Nuclear news this week – Australia and more
Some bits of good news. What went right this week: reviving Britain’s ‘lost’ rainforests, Europe embraced slow travel, and the UK’s green sector defied the economic gloom, plus more.Coronavirus. When will COVID stop being a global emergency?
Climate. How Ocean Heat Ends The Human Experiment. An apology to my grandkids for not fighting in the war of our times.
Nuclear. What can I say? Nations. led by the gun-obsessed, belligerent, America – prepare for war, and spend $squillions on nuclear weapons. We all know that Ukraine is a tinder-box of nuclear reactors – and yet the USA is busily organising for Westinghouse to build a fleet of nuclear reactors there – because we all know, don’t we, that nuclear power is so safe?
AUSTRALIA.
- Combined Environmental Non Government Organisations submission to the Australian Senate recommends keeping the existing and prudent federal nuclear prohibitions. Medical Association for Prevention of War recommends that Australia keep its nuclear prohibitions
- Missing radioactive capsule found in Western Australia. Bill Gates’ profitable involvement in the nuclear industry, even in radiation detection equipment. Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) sends specialist team to Western Australia in search for missing radioactive capsule.. Should never have been lost’: Big questions after miracle radioactive find.
- Aukus: Biden urged to fast-track research into submarines using non-weapons grade uranium.
- France, NATO enhanced partner Australia to send 1,000s of artillery shells to Ukraine.
- Kimba’s “brand” – up till now – praised as Agricultural – but could change to The Nuclear Dump – if the government’s planned facility goes ahead.
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ART and CULTURE. Twin threats to the Marshallese.
CLIMATE. Sea level rise will threaten UK coastal towns. Climate hypocrisy: UAE oil company employees given roles in office hosting Cop28.
ECONOMICS.
Top UK pension funds refuse to invest in Sizewell C nuclear plan, despite government enticements. Nuclear too expensive and not needed.
Marketing. Death and Japan’s nuclear shelter salesman. Ukraine planning for two $5 billion Westinghouse AP 1000 reactors, part of USA marketing a fleet of new nuclear reactors to Ukraine! South Korea to sell 40 trilion won ($32.55 billion) nuclear power plant to Turkey. China marketing nuclear reactors to Pakistan.
EMPLOYMENT. French nuclear availability reduced by 1.1 GW as strike gets under way– EDF.
ENVIRONMENT. International group of scientists warns nuclear radiation has devastating impacts on ecosystems.
ETHICS and RELIGION. Roundtable: Making nuclear injustice an agenda for change.
HEALTH. Military probing link between nuclear silo work, cancers.
MEDIA. Why the western media is afraid of Julian Assange. The dark truths WikiLeaks revealed w/Stefania Maurizi | The Chris Hedges Report – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nbTlZRin78 Facebook Protects Nazis to Protect Ukraine Proxy War. Celebrities Protect The Interests Of The Empire– Caitlin Johnstone.
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Nuclear must not be part of Cromartry Firth freeport vision.
POLITICS.
- Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance refuses to guarantee funding for expansion of nuclear power.
- ‘Delays and broken promises’ as flagship UK nuclear agency stalls. Despite failure to refit nuclear submarine, UK senior defence officials get £200,000 in performance bonuses!
- Belgium to shut down second nuclear reactor.
- California’s plan to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear plant online hits regulatory snag.
- One Year After Russia Annexed Crimea, Locals Preferred Moscow To Kiev.
- Saudi Arabia: The Next Nuclear Power?
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.
African states meet in South Africa to discuss UN Nuclear Ban Treaty. Morocco committed to elimination of nuclear weapons – Envoy speaks at African seminar on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, in Pretoria.
The Last Existing U.S.-Russia Nuclear Treaty Could Soon Fail. NATO recruits South Korea for war against Russia.
Tulsi Gabbard on the Truth of President Zelensky – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A2Gmiya-Uk Ukraine is sinking. Is the West about to bail out? West Blocked Ukraine Peace Deal, Says Former Israeli PM.
US Surrounds China With War Machinery While Freaking Out About Balloons. China expresses dissatisfaction and protest over US shooting down civilian airship; US sets bad precedent. US makes diplomatic move targeting China. China objects to more nuclear sub talks among UK, U.S, Australia.
France tries to label nuclear as “renewable” in push to the EU for nuclear-produced hydrogen.
