May 7 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “Analysis Points To Massive Photovoltaic Deployment To Meet Decarbonization Target” • An “unprecedented ramp-up of production capacity” over the next two decades is needed to provide enough solar power to completely decarbonize the global electrical system, but that goal can be achieved, an analysis led by NREL researchers says. [CleanTechnica] Solar […]
May 7 Energy News — geoharvey
AUKUS high-level nuclear waste dump must be subject to Indigenous veto
there is no question Defence would require the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous people before a high-level nuclear waste facility could proceed on their land. …. in those circumstances the government must provide a veto right, because the project would eliminate future access to traditional Indigenous land.
If Plibersek knew about the radioactive waste facility and its intended siting in remote Australia at the time AUKUS was announced she has kept quiet about it.
A far more substantial inequality of power now exists between the Indigenous groups to be consulted about the site of the radioactive waste facility and the Defence Department. The facility has solid bipartisan support. In addition, it is essential to the AUKUS submarine deal, meaning Defence embodies the combined wishes of the Australian, British and United States governments.
Bipartisan secrecy and Defence’s poor record with Indigenous groups at Woomera are red flags for the consultation over AUKUS high-level nuclear waste facility.
Undue Influence MICHELLE FAHY, MAY 6, 2023
This is part one of a two-part series
The federal government had no public mandate for any of the AUKUS decisions: no mandate to enter the agreement, none to acquire eight nuclear-powered submarines for up to $368 billion, and none to establish a high-level radioactive waste facility. On this last, in fact, it had long term evidence to suggest Australians would likely oppose the proposition.
Perhaps this is why both major political parties concealed for 18 months, a period including the federal election, their shared knowledge that AUKUS requires a high-level radioactive waste facility to be built.
The AUKUS agreement was revealed on 15 September 2021. On 14 March 2023, deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, announced the nuclear waste facility. Next day, opposition leader Peter Dutton said: ‘The Labor Party signed up to AUKUS knowing they would have to deal with the waste, and now that they’re in government they know that’s a part of the deal.’ The government has not denied Dutton’s claim.
Meanwhile, the Albanese government continues its work to establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Just nine days after the prime minister was in San Diego announcing the AUKUS submarine deal and his deputy Marles came clean about the radioactive waste facility, Anthony Albanese released the proposed Voice wording. The prime minister noted in his speech the importance of consultation, ‘it’s common courtesy and decency to ask people before you take a decision that will have an impact on them’.
Governments have been trying for decades to put a radioactive waste dump in outback Australia. They have been rebuffed time and time again. Yet the Albanese government is trying once more.
Legal experts have pointed out the international legal requirement to obtain the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples before making significant decisions that affect them. This process includes giving Indigenous peoples full information about a development in advance and respecting their choice to give or withhold consent.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Australia has pledged to support ‘in both word and deed’, says: ‘[No] storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.’
As to whether the government can claim ‘national security’ as a reason to avoid these obligations and dictate a radioactive waste site, international human rights law expert John Podgorelec says: ‘States may not derogate from their responsibilities on the basis of national security unless a “state of emergency” has been formally invoked.’
He adds, ‘A lesson to come out of the Iraq calamity is that manufactured or undisclosed national security intelligence cannot be used to subvert democracy.’
Unfortunately, the Defence Department’s fact sheet on nuclear stewardship and waste is light on detail. It does not mention free, prior and informed consent. Defence commits only to ‘consultation and engagement’ – a lesser standard – and adds that it will also consider ‘wider social license and economic implications’. Globally, the ‘economic implications’ of significant projects habitually undermine human rights, particularly those of Indigenous peoples.
Furthermore, Defence has a poor track record of engagement with Indigenous people in one of its key locations, South Australia’s Woomera Prohibited Area (explored further in part two).
Woomera is used by Australian and foreign military forces, in close partnership with multinational weapons corporations, for extensive weapons testing and military training activities.
‘When militaries around the world need a place to test their weapons and fly their new fighter jets, there’s nowhere better than the rugged expanses of South Australia,’ enthused US weapons giant Raytheon in 2016, talking up ‘a further expansion of US-Australian cooperation’.
The Woomera weapons testing range covers one-eighth of South Australia, occupying more than 122,000km2. Before Defence took over, less than a century ago, Indigenous people had inhabited the region for tens of thousands of years.
Despite the international outcry at the destruction of Juukan Gorge, the Defence Department has not changed its behaviour. For example, it continues to use a registered Indigenous heritage site in Woomera as a target zone for high explosive weapons tests. (I visited this and other sites inside Woomera last year at the invitation of Andrew and Bob Starkey, senior Kokatha lawmen and traditional owners.)
