the Azov regiment, whose insignia, the “Wolfsangel”, was made infamous by the German SS, Ukraine’s military invaded the eastern, Russian-speaking Donbas region. According to the United Nations, 14,000 in the east were killed. Seven years later, with the Minsk peace conferences sabotaged by the West, as Angela Merkel confessed, the Red Army invaded.
This version of events was not reported in the West. To even utter it is to bring down abuse about being a “Putin apologist”, regardless of whether the writer (such as myself) has condemned the Russian invasion. Understanding the extreme provocation that a NATO-armed borderland, Ukraine, the same borderland through which Hitler invaded, presented to Moscow, is anathema.
Journalists who travelled to the Donbas were silenced or even hounded in their own country. German journalist Patrik Baab lost his job and a young German freelance reporter, Alina Lipp, had her bank account sequestered.
In Britain, the silence of the liberal intelligentsia is the silence of intimidation. State-sponsored issues like Ukraine and Israel are to be avoided if you want to keep a campus job or a teaching tenure. What happened to Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 is repeated on campuses where opponents of apartheid Israel are casually smeared as anti-Semitic.
Professor David Miller, ironically the country’s leading authority on modern propaganda, was sacked by Bristol University for suggesting publicly that Israel’s “assets” in Britain and its political lobbying exerted a disproportionate influence worldwide — a fact for which the evidence is voluminous.
The university hired a leading KC to investigate the case independently. His report exonerated Miller on the ‘important issue of academic freedom of expression’ and found ‘Professor Miller’s comments did not constitute unlawful speech’. Yet Bristol sacked him. The message is clear: no matter what outrage it perpetrates, Israel has immunity and its critics are to be punished………………………………………
When 9/11 happened, the fabrication of new “threats” on “America’s frontier” (as the Project for the New American Century called the world) completed the political disorientation of those who, 20 years earlier, would have formed a vehement opposition.
In the years since, America has gone to war with the world. According to a largely ignored report by the Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival and the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the number killed in America’s “war on terror” was at least 1.3 million in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
This figure does not include the dead of U.S.-led and fuelled wars in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Somalia and beyond. The true figure, said the report, ‘could well be in excess of 2 million [or] approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision-makers are aware and [is] propagated by the media and major NGOs.’
At least one million were killed in Iraq, say the physicians, or five per cent of the population.
The enormity of this violence and suffering seems to have no place in the Western consciousness. No one knows how many is the media refrain. Blair and George W Bush – and Straw and Cheney and Powell and Rumsfeld et al – were never in danger of prosecution. Blair’s propaganda maestro, Alistair Campbell, is celebrated as a “media personality”.
……………………………………Had journalists done their job, had they questioned and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, a million Iraqi men, women and children might be alive today; millions might not have fled their homes; the sectarian war between Sunni and Shia might not have ignited; and Islamic State might not have existed.
Cast that truth across the rapacious wars since 1945 ignited by the United States and its “allies” and the conclusion is breathtaking. Is this ever raised in journalism schools?
Today, war by media is a key task of so-called mainstream journalism, reminiscent of that described by a Nuremberg prosecutor in 1945:
‘Before each major aggression, with some few exceptions based on expediency, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically… In the propaganda system…it was the daily press and the radio that were the most important weapons.’
…………………………………………………………. On 14 September 2016, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in London reported the conclusion of a year-long study into the NATO attack on Libya which it described as an ‘array of lies’ — including the Benghazi massacre story:
‘The NATO bombing plunged Libya into a humanitarian disaster, killing thousands of people and displacing hundreds of thousands more, transforming Libya from the African country with the highest standard of living into a war-torn failed state.’
……………………………….Reminiscent of the Scramble for Africa in the 19th Century, the U.S. African Command (Africom) has since built a network of supplicants among collaborative African regimes eager for American bribes and armaments. Africom’s “soldier to soldier” doctrine embeds U.S. officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer. Only pith helmets are missing.
……………………… In the year NATO invaded Libya, 2011, Obama announced what became known as the “pivot to Asia”. Almost two-thirds of U.S. naval forces would be transferred to the Asia-Pacific to “confront the threat from China,” in the words of his Defence Secretary.
There was no threat from China; there was a threat to China from the United States; some 400 American military bases formed an arc along the rim of China’s industrial heartlands, which a Pentagon official described approvingly as a “noose”.
At the same time, Obama placed missiles in Eastern Europe aimed at Russia. It was the beatified recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who increased spending on nuclear warheads to a level higher than that of any U.S. administration since the Cold War — having promised, in an emotional speech in the centre of Prague in 2009, to help “rid the world of nuclear weapons”.
Obama and his administration knew full well that the coup his assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, was sent to oversee against the government of Ukraine in 2014 would provoke a Russian response and probably lead to war. And so it has.