Iran and the West clash over IAEA report on Fordow nuclear plant. UK, France, Germany, USA urge Iran to meet all reporting obligations on its nuclear facilities.
USA to set up 4 new military bases in the Philippines.
RADIATION. Indian Point Expert Forum: Dr. Helen Caldicott –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M27YdJ3pbD4&t=165s Australia radioactive capsule: Missing material more common than you think.
SAFETY. Blasts near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Takahama nuclear reactor in Fukui halted after alert goes off, Incompetence in the nuclear submarine industry. Belgium looks to extend lives of oldest nuclear reactors. France approves study on extending nuclear reactors’ life.
SECRETS and LIES. Taking up Hilda’s Torch: Robert Green’s account of his contribution to the 1988/9 Hinkley C Inquiry – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7lSnFdWxUY Iran says France should inform the world how Israel obtained nuclear arms.
SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. There’s no planet B. NASA and DARPA are working on a nuclear-powered rocket that could go to Mars.
SPINBUSTER. NewsReal: Chinese Balloon: It’s All About The Optics – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM-4DieQHlE&t=100s
TECHNOLOGY . GE Hitachi group announce contract for grid-scale small nuclear reactor, requiring large taxpayer subsidy . Scepticism on the enthusiastic claims about nuclear fusion.
WASTES. France: what to do as its nuclear waste site risks saturation point?
WAR and CONFLICT. Avoiding a Long War- the RAND corporation report. Chris Hedges: Ukraine: The War That Went Wrong. The Unwarranted Ukraine Proxy War: A Year Later. The logic behind the terror: Why does Ukraine keep attacking civilian areas in Donetsk? Victory or Valhalla: NATO troops in “huge war games” 80 miles from Russia. Pentagon will allow Ukraine to fire long-range missiles at will.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. This Time It’s Different. A Costly and Prolonged Cold War Now Seems a Certainty. 324 Tanks, Now NATO Readies Warplanes and Entire Domestic Economies for Ukraine. Ukraine’s Tank Problem – a “game changer” – REALLY?. Target Crimea: U.S. to send Ukraine missiles with twice previous range . Budget cuts have left UK’s military’s stores bare: General says Britain would run out of ammo in a day if it fought Russia -Britain buying ammo from South Asia to support Ukraine.
Medical Association for Prevention of War recommends that Australia keep its nuclear prohibitions.
Environment and Other Legislation Amendment (Removing Nuclear Energy Prohibitions) Bill 2022
Submission 28
The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) is an association of medical and
other health professionals who work for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction
and the prevention of armed conflict. Nuclear weapons abolition is our primary focus. We
promote peace through research, advocacy and education. MAPW is affiliated with IPPNW,
the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize 1985),
and was the founder of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
(Nobel Peace Prize 2017).
Principal author: Dr Sue Wareham OAM
President, MAPW Australia
RECOMMENDATIONS
The existing legal prohibitions against nuclear power for Australia should remain.
Australia should not acquire naval nuclear reactors, and legislated prohibitions on nuclear energy should not be compromised to allow for the acquisition of naval nuclear reactors. Their proposed acquisition should be separately and publicly scrutinised with regard to the Nuclear Energy Prohibitions Bill, and to longstandingpublic opposition to nuclear energy.
Australia must sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
Climate change is already having devastating ecological and health consequences, with worse to come. It demands urgent responses to transform global energy production to zerocarbon emissions. Nuclear power proponents, including those associated with uranium mining interests, have again called for the consideration of nuclear power for Australia as part of this response. Their calls paint an idealised and simplistic picture of an industry
which has a long list of mostly insurmountable problems.
It:
is inextricably linked with producing the world’s worst weapons,
is carbon-intensive in nearly all stages of its operation,
produces intractable highly toxic waste which remains a global problem,
is far too slow to implement, even as part of a response to climate change,
is vulnerable to disastrous accidents and sabotage,
requires huge amounts of our most precious resource – water,
has major health implications for populations living near its facilities,
Is prohibitively expensive,
Is unnecessary, given the rapid expansion of renewable energy sources.
Nuclear power is a time-wasting distraction from the real work of tackling climate change, when we don’t have such time to waste.
This submission will examine most of the above problems, but will first address the current context of this inquiry, specifically the government’s deliberations on naval nuclear power for Australia. This is highly relevant for two reasons.
Firstly, the nuclear reactors on board nuclear submarines share nearly all of the problems of reactors on land, as listed above.
Naval nuclear power should in no way provide a foothold for the nuclear industry in Australia.
