Richard Marles and the betrayal of Australian sovereignty

Therefore, in plain language, Australia has no control over access, use, or further disposition of US weapons or equipment stationed on Australian soil. This is a death sentence for our sovereignty, because it means America can attack a third country from these shores without the agreement or even knowledge of the Australian government, yet we will have become a target and will perforce suffer the retaliatory consequences, possibly even nuclear.

 https://johnmenadue.com/richard-marles-and-the-betrayal-of-australian-sovereignty/ By Guest author Michael Callanan 28 Feb 23

It’s clear that Australian sovereignty is being seriously, perhaps fatally, imperilled by the policies of successive Australian governments populated by Austral-Americans. 

Defence Minister Richard Marles’ address to parliament on February 9, entitled ‘Securing Our Sovereignty’, deserves a close reading.

It was delivered at a time when, in the minister’s own words, “it has never been more important to guard, reinforce and enhance our sovereignty”.

However, it’s clear that this vaunted sovereignty is being seriously, perhaps fatally, imperilled by the policies of successive Australian governments.

DM Marles defines sovereignty as “…the capacity of a people, through their government, to determine their own circumstances and to act of their own accord, free from any coercive influence”.

More specifically, he states that any “defence capability…which is not at the absolute discretion of the country which operates it does nothing to enhance sovereignty.”

True enough, but this is where the situation becomes rather confused. Recent treaties and agreements which have enhanced the “interoperability” of Australian and US forces, as well as allowing the “rotation” of military forces and materiel through Australian territory, have explicitly ceded both Australian control over those forces and materiel, and rendered opaque what might ultimately comprise these elements.

The 2014 Force Posture Agreement Article VII explicitly states that, “The prepositioned materiel of United States Forces, and Agreed Facilities and Areas designated for storage of such prepositioned materiel shall be for the exclusive use of United States Forces, and full title to all such equipment, supplies, and materiel remains with the United States. United States Forces shall have exclusive control over the access to, use of, and disposition of such prepositioned materiel.”

Therefore, in plain language, Australia has no control over access, use, or further disposition of US weapons or equipment stationed on Australian soil. This is a death sentence for our sovereignty, because it means America can attack a third country from these shores without the agreement or even knowledge of the Australian government, yet we will have become a target and will perforce suffer the retaliatory consequences, possibly even nuclear.

Marles states that a “defence capability…which is not at the absolute discretion of the country which operates it does nothing to enhance sovereignty”, implying he is referring to Australia. But this is a sleight of hand, because the significant defence capabilities in question will not be operated by Australia in any case, thanks to the FPA, and therefore can’t enhance our sovereignty, by his own fraught definition.

He reinforces this tendentious reasoning by implying that Australia is in the situation of having a “…high-end capability – the use of which is at the complete discretion of [our] country, [and which] contributes greatly to the capacity of [our] people to determine their circumstances and therefore contributes greatly to national sovereignty.

The problem of course is that we have nothing like “complete discretion” in the use of US weapons and forces positioned on our soil. In fact we have no control, and it seems quite probable that no Australian knows whether or not, at any given moment, nuclear weapons are “prepositioned” in this country. Naturally, any enemy would assume the worst and act accordingly.

Yet Marles is implying that we have somehow enhanced our own sovereignty by allowing foreign military forces and weapons into our country, over which we will have no control, as agreed in the FPA treaty.

Thus the above considerations make laughable Marles’ conclusion that “our partnerships build our national capability and security…and are anchored in Australian sovereignty”, and that “our cooperation with…our US ally, is managed through robust policy frameworks and principles that maintain and protect our sovereignty”. Sadly, however, the continuous repetition of a falsehood doesn’t make it any truer.

A further related fantasy in this regard is Marles’ assertion that “a fundamental principle underpinning these activities is the longstanding bipartisan policy of having no foreign bases on Australian sovereign territory.”

What else is a foreign base other than an area of land on which a foreign power positions forces and materiel over which it exercises sole and unfettered control, including the further disposition of that materiel?