…………………………………………………….. Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam was victorious and none of the above happened. Instead, Vietnamese civilisation blossomed, remarkably, in spite of the price they paid — three million dead. The maimed, the deformed, the addicted, the poisoned, the lost.
If the current propagandists get their war with China, this will be a fraction of what is to come. Speak up. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/john-pilger-danger-of-war-exists-if-we-dont-speak-up-now,17470—
Impending NATO inductee Finland welcomes “significant military infrastructure” from Pentagon — Anti-bellum
NewsweekMay 3, 2023 U.S. Troops May Deploy to Finland Bases Amid Russia Threat American soldiers may soon be deploying to bases near Russia’s border with Finland if ongoing talks on a new defense cooperation agreement (DCA) between Helsinki and Washington prove successful. Finnish newspaper Helsinki Sanomat reported Monday, citing Finnish Foreign Ministry official Mikael Antell, […]
Impending NATO inductee Finland welcomes “significant military infrastructure” from Pentagon — Anti-bellum
France’s government postpones its nuclear safety reform indefinitely.
The merger of ASN and IRSN will not be examined by a joint committee during the
examination of the nuclear acceleration law on May 4th. The OPECST is
invited to discuss the future of this controversial merger. Game over for
the nuclear safety reform project. Announced by the government at the
beginning of February, the merger of the Nuclear Safety Authority, in
charge of civil nuclear safety, and the Institute for Radiation Protection
and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), in charge of nuclear safety expertise “is
withdrawn,” said the office of Energy Minister Agnès Pannier Runacher on
Friday.
Les Echos 28th April 2023
Backup generator at Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant fails, triggering special federal review
Maryland Matters, By Josh Kurtz, May 3, 2023
A massive backup diesel generator at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland was recently out of service for at least week, triggering an ongoing special inspection by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The backup generator is one of five at the nuclear plant in Lusby, which is operated by Constellation Energy and produces about 37% of all electric power in Maryland; two functioning generators are necessary to run the plant’s two nuclear towers if the regional electric power grid ever goes down.
While there was never any danger to the public, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Constellation say, the mechanical failure of the generator, which was discovered during a regular in-house inspection of the plant on April 24 and lasted until Monday, is leading to extra scrutiny of the plant by federal regulators………………………………………………… more https://www.marylandmatters.org/2023/05/03/backup-generator-at-calvert-cliffs-nuclear-plant-fails-triggering-special-federal-review/
What happens to the UK’s nuclear waste?
Elly Foster. 2nd May 2023 https://ecohustler.com/technology/what-happens-to-the-uks-nuclear-waste
What are the plans for disposing of the UK’s nuclear waste?
Let’s not talk about it!
Nuclear reactors have existed in the UK since 1956, 67 years. In all this time no single government nor the industry itself has come up with a decent plan for getting rid of the dangerous waste. I have been a science teacher for many years and in the curriculum on electricity generation, students are always taught the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power. They are simply taught that it is expensive to dispose of the waste. What they are not taught is how it is being stockpiled in places like Sellafield and how open concrete ponds of water filled with dangerous waste exist right next to the Irish Sea.
We have all seen what happened in Japan when Fukushima was affected by an earthquake. But this is the UK and we don’t suffer earthquakes here, or do we? Listening to our Government, to the Labour Party, to the Liberal Democrats and to Plaid Cymru, nuclear power is the way to get us out of the climate emergency hole. Of course what they really want to promise voters is that they can carry on consuming electricity with abandon. They like to argue that nuclear power is clean. What they mean is that it produces no CO2 as a by-product of the reaction process, but they fail to tell you how much CO2 is emitted in the construction of the power station, the transport and the decommissioning. They like you to think that only nuclear power can provide a baseload so that we can ‘keep our lights on’. They don’t tell you that it is possible to generate enough electricity if we were to drastically cut our unnecessary consumption and use our grid in a smart way.
And they never talk about the waste issue
We need to have a close look at the plans for nuclear waste dumping. In the industry’s parlance this is called a Geological Disposal Facility. The name says it all. Find some geologically stable rocks and dispose of the waste for millennia. A previous government asked all communities politely who would be prepared to have such a facility on their doorstep. Naturally not many communities came forward willingly, one in Lincolnshire and one which is the subject of this article.
It’s not that the local people were shouting hoorah, no; it’s more that their local council chiefs shouted JOBS and COMMUNITY BENEFIT. And it is seen as a community with a nuclear ‘heritage’, hence it is the obvious choice. Certain local people immediately started campaigning against this idea as they understood the reality on the ground, or rather under the ground. They knew that in fact the geology in their area is not that stable at all.
Coal consipracy?
