Mount Isa City Council supports nuclear weapons ban
Mount Isa City Council supports nuclear weapons ban, Derek Barry, 10 Feb 21,
French nuclear attack submarine visted Australia, then on to patrol the South China Sea
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French Nuclear Attack Boat Patrolled South China Sea https://news.usni.org/2021/02/10/french-nuclear-attack-boat-patrolled-south-china-sea By: Xavier Vavasseur, February 10, 2021 A French Navy Rubis-class nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) patrolled the South China Sea, the French minister of armed forces announced in a series of tweets.
French armed forces minister Florence Parly called the patrol “a striking proof of the capacity of our French Navy to deploy far and for a long time in connection with our Australian, American and Japanese strategic partners.” On Monday night, Parly shed some light on the current deployment of Rubis-class SSN FS Emeraude (S604) to the Pacific region. In a series of messages on Twitter, she said: “Since September, a nuclear attack submarine (SSN Émeraude) and a support vessel (BSAM Seine) have sailed up to 15,000 km from the coasts of mainland France in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. This extraordinary patrol has just completed a passage in the South China Sea. A striking proof of the capacity of our French Navy to deploy far and for a long time in connection with our Australian, American and Japanese strategic partners. Why such a mission? To enrich our knowledge of this area and to affirm that international law is the only rule that is valid, whatever the sea in which we sail. Nation of the Indo-Pacific (~ 2 million inhabitants), France has the 2nd largest exclusive economic zone in the world (11 million km2 of which 9 are in the Indo-Pacific). We intend to protect our sovereignty and our interests.” Naval News first reported about Emeraude’s mission to the Pacific when it stopped over in Australia. The submarine then visited the U.S. naval base in Guam and participated in an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercise with the U.S. Navy and JMSDF. Following an exercise with the Indonesian Navy Emeraude will likely be joining the French carrier strike group which is set to depart this week for the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf region. |
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American media and politicians, including Biden, in the grip of the war profiteers
Who Are the Ultimate War Profiteers? A U.S. Air Force Veteran Removes the Veil, Covert Action Magazine By Christian Sorensen, February 10, 2021 “………….The most well-known industry pressure comes in the form of lobbying both political parties and funding their congressional campaigns (with extra focus on members of pertinent committees, such as Armed Services, Intelligence, Appropriations, and Foreign Relations)
This produces tangible results. As Steven Semler of the non-corporate Security Policy Reform Institute calculated, Democratic votes on the National Defense Authorization Act
correlate strongly with the campaign cash members accepted from the war industry. On average, House Democrats who voted for the NDAA accepted four times the amount of war industry cash as those who voted against it. In the Senate, Democrats who cast supporting votes took in six times as much industry cash.
Warmonger-In-Chief
The Executive Branch is not exempt. Rapacious financiers—including hedge fund chiefs and venture capitalists—top the list of donors to the Biden Administration, though dark money groups prevent a full understanding of the overall campaign finance picture. Between July and September at least 67 billionaires and their spouses made contributions of more than $100,000 to committees supporting Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Biden’s campaign received over $9 million from Donald Sussman, CEO of Palmora Partners, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, which has more than 260,000 shares in Raytheon, a preeminent weapons manufacturer and supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which recently won a $100 million contract for Afghan Air Force training.
Another of Biden’s top donors, Jim Simons, who gave over $7 million, founded Renaissance Capital, which owns 1.2 million shares in Raytheon worth over $75 million, and 130,000 shares in Lockheed Martin worth $50 million.
Big Tech is positioned prominently among donors to the Biden inauguration celebration. Biden has been clear on the campaign trail that he does not intend to cut the military budget, even going so far as stating, “I’ve met with a number of my advisors and some have suggested in certain areas the budget is going to have to be increased.” Biden’s advisors are part and parcel of the military-industrial-congressional complex. Cozying up to wealthy donors, Biden infamously assured them that “nothing would fundamentally change” in a Biden presidency. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/02/10/who-are-the-ultimate-war-profiteers-a-u-s-air-force-veteran-removes-the-veil/
Corporate Media Kool-aid
Corporate media prevent the public from understanding the nature of the problem. A handful of business interests owns media outlets in the United States. Profit drives corporate media. U.S. corporate media (e.g. CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews) share the same business model: air what attracts the highest ratings in order to get more advertising revenue.