Marles’ collusion in the fiction that “partner activities occur on a rotational basis, within Australian facilities or as a part of jointly operated facilities” is patently untrue, and demonstrably so, by reference to the FPA provisions.

His further claim that “our US alliance fundamentally strengthens, rather than diminishes, our sovereignty” is explicitly denied by the treaty law that is the FPA, and is a brazen misrepresentation of the truth.

Finally, some attention must be devoted to unmasking yet another pervasive and corrosive fiction, that of “our long-standing and bipartisan policy of ‘full knowledge and concurrence’”.

According to the Defence Minister, “‘full knowledge’ means Australia has a full and detailed understanding of any capability or activity with a presence on Australian territory, or making use of Australian assets”.

Clearly, as a matter of logic, this contradicts the Australian government’s compliance with the US policy of ‘refusal to confirm or deny’ the existence of nuclear weapons being carried by warships or planes arriving in Australia. One can’t “know” if one is kept in the dark. As such, “full knowledge” is a bald-faced deception.

According to Marles, “‘Concurrence’ means that Australia approves of the presence of a capability or function in Australia, in support of mutually-agreed goals”. Again, quite clearly, if ‘knowledge’ is absent then ‘concurrence’ is irrelevant. One can’t approve of something if one is unaware of its existence.

Defence Minister Marles is apparently a nice chap, intelligent and well educated, who’s clearly very enthusiastic about the possibility of enhancing our sovereignty by becoming further enmeshed in desperate US planning for a coming war with China.

As such, it’s hard to know how to account for the quite glaring contradictions between his public reassurances and the provisions specified in the treaties and agreements with the USA to which we are bound.

Shuttling between the possibilities of his being either seriously deluded or wilfully deceptive, one is at a profound loss to explain the manifest inconsistencies between Marles’ unreasonably optimistic faith in our once-great-and-powerful friend and the black-and-white reality of the ink on those pages which have signed away our sovereignty, and quite possibly a relatively peaceful and prosperous future.

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Dream of NuScale Small Nuclear Reactors Hangs in the Balance

Wired, 27 Feb 23

A cluster of reactors that are just 9 feet in diameter is supposed to start a nuclear energy resurgence. Mounting costs may doom the project.

JORDAN GARCIA, A deputy utilities manager in Los Alamos, New Mexico, is facing an energy crunch that is typical in the American West. For decades, the county-run utility relied on a cheap and steady mix of coal and hydroelectric power. But the region’s dams are aging and drought-parched, and its coal plants are slated to retire.

The county is aiming to fully decarbonize its grid by 2040, and the city has been tapping more solar lately, but batteries are arriving slowly, and Garcia worries about heat waves that strain the grid after the sun goes down. Wind power? He’d take more of it. But there aren’t enough wires stretching from the state’s windy eastern plains to the mesa-top community. “For us it’s pretty dire,” he says.

For the past few years, Garcia has been counting on a unique nuclear experiment to come to the rescue. In 2017, Los Alamos signed up to join a group of other local utilities as an anchor customer of the first small modular reactors, or SMRs, in the US, created by a company called NuScale. The design, which calls for reactors only 9 feet in diameter, had never been built before, but the initial cluster planned in Idaho Falls, Idaho, was promised to be much cheaper than a full-scale reactor and to offer affordable carbon-free energy 24/7.

To Garcia, this felt like a homecoming. Los Alamos, a town with the motto “Where discoveries are made,” is the birthplace of the atom bomb, and experimental reactors ran not far from downtown for much of the 20th century. But it had never actually used nuclear power to keep the lights on.

This month, Los Alamos and other local utilities across the West were facing a weighty decision: whether to pull the plug on their nuclear dream. NuScale had informed members of the group, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, or UAMPS, that the estimated costs of building the six 77-MW reactors had risen by more than 50 percent to $9.3 billion. For Garcia, that translated into a jump in the cost of energy from $58 to $89 per megawatt-hour.

…………… Without extra subsidies from the new Inflation Reduction Act—on top of $1.4 billion already committed to the project by the US Department of Energy—the price to energy users in places like Los Alamos would have doubled.