It gets worse. The community I am describing is in West Cumbria. Many of you will know of plans to open a new coal mine there. We have heard the arguments that it is for coking coal and that we need it for the steel industry or otherwise we’ll have to import it, stated to be the unsustainable option. The pro’s love to pull this sustainability argument out of the hat; they think they sound so green.
Now, did you know that the CEO of West Cumbria Mining is none other than the same guy the Government has appointed to be its chief advisor on dumping nuclear waste? Something stinks, doesn’t it? His name is Mark Kirkbride. The two areas in Cumbria assigned for the nuclear waste dump are absolutely adjacent to the proposed under the sea coal mine. And this is a deep coal mine, prone to worse earthquakes than fracking. I have checked major news outlets for linking the new coal mine approval with nuclear waste dumping but cannot find one item.
Harm to marine animals
It gets worse still. In 2006 an organisation I was involved with called Save Our Sea (SOS) was set up to stop drilling for oil and gas in Cardigan Bay. The companies involved couldn’t just start drilling, and they couldn’t just start carrying out seismic testing to see if there was any oil or gas. An environmental assessment had to be done. They needed to know if there are animals affected by this. In Cardigan Bay there is a resident population of bottlenose dolphins and there are harbour porpoises, common dolphins and other migratory cetaceans.
What makes Cardigan Bay so different from the Cumbrian Coast? Just recently a stretch of this Cumbrian coastline has been designated a Marine Conservation Zone. So there must be plenty to protect. And in any case, migrating species swim all over the Irish Sea. But for some unfathomable reason, no environmental assessment has been carried out and apparently is not needed. Says who? Answer: the Nuclear Waste Services, Radioactive Waste Management (this is the body with Mark Kirkbride as its key advisor) and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Local people didn’t get a say but they did find lots of dead harbour porpoises, seals and hundreds of jellyfish. The seismic testing itself delivered blasts every 5 seconds, 24 hours a day, for 20 days. The dump pit in the Irish Sea they hope to create would be 25km2. Last year the seismic testing was carried out near Copeland, centred on Seascale, this year they are planning to do the same at Allerdale.
It’s up to us all to stop this madness
Please read the following links and help stop these plans. Demand an answer from your MP if they are in favour of nuclear power as to how they think the waste should be disposed of, and demand that they find out why no environmental assessment or public consultation needs to be carried out before any seismic testing can take place. Also demand to know why a person like Mark Kirkbride can be both CEO of a coal mine and advise on nuclear dump sites next to his coal mine. Then sign the petition and share it with your friends. We must stand by the campaigners of West Cumbria who are a seriously good bunch of activists and defeat plans for nuclear dumping and for coal mining.
Useful links
The dangers of nuclear escalation have not receded
Putin would use a tactical weapon if pushed
1ai news, 3rd May, Keir A. Lieber Keir Lieber is the Director of the Center for Security Studies and Security Studies Program, and Professor in the School of Foreign Service and Department of Government at Georgetown University.
Since the Cuban missile crisis, the idea of all-out nuclear war in Europe has been almost unthinkable. And many Western commentators have dismissed Putin’s recent threats of nuclear blackmail as scare tactics. But we should not be so confident in our assessment argues nuclear expert Keir Lieber. If the West doesn’t tone down it’s rhetoric of a decisive military victory against Russia, we could be heading for catastrophe in Europe.
Many analysts believe that the danger of Russian nuclear weapons use against Ukraine or NATO has receded. Occasional escalatory threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin have been largely dismissed as scare tactics by Western officials, who remain confident that nuclear deterrence will hold under most plausible circumstances.
Such confidence is misguided. Both strategic logic and international history suggest that Putin is likely to use nuclear weapons if he faces the prospect of a devastating defeat in the Ukraine war or a future conflict with NATO. Specifically, if Putin perceives an existential threat to his regime, then he will be compelled to prevent that outcome – even if it requires taking risky escalatory steps, including the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate tools of last resort; any rational leader would consider using them if his or her regime or life were on the line.
Of course, Russia’s poor military performance in Ukraine makes a future direct attack by Russia on a NATO country seem unlikely. But that same conventional military weakness explains the danger of Russian nuclear escalation in both the current war in Ukraine and any conflict with NATO, if one were to occur.