Secondly, it is unclear how the current prohibitions on nuclear power in Australia – prohibitions which would extend to naval reactors – will be managed if the naval nuclear power proposal proceeds. There is grave risk that they will be weakened in order to pave the way for technology which has been consistently rejected by a majority of Australians.
Australia radioactive capsule: Missing material more common than you think
By Antoinette Radford, BBC News, 5 Feb 23
The world watched as Australia scrambled to find a radioactive capsule in late January.
Many asked how it could have been lost – but radioactive material goes missing more often than you might think.
In 2021, one “orphan source” – self-contained radioactive material – went missing every three days, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The not-for-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) lists lost and found nuclear and radiological material, and its records include a person in Idaho who stumbled across a radioactive gauge lying in the middle of a road.
The organisation also listed a package containing radioactive material falling off the back of a truck onto a nearby lawn in an undisclosed location – the resident who found it then delivered it to its intended recipient later that day.
And, in 2019, a tourist was detected in St Petersburg airport wearing a radioactive watch, according to the list.
Of the nearly 4,000 radioactive sources that have gone missing since the International Atomic Energy Agency started tracking them in 1993, 8% are believed to have been taken for malicious reasons, and 65% were lost accidentally. It is unclear what happened to the rest.
When properly maintained and handled, radioactive material does not pose a significant threat to humans.
But if a person is directly exposed to the radiation without protection, they can fall severely ill – or even die.
For example, four people died after a canister containing radioactive material was stolen from an abandoned hospital in the Brazilian city of Goiânia in 1987.
A group of men took the canister that contained Caesium-137 (Cs-137) – a radioactive material commonly used in medical settings – thinking it may have some value as scrap metal. As they took it apart, they ruptured the Cs-137 capsule, spilling its radioactive contents onto the rest of the metal.
A junkyard owner who bought the contaminated metal then exposed dozens of friends and family to the radiation after he brought them to see it glow blue in the dark. This included a six-year-old who ate the radioactive powder.
Dozens required urgent medical attention and two nearby towns were evacuated once doctors established their sudden illness was caused by radiation exposure.
The incident was described by the IAEA as among “the most serious radiological accidents to have occurred”.
In 2020, radioactive waste was also found at the home of a former nuclear energy agency employee in Indonesia.
And in 2013, six men were arrested – apparently unharmed – in Mexico for stealing radioactive material from a cancer treatment machine……………………………… https://www.bbc.com/news/world-64512297
Pentagon will allow Ukraine to fire long-range missiles at will.
Munitions with 150-kilometer range are part of the newest weapons gift package. https://www.rt.com/news/570935-pentagon-ukraine-glsdb-missiles/ 5 Feb 23,
It is up to the government in Kiev to decide how to use new rockets being delivered for the US-supplied HIMARS launchers, the Pentagon said on Friday. The statement is a confirmation that the latest batch of munitions the American taxpayers are funding will include Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB).
The Boeing-manufactured munitions consist of a rocket motor mated with an airplane bomb, with an estimated range of up to 150 kilometers. While Friday’s announcement listed “additional ammunition” for the HIMARS and “precision-guided rockets,” Brigadier-General Patrick Ryder told reporters that this indeed included the GLSDB, confirming the information leaked to Reuters earlier this week.
Ryder also confirmed that the US won’t stand in the way of Ukrainians using the missiles to strike deep inside Russia.
“When it comes to Ukrainian plans on operations, clearly that is their decision. They are in the lead for those,” he said on Friday. “So, I’m not going to talk about or speculate about potential future operations, but again, all along, we’ve been working with them to provide them with capabilities that will enable them to be effective on the battlefield.”
The GLDSB are produced by Boeing in cooperation with Sweden’s Saab AB, and combine the GBU-39 small-diameter bomb with the M26 rocket motor. It was unclear how many of the munitions the Pentagon intended to send, or whether they would come from the US military stockpile or need to be freshly produced.
Reuters claimed to have seen a Boeing document saying the first deliveries could be “as early as spring 2023.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg cited unnamed officials who said the timeline could be as long as nine months, depending on when the US Air Force issues the contract. Bloomberg also reported the GLSDB order would account for $200 million of the $1.75 billion in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding, referring to contracts for weapons and ammunition not coming out of the Pentagon stockpile.