…………. The project’s power output is only 20 percent subscribed, and UAMPS says it will need to reach 80 percent for planning and construction to proceed next year.

Many a “nuclear renaissance” has fizzled.

…………….. Only two [large nuclear] reactors are being built in the US: a pair of 1100-MW units at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, now seven years delayed and $20 billion over their $14 billion budget. 

NuScale hopes its smaller reactors can avoid that fate……… Last month, the company was the first of dozens of companies working on SMRs to have a design approved by US regulators. That makes NuScale first in the race to leap from a “paper napkin” reactor, as critics sometimes deride SMRs, to a real one, though the Idaho project involves a revised design that will need its own approval.

The project has hit roadblocks before. It began with 36 utilities signed on, but that number has fluctuated and dropped to 27 last year. In 2020, several municipal utilities dropped out in response to a construction delay and cost increases. Some later rejoined the project after the US Department of Energy upped its commitment to offset some of the costs.

Critics say those price revisions are a sign SMRs are heading down the same path as projects like Vogtle. For nearly a century, the nuclear power industry’s mantra was that building bigger plants would drive down costs. While existing plants aged and new construction withered, SMR companies began promoting a different philosophy, says David Schlissel, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Fiscal Analysis, claiming that constructing many small reactors would teach builders how to make them more cheaply.

But the evidence for progress is flimsy, says Schlissel, who notes that his 50-year career has spanned many a “nuclear renaissance” that fizzled. When that philosophy was applied in France, where dozens of reactors were built in the 1980s, costs still increased. Claims that “modularity” will help make construction construction more efficient are also suspect, he adds. The new Vogtle reactors involved nearly 1,500 “modular” components that were largely constructed offsite.

Schlissel also believes that NuScale’s current estimates are rosy because they rely on the approval of its newer design that uses less steel, one of the materials driving the cost increases. But regulators may not back that approach, he says.  Towns should get out while they can, he advises, before costs climb higher still, and seek out alternatives like geothermal and battery storage. “Let the buyer beware,” he says.

……………….. officials in Morgan, Utah, a small town in the Wasatch Mountains north of Salt Lake City, decided to make a quick exit from the project…….

This year, the city realized it had new alternatives to the rising costs of nuclear power. While the Inflation Reduction Act is expected to help offset the costs of the Idaho plant, it also includes funds to help rural communities start their own energy projects. Bailey wants the city to become more self-reliant, installing its own solar panels and batteries that reserve power overnight.

In this round, Morgan was the only defector, though another Utah city, Parowan, reduced its commitment from 3 MW to 2 MW—just enough to cover the loss of its coal power. But the new agreement with utilities, negotiated during a two-day meeting with UAMPS members this winter, sets the project under a ticking clock. It includes requirements that the price hold steady at $89 per megawatt-hour, and—most worrying to utilities that want the project to succeed—that the project be at least 80 percent subscribed by next year. If it doesn’t hit that threshold, towns will get a refund on most of their expenses so far.

At this point, the utilities have sunk relatively little of their own money into the project, but that will change in 2024 as the project begins to seek site-specific building approvals followed by actual construction. To get the project fully subscribed, the group is talking with utilities elsewhere in the Northwest, where NuScale is competing with other SMR startups, including the Bill Gates–backed TerraPower, which recently signed a feasibility agreement with PacifiCorp, a private utility. Webb of UAMPS says he is optimistic about where the negotiations are headed. 

…………………….. For now, the Los Alamos county council voted to formalize a long-planned increase of their share of the NuScale plant’s power, from 1.8 MW to 8.6 MW. Garcia hopes it will help encourage other utilities to take a chance on sparking a nuclear renaissance. https://www.wired.com/story/the-dream-of-mini-nuclear-plants-hangs-in-the-balance/—

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization looks to First Nations to back waste storage, AND small nuclear reactors

Ontario sites short-listed for nuclear waste storage, The organization developing a place to store spent nuclear fuel in Canada has settled on two potential sites in Ontario. The move rules out 20 other potential sites across Canada, including three in northern Saskatchewan.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization recently announced the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation-Ignace area in northwestern Ontario, and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation-South Bruce area in southern Ontario, are both under consideration.