The brutal fate of leaders like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, who lost wars to superior adversaries without having a nuclear option, looms large…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Both strategic logic and international history suggest that Putin is likely to use nuclear weapons if he faces the prospect of a devastating defeat in the Ukraine war
The only wise response to Putin’s nuclear use in Ukraine would be to negotiate some kind of resolution in which all parties could declare Potemkin victories. If that is the path we are heading down, the United States and its allies should dial-down any rhetoric about achieving decisive victory and, instead, find a solution before nuclear weapons are used.……………. https://iai.tv/articles/the-dangers-of-nuclear-escalation-have-not-receded-keir-lieber-auid-2470
Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and the ‘made men’ of the Biden administration
Antony Blinken and the ‘made men’ of the Biden administration
BY JONATHAN TURLEY, – 04/22/23 https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3963743-antony-blinken-and-the-made-men-of-the-biden-administration/
Secretary of State Antony Blinken would really, really prefer to talk about grain in Ukraine this week. But many people are less interested in what Blinken is doing as secretary of state than in what he did to become secretary of state.
This week, Blinken was implicated in a political coverup that could well have made the difference in the 2020 election. According to the sworn testimony of former acting CIA Director Michael Morrell, Blinken – then a high-ranking Biden campaign official – was “the impetus” of the false claim that the Hunter Biden laptop story was really Russian disinformation. Morrell then organized dozens of ex-national security officials to sign the letter claiming that the Hunter laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Morrell further admitted that the Biden campaign “helped to strategize about the public release of the statement.”
Finally, he admitted that one of his goals was not just to warn about Russian influence but “to help then-Vice President Biden in the debate and to assist him in winning the election.”
Help it did. Biden claimed in a presidential debate that the laptop story was “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan.” Biden used the letter to say “nobody believes” that the laptop is real.
In reality, the letter was part of a political plan with the direct involvement of his campaign, but Biden never revealed their involvement. Indeed, over years of controversy surrounding this debunked letter, no one in the Biden campaign or White House (including Blinken) revealed their involvement.
Of course, the letter was all the media needed. Discussion of the laptop was blocked on social media, and virtually every major media outlet dismissed the story before the election.
That was also all Biden needed to win a close election. The allegations that the Biden family had cashed in millions through influence peddling could have made the difference. It never happened, in part because of Blinken’s work.
Once in power, Blinken was given one of the top Cabinet positions. He was now one of the “made” men of the administration.
He was not alone. The 2016 election was marred by false allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Unlike the influence peddling allegations made against Biden, the media ran with those stories for years. It later turned out that the funding and distribution of the infamous Steele dossier originated with the Clinton campaign. The campaign, however, reportedly lied in denying any such funding until after the election. It was later sanctioned for hiding the funding as legal expenses.
Those involved in spreading this false story were rewarded handsomely. For example, the second collusion story planted in the media by the campaign concerned the Russian Alfa Bank.
The campaign used key Clinton aide Jake Sullivan, who went public with the entirely false claim of a secret back channel between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
Sullivan was also a “made” man who was later made Biden’s national security adviser. Others who were implicated in either the Steele dossier or Alfa Bank hoaxes also later found jobs in the administration. The Brookings Institution proved a virtual turnstile for these political operatives.
Many signatories on the Russian disinformation letter continue to flourish. MSNBC analyst Jeremy Bash signed the letter and was put on the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board. As with Sullivan, it did not seem to matter that Bash had gotten one of the most important intelligence stories of the election wrong.
Former CIA head James Clapper was referenced by Biden on the letter and was also a spreader of the Russian collusion claims. Despite those scandals and a claim of perjury, CNN gave him a media contract.
They are all “made” men in the Beltway, but they could not have succeeded without a “made” media.
These false stories planted by the Clinton and Biden campaigns succeeded only because the media played an active and eager role. In any other country, this pattern would fit the model of a state media and propaganda effort. However, there was no need for a central ministry when the media quickly reinforced these narratives. This is a state media by consent rather than coercion. The Biden campaign knew that reporters would have little interest or curiosity in how the letter came about or the involvement of campaign operatives.
If Republicans did not control the House of Representatives, the Morrell admission would never have occurred. The Democrats repeatedly blocked efforts to investigate this story and the influence peddling allegations. Even this week, some Democrats called it a “tabloid story.”
Given the career paths of figures such as Blinken and Sullivan, there is a concern that other officials may see the value in “earning their bones” as “made” men and women. There is now a senior IRS career official who is seeking to disclose what he claims was special treatment given to Hunter Biden in the criminal investigation.
While the 51 former intelligence figures were eager to raise Russian disinformation claims before the election, most have become silent. After all, the letter served its purpose, as Morrell indicated, “to assist [Biden] in winning the election.” After the false stories planted before the 2016 and 2020 elections, the question is what is in store for 2024?
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
DEPLETED URANIUM: COURTS ACCEPT CANCER RISK DENIED BY ARMY
400 Italian soldiers who were exposed to DU in the Balkans had since died from cancer, and another 8,000 were suffering from the disease. They interviewed the lawyer at the centre of the litigation, Angelo Tartaglia, who urged Britain to “think about the risks and the consequences” of supplying Ukraine with DU shells.