Whenever the missiles actually arrive, Russia has already hinted at how it will respond. On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin tasked the military with “eliminating any possibility” of Ukrainian artillery strikes on Russian territory. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview on Thursday that Moscow will “push back” the Ukrainian troops to a range at which they will not be a threat.
“The longer range the weapons supplied to the Kiev regime have, the further the troops will need to be moved,” Lavrov said.
Ukraine has used the US-supplied HIMARS launchers against both military targets and civilians in Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye. Kiev has repeatedly asked for the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) rockets, which have a range of some 300 kilometers.
Moscow has repeatedly warned Washington that providing heavy weapons to Ukraine risks crossing Russia’s “red lines” and involving the US and NATO in the conflict directly. The US and its allies insist they are not parties to the hostilities, but continue to arm Kiev. By the Pentagon’s own admission, the US has committed $32 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
NewsReal: Chinese Balloon: It’s All About The Optics
Sott.net, 05 Feb 2023.
The whole world (i.e., the USA) was stunned this week as a Chinese high-altitude balloon dared traverse the USA before being shot down in a stunning and brave military move by an air-to-air missile fired from an F-22 fighter jet over US waters in the Atlantic.
Bullet dodged?
Er, no. As Joe and Niall explain in this NewsReal, such balloons (Chinese, research, ‘spy’ or otherwise) traverse the US and elsewhere on a regular basis. What’s different this time is that ‘someone’ overruled the Pentagon’s initial assessment that this balloon posed no threat to US national security to instead make a REALLY big deal out of it…
One Year After Russia Annexed Crimea, Locals Preferred Moscow To Kiev
Kenneth Rapoza, Senior Contributor, Mar 20, 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/?sh=6b884a88510d
The U.S and European Union may want to save Crimeans from themselves. But the Crimeans are happy right where they are.
One year after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in the Black Sea, poll after poll shows that the locals there — be they Ukrainians, ethnic Russians or Tatars are mostly all in agreement: life with Russia is better than life with Ukraine.
Little has changed over the last 12 months. Despite huge efforts on the part of Kiev, Brussels, Washington and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the bulk of humanity living on the Black Sea peninsula believe the referendum to secede from Ukraine was legit. At some point, the West will have to recognize Crimea’s right to self rule. Unless we are all to believe that the locals polled by Gallup and GfK were done so with FSB bogey men standing by with guns in their hands.
In June 2014, a Gallup poll with the Broadcasting Board of Governors asked Crimeans if the results in the March 16, 2014 referendum to secede reflected the views of the people. A total of 82.8% of Crimeans said yes. When broken down by ethnicity, 93.6% of ethnic Russians said they believed the vote to secede was legitimate, while 68.4% of Ukrainians felt so. Moreover, when asked if joining Russia will ultimately make life better for them and their family, 73.9% said yes while 5.5% said No.
In February 2015, a poll by German polling firm GfK revealed that attitudes have not changed. When asked “Do you endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea?”, a total of 82% of the respondents answered “yes, definitely,” and another 11% answered “yes, for the most part.” Only 2% said they didn’t know, and another 2% said no. Three percent did not specify their position.
With two studies out of the way, both Western-based, it seems without question that the vast majority of Crimeans do not feel they were duped into voting for annexation, and that life with Russia will be better for them and their families than life with Ukraine. A year ago this week, 83% of Crimeans went to the polling stations and almost 97% expressed support for reunification with their former Soviet parent. The majority of people living on the peninsula are ethnic Russians.
The U.S. made a big deal about the rights of ethnic minorities there known as the Tatars, which account for around 10% of the population. Of the 4% total that said they did not endorse Russia’s annexation, the vast majority — 55% — said that they feel that way because they believe it should have been allowed by Kiev in accordance with international law. Another 24% said the referendum vote was “held under pressure”, which means political or military threats to vote and vote in favor.
The GfK survey also asked if the Ukrainian media have given Crimea a fair assessment. Only 1% said that the Ukrainian media “provides entirely truthful information” and only 4% said it was “more often truthful than deceitful.”
For now, the Gallup and GfK polls show a deeply divided Ukraine. The division of political allegiances ultimately threatens Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Only 19% in the east and 26.8% in the southeast think Ukraine should join the European Union, while 84.2% in the west believe Ukraine is a natural fit with the E.U.. Nearly 60% in the north agree that E.U. is the place to be, and just under half in the center part of the country want E.U. integration.
NATO integration is even less supported in the southeast and east, and a little over a third in the center and north agree that Ukraine should join the Western military powers. In the west, that number rises to 53%.