“These communities are now working through their timelines to determine willingness,” Russell Baker, manager of media relations for the NWMO, said in an e-mail.

Baker said the NWMO hopes to settle on one of the two Ontario sites by the fall of 2024, but only “with informed and willing hosts, where the municipality, First Nation and Métis communities are working together to implement it.”

Disposing of spent nuclear fuel has been an issue for the nuclear industry for decades. A variety of countries, including Canada, are looking at deep geological repositories, where the waste can be safely stored for thousands of years within stable rock formations, like the Precambrian Shield. Finland is already building one.

Back in 2010, the NWMO announced there were 22 potential sites for underground storage across Canada, including sites near Pinehouse, English River First Nation, and Creighton, in northern Saskatchewan.

According to Guy Lonechild, executive director of the First Nations Power Authority (FNPA), coming up with a shortlist of potential sites is another step.

“There were some previous sites looked at in northern Saskatchewan but there’s been a lot of time and energy put into a deep geological repository in the province of Ontario. And those are the two viable options that that we would support for further study,” Lonechild, who is also a former FSIN chief, said.

Lonechild added the FNPA has been looking seriously at the possibility of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNR) for Indigenous and northern communities for several years.

……………. However, even though SMR’s are relatively small, the cost could easily be a billion dollars or more. Which is why FNPA would be looking for partnerships to help Indigenous communities get involved.

“So it is going to take a significant amount of capital. And so we’re looking at developing consortium groups to participate on an equity basis.”

………………….. “The only way we’re going to get there is if First Nations that are informed, that give free prior informed consent. And they identify ways that they want to participate in, in clean energy jobs and in the nuclear industry,” he said.

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Army War Crimes Include Shelling of Ambulances, Firetrucks, and Rescue Workers in the Donbass Republics

Ukrainian Army War Crimes Include Shelling of Ambulances, Firetrucks, and Rescue Workers in the Donbass Republics—Similar to Israelis and U.S. Backed Terrorists in Syria

Local residents describe the perpetrators of these crimes—who have received lavish U.S. funding—as “shameless,” “scumbags” and “terrorists.”

Heroic rescue workers in Donbas should be accorded rights under international law to help people without being targeted.

Covert Action Magazine, Eva Bartlett, 27 Feb 23
In the more than eight years of bombing the civilians of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Ukraine has committed untold numbers of war crimes. These include bombing residential areas, markets, hospitals, schools, parks—including with prohibited heavy weapons and banned cluster munitions—and, since late July, raining banned “Petal” mines down on populated civilian areas, including the very center of Donetsk, including as recently as September 7.

A lesser-known war crime is Ukraine’s routine targeting of ambulances, fire trucks, medics and rescuers, and their headquarters and stations. Many of the times Ukraine bombs such heroic rescuers, it is when they are on the way, or already on site, to help civilians often themselves just bombed by Ukraine.

On August 21, Ukrainian shelling of the DPR’s Gorlovka wounded twelve, including five firefighters.

The day prior, Ukrainian shelling targeted an ambulance station in the LPR’s Lysychansk, wounding several and damaging some of the ambulances.

On June 23, the Kievskiy District of Donetsk came under repeated shelling over the course of the two hours I was visiting the Emergency Services headquarters there. On the grounds, I saw the remnants of a “Hurricane” missile from a previous Ukrainian attack.

The previous day, Ukrainian forces targeted an Emergency Services fire truck on call, leaving the driver hospitalized in critical condition. According to his colleagues, they saw a drone above them just prior to Ukraine’s strike. The targeting was unquestionably deliberate.

On June 18, Ukraine targeted a central Donetsk district after Emergency Services had arrived, killing a firefighter and the driver, and injuring three more rescuers.

In early June, heavy Ukrainian shelling of Kuibyshevsky District, Donetsk, destroyed an ambulance and seriously injured the driver.

Ukraine’s attacks on emergency workers is not new; Ukraine has been doing so for years.