Tartaglia said: “There’s the possibility that both Ukrainian and Russian military officials might fall ill but most importantly pollution caused by military activities could cause irreversible damage to the environment which means that civilians too would be at risk”.
An Italian Parliamentary commission into the issue found “shocking” levels of exposure among Italian veterans and said it had “helped sow deaths and illnesses”.
Courts across Europe have ruled that depleted uranium can cause cancer among troops. Yet the British army insists it is safe to supply Ukraine with the toxic tank shells.
PHIL MILLER, 2 MAY 2023
More than 300 Italian veterans who developed cancer after being exposed to depleted uranium ammunition have won court cases against Italy’s military. Some of the cases were brought by their bereaved relatives.
The judgments have mounted in recent years, with Italian courts repeatedly finding a link between cancer and service in the Balkans where such weapons were fired.
Although Italy does not have depleted uranium weapons in its own arsenal, Italian police and soldiers were deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo where NATO allies fired the controversial ammunition in the 1990s.
Depleted uranium (DU) is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal produced as waste from nuclear power plants. Britain uses it to make armour-piercing tank shells, which are now being supplied to Ukraine.
Scientific debate continues about DU’s long-term risks to human health and the environment in post-conflict zones. British ministers insist it is low risk, and that there is only “some potential heavy metal contamination localised around the impact zone.”
But in the Balkans and Iraq, many believe it has caused cancer. That view was shared in 2009 by a coroner in England, who held an inquest into the death of Stuart Dyson, a British army veteran.
Dyson cleaned tanks during the Gulf war in 1991 and later developed a rare cancer, passing away in 2008. An inquest jury found it was “more likely than not” that depleted uranium had caused his death.
The Ministry of Defence rejected the ruling and refused to pay his widow a pension for those who die from service. By contrast, the widow of Captain Henri Friconneau, a French gendarme who served in Kosovo, was granted a service pension when he later died from cancer.
An appeal court in Rennes ruled in 2019 that Friconneau’s death was due to his exposure to DU dust. France’s interior ministry accepted the judgment and added his name to a monument for those who died on operations in Kosovo.
When in Rome
But it is in Italy where the highest number of veterans have won compensation. One family received a 1.3m euros pay out in 2015 after the court of appeal in Rome found “with unequivocal certainty” a link between exposure to depleted uranium dust and cancer.
The Il Fatto newspaper said the judgement went further than previous rulings, as it recognised a causal link beyond just the balance of probabilities.
A more recent ruling in 2018 seen by Declassified found the court could not “rule out the possibility that a soldier who served” in the Balkans “would have been exposed to genotoxic pollutants, thus increasing the likelihood of illness.”
An Italian Parliamentary commission into the issue found “shocking” levels of exposure among Italian veterans and said it had “helped sow deaths and illnesses”.
Last month, Euronews reported that 400 Italian soldiers who were exposed to DU in the Balkans had since died from cancer, and another 8,000 were suffering from the disease. They interviewed the lawyer at the centre of the litigation, Angelo Tartaglia, who urged Britain to “think about the risks and the consequences” of supplying Ukraine with DU shells.
Tartaglia said: “There’s the possibility that both Ukrainian and Russian military officials might fall ill but most importantly pollution caused by military activities could cause irreversible damage to the environment which means that civilians too would be at risk”………………………………………………………………. more https://declassifieduk.org/depleted-uranium-courts-accept-cancer-risk-denied-by-army/
MPs, Scientists Raise Alarm Over Climate Hype for Small Modular Reactors
The Energy Mix, May 2, 2023. Primary Author: Christopher Bonasia @CBonasia_
Several Members of Parliament and activists are warning the Canadian government that its support for nuclear energy projects could prove costly and ineffective—even as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau maintains that nuclear is “on the table” for achieving the country’s climate goals.
The federal government considers nuclear energy—including small modular reactors (SMRs) that are touted as easier to build and run than traditional nuclear plants—as key to meeting energy needs while aiming for net-zero by 2050.
………………..But on April 25, anti-nuclear activists and a cross-partisan group of MPs held a media conference on Parliament Hill, urging Ottawa to rethink its stance on nuclear and calling the energy source a dangerous distraction from climate action, reported CBC News.
Speakers in the group said Trudeau and his cabinet are getting bad advice about nuclear energy.
“The nuclear industry, led by the United States and the United Kingdom, has been lobbying and advertising heavily in Canada, trying to convince us that new SMR designs will somehow address the climate crisis,” said Prof. Susan O’Donnell, a member of the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB). The reality, she added, is that SMRs will produce “toxic radioactive waste” and could lead to serious accidents while turning some communities into “nuclear waste dumps”.
