It really IS a climate emergency – but here is nuclear news, anyway
What went right this week: the good news you should know about. A pathway emerged to an Aids-free future, Deforestation fell in the Colombian Amazon. California Military Base is Being Transformed Into one of the Largest City Parks in the U.S.
TOP STORIES
If Everybody’s Going to Join NATO, Then Why Have the United Nations?
The Empire Knows It’s Pouring Ukrainian Blood Into An Unwinnable Proxy War.
The Forever Dangers of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
‘Artificial Escalation’: Imagining the future of nuclear risk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9npWiTOHX0
Nuclear trash on indigenous land ?- a court decision puts Australia in a very difficult spot. UK campaigners call on Australian PM to withdraw Kimba nuke dump threat.
CLIMATE. Heatwaves are new normal as 50C hits US and China – UN. How deadly are these heatwaves – and how hot will they get? (nb. kids under 5 especially endangered) Europe heatwave: EU sends planes to Greece as thousands flee fires. Highof 48C expected on continent as red spreads across the European weathermap. From body bags of ice to pavement burn: US grapples with new extreme heat reality. Rain fury: Floods batter North Indian states – nearly a foot of rain in 14 hours recorded.
Christina notes. Is it now OK to talk about ethics again? We need decision-making by women, if we’re going to survive in this nuclear age.
Nuclear. Again – it really is the climate that is the overwhelming news this week – while global leaders busily focus on new ways to plan to kill each other’s populations .
AUSTRALIA.
- Prime Minister Albanese must abandon South Australian nuclear waste dump. Examining the impact of the legal decision against the planned Kimba nuclear waste dump. Court rules in favour of Barngala people, preventing nuclear waste facility in Kimba. South Australian Greens Welcome Court Decision to Stop Nuclear Waste Facility in Kimba. Start from scratch call as nuclear dump plan shelved. Time for dump to be dumped for good.
- Black mist memories.
- AUKUS’ nuclear waste dump is the secret no-one talks about. So what’ll it cost? Congressional Concerns: Stalling Nuclear Submarines for Australia.
- Dutton’s Nuclear Folly: Small Modular Reactors a political mirage. Brisbane 2032 Olympics boss Andrew Liveris says nuclear power must be in the mix to make the Games ‘climate-positive’.
- Nevil Shute’s ‘On the Beach’ warned us of nuclear annihilation. It’s still a hot-button issue with a new play at the Sydney Theatre Company.
CLIMATE. “Nuclear Power Is Already a Climate Casualty”
ENERGY. Does Nuclear slow down the scale-up of Wind and Solar? France and Germany can’t agree.
ECONOMICS. Is the UK Government unable to fund its promised nuclear renaissance? These are the companies that will get the British government’s nuclear bribes. US Asset Managers Have ‘Significant Investments’ in Nuclear Weapons and Cluster Bombs: Analysis. France needs to invest 25 billion euros ($28 billion) each year to maintain its nuclear energy programme. The Big Problem With Small Nuclear Reactors.
ENERGY. Not nuclear, but wind and solar still cheapest – CSIRO
ENVIRONMENT. Cesium 180 times limit found in fish at Fukushima nuke plant 12 years after disaster. Hong Kong tightens radiation inspection of Japanese seafood imports.
ETHICS and RELIGION. Will we ban nuclear weapons, or will Biden and Putin get us all cremated equally?
HEALTH. Nuclear power: Is it safe to use nuclear energy ?- there are the health risks with it.
INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Nuclear Projects Torment Life on Earth.
MEDIA. The Nuclear Age Grimly Descends in “Oppenheimer”. ‘Oppenheimer’ is a pitch-dark American nightmare. We cannot look away. What We Can Still Learn From J. Robert Oppenheimer. Anti-nuclear groups welcome Oppenheimer film but say it fails to depict true horror. The Dynamics of War Insanity: NATO’s Ukraine Roulette.
NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. UK nuclear future: “China is the world leader in renewables” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob0R-h4GV8s Repeating This Nuclear Power Mistake Will Be Catastrophic For Artificial Intelligence – Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Oppenheimer biographer supports US bill to bar use of AI in nuclear launches.