Those numbers also coincide with Ukraine’s trust or distrust with Washington. The pro-integration west, north and center portions of Ukraine all view the U.S. role in the crisis as mostly positive. Well under a third say so in the east and southeast, and almost no one, including the Tatars, believe so in Crimea, GfK poll data suggests.
Interestingly enough, despite Russia’s involvement in the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine, only 35.7% of people polled there said they viewed Russia’s involvement as mostly positive while 71.3% of Crimeans were more in line with Russia’s world view, according to the year old poll from Gallup.
This week, the State Department’s press secretary Jen Psaki said sanctions on Russia will continue until Crimea is returned to Ukraine. Both the State Department and Treasury Department did not clarify whether that was an actual policy statement, nor whether that included the sectoral sanctions which were applied in a third round of sanctions last July following the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 over east Ukraine.
US set to boost military presence near China
Washington and the Philippines have announced plans for four more American bases. 5 Feb 23, https://www.rt.com/news/570878-us-philippines-military-bases/
The US military will be deployed to four new bases in “strategic areas” of the Philippines, the two countries announced on Thursday. The agreement was reached during the ongoing visit of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who met Philippine President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr in Manila.
The two nations are set to “accelerate the full implementation” of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), a framework regulating the deployment of US troops to the Philippines, which is listed among Washington’s “major” non-NATO allies.
“The United States has allocated over $82 million toward infrastructure investments at the existing five sites under the EDCA, and is proud that these investments are supporting economic growth and job creation in local Philippine communities,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Apart from further development of the existing bases, the US military will be deployed to four new sites in unspecified “strategic areas of the country.”
“The United States and the Philippines have committed to moving quickly in agreeing to the necessary plans and investments for the new and existing EDCA locations. The Philippine-US Alliance has stood the test of time and remains ironclad. We look forward to the opportunities these new sites will create to expand our cooperation together,” the Pentagon added.
The move comes amid mounting tensions in the region, namely around Taiwan and the South China Sea, a busy waterway subject to overlapping maritime and territorial claims by multiple nations, including China. The Philippines, a former US colony and long-standing Washington ally, has maintained close economic ties with Beijing.
China has already condemned the US-Philippines plan, accusing Washington of stirring up further tension. The Chinese Embassy in the Philippines expressed hope that Manila would be “vigilant and resists from being taken advantage of.”
“The United States, out of its self interests and zero-sum game mentality, continues to step up military posture in this region. Its actions escalate regional tension and undermine regional peace and stability,” the embassy said in a statement.
“Such moves contradict the common aspiration of regional countries to seek peace, cooperation and development, and run counter to the common aspiration of the Filipino people to pursue sound economic recovery and a better life in cooperation with China,” it added.
China expresses dissatisfaction and protest over US shooting down civilian airship; US sets bad precedent
The Pentagon earlier said on Friday that the balloon did not pose a “military or physical” threat.
It’s widely known that US aircraft, appearing in civilian or military purposes, operate around China much more frequent than Chinese aircraft do around the US
Global Times, By Chen Qingqing and Liu Xuanzun, Feb 05, 2023
China expressed strong dissatisfaction and protest on Sunday against the US’ move to shoot down a non-threatening Chinese airship for civilian use, calling the US’ move an overreaction and vowing to reserve the right to take necessary actions. By turning an unintentional accident into an incident that has been hyped by the US officials and media, Washington is adding new uncertainties into the already-intense relations with China, creating a bad precedent for blurring the line between civilian and military uses, experts said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed strong dissatisfaction and protested against the US’ use of force to shoot down a Chinese civilian unmanned airship, urging the US to properly handle the incident.
The Chinese side has verified the situation and communicated with the US side multiple times, saying the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace was due to force majeure and the incident was totally an accident, the ministry said.
The US military on Saturday local time shot down a “suspected Chinese spy balloon” off the Carolina coast following an authorization of the Biden administration after the airship has been flying over the US for days. The action was hailed by the US President Joe Biden as “a success,” according to US media reports.
The “balloon episode” went viral on the US social media. A number of US hawks on China-related matters have been hyping the use of balloon for spying purpose and deliberately distorted it as “a direct assault on the US national sovereignty.”
“The US attack on Chinese civilian unmanned airship by force is an obvious overreaction,” Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, a spokesperson at China’s Ministry of National Defense, said in a statement on Sunday.
China will reserve the right to take necessary measures in dealing with similar situations, Tan said.
Tan’s remarks mean that if a foreign airship accidentally enters the Chinese airspace, the Chinese forces could also shoot it down in a similar manner, observers said.
Biden was first briefed on the balloon Tuesday and has been receiving updates from his national security team, CNN said. The Pentagon earlier said on Friday that the balloon did not pose a “military or physical” threat………………………………………….
Overreaction, bad precedent
The US shooting down the Chinese civilian balloon is also considered an overreaction from a technical point of view, said military aviation experts.
Despite admitting that the balloon did not pose a military or physical threat, an F-22 fighter of the US Air Force fired an AIM-9X air-to-air missile and shot down the balloon, supported by F-15 fighters, tankers and warships, the Pentagon said on the day on its website.
The missile was fired from the F-22 from an altitude of 58,000 feet (17,678 meters) when the balloon was 60,000 and 65,000 feet, the Pentagon said.
This is like shooting a mosquito with a cannon, which is not only overreacting but also impractical, a Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Sunday.
Compared with an unmanned balloon that flies with the wind, the US interception method that featured an advanced stealth fighter jet and fired a missile is too costly………………………………….
It’s widely known that US aircraft, appearing in civilian or military purposes, operate around China much more frequent than Chinese aircraft do around the US, Lü noted. …………
more https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1284857.shtml
Budget cuts have left UK’s military’s stores bare: General says Britain would run out of ammo in a day if it fought Russia. Britain buying ammo from South Asia to support Ukraine.
- General Sir Richard Barrons said years of cuts have left cupboards almost bare
- Meanwhile, Ben Wallace said military spending may have to rise for two decades
Daily Mail, By KATHERINE LAWTON 3 Feb 23,
Britain’s ammo stocks would run out in a day if it fought Russia – as a top former General said years of cuts have left military’s stores bare.
The warning from General Sir Richard Barrons comes a day after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the UK’s forces have been ‘hollowed out’, adding that military spending may have to rise for two decades, owing to global threats.
According to The Sun, Britain is buying ammo from South Asia to support Ukraine.
Dr Jack Watling, at military think tank Rusi, said Ukraine had been firing around 6,000 shells a day, but we rely on imported explosives for tank and artillery shells.
Our ammo plants, run by defence contractor BAE, would take a year to make a day’s shells for Ukraine, sources said.
Meanwhile, it was also revealed that Britain has no working heavy artillery guns after giving all serviceable AS90 self-propelled items to Ukraine.
General Barrons said the Army requires £3 billion more a year to rejoin Nato’s top tier.
In his column for The Sun, he wrote: ‘This is truly shocking. But it is true. And we must fix it.
‘The UK spends more on defence than any EU ally and our brave Armed Forces have long been one of Britain’s most influential levers around the world.
‘Yet for decades they have been hollowed out by spending cuts.’
…………………………… Mr Wallace also responded to urgent calls from former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to send fighter jets to Ukraine.
‘I’m open to examining all systems, not just jets. But these things don’t always happen overnight,’ he added.
Of Ukraine’s fighters he said: ‘Even if tomorrow we announced we were going to put them in fast jets, that would take months.
‘You’re suddenly having to learn to pilot a fast jet, so there is no magic wand.’
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Mr Wallace want to send a squadron of tanks to the country, which could arrive by the end of next month.
The MoD said it was boosting ammo stockpiles to ‘more than pre-invasion levels’ with an extra £560 million from the Treasury.
Defence chiefs have pledged all 30 working AS90s to Kyiv and are now urgently seeking K9 Thunders and Archer guns to replenish their stocks, it was recently reported. ……….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11708161/Britain-run-ammo-day-fought-Russia-Cuts-left-militarys-stores-bare.html
February 5 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Democrats Sell Their Souls To The Methane Mob” • A group of methane suppliers have banded together to form Natural Allies For A Clean Energy Future. According to the Washington Post, its purpose is to convince Democratic voters that gas is a “clean” energy source. And how best to do that? Hire Democrats […]
February 5 Energy News — geoharvey
Morrison picks up awards — The Bug Online
AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR: The Bug has formally presented former prime minister Scott Morrison with his Australian of the Year Awards for 2022 after he was unable to attend the announcement of his win on Australinvasion Day on 26 January. At a special ceremony in the boardroom on the top floor of The Bug’s headquarters […]
Morrison picks up awards — The Bug Online
Antinuclear 