Moreover, there is “no guarantee these nuclear experiments will ever generate electricity safely and affordably,” O’Donnell said, since SMRs are still relatively untested.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called government funding for nuclear projects a “fraud.”
“It has no part in fighting the climate emergency,” May said. “In fact, it takes valuable dollars away from things that we know work, that can be implemented immediately, in favour of untested and dangerous technologies that will not be able to generate a single kilowatt of electricity for a decade or more.”
Liberal MP Jenica Atwin, New Democrat Alexandre Boulerice, and Bloc Québecois MP Mario Simard also attended the media event, the National Post reports. Atwin, who was first elected as a Green in 2019 before crossing the floor, “is the only Liberal to publicly break ranks so far, but said she has had conversations with colleagues who appear to be ‘open-minded’ to learning more about her concerns,” the Post says.
Advocacy groups like the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) have also pushed back against SMRs, arguing they “pose safety, accident, and proliferation risks” akin to traditional nuclear reactors. CELA urged[pdf] the federal government to “eliminate federal funding for SMRs, and instead reallocate those investments into cost-effective, socially responsible, renewable solutions.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) says renewables will “lead the push to replace fossil fuels” but that nuclear can help in countries where it is accepted. As of 2022, there were only three SMR projects in operation—one each in Russia, China, and India, CBC News reported.
Canada’s First SMR Passes Pre-Licencing
In Ontario, which currently produces 60% of its electricity from conventional nuclear stations, plans for one such SMR passed a regulatory checkpoint in March. Slated to be Canada’s first new nuclear reactor since 1993, the BWRX-300 is being built by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and North Carolina-based GE Hitachi.
…………………………………………………………………….The review is not binding on the commission and does not involve the issuance of a licence, but its completion does give OPG “a head start on licencing,” said GE Hitachi spokesperson Jonathan Allen.
However, the pre-licencing review also revealed “some technical areas that need further development,” CNSC said. The commission will require OPG to supply further details on severe accident analysis and the engineered features credited for mitigation. OPG must also demonstrate that the reactor’s design meets the requirement for two separate and diverse means of reactor shutdown (or an alternative approach) and provide further information “on the protective measures for workers in the event of an out-of-core criticality accident.”
“From the list of areas needed for further development, it looks like [GE Hitachi] has some work to do,” said Allison Macfarlane, director of the University of British Columbia’s public policy school, who chaired the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) between 2012 and 2014.
BWRX-300 Raises Safety Questions
The BWRX-300 is a leading concept that GE Hitachi says is its simplest boiling water design, and could deliver 60% lower capital costs per megawatt than other SMRs.
But Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Mix he has concerns about the design. He pointed to a joint CNSC-NRC review [pdf] that identified several issues associated with reactor containment, including a potential for “reverse flow” of steam from the containment back into the reactor vessel under certain accident conditions. The review also found that the reactor’s reliance on isolation condensers may not always be effective to remove heat from the reactor during loss-of-coolant accidents.
“The consequences of a failure of isolation condensers is apparent from the fate of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1, which experienced a core melt only hours after the system was lost,” Lyman said, citing the 2011 nuclear disaster in Ōkuma, Japan.
He added he is “extremely skeptical” that the BWRX-300 design will mature quickly enough to allow CNSC to make a meaningful determination of its safety in time for the anticipated 2028 start date. SMR designs need to undergo further testing and analysis before they can be considered safe, and yet vendors are rushing to deploy new, untested reactor designs without going through the necessary stages of technology development, including testing of full-scale prototypes, Lyman said.
“History has shown that shortcuts in this process are an invitation to disaster,” he added.
SMRs fall under the same Class 1A Nuclear Facilities Regulations as traditional reactors, so they do receive the same level of CNSC scrutiny. With its mandate to ensure the safe conduct of nuclear activities in Canada, the commission “will only issue a licence if the applicant has demonstrated the reactor can be operated safely,” the spokesperson said.
Next steps for the DNNP include a CNSC assessment, already under way, to review OPG’s licence application. This will result in a Commission Member Document that offers results and recommendations to an independent commission. Then there will also be two public hearings. The first is slated [pdf] for January 2024 and will consider the applicability of the previous environmental assessment to the BWRX-300. A separate, future hearing will determine whether to issue a construction licence for the DNNP.
“It is the independent commission who will make the decision as to whether the licensee or applicant is qualified to carry on the proposed activities and in a safe manner that protects the public and the environment,” the CNSC spokesperson said. https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/05/02/canadian-mps-raise-alarm-over-nuclear-energy-drive-for-climate-goals/
The Philippines to be the South East Asian guinea pig for NuScam’s small nuclear reactors?
New in Marcos’ nuclear push: US firm seeks site in Philippines for costly small reactors Cristina Chi – Philstar.com, May 2, 2023 |
MANILA, Philippines (Corrected, May 3; 10:33 a.m.)— A top nuclear energy firm from the United States that has been developing a type of nuclear reactor flagged for being potentially financially risky as renewable energy becomes more affordable has expressed interest in putting up a site in the Philippines.
This comes as President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. takes his aggressive nuclear energy push to talks with US officials during his visit there this week — an agenda backed by his cousin House Speaker Martin Romualdez but roundly criticized by environmental groups………………………
Too expensive, too risky’
NuScale Power was flagged by independent think-tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in 2022 for developing SMR technology that is “too expensive, too risky and too uncertain.”
The group also recommended that SMR “should be abandoned” given that the costs of available renewable sources are falling rapidly and that the SMR wouldn’t generate electricity before 2029.
Marcos is on a four-day trip to the United States that began last weekend, and he has so far met with US President Joe Biden and other business leaders, including executives of the energy firm.
…………. Clayton Scott, NuScale executive vice president for business, also expressed confidence that NuScale’s small modular reactor (SMR) technology “will perform as expected.” NuScale was also accompanied by local partner Enrique Razon, representing Prime Infrastructure Capital, Inc.
Marcos first met with NuScale executives in 2022 on the sidelines of the 77th United Nations General Assembly.
Among the deals clinched during Marcos’ meeting with US officials is the US Agency for International Development’s commitment to invest $5 million to support the Philippines’ exploration of the potential for nuclear energy to meet the country’s need for clean energy, “consistent with the highest standards of nuclear security, safety and nonproliferation.”
Environmental groups’ pushback
A financially unrewarding nuclear energy deal may not be the only risk posed by NuScale Power’s entry in the Philippines, according to environmental group Greenpeace.
Nuclear energy companies are “practically making the Philippines the guinea pig for untested risky technologies to promote their business” despite other local options for safer and cheaper renewable energy, Greenpeace campaigner Khevin Yu said.
Yu warned of the potential consequences of tapping nuclear energy for electricity in the Philippines given that Germany, like other developed countries, has weaned off nuclear power — an undertaking that it began in 2002 and was accelerated in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Italy also permanently shut down all of its functioning nuclear plants in 2022.
Yu said that risks related to nuclear technology remain unresolved, and SMRs “are still untested and unproven.”
“(And) there is currently no way to safely store nuclear waste,” Yu said.
“Even if they actually succeed in putting up nuclear plants, it will take a long time before we are able to use it. Furthermore, we will be stuck with maintaining a ticking time-bomb, which will endanger the lives of nearby communities should an accident occur,” Yu added.
Yu, meanwhile, pointed out that the pivot to renewable energy became a topic of discussion between Marcos and Bide, which he said should now “be the focus of the current administration.” https://www.philstar.com/headlines/climate-and-environment/2023/05/02/2263238/new-marcos-nuclear-push-us-firm-seeks-site-philippines-costly-small-reactors
France and Russia have “a win-win partnership” on the nuclear industry
France to Work With Russia on Hungarian Nuclear Project Despite EU Criticism
France’s energy transition ministry has permitted Framatome, a nuclear energy subsidiary of Électricité de France (EDF), to contribute to the construction of two reactors at the Hungarian Paks-2 nuclear power plant alongside Russian state-run nuclear bigwig Rosatom, according to a report by French news outlet Le Monde on April 27.
………… The said project has been contentious among some EU members, owing to the bloc’s sanctions against Russia.
…………………………. Last month, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó disclosed that Hungary might increase the contributions of Framatome in the project, after encountering roadblocks with Germany’s Siemens Energy, in the context of Ukraine-linked sanctions and Germany’s reduction of nuclear power as an energy source. Both companies had been contracted to provide control systems for new reactors at Paks-2 as part of a French-German consortium.
“Since the German government is blocking for political reasons the contractual participation of Siemens Energy, we wish to rely more on the French,” said Szijjártó ……………………………………..
Unveiled in 2014 under an agreement between Hungary and Russia, the Paks-2 project aimed to construct two new nuclear reactors by Rosatom and a Russian state loan to bankroll most of the project……..
In wake of the Russo-Ukraine conflict, anti-Russian observers and policymakers saw Framatome’s participation in the setting up of two nuclear reactors in Hungary led by the Russian state-owned group Rosatom as an ill-advised move.
……. , “to date, European sanctions [against Russia] do not target the nuclear industry,” the French ministry said.
………………………… The EU and Ukraine have been mounting pressure on France to fully sever relations with Russia’s atomic sector amid rounds of sanctions against Moscow, ramping up scrutiny of France’s links with Rosatom.
Collaboration with Rosatom has been a hot-button issue among France and other EU countries dependent on Russia for nuclear fuel. While 2022 saw the suspension of a great deal of commercial cooperation, some French state-controlled companies continue to maintain some ties with Rosatom.
…………………………………… Rosatom called the Franco-Russian alliance “a win-win partnership” that is “a driver of development both in the field of nuclear energy and scientific projects.”
……. French companies provide technology to Rosatom whenever the Russian behemoth constructs a nuclear plant abroad, with Rosatom usually spending up to €1 billion per project, encompassing command and control systems from Framatome, Faudon revealed.
……….. Apart from France, the United States also purchased $830 million of enriched uranium from Russia last year. Reactors in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia, and Hungary obtain fuel from Russia as well…………………………………….more https://thenewamerican.com/france-to-work-with-russia-on-hungarian-nuclear-project-despite-eu-criticism/
US ‘Dangerously Close’ To Another Nuclear Missile Crisis; After Russia, China Could Respond To Deployment Of Nuke Subs To S.Korea
The Eurasian Times, 4 May 23
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was on a state visit to the US from April 25 for six days. The top agenda of the visit was ‘how to contain, control, and neutralize the North Korean nuclear threat.’
Since the beginning of 2023, North Korea has carried out about a dozen missile tests. Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator, has been categorical in condemning military exercises being carried out jointly by South Korean and US military and has threatened to retaliate.
South Korea and the US have regularly carried out military exercises. …………………………….
Proposed US Nuclear Submarine Deployment
To protect South Korea from the North Korean nuclear threat, the US has announced that it will deploy SSBN in South Korean waters. The event is yet to take place.
Proposed US Nuclear Submarine Deployment
To protect South Korea from the North Korean nuclear threat, the US has announced that it will deploy SSBN in South Korean waters. The event is yet to take place.
A look at the globe will indicate that US nuclear submarines, equipped with nuclear-warhead Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles, will also be able to strike mainland China.
However, if the SSBN deployment indeed does take place, it might, and will, be different from the Cuban Missile Crisis due to the following reasons:
a. In 1962, only two nuclear powers, the US and the USSR, challenged each other with a nuclear strike.
b. China, then, was not a nuclear power. China exploded its first nuclear device on October 8, 1964.
c. In 2023, there are nearly a dozen nations in possession of nukes.
d. China is a formidable economic and nuclear power now.
e. In 1962, the USSR’s decision to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba forced the US to retaliate. Then, the USSR was the initiator. The US was the affected party.
f. In 2023, China will be the affected party, and the USA will be the initiator if the US does not back off from its decision to deploy SSBNs near South Korea.
g. In the event of an escalation, the US will have to face nukes from China and North Korea but also (maybe) from Russia.
Key Issues
The key issue, which might rather lead to a similar situation as the Cuban Missile Crisis, is the US announcement to deploy nuclear weapons capable submarines near South Korea.
Such a deployment aims to protect South Korea from any North Korean military or nuclear misadventure. However, a closer look at the probable region of deployment of nuclear submarines will indicate that the US will be able to threaten the underbelly of China exactly in the same manner as the Soviet missiles threatened the US underbelly. China will almost certainly react or retaliate in the way deemed fit.
Should that happen, will diplomacy succeed yet again and prevent a nuclear holocaust? Global grouping in 2023 is vastly different from what prevailed in 1962………..
SSBNs are extremely difficult to track. China, Russia, or North Korea cannot track and confirm the presence of US Navy SSBNs. If deployed in the abovementioned areas, the SSBN will threaten North Korea, China, and Russia.
China’s Concerns
Beijing has already reacted by describing the planned deployment of SSBNs by the US as a bid to promote the latter’s selfish geopolitical interests.
The US expansion of the nuclear umbrella has been termed an irresponsible action and a threat to world peace. The Chinese spokesperson said, “The United States has put regional security at risk and intentionally used the (Korean) peninsula issue as an excuse to create tensions.
What the US does is full of Cold War thinking, provoking bloc confrontation, undermining the nuclear non-proliferation system, damaging the strategic interests of other countries, exacerbating tensions on the Korean peninsula, undermining regional peace and stability, and running counter to the goal of the de-nuclearisation of the peninsula.
………….. The recently concluded AUKUS treaty has already raised hostility between China and the US. The decision to deploy SSBNs capable of carrying up to 20 MIRVed ballistic missiles in close proximity has invited extremely adverse reactions from China………………………………………………………………………………………
Conclusion
The US decision to deploy SSBNs in South Korea would almost certainly invite adverse reaction and possible retaliation from China, which Russia and North Korea will support. ……………………………………………..https://eurasiantimes.com/us-dangerously-close-to-nuclear-crisis-after-russia/
1 This Month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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