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Best foot forward: Campaigners are marching again for a Nuclear Free Wales. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) condemns additional billions for Britain’s nuclear arsenal. Scottish CND hit out over ‘nuclear threat‘ in MPs’ military report. Putting the Nuclear Genie Back in the Bottle.
PERSONAL STORIES. Karina’s father went blind at Emu Field. Now, she’s fighting for a treaty on nuclear weapons.
POLITICS. UK government launches”Great British Nuclear” with big bribes, and big promises, for the “small nuclear reactor” industry. Don’t believe the UK government’s hype about small nuclear reactors and Great British Nuclear. Tory nuclear expansion programme.
Council defers decision over Test of Public Support on the issue of disposal of high level nuclear waste. Ontario – Ford government’s electricity plan takes wrong approach. Ontario opts for high-risk nuclear over low-risk energy sources.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.
- Disunity in NATO? Only neutral countries can bring peace to Ukraine – Brazil. NATO Is a Warfare Alliance, Not a Force for Global Peace or Stability.
- Why EU sanctions don’t include Russian nuclear industry
- US Republicans threaten to block AUKUS deal.
- UN proposes elimination of all nuclear weapons as first step under new agenda for peace. The Elders publish new policy paper on nuclear weapons.
- NewsReal: As Ukraine Counter-Offensive Fails, Putin Warns Warsaw Against Joining War.
RADIATION. Science and Global Security Maps Radioactive Fallout from U.S. Nuclear Weapon Tests, Beginning with July 1945 Trinity Test. Backgrounder on health consequences of nuclear radiation fallout and the Anthropocene. China’s blanket radiation testing could spell trouble for Japanese seafood imports.
SAFETY. Safety lapses at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Incidents. A 90 million gallon nuclear tragedy. The US should end its use of nuclear power plants – the intractible problem of dangerous spent fuel rods. An inherent potential for catastrophe.
SECRETS and LIES. Europe’s black hole: How much of the more than $185 billion given by the West to Ukraine has been stolen? Corruption In Ukraine & The U.S. Mutually Rewarding.
SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. SpaceX Starlink satellites had to make 25,000 collision-avoidance maneuvers in just 6 months — and it will only get worse. US DOE delivers plutonium-238 for NASA missions.
SPINBUSTER. UK government announces fantasy small modular reactor programme as a cover for Sizewelll C failure. Great British Nuclear: High on hype, Low on substance.
WASTES. Dumping doubts: Releasing Fukushima’s wastewater. To the Pacific islands, the West’s support for Japan’s Fukushima nuclear waste ocean dumping is hypocrisy. The dilemma of continuing to produce nuclear trash which will remain harmful for millennia. Feds digging up nuclear waste in Los Alamos for disposal at Carlsbad-area repository.
WAR and CONFLICT. Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia. Ukraine Again Bombs Crimean Bridge. Kiev strikes ammunition depot in Crimea – official. Architect of Annihilation: Oppenheimer’s Deadly Legacy of Nucle ar Terror. Putin warns of Poland’s intentions in Ukraine and Belarus.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Nuclear Notebook: French nuclear weapons, 2023. US turning Ukraine into ‘burial ground’ for lethal waste – Russian envoy. In Ukraine, US Adds to Barbaric Cluster-Bomb Legacy. USA government – more money, $19 billion, grant for making deadly plutonium. The True Symbol Of The United States Is The Pentagon.
WOMEN. Brussels: Global Women For Peace United Against NATO Meet With EU Parliament, NATO Representatives.
Nevil Shute’s ‘On the Beach’ warned us of nuclear annihilation. It’s still a hot-button issue with a new play at the Sydney Theatre Company
ABC News The Conversation / By Alexander Howard, 23 Jul 23
“……………………………….. the nuclear threat is still very much at the top of our collective mind.
The Sydney Theatre Company is staging the very first stage adaptation of Shute’s novel “On the Beach”. And Oppenheimer, one of 2023’s two most-hyped films, tells the story of the man referred to as “the father of the atomic bomb”.
‘Australia’s most important novel’
Journalist Gideon Haigh calls On the Beach “arguably Australia’s most important novel — important in the sense of confronting a mass international audience with the defining issue of the age”.
British-born Shute emigrated in 1950 to Australia, where he lived outside Melbourne. As well as writing novels, he worked as an aeronautical engineer.
The title of On the Beach — which started life as a four-part story called The Last Days on Earth — ostensibly referred to a Royal Navy expression for reassignment. (Shute spent time in the Royal Naval Reserve during World War II.) However, as readers of Eliot’s poetry will know, the phrase also appears late in The Hollow Men:
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.
As in Eliot’s poem, the characters that cluster together in the pages of Shute’s novel, set in and around Melbourne between 1962 and 1963, tend on occasion to avoid speech…………………………
The reason why the guests at Peter’s party are so keen to avoid serious talk is both simple and depressing. They are trying very hard to forget that they are all going to be dead from radiation poisoning in a matter of months.
Shute brings the reader up to speed after the dinner party wraps up. A massive nuclear war has devastated the entire northern hemisphere, wiping out all forms of life there. And the radioactive fallout generated during the conflict is now creeping — slowly but surely — into the southern hemisphere.
Shute makes it clear there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about this. In tonally dispassionate prose, he reveals that vast swathes of Australia have already been rendered uninhabitable due to radiation poisoning. The only thing the characters who remain can do is wait.
…………………………………………………………………………… This is the way Shute’s novel of nuclear extinction ends: not with a bang but with a whimper. Released at the height of the Cold War, On the Beach struck a chord with millions of concerned readers.
………………………………………………………………………Shute’s didactic inclinations are evident towards the end of the novel. “Peter,” the character Mary asks, “why did this all this happen to us?” Even at this late stage, Mary, whose radiation-racked body is spasming uncontrollably, wants to know whether things might have panned out differently. Her husband’s reply is revealing:
“I don’t know … Some kinds of silliness you just can’t stop,” he said. “I mean, if a couple of hundred million people all decide that their national honour requires them to drop cobalt bombs upon their neighbour, well, there’s not much that you or I can do about it. The only possible hope would have been to educate them out of their silliness.”
………………………..While the science in the novel was somewhat flawed, Shute’s cautionary tale undoubtedly spoke to the collective zeitgeist.
………………………………………………..
Shute’s vision of humanity’s self-inflicted destruction is eerily resonant in our time of climate emergency. The nuclear threat remains, too, in our perilous historical moment of democratic backsliding and failing nuclear states.
It seems increasingly likely the world as we know it is coming to an end — if it hasn’t already. The question remains: will it be with a bang or a whimper?
On The Beach runs at the Sydney Theatre Company July 24 to August 12, 2023, with previews July 18–21. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-23/nevil-shute-on-the-beach-nuclear-annihilation-hot-button-issue/102621052
AUKUS’ nuclear waste dump is the secret no-one talks about. So what’ll it cost?
The $360 billion cost of AUKUS might be startling, but on top of that is another undiscussed figure: the cost of building storage for nuclear waste.
Crikey, DAVID HARDAKER, JUL 24, 2023
In late 2021, it came as a shock when Australia woke up to find that its government, under then-prime minister Scott Morrison, had secretly agreed to join the nuclear submarine club with old friends, the US and the UK.
The secret within that secret was that Australia would be responsible for the radioactive waste generated by its involvement in the AUKUS program. For the first time, Australia had signed up to construct a storage facility for high-grade nuclear waste, robust enough to last 1000 years.
Australia had never done it. Nor the US. Nor the UK. Was the iron-clad commitment to building a waste dump part of the deal struck by Morrison when he announced the AUKUS partnership? If so, he didn’t mention it at the time. Nor was it mentioned by US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak or Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the official AUKUS announcement in San Diego in March…………. (subscribers only) more https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/07/24/aukus-nuclear-waste-dump-cost-australia/
Black Mist Memories
Aboriginal and veteran delegates tell Australian parliament the horrors of nuclear testing
By Gem Romuld, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Australia
In mid-June, four special people who know intimately the personal impacts of nuclear weapons testing, on physical health, mental health, and on the land, travelled to Parliament House in Canberra, Australia’s capital city.
The four were:
Karina Lester: Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman, senior Aboriginal language worker, ICAN Ambassador. Karina’s late father was blinded by the Totem 1 nuclear test at Emu Field.
June Lennon: Yankunytjatjara, Antikarinya and Pitjantjatjara woman who survived the Totem 1 nuclear test as a baby. Her mother, Lallie, and brother Bruce, were recipients of compensation due to their ill-health, caused by radioactive contamination.
Douglas Brooks: was stationed at Monte Bello Islands as a serving member of the Royal Australian Navy in 1956. He was aboard HMS Alert when a 98 kiloton nuclear bomb was detonated just ten miles away, exposing him and the rest of the crew to the full blast of the explosion.
Maxine Goodwin: is the daughter of an Australian nuclear veteran, who became ill as a result of his involvement in the first atomic test in Western Australia. He passed away at 49, leading Maxine to a lifelong search for the truth on how the tests have affected veterans and their families.
The delegates brought their expertise and personal testimonies to speak with parliamentarians about recognition, respect, and repair, and to urge Australia to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons……………………………………
They spoke about the shock of witnessing a nuclear test, the post-traumatic stress disorder that followed, the oily black mist that coated and poisoned the land, the wide range of mental and physical health impacts, the loss of loved ones far too early, the lack of recognition of suffering, the lack of accountability, the impact of government lies and obfuscation.
They argued that Australia must join the ban to prevent such humanitarian harm from happening again, and also to fulfill its obligations under Articles 6 & 7 to provide assistance to victims and remediate impacted environments. It’s about the past, the present and the future.
………………………………………………………………….. Josh Wilson MP and Senator Jordon Steele-John both delivered powerful speeches in Parliament, respectively available here and here.
………………………………………Further detail on the delegates’ meetings and media attention is in this blog post. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/07/23/black-mist-memories/
The Empire Knows It’s Pouring Ukrainian Blood Into An Unwinnable Proxy War
That’s right kids! We’re turning Ukraine into an uninhabitable wasteland of death and dismemberment to save the Ukrainians
Caitlin’s Newsletter CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, JUL 24, 2023
In a new article titled “Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia,” The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Michaels reports that western officials knew Ukrainian forces didn’t have the weapons and training necessary to succeed in their highly touted counteroffensive which was launched last month.
Michaels writes:…………………………………………………
The claim that western officials had sincerely believed Ukrainian forces might be able to overcome their glaring deficits through sheer pluck and ticker is undermined later in the same article by a war pundit who says the US would never attempt such a counteroffensive without first controlling the skies, which Ukraine doesn’t have the ability to do:
“America would never attempt to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but they [Ukrainians] don’t have air superiority,” the U.S. Army War College’s John Nagl told WSJ. “It’s impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.”
Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following on the latest WSJ revelation:
“Leading up to the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was launched in June, the Discord leaks and media reports revealed that the US did not believe Ukraine could regain much territory from Russia. But the Biden administration pushed for the assault anyway, as it rejected the idea of a pause in fighting.”
So the empire is still knowingly throwing Ukrainian lives into the meat grinder of an unwinnable proxy war, even as western officials tell the public that this war is about saving Ukrainian lives and handing Putin a crushing defeat whenever they’re on camera.
This attitude from the empire is not a new development. Last October The Washington Post reported that “Privately, U.S. officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright, but they have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table.”
Now why might that be? Why would the western empire be so comfortable encouraging Ukrainians to keep fighting when it knows they can’t win?
We find our answer in another Washington Post article titled “The West feels gloomy about Ukraine. Here’s why it shouldn’t.”, authored last week by virulent empire propagandist David Ignatius. In his eagerness to frame the floundering counteroffensive in a positive light for his American audience, Ignatius let slip an inconvenient truth:
“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”
Anyone who believes this proxy war is about helping Ukrainians should be made to read that paragraph over and over again until it sinks in. The admission that the US-centralized power structure benefits immensely from this proxy conflict is revealing enough, but that parenthetical “other than for the Ukrainians” aside really drives it home. It reads as though it was added as an afterthought, like “Oh yeah it’s actually kind of rough on the Ukrainians though — if you consider them to be people.”
The claim that this war is about helping Ukrainians has been further undermined by another new Washington Post report that Ukraine is now more riddled with land mines than any other nation on earth, and that US-supplied cluster munitions are only making the land more deadly.
That’s right kids! We’re turning Ukraine into an uninhabitable wasteland of death and dismemberment to save the Ukrainians.
We should probably talk more about the fact that the US empire is loudly promoting the goal of achieving peace in Ukraine by defeating Russia while quietly acknowledging that this goal is impossible. This is like accelerating toward a brick wall and pretending it’s an open road.
The narrative that Russia can be beaten by ramping up proxy warfare against it makes sense if you believe Russia can be militarily defeated in Ukraine, but the US empire does not believe that Russia can be militarily defeated in Ukraine. It knows that continuing this war is only going to perpetuate the death and devastation.
“Beat Putin’s ass and make him withdraw” sounds cool and is egoically gratifying, and it’s become the mainstream answer to the problem of the war in Ukraine, but nobody promoting that answer can address the fact that the ones driving this proxy war believe it’s impossible. In fact, all evidence we’re seeing suggests that the US is not trying to deliver Putin a crushing defeat in Ukraine and force him to withdraw, but is rather trying to create another long and costly military quagmire for Moscow, as western cold warriors have done repeatedly in instances like Afghanistan and Syria.
Wanting to weaken Russia and wanting to save lives and establish peace in Ukraine are two completely different goals, so different that in practice they wind up being largely contradictory. Drawing Moscow into a bloody quagmire means many more people dying in a war that drags on for years, with all the immense human suffering that that entails.
The US does not want peace in Ukraine, it wants to overextend Russia, shore up military and energy dominance over Europe, expand its war machine and enrich the military-industrial complex. That’s why it knowingly provoked this war. It’s posing as Ukraine’s savior while being clearly invested in Ukraine’s destruction.
It is not legitimate to support this proxy war without squarely addressing this massive contradiction using hard facts and robust argumentation. Nobody ever has. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-knows-its-pouring-ukrainian?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=135389526&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
If Everybody’s Going to Join NATO, Then Why Have the United Nations?
Slowly, NATO is positioning itself as a substitute for the UN, suggesting that it – and not the actual international community – is the arbiter and guardian of the world’s ‘interests, security, and values’.
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. by VJ Prashad, 20 July 23
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) held its annual summit on 11–12 July in Vilnius, Lithuania. The communiqué released after the first day’s proceedings claimed that ‘NATO is a defensive alliance’, a statement that encapsulates why many struggle to grasp its true essence. A look at the latest military spending figures shows, to the contrary, that NATO countries, and countries closely allied to NATO, account for nearly three-quarters of the total annual global expenditure on weapons.
untries closely allied to NATO, account for nearly three-quarters of the total annual global expenditure on weapons. Many of these countries possess state-of-the-art weapons systems, which are qualitatively more destructive than those held by the militaries of most non-NATO countries. Over the past quarter century, NATO has used its military might to destroy several states, such as Afghanistan (2001) and Libya (2011), shattering societies with the raw muscle of its aggressive alliance, and end the status of Yugoslavia (1999) as a unified state. It is difficult, given this record, to sustain the view that NATO is a ‘defensive alliance’.
………………………………………………. NATO’s increasing membership has doubled down on its ambition to use its military power, through Article 5, to subdue anyone who challenges the ‘Atlantic Alliance’.
The ‘Atlantic Alliance’, a phrase that is part of NATO’s name, was part of a wider network of military treaties secured by the US against the USSR and, after October 1949, against the People’s Republic of China.
This network included the Manila Pact of September 1954, which created the Southeast Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO), and the Baghdad Pact of February 1955, which created the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO). Turkey and Pakistan signed a military agreement in April 1954 which brought them together in an alliance against the USSR and anchored this network through NATO’s southernmost member (Turkey) and SEATO’s westernmost member (Pakistan). The US signed a military deal with each of the members of CENTO and SEATO and ensured that it had a seat at the table in these structures.
At the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia in April 1955, India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reacted strongly to the creation of these military alliances, which exported tensions between the US and the USSR across Asia. The concept of NATO, he said, ‘has extended itself in two ways’: first, NATO ‘has gone far away from the Atlantic and has reached other oceans and seas’ and second, ‘NATO today is one of the most powerful protectors of colonialism’.
As an example, Nehru pointed to Goa, which was still held by fascist Portugal and whose grip had been validated by NATO members – an act, Nehru said, of ‘gross impertinence’. This characterisation of NATO as a global belligerent and defender of colonialism remains intact, with some modifications.
SEATO was disbanded in 1977, partly due to the defeat of the US in Vietnam, and CENTO was shuttered in 1979, precisely due to the Iranian Revolution that year. US military strategy shifted its focus from wielding these kinds of pacts to establishing a direct military presence with the founding of US Central Command in 1983 and the revitalisation of the US Pacific Command that same year.
The US expanded the power of its own global military footprint, including its ability to strike anywhere on the planet due to its structure of military bases and armed flotillas (which were no longer restricted once the 1930 Second London Naval Treaty expired in 1939). Although NATO has always had global ambitions, the alliance was given material reality through the US military’s force projection and its creation of new structures that further tied allied states into its orbit (with programmes such as ‘Partnership for Peace’, set up in 1994, and concepts such as ‘global NATO partner’ and ‘non-NATO ally’, as exemplified by Japan and South Korea). In its 1991 Strategic Concept, NATO wrote that it would ‘contribute to global stability and peace by providing forces for United Nations missions’, which was realised with deadly force in Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2003), and Libya (2011)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The war in Ukraine provided new life to the Atlantic Alliance, driving several hesitant European countries – such as Sweden – into its ranks. Yet, even amongst people living within NATO countries there are groups who are sceptical of the alliance’s aims, with the Vilnius summit marked by anti-NATO protests. The Vilnius Summit Communiqué underlined Ukraine’s path into NATO and sharpened NATO’s self-defined universalism. The communiqué declares, for instance, that China challenges ‘our interests, security, and values’, with the word ‘our’ claiming to represent not only NATO countries but the entire international order.
Slowly, NATO is positioning itself as a substitute for the UN, suggesting that it – and not the actual international community – is the arbiter and guardian of the world’s ‘interests, security, and values’. This view is contested by the vast majority of the world’s peoples, seven billion of whom do not even reside in NATO’s member countries (whose total population is less than one billion). Those billions wonder why it is that NATO wants to supplant the United Nations. https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/nato-united-nations/
Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia
U.S. and Kyiv knew of shortfalls but Kyiv still launched offensive
WSJ, By Daniel Michaels, July 22, 2023
BRUSSELS—When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons—from shells to warplanes—that it needed to dislodge Russian forces. But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day.
They haven’t. Deep and deadly minefields, extensive fortifications and Russian air power have combined to largely block significant advances by Ukrainian troops. Instead, the campaign risks descending into a stalemate with the potential to burn through lives and equipment without a major shift in momentum.
As the likelihood of any large-scale breakthrough by the Ukrainians this year dims, it raises the unsettling prospect for Washington and its allies of a longer war—one that would require a huge new infusion of sophisticated armaments and more training to give Kyiv a chance at victory.
The political calculus for the Biden administration is complicated. President Biden is up for re-election in the fall of 2024 and many in Washington believe concerns in the White House about the war’s impact on the campaign are prompting growing caution on the amount of support to offer Kyiv.
The American hesitation contrasts with shifting views in Europe, where more leaders over recent months have come to believe that Ukraine must prevail in the conflict—and Russia must lose—to ensure the continent’s security.
But European militaries lack sufficient resources to supply Ukraine with all it needs to eject Moscow’s armies from the roughly 20% of the country that they control. European leaders are also unlikely to significantly increase support to Kyiv if they sense U.S. reluctance, Western diplomats say.
The shift in trans-Atlantic political winds, evident in tensions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. officials at the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Lithuania, has come as Ukraine’s long-expected offensive appears stalled. Kyiv’s inability to make headway against Russian defenses has persuaded many Western military observers that Ukrainian forces need more training in complex military maneuvers, more-potent air defenses and much more armor.
Moscow’s military, meanwhile, is grappling with low morale because of exhaustion, poor supplies and infighting among Russian leaders, Ukrainian and Western intelligence indicates. Russia appears unable to seize the initiative and attack Ukrainian positions, but its forces remain robust enough to man hundreds of miles of fortifications and large numbers of aircraft, which are keeping Kyiv’s troops at bay……………………………………………………………………………… more https://archive.is/D6CQZ#selection-625.0-634.1
Backgrounder on health consequences of nuclear radiation fallout and the Anthropocene
Mary Olson — July 21, 2023
Since fatal cancer and some catastrophic impacts to pregnancy originate from damage to a single living cell, there is no amount of ionizing radiation that is safe. It is therefore extremely appropriate in terms of human and environmental health, that particles of plutonium from nuclear weapons fallout has been chosen as the marker for the new geologic epoch in which the dominant force acting on this planet is us.
The Anthropocene is, so far, a time of imbalance and disease, including destabilization of our climate, destruction of natural habitat sending extinction rates up and biodiversity down, made worse by dumping new toxic chemicals widely, polluting air, water and food. Radiation from nuclear fission adds the additional scrambling of genes and genomes.
Fallout warrants an update from the health perspective. The disproportionate impact of bomb radiation on women and girls is established, and particularly troubling given the global distribution of fallout particles. However, a new paper from Dr Alfred Körblein is the first to find the correlation of very large numbers of lives lost and fallout. Körblein reports the death rate of infants (live-birth) in five European nations (UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain) and the U.S. during and following the period of atmospheric nuclear testing (1945—1963). After a tour de force statistical analysis, Körblein concludes: “atmospheric nuclear weapons testing may be responsible for the deaths of several million babies in the Northern Hemisphere.”
A clear spike (25% increase) in infant deaths was previously reported by Tucker and Alvarez citing New Mexico state records after the 1945 Trinity Test. These are live births, not losses of pregnancies, which may have been much higher. Körblein examined biological sex as a factor, but found no strong correlation. Infant death was likely due to insufficient immune capacity.
Fallout is not only in the past, when worldwide 528 nuclear detonations were made in our atmosphere. In 2021 Science Magazine reported detection of Cesium-137 in honey in the United States. While only trace levels were found in the honey, radioactivity from Cesium, a major constituent of the fine particles of fallout that drift back down, or are carried down in much higher concentrations by rain. Cesium, inhaled or ingested mimics potassium in the body, where uptake is primarily to muscle, including the heart. Cardiovascular damage has now been linked to radiation as a causal agent for heart disease and stroke.
Highly radioactive fallout particles have been dispersed worldwide, not only the lake in Canada where the Anthropocene spike will be placed. This is demonstrated in the modern digital modeling work of Sebastien Philippe and his team on French nuclear tests in Polynesia.
The widescale distribution of highly radioactive cesium, iodine, strontium and also plutonium, known carcinogens at any concentration have been contributors to the widescale suffering of cancers. Fission products in our air, food and water have contributed to reproductive impacts. Due to many factors, the global birth rate has dropped in half since 1950 and the impact of fallout is likely to be part of this.
Exploding a nuclear weapon in the biosphere is not only a test of the weapon—it is a test of life itself, in a massive, uncontrolled experiment. Thankfully, our species retains the capacity to change our minds, and invest in a healthy future. The United Nations General Assembly declared a healthy environment to be a universal Human Right in July, 2022. Perhaps the Anthropocene will also be a time of healing.
Faster, higher, nuclear: Games boss’ energy call
Brisbane 2032 Olympics boss Andrew Liveris says nuclear power must be in the mix to make the Games ‘climate-positive’…………………………. (Subscribers only) https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGN&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnation%2Fbrisbane-2032-olympics-boss-flags-nuclearpowered-games%2Fnews-story%2F585267281f1c81c9a84e0268762c12cc&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=dynamic-high-control-score&V21spcbehaviour=append
2.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 