In June 2021, during a humanitarian cease-fire, Ukrainian forces targeted an ambulance which had arrived to evacuate three injured DPR soldiers.

In October 2019, Ukrainian forces fired an anti-tank guided missile at a DPR military ambulance en route to help a child, wounding the driver and a paramedic.

In August 2018, Ukrainian forces fired a missile at a DPR ambulance, killing the driver and two female paramedics.

When I first visited the DPR in September 2019, going to hard-hit areas around Gorlovka, I was told by Zaitsevo administration that ambulances could not reach the villagers.

“The paramedics don’t go farther than this building; it’s too dangerous. If somebody needs medical care near the front lines, someone has to go in their own car and take them to a point where medics can then take them to Gorlovka. The soldiers also help civilians who are injured.”

This is something I was very familiar with in Gaza, occupied Palestine, where Israeli soldiers routinely fire at Palestinian farmers and other laborers on agricultural land, a policy of harassment to drive Palestinians off their land. In most cases, ambulances likewise could not reach the injured due to Israel’s policy of targeting ambulances. Consequently, seriously injured Palestinians bleed to death.

In Zaitsevo, I was told this had happened there, too. “A woman died due to huge blood loss because no one could reach her house to take her away in time. She was injured in the shelling and bled to death.”

Targeting medics and other rescuers ensures those in need of help are deprived of it, and increases the likelihood that people who might have lived instead die of their injuries.

The intentional targeting of ambulances and medics, as well as fire trucks and other emergency services vehicles and workers, is against international law.

Speaking to DPR Rescuers

During my last two visits to the DPR, in June and August 2022, I interviewed a number of Emergency Services workers and medics.

According to Konstantin Zhukov, the Chief Medical Officer of Donetsk Ambulance Services, the ambulance services workers face shelling daily, constantly, and many employees have been wounded while working. One of the ambulance stations was completely destroyed by Ukrainian shelling.

Outside, I spoke with Tatyana Golota, an emergency physician, and Alena Kondrasheva, a paramedic.

Both reiterated that it is normal coming under repeated Ukrainian fire. They spoke of Ukraine shelling after medics and emergency services workers had arrived to help civilians.

They showed me an ambulance completely destroyed by Ukrainian shelling. It was new and had only been operational a few months before being destroyed.

That day we were at work and heard about the brigade coming under fire. The doctor had gone to help people, and the driver, by chance, walked away to try to get a mobile signal. At that moment, there was a direct hit on the vehicle.”

Also in Donetsk, I spoke with Sergei Neka, Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

He likewise said rescuers increasingly come under fire when they go out on a call, sometimes making it impossible to reach the people in need………………………………………………………………………………………………

Of Ukraine’s heightened shelling over the past many months, Levchenko said it was constant and daily. “Before, if we speak about 2014-2015, twenty minutes, one hour maximum. Now six-seven hours non-stop, every day.”

He said that the Ukrainian forces shell, wait until rescuers arrive and then shell again. “They wait for 30 minutes for us to arrive. We arrive there, start assisting people, and the shelling resumes.”

This is something I witnessed for myself when, on August 4, Ukraine bombed the hotel in which I was staying, the fourth and fifth shells landing 50 meters away and then directly beside the hotel, respectively. When the fifth struck, shattering inwards the lobby glass doors, I had fortunately just stepped out of the lobby where 30 seconds earlier I had been speaking to journalists who had run in from the street.

When it seemed the shelling had stopped, journalists went outside to document the damage. Sadly, a young woman outside the hotel had been killed by the shelling. Five others just two streets away were also torn apart by the bombs, including a promising 12-year-old ballerina, her grandmother, and her world famous former ballerina ballet teacher.

Emergency Services arrived and, not long after, Ukraine resumed its shelling. Fortunately, they were able to get inside, but this is just one example of Ukraine’s double strikes.

According to Levchenko, Ukraine does not only shell two times, but that they sometimes shell three times: “They wait again, our guys hide in the shelters, as soon as we go out, put out the fire, help people, there could be people under the debris, doors stuck, people can’t get out and get to the basement…then shelling resumes.”