Defence is aware of the site’s significance, just as Rio Tinto was aware of the significance of Juukan Gorge. Defence’s heritage management plan, relevant sections of which I have seen, says the site has a ‘high level of Aboriginal heritage value’ and is a place of ‘sensitive cultural significance that can be easily impacted’. The public might wonder how Defence can know this yet still decide it’s acceptable to direct high explosive munitions onto the site.
‘The Commonwealth cannot give with one hand and take with the other,’ says Podgorelec, who acts for the Starkeys, on the tensions between federal commitments to Indigenous heritage protection and to AUKUS. He says there is no question Defence would require the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous people before a high-level nuclear waste facility could proceed on their land. He also says in those circumstances the government must provide a veto right, because the project would eliminate future access to traditional Indigenous land.
Australia is not alone in being unable to find a radioactive waste solution. The UK has failed for decades to make meaningful progress on dismantling decommissioned nuclear submarines – it currently has 21 of them floating in dockyards awaiting disposal, mirroring its wider failure to resolve its nuclear waste problems. The US has also failed in this regard: spent fuel from its nuclear submarines remains in temporary storage. Griffith University’s Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe has written that the nuclear waste from US military and civilian reactors ‘is just piling up with no long-term solution in sight’.
Defence does not mention this pertinent information in its brief positive account of US and UK nuclear stewardship.
The federal government gave its response to the Juukan Gorge inquiry report in November 2022. Minister Tanya Plibersek, whose Environment portfolio encompasses Indigenous heritage protection, said:
[T]hese are thorough and considerate reports… the recommendations speak to the principles and priorities that will shape our [heritage protection] legislation. Free, prior, and informed consent.
If Plibersek knew about the radioactive waste facility and its intended siting in remote Australia at the time AUKUS was announced she has kept quiet about it.
Free, prior and informed consent requires that intimidation and coercion be avoided. Plibersek is well aware of the possibility of abuses of power in high stakes developments. In her speech, she noted partnership agreements were signed under ‘gross inequalities of power’ between the traditional owners of Juukan Gorge and Rio Tinto.
A far more substantial inequality of power now exists between the Indigenous groups to be consulted about the site of the radioactive waste facility and the Defence Department. The facility has solid bipartisan support. In addition, it is essential to the AUKUS submarine deal, meaning Defence embodies the combined wishes of the Australian, British and United States governments.
Podgorelec is adamant. ‘Australia cannot enact domestic laws that undermine its international legal obligations. If a project will take away Indigenous cultural connection to land forever – as a high-level nuclear waste facility will do – then the government is obliged to give a right of veto.’
Note: The legal basis for free, prior and informed consent was explained by John Podgorelec as lead author of Adelaide University’s submission to the 2015 SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission. Unfortunately, having been available until recently, the Royal Commission’s website is presently inaccessible. Email us if you would like a copy of the submission: undueinfluence@protonmail.com
A KINGLY PROPOSAL: LETTER FROM JULIAN ASSANGE TO KING CHARLES III
JULIAN ASSANGE, 5 MAY 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/06/port-kembla-rally-to-demand-nsw-site-be-ruled-out-as-aukus-nuclear-submarine-base
To His Majesty King Charles III,
On the coronation of my liege, I thought it only fitting to extend a heartfelt invitation to you to commemorate this momentous occasion by visiting your very own kingdom within a kingdom: His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.
You will no doubt recall the wise words of a renowned playwright: “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.”
Ah, but what would that bard know of mercy faced with the reckoning at the dawn of your historic reign? After all, one can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners, and your kingdom has surely excelled in that regard.
Your Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh is located at the prestigious address of One Western Way, London, just a short foxhunt from the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. How delightful it must be to have such an esteemed establishment bear your name.
“One can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners”
It is here that 687 of your loyal subjects are held, supporting the United Kingdom’s record as the nation with the largest prison population in Western Europe. As your noble government has recently declared, your kingdom is currently undergoing “the biggest expansion of prison places in over a century”, with its ambitious projections showing an increase of the prison population from 82,000 to 106,000 within the next four years. Quite the legacy, indeed.
As a political prisoner, held at Your Majesty’s pleasure on behalf of an embarrassed foreign sovereign, I am honoured to reside within the walls of this world class institution. Truly, your kingdom knows no bounds.