Corporate media air info-tainment, designed not to inform or foster critical thinking. Informing the public is not a priority. Maintaining the existing economic order is.
To the extent that corporate media air any information at all, the information reflects the opinions of the ruling class and the dogma of Corporate America.
Politically conditioning the U.S. public, corporate media never blame the military-industrial-congressional complex or capitalism for any of the problems in the world. Aiming for high ratings and lucrative advertising revenue, corporate media self-censor and taper the spectrum of acceptable foreign policy debate. War corporations purchase advertisements on corporate “news” shows to further confine the debate. Corporate pundits and newscasters do not speak out against advertisers.
Corporate media hire career militants (e.g. former CIA Director John Brennan, MSNBC; former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell, CBS News; retired General Jack Keane, FoxNews) who further confine the debate. Retired generals and admirals regularly contribute to all forms of corporate media, often without disclosing existing ties to war corporations or financial investments in war.
The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 allowed government to increase its propaganda in corporate media. Drawing funding from the wealthy donor class and large corporate interests, National Public Radio is similarly confined. NPR’s new CEO as of September 2019 is John Lansing, who recently led U.S. propaganda at the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
Other industry pressure comes in the form of funding and running pressure groups [e.g. National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), Association of the United States Army (AUSA)] to dominate the Pentagon, administer arms fairs, and push favorable policies; funding think tanks to keep the narrative neoliberal and pro-war; recruiting retired generals and admirals (e.g. Dunford at Lockheed Martin, Mattis at General Dynamics, Winnefeld at Raytheon) to leverage their knowledge for financial gain; and flooding the Pentagon’s civilian offices with corporate executives (e.g., Esper and then Austin, Secretary of Defense; Lord, Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment; McCarthy, Secretary of the Army). …………
Christian Sorensen is an Air Force veteran and author of the new book entitled Understanding the War Industry. See CAM’s review of the book: Wars R Us: A Review of Christian Sorensen’s New Book. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/02/10/who-are-the-ultimate-war-profiteers-a-u-s-air-force-veteran-removes-the-veil/
Catastrophic’ Nuclear Power Accidents ‘Highly Likely’ If US Reactors Are Extended For 100 Years.
Professor Karl Grossman is an award-wining investigative journalist. He authored Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and Power Crazy and is the writer and presenter of television programmes on nuclear power. Grossman tells Sputnik that “nuclear power plants in the US were never seen as operating beyond 40 years” and that plans to extend their operating licences for more than twice that amount of time is incredibly dangerous. Every day a nuclear power plant operates the intense radiation embrittles (i.e. weakens) the metal in the reactor. “If the reactor is embrittled and cracks”, Grossman says, quoting a nuclear engineer-turned whistleblower, “it’s game over”.
Sputnik: You recently co-authored an article with journalist Harvey Wasserman calling on President Joe Biden to “inspect” the US’ “embrittled reactors”. Explain what exactly an embrittled reactor is.
Professor Karl Grossman: As Arnold “Arnie” Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with more than 44 years of experience in the nuclear industry, who became a whistleblower and is now chief engineer at Fairewinds Associates, described embrittlement in a nuclear power plant to my co-author of the article, Harvey Wasserman:
“When exposed to radiation, metal becomes embrittled and eventually can crack like glass. The longer the radiation exposure, the worse the embrittlement becomes. A nuclear reactor is just like a pressure cooker and is a pot designed to hold the radioactive contents of the atomic chain reaction in the nuclear core”, continued Gundersen, whose experience includes being a licensed Critical Facility Reactor Operator. “And metals in reactors are exposed to radiation every day a plant operates”……….
Sputnik: Why do you think that embrittled reactors are “at the top of the list of nuclear power concerns”?
Professor Karl Grossman: There are numerous major concerns regarding nuclear power plants.
But embrittlement is on the top of the list because nuclear power plants in the US were never seen as operating beyond 40 years—because of embrittlement.
That’s why the operating licenses originally issued by the US government for the plants were limited to 40 years. After 40 years, they were considered to be unsafe to run—because of embrittlement…….
virtually all operating atomic reactors are producing electricity at much higher base costs than solar and wind.
So the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking to try to bail out the nuclear industry—to keep it going—by allowing nuclear power plants to operate for 100 years.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been staunchly pro-nuclear through the years, captured by the nuclear industry, indeed nicknamed the Nuclear Rubberstamp Commission for doing whatever the US nuclear industry wants it to do…….
, in extending the operating licenses for nuclear power plants for decades, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also allowing them to be “uprated”—to run hotter and harder to generate more electricity and to further increase the likelihood of a nuclear power plant disaster.
The bottom line: a nuclear power plant catastrophe is being invited……..
Sputnik: What exactly is it that Joe Biden or his administration can do to address these issues?
Professor Karl Grossman: Biden must step in and order the inspection for embrittlement of US nuclear power plants. The old, decrepit nuclear power plant fleet in the US—with embrittled metal components—must be inspected. And with embrittlement and other likely age-induced problems, they must be shut down.
Biden must act to prevent what would constitute nuclear suicide in the United States.
Last month, Biden announced a climate change agenda transitioning the US towards renewable energy. But taking action against fossil fuel is not enough. Nuclear power plants are also engines of global warming. The claim of the nuclear industry that atomic energy is “carbon free” is a lie. The “nuclear fuel chain” which includes uranium mining, milling and fuel enrichment is carbon intensive, and nuclear power plants themselves emit Carbon-14, a radioactive form of carbon.
Sputnik: Can these embrittled reactors simply be replaced in order to safely extend the life of the power plant?
Professor Karl Grossman: It makes no sense to replace these deadly machines when here today [we have] safe, clean, green, renewable energy—led by solar and wind.
Nuclear power plants make no sense economically. Consider the only two nuclear power plants now under construction in the US, Vogtle 3 and 4 costing $30 billion for the two and the price still rising, and solar and wind being able to producing electricity at a lower cost—and be put into operation far more rapidly. And there are additional safe, green, cost-effective, clean, renewable energy sources—energy, most importantly, that we can live with.
Sputnik: Is there a realistic alternative to extending the lives of nuclear power plants?
Professor Karl Grossman: The realistic alternative is to shut down all 94 nuclear power plants now in the US and move ahead fully implementing the use of safe, green, cost-effective clean, renewable energy technologies. And this should be emulated in countries all over the world with nuclear power plants.
Three decades ago the Union of Concerned Scientists published a book titled Renewables Are Ready. Now renewables are more than ready to power the world. https://sputniknews.com/analysis/202102101082010676-catastrophic-nuclear-power-accidents-highly-likely-if-us-reactors-are-extended-for-100-years/
Who Are the Ultimate War Profiteers?
Wall Street: the Ultimate War Profiteers
Wall Street plays the foundational role in the war industry by outright owning war corporations……
Big Finance sits at the top of the war industry by purchasing most shares of war corporations and by owning war corporations. Insatiable demand for profit places immense structural pressure on the Pentagon and Capitol Hill for sky-high U.S. military and intelligence budgets, broad deployment of troops overseas, and the opening up of governmental jobs to corporations. …………
Wars must be created and expanded, and military bases, through which to route goods and services, must be established and entrenched to satisfy investors. Notwithstanding, ending the wars first requires addressing the embedded profit motive, otherwise it is business as usual.
Who Are the Ultimate War Profiteers? A U.S. Air Force Veteran Removes the Veil, Covert Action Magazine By Christian Sorensen February 10, 2021
While war corporations, or so-called “defense contractors,” make billions in profits, Wall Street is the ultimate beneficiary of today’s nonstop wars. The prosaic nature of war profiteering—far from the work of a shadowy cabal—is precisely why the collusion is so destructive and should be outlawed.
The U.S. ruling class deploys the military for three main reasons: (1) to forcibly open up countries to foreign investment, (2) to ensure the free flow of natural resources from the global south into the hands of multinational corporations, and (3) because war is profitable. The third of these reasons, the profitability of war, is often lacking detail in analyses of U.S. imperialism: The financial industry, including investment banks and private equity firms, is an insatiable force seeking profit via military activity.
The war industry is composed of corporations that sell goods and services to the U.S. government and allied capitalist regimes around the world. Investment banks and asset management firms hold most shares of every major public war corporation.
The best-known financial firms holding the stock of war corporations include: Vanguard Group, BlackRock, State Street, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Wellington Management Continue reading
America’s only carbon capture plant shuts down indefinitely — RenewEconomy
Last carbon capture and storage (CCS) coal plant in the United States will shut down indefinitely from June after operators deemed it no longer economic. The post America’s only carbon capture plant shuts down indefinitely appeared first on RenewEconomy.
America’s only carbon capture plant shuts down indefinitely — RenewEconomy
AEMO to allow more wind and solar in South Australia grid, needs less gas — RenewEconomy
The amount of wind and solar allowed into the South Australia grid at any one time to be lifted significantly as new synchronous machines come on line. The post AEMO to allow more wind and solar in South Australia grid, needs less gas appeared first on RenewEconomy.
AEMO to allow more wind and solar in South Australia grid, needs less gas — RenewEconomy
AEMO names UK-based renewable energy and transition expert as new CEO — RenewEconomy
AEMO names a UK-based Australian and an expert in renewable and grid transformation as its new chief executive. The post AEMO names UK-based renewable energy and transition expert as new CEO appeared first on RenewEconomy.
AEMO names UK-based renewable energy and transition expert as new CEO — RenewEconomy
Another refinery closure shines spotlight on Angus Taylor’s refusal to embrace EVs — RenewEconomy
Another refinery closure sharpens focus on Australia’s reliance on oil imports and Angus Taylor’s unwillingness to accelerate EVs. The post Another refinery closure shines spotlight on Angus Taylor’s refusal to embrace EVs appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Another refinery closure shines spotlight on Angus Taylor’s refusal to embrace EVs — RenewEconomy
114,000 Needless Military Suicide Deaths Via Iraq and Afghanistan Wars — limitless life
OpEdNews Op Eds 2/8/2021 at 19:40:35 H2’ed 2/8/21 114,000 Needless Military Suicide Deaths Via Iraq and Afghanistan Wars By Frosty Wooldridge (Page 1 of 3 pages) (View How Many People Read This) 9 comments Become a Fan (5 fans) This past weekend, my wife Sandi and I watched a documentary of WWII in color. It covered Mussolini, and the Emperor of […]
114,000 Needless Military Suicide Deaths Via Iraq and Afghanistan Wars — limitless life
Solar could overtake coal as India’s main energy supply within ten years: IEA — RenewEconomy
A new report from the IEA shows that solar is likely to be the star of India’s future energy system, but plenty of tricky policy is needed. The post Solar could overtake coal as India’s main energy supply within ten years: IEA appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Solar could overtake coal as India’s main energy supply within ten years: IEA — RenewEconomy
February 10 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “In The Fast Lane With Formula E” • Since the first race in Beijing in 2014, Formula E has been invigorating fans across the globe. Born in part from a desire to attract sponsors who are increasingly eco-conscious back to motorsport, the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship is a natural […]
February 10 Energy News — geoharvey
1.This month.
Zoom webinar – “Nuclear Winter: The Environmental Consequences of a Nuclear Exchange.”
April 7th at 11:30 am PST / 2:30 pm EST
Nuclear Winter: The Environmental Consequences of a Nuclear Exchange”
Join us for an informative webinar with renowned atmospheric scientist, Professor Brian Toon, as he discusses the environmental risks and global impacts of a nuclear war. Despite the potential damage caused by the blast from even small nuclear weapons, many countries continue to invest in and expand nuclear arsenals. Professor Toon will provide a scientific assessment of civilian fatalities, agricultural failures, climate concerns, and complications with food supply that would follow any international nuclear conflict. We need to plan how to prevent nuclear conflict and avoid catastrophe. Politicians and military planners must be made aware of global climate and agricultural complications that would ensue. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from, and engage in, this vital conversation
The Road to War brings a sharp focus to why it is not in Australia’s best interest to be dragged into a war with China which will almost inevitably go nuclear very quickly. The filmmaker has interviewed some of Australia’s senior foreign policy analysts who have vast experience behind them in analysing what really is going on here as the United States rattles its sabres with China. And sets us up to be its proxy, like the poor Ukranians have been fed into the Meatgrinder. So America can remain the Top Dog. The Road to War reveals how the United States through its spy base at Pine Gap and by stationing six nuclear capable B52 bombers in the Top End (without permission from the traditional owners) is making Australia a prime nuclear target if the current war of words suddenly melts down into full scale war.
The Road to War shows the implicit connection between Carbon emissions (the US military uses a whopping 70% of America’s annual petroleum to move its armies and vast War Machine around the globe to its 800+ military bases..but under a loophole wangled at Kyoto, the US military does not have to report its C02 annual emissions). The Road to War starts screening at selected cities and regional centres in March. See the trailer end for details.
Antinuclear 