He described the people engaging in this sort of warfare against civilians and rescuers as “Shameless. Scumbags. Terrorists.”

He is not wrong.

Targeting Rescuers: A Terrorist Tactic Adopted by U.S. Allies in Ukraine, Israel and Syria…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Ukraine Continues Killing Donbas Rescuers

On September 1, 13 DPR Emergency workers were killed and 9 injured from Ukrainian shelling. According to a representative of the Emergency Situations, the shelling was intentional.

“The missiles exactly hit residential buildings. The vehicle was outside and it was hit with shrapnel and pieces of the destroyed building. But again, you can see it’s an emergency vehicle—a fire vehicle. This is a war crime.”

The following day, two more Emergency Services workers were killed and two injured by Ukrainian shelling of their fire truck, in Makeevka. They were en route to put out a fire. Images accompanying the news show a mangled bright red fire truck, unmistakably a rescue services vehicle.

When in August I spoke with the Director of the Donetsk Department of Fire and Rescue of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, he told me that, at that time, four Emergency Services workers had been killed and 40 injured by Ukrainian shelling.

With Ukraine’s targeting of Emergency Services in September, the number of rescuers Ukraine has killed is now at least 19, with another 51 injured……………………………………………………………………….

The Kievskiy Emergency Ministry Chief, Andrey Levchenko, said of the rescuers, “They are all heroes. If it were possible, I would give a medal to every one of them, to honor their work, to support them. But they don’t do that for the medals, no way. Nobody ever said, ‘we’re not going, we don’t want to,’” he said, referring to when rescuers go out on calls.

He is right. These rescuers are heroes, putting their lives on the line every time they go out to help a person in need, knowing full well Ukraine frequently strikes an area a second and a third time, specifically to target rescuers. While they might not receive or want medals, they should be afforded their right under international law to rescue people without fear of being shelled by Ukraine. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/09/23/ukrainian-army-war-crimes-include-shelling-of-ambulences-firetrucks-and-rescue-workers-in-the-donbass-republics-similar-to-israelis-and-u-s-backed-terrorists-in-syria/

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

QWoolly lawnmowers prove value of agrisolar project in Victoria — RenewEconomy

Large solar farm in Victoria has more than 2,000 sheep acting as lawn mowers The post QWoolly lawnmowers prove value of agrisolar project in Victoria appeared first on RenewEconomy.

QWoolly lawnmowers prove value of agrisolar project in Victoria — RenewEconomy

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New 1.7GW floating offshore wind project unveiled in Hunter renewable zone — RenewEconomy

Spanish developer unveils plans for a floating offshore wind farm in waters set to be declared as Australia’s second official development zone. The post New 1.7GW floating offshore wind project unveiled in Hunter renewable zone appeared first on RenewEconomy.

New 1.7GW floating offshore wind project unveiled in Hunter renewable zone — RenewEconomy

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Oil giant puts Australian solar portfolio on market as great PV flip continues — RenewEconomy

Sunny side up: Oil giant bp and its Lightsource solar partner reportedly offer a share of their growing Australian solar portfolio up for sale as PV asset flip continues. The post Oil giant puts Australian solar portfolio on market as great PV flip continues appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Oil giant puts Australian solar portfolio on market as great PV flip continues — RenewEconomy

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ukraine preparing attack on Crimea – Zelensky

 https://www.rt.com/russia/572038-ukraine-zelensky-crimea-attack/ 27 Feb 23, Kiev already has the resolve necessary for the assault, but is still building up its capabilities, the president says.

Ukraine is readying an offensive to try and seize Russia’s Crimean peninsula, President Vladimir Zelensky said on Friday at a press conference. Kiev is forming new units specifically for the task, with servicemen undergoing training abroad, he revealed.

“We’re taking military steps, we are preparing for them. We are mentally prepared already. We prepare technically, with weapons, forces, we form new brigades, we form offensive units of various kinds and types, we are sending people for training not only in Ukraine, you know, but also in other countries,” Zelensky stated.