During your visit, you will have the opportunity to feast upon the culinary delights prepared for your loyal subjects on a generous budget of two pounds per day. Savour the blended tuna heads and the ubiquitous reconstituted forms that are purportedly made from chicken. And worry not, for unlike lesser institutions such as Alcatraz or San Quentin, there is no communal dining in a mess hall. At Belmarsh, prisoners dine alone in their cells, ensuring the utmost intimacy with their meal.
Beyond the gustatory pleasures, I can assure you that Belmarsh provides ample educational opportunities for your subjects. As Proverbs 22:6 has it: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Observe the shuffling queues at the medicine hatch, where inmates gather their prescriptions, not for daily use, but for the horizon-expanding experience of a “big day out”—all at once.
You will also have the opportunity to pay your respects to my late friend Manoel Santos, a gay man facing deportation to Bolsonaro’s Brazil, who took his own life just eight yards from my cell using a crude rope fashioned from his bedsheets. His exquisite tenor voice now silenced forever.
Venture further into the depths of Belmarsh and you will find the most isolated place within its walls: Healthcare, or “Hellcare” as its inhabitants lovingly call it. Here, you will marvel at sensible rules designed for everyone’s safety, such as the prohibition of chess, whilst permitting the far less dangerous game of checkers.
Deep within Hellcare lies the most gloriously uplifting place in all of Belmarsh, nay, the whole of the United Kingdom: the sublimely named Belmarsh End of Life Suite. Listen closely, and you may hear the prisoners’ cries of “Brother, I’m going to die in here”, a testament to the quality of both life and death within your prison.
But fear not, for there is beauty to be found within these walls. Feast your eyes upon the picturesque crows nesting in the razor wire and the hundreds of hungry rats that call Belmarsh home. And if you come in the spring, you may even catch a glimpse of the ducklings laid by wayward mallards within the prison grounds. But don’t delay, for the ravenous rats ensure their lives are fleeting.
I implore you, King Charles, to visit His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, for it is an honour befitting a king. As you embark upon your reign, may you always remember the words of the King James Bible: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). And may mercy be the guiding light of your kingdom, both within and without the walls of Belmarsh.
Your most devoted subject,
Julian Assange A9379AY
WWIII on the Installment Plan
One need only to look at the “Down Under” Australian press’ frightful China fear-mongering to know what we in the ‘Up Above’ can expect. This has been well chronicled by Caitlin Johnstone, whose Substack posts are a must read.
Witness: The U.S. has brought Australia, South Korea, Japan into an alliance against China and is pressuring the Philippines and Indonesia to join in as we ship arms to Taiwan. The intent is to bait China, to try to make Taiwan the next Ukraine, while coordinating submarine patrols amidst risible plans to send ships from the EU to patrol the Straits of Taiwan. If China did something similar in our sphere, Congress would declare war.
The Invention of a Wartime Presidency to Save the Biden Administration
DENNIS KUCINICH, MAY 5, 2023 https://denniskucinich.substack.com/p/wwiii-on-the-installment-plan?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1441588&post_id=119326426&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Yesterday’s attempt to attack the Kremlin with a drone strike, supposedly to assassinate Vladimir Putin, is being pinned on Ukraine. But this is a proxy war of the U.S. versus Russia, and no one is fooled. Ukraine is a simply a U.S. pawn and can make no major moves without checking with Washington.
The U.S. has successfully muzzled its energy-starved allies in Europe from even objecting to, let alone investigating the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline. Europe is stuck with the skyrocketing cost of U.S. supplied replacement fuel.
The destruction of Nord Stream followed well-publicized mock U.S. nuclear strikes targeting Russia and the equally provocative shipment of depleted-uranium munitions transferred to the Ukraine battlefield through our “special relationship” with the British government. The Russian government has publicly warned that the use of such weapons, as were used by the U.S. in Iraq and Syria, will lead to escalation.
The Biden Administration has done everything it could to incite a hot war directly between the U.S. and Russia, sacrificing Ukrainian youth and the majesty of Ukrainian cities.
The drone strike and the depleted uranium transfer are made to look like the West is somehow succeeding in the battle which, for all intents and purposes, will soon come to an end— with a phony declaration of victory of sorts (definitely not for Ukrainians). Then the infernal Enemy Engine will pivot its wrath and venom towards CHINA.
Get ready for a parceling out of some of the manufactured hate that has been reserved for Russia and President Putin — to hate China and President Xi, and to suffer a fully-machinated Red Peril.
One need only to look at the “Down Under” Australian press’ frightful China fear-mongering to know what we in the ‘Up Above’ can expect. This has been well chronicled by Caitlin Johnstone, whose Substack posts are a must read.
The Biden Administration, having unsuccessfully diminished the Russian economy with its broad sanctions, and having failed to defeat the Russian military, will soon lead us to believe that the same geniuses in Washington, London and Belgium who brought us the war in Ukraine, will somehow succeed in holding in check China, or perhaps even toppling President Xi, through military means.
The depraved thinking that resulted in approximately $140 billion wasted for the war in Ukraine and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, countenances even greater opportunities in the East.
Witness: The U.S. has brought Australia, South Korea, Japan into an alliance against China and is pressuring the Philippines and Indonesia to join in as we ship arms to Taiwan. The intent is to bait China, to try to make Taiwan the next Ukraine, while coordinating submarine patrols amidst risible plans to send ships from the EU to patrol the Straits of Taiwan. If China did something similar in our sphere, Congress would declare war.
The geographically-confused North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (NATO) ever ready to be the U.S.’ wrecking ball, now considers China “a threat to global security.” Remember, China has brokered a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and attempted to do so in Ukraine.
Remember, the U.S. has 800 military bases abroad and China has zero.
Remember, China is holding almost a trillion dollars of US debt.
So, what is this all about? The White House, which bet on the forbearance of a nuclear-armed Russia, in a conventional proxy war in Ukraine, is similarly counting on the forbearance of nuclear-armed China in a conventional war over Taiwan. Thus is the horror of unfettered brinkmanship.
NBC News obtained a memo in January where a four-star general instructed his logistical command of nearly 50,000 to get ready for war with China by 2025. His charges were told to further prepare by getting their “legal affairs” in order and to engage in the calisthenics of war, by firing an ammo clip often at a target and to aim for the head. Is this just hysterical puffery?
The 2022 National Security Strategy of the United States identified China as the greatest military and economic threat to the United States. Forget that Mr. Biden voted for China trade, NAFTA and the WTO, all which sharply eroded America’s strategic industrial base of steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping and ultimately set the stage for China’s rise as a world power. Forget that we have shipped high technology to military labs in China – and the Ukraine.
While the US continues its military muscle-flexing globally, incurring rising resentment in its continual challenges to the very idea of national sovereignty, China has focused instead on economic expansion, assisting in economic development throughout the world and strengthening the capacities of nations to support their own interests. China has played the long game, while US leaders have played the wrong game.
So, with only sanctions as a tool, the US has limited options to respond to China, except for war.
If the Biden Administration continues to ramp up for war against China, it could mean the end, not of China, but of the United States itself.
China and Russia are not natural allies, to say the least. However, with NATO encroachment, the placement of missiles on Russia’s border, the war in Ukraine, the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline, the U.S. has pushed Russia into China’s waiting arms.
As a result of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, together with the saber rattling over Taiwan, we have forced a once unthinkable China-Russia alliance whose combined manufacturing, energy production and offensive capabilities exceed that of the US.
A US war with China will not only bring in Russia on China’s side, but likely India, Brazil, and Iran. That is, if such a war were “conventional,” meaning not nuclear. However, the idea of containing such a war to conventional weapons is pure fantasy.
The Biden Administration’s cyclopean foreign policy will be the ruin of us all.
There is not a shred of diplomatic skill exhibited by the Sullivan-Blinken-Nuland troika. They pull away from treaties. Engage in continual provocations. Recklessly spend hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on military adventures. It’s escalate, escalate, escalate. The defense contractors, the war profiteers as FDR rightfully called them, cash in and the rest of us lose.
The average American family has seen nearly $100,000 of its wealth spent on regime change adventures since 2001, with highly negative results for our country and the world. The U.S. is viewed in many circles as the greatest threat to world peace. Alarmingly and poignantly, the national debt is close to $100,000 per person in America.
While the Biden Administration plans for a hot war with China in 2025, the White House will use cold war psychology now, for the 2024 election season, to scare the bejesus out of even the most pacific U.S. voter. And, with the help of the American media, which has largely been reduced to a posse of electronic spear carriers, we will be afflicted with every ‘alarm of struggle and flight’ appropriate to cowing Americans into silence and compliance.
President Biden, like President George W. Bush in the Iraq War, will seek to burnish his Commander in Chief status as a war-time president, beginning in the later part of 2023. Going into 2024, the American people will be told not to change presidents in the middle of a manufactured war.
Unless held in check by the voters, President Biden’s foreign policy handlers are merrily leading America and the world down the path of World War III. New Hampshire, are you listening?
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 