The president, as well as other top officials, has repeatedly pledged to re-capture all of the former Ukrainian territories from Russia, including Crimea. The peninsula broke away from the country back in 2014 in the aftermath of the Maidan coup in Kiev, joining Russia after a landslide referendum.

Four other formerly-Ukrainian territories, namely the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, were incorporated into Russia after the overwhelming majority of their populations voted in favor of the idea last September.

Neither reunification with Crimea, nor the latest incorporations of other regions got Western recognition, with Kiev and its backers considering these lands part of Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly warned Kiev against plotting an assault on Crimea. Early in February, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as Deputy Chair of the Security Council, said that any attack on Crimea would be interpreted as a direct attack on the country itself and would be “met with inevitable retaliation using weapons of any kind.”

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

France pushing hard to make the European Union a pro-nuclear organisation

France seeks ‘nuclear alliance’ at EU energy meeting

EU Observer, By WESTER VAN GAAL BRUSSELS, 27. FEB, 23

France is building an alliance of pro-nuclear states to advocate for expanding nuclear power in the bloc.

EU energy ministers are meeting on Monday and Tuesday (27 and 28 February) to discuss issues ranging from security of supply to the upcoming electricity market reform.

But on the sidelines, French energy minister Agnes Pannier-Runache has invited 12 other countries on Tuesday to discuss a “nuclear alliance.”

“I would like to remind you that nuclear power represents 25 percent of European electricity production”, said Pannier-Runache. “It will be one of the important low-carbon energy sources next to wind and solar power that will help us achieve carbon neutrality.”

She later explained that the meeting would be an occasion to discuss “research, supply chain and nuclear waste issues.”

Countries in attendance include traditionally pro-nuclear members Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Finland. Newly-joined Croatia, plus the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden will also attend.

It is the latest move in an ongoing spat with Germany which is phasing out nuclear power and whose negotiators have stressed nuclear electricity should not be equated to electricity derived from solar and wind.

Other countries not attending the meeting include Belgium and Luxembourg, whose energy minister Claude Turmes said nuclear power “is very slow.”

“It takes 12 to 15 years to build a new nuclear facility,” he said. “If we want to win the race against climate change, we need to be fast.”

The French meeting follows intense French lobbying to include nuclear power in a recent EU Commission rules for green hydrogen, which is made with electricity derived from wind and solar but now also allows nuclear power as energy source………….  https://euobserver.com/green-economy/156759

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

France pushing hard to make the European Union a pro-nuclear organisation

France seeks ‘nuclear alliance’ at EU energy meeting

EU Observer, By WESTER VAN GAAL BRUSSELS, 27. FEB, 23

France is building an alliance of pro-nuclear states to advocate for expanding nuclear power in the bloc.

EU energy ministers are meeting on Monday and Tuesday (27 and 28 February) to discuss issues ranging from security of supply to the upcoming electricity market reform.

But on the sidelines, French energy minister Agnes Pannier-Runache has invited 12 other countries on Tuesday to discuss a “nuclear alliance.”

“I would like to remind you that nuclear power represents 25 percent of European electricity production”, said Pannier-Runache. “It will be one of the important low-carbon energy sources next to wind and solar power that will help us achieve carbon neutrality.”

She later explained that the meeting would be an occasion to discuss “research, supply chain and nuclear waste issues.”

Countries in attendance include traditionally pro-nuclear members Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Finland. Newly-joined Croatia, plus the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden will also attend.

It is the latest move in an ongoing spat with Germany which is phasing out nuclear power and whose negotiators have stressed nuclear electricity should not be equated to electricity derived from solar and wind.

Other countries not attending the meeting include Belgium and Luxembourg, whose energy minister Claude Turmes said nuclear power “is very slow.”

“It takes 12 to 15 years to build a new nuclear facility,” he said. “If we want to win the race against climate change, we need to be fast.”

The French meeting follows intense French lobbying to include nuclear power in a recent EU Commission rules for green hydrogen, which is made with electricity derived from wind and solar but now also allows nuclear power as energy source………….  https://euobserver.com/green-economy/156759

February 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment