TODAY. The “modern” nuclear industry manages its radioactive sewage in a medieval way
The nuclear industry prides itself on being such a “modern” “civilised” industry. However, it is quite happy to deal with its garbage in a medieval way. Just as, centuries ago, in “civilised” Europe it was just fine to pour your sewage into the street – to flow on to public waterways and oceans.
This mendacious industry cons us all into believing that the Fukushima nuclear waste-water is the same as water released from active nuclear power plants. It is not.
Normally, water that is used in cooling a nuclear plant in routine operation and then discharged to the environment has no direct contact with the nuclear reactor fuel cores. In contrast, the contaminated water generated by the Fukushima disaster has come into direct contact with contamination from the melted down cores of three reactors and as such is severely contaminated with many radionuclides. It has greater variety of radioactive materials but also the overall much higher radioactivity.
But that’s not the only deception. With its customary false logic, the nuclear industry claims that because several countries already pour nuclear-irradiated wastewater into the sea, that proves that it is OK to do so. That’s like a medieval person explaining that pouring sewage into the street is fine, because the neighbours do it.
The global ban on ocean dumping of radioactive waste adopted in 1993 applies only to barrels. It has allowed Britain and France to pump billions of gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Irish Sea and the North Sea respectively, for decades. The mind boggles at the thought of what the Russians do with theirs.
It took the Black Plague in 1350 to make people realise that sewage, garbage, and dead bodies in the streets were really a bad idea.
What is it going to take for the world to stop this wonderful “modern” nuclear industry pour its radioactive sewage into the public oceans?
And for that matter, since nuclear power and nuclear weapons are not essential – why allow their toxic sewage to be produced at all?
Woomera looms as national nuclear waste dump site
Financial Review, Phillip Coorey, Political editor, 10 Aug 23,
A federal government decision to scrap plans for a nuclear waste dump outside the South Australian town of Kimba has increased speculation it will instead build a bigger facility on defence land at Woomera that could also accommodate high-level waste from the AUKUS submarines.
More than two decades of work by successive governments to find a site to store low- and medium-level waste ended on Thursday when Resources Minister Madeleine King announced the government would not appeal last week’s Federal Court decision against the dump going ahead.
The court ruled on an action brought by the local Barngarla people, angering the Kimba community which had been bracing for the jobs and revenue the facility would have created.
……………………………………………. The dump was also opposed by the state Labor government.
Local Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey, who holds the federal seat of Grey, lashed Ms King and the government in parliament, calling the decision not to appeal as “cowardly, gutless and lacking moral fibre”.
Liberal Senate leader and SA senator Simon Birmingham concurred, especially as the Federal Court ruling was “very narrow” one……………………………………………………………….
[The dump] was not designed to store high-level waste such as the spent reactors from the nuclear-powered subs Australia will acquire and build under AUKUS.
Favoured location
Earlier this week, Defence Minister Richard Marles reaffirmed that the submarine waste would have to be stored on Defence Department land. The Australian Financial Review understands the favoured location is the Woomera rocket range in remote SA, although the selection process has yet to begin.
A high-level waste dump in Woomera would also store low and medium-level waste, ending the decades of conflict that have been caused by trying to choose such sites as Kimba.
In March, former Howard government minister Nick Minchin told the Financial Review that Mr Marles should cut to the chase and identify Woomera as the site for the high-level nuclear waste dump required under the AUKUS pact.
As industry and science minister between 1998 and 2001, the then Liberal senator for SA fought to establish a repository for low- and medium-level waste after initially choosing Woomera but being rebuffed by the Defence Department because of the stigma associated with nuclear waste.
This was despite tonnes of radioactive soil having been stored at Woomera in barrels for years.
“From my long experience of working on this issue, the Commonwealth would be well-advised putting it on Commonwealth land to avoid the states playing politics,” Mr Minchin said.
“Having previously assessed Woomera, it ticks all the boxes in terms of remoteness, stability and space.”…………………………………………….. https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/woomera-looms-as-national-nuclear-waste-dump-site-20230810-p5dvle
How will they explain themselves to their grandchildren?
August 11, 2023, by: Mark Buckley https://theaimn.com/how-will-they-explain-t
It is hard to understand the stupidity of Australia’s political leaders when it comes to the climate catastrophe. It is a given that the likes of Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott will ignore the facts as they unfold, but even they must have noticed what’s going on.
Maybe the political class don’t watch television, or read newspapers, or have relatives living overseas, but the rest of us do.
Two years ago there were horrific floods in Germany and Belgium, in mid-July 2021, which killed more than 220 people. Damage was widespread and was seen as far away as the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. In Europe, in summer.
In Australia we know the lasting devastation of floods, and the impossibility of future proofing. The only solution is to re-build, if re-build you must, on higher ground.
Is a flood more real if it happens in Germany rather than in Lismore, or Shepparton? Are wildfires more devastating when they happen in Canada or Greece? Does total destruction of a town in Hawaii mean more than if it happens in Mallacoota?
Ask Matt Canavan why he chooses to ignore the facts of climate destruction in Australia. What does he think of the lack of sea ice in the Antarctic this year? Some scientists think the rise in sea levels, caused by the undermining of the ice in Antarctica, could range from between 2 metres to 10 metres.
Imagine the harm to our coastal cities if it comes in closer to 10 metres. Well, they won’t be there anymore, so it’s not difficult to imagine the damage. It won’t make it hard to get onto the West Gate Bridge, because the West Gate Bridge will be an abandoned arc of empty roadway, and what would be the use of driving to Geelong, because Geelong won’t be there anymore.
Kardinia Park will be an empty reservoir. But enough imagining, already. For our intellectually challenged leaders, the plight of our civilisation is at stake.
Droughts and bushfires will alternate with flooding rains, as the seasons change. Mass starvation will lead to mass migrations, from those lands most affected, to those less affected.
If you think living in the mountains, far away from the mass populations of cities, will make you safe from the changes in the climate, think again.
Towns in the Andes mountains in Peru have reached 38°C or more, while in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, temperatures above 30°C have been recorded; this month. It is winter there now.
Peter Dutton wants to fix the climate crisis with nuclear power. Does he know how long it takes to arrange for a nuclear power station to be approved, planned and built? Does he not own a clock, or a calendar?
On the government’s side of the ledger, more than 2,000 medical professionals have demanded that the Albanese government withdraw $1.5bn funding for the Middle Arm industrial development, in the Northern Territory.
The funding is a handout to assist the development of the huge Beetaloo Basin gas field. Labor is struggling to disguise the funding. Are votes in the short-term worth wrecking the climate?
We have been told that the earth is reaching, and in some cases, passing through “tipping points” for the climate.
It doesn’t take much imagination to recognise the utter failure of almost every government on earth to react to the crisis.
See the piss-ant state governments as they legislate to criminalise the actions of climate activists. Jailing them won’t achieve anything. It is as effective and as ridiculous as trying to stop the tide.
See how the so-called leaders of governments world-wide baulk at the difficult conversations they need to have with their citizens, to convince them that time has almost run out.
Believe it or not, but the scientists need to change their language, from calm reason to barely suppressed terror. We are facing Armageddon, and politicians are worried that people will either panic, or vote them out of power.
They need to get to the front. Show some leadership. Make change. Don’t worry about plans for fifty years in the future, your rubbish plans for nuclear subs and inland rail.
Worry about the end of civilisation as we know it. Worry about our children and their children. I don’t want my grandchildren starving because we had a leadership which valued the chance of a directorship with a gas company over the survival of humanity.
And the leaders of today need to know there is nowhere to hide if it all turns to manure. They were warned, and there is not a mountain high enough to escape to.
Zelensky Fires All Military Enlistment Office Chiefs Over Corruption Allegations
DAILY WIRE, By Zach Jewell, Aug 12, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Friday that he will dismiss every single head of the country’s regional military enlistment offices over allegations of abuse of power, fraud, and corruption.
In a statement released by Zelensky’s office, the president said that a recent inspection of “military commissars” revealed that some of the military officials illegally obtained cash or cryptocurrency while others illegally transported people eligible for military service across the border. The inspection began in June after journalists uncovered that the former head of the Odesa Oblast military enlistment office purchased property in Spain worth $4.5 million, according to the Kyiv Independent. ………………….
In all, 112 criminal cases have been opened following the inspection of enlistment offices and 33 people have been charged. …………………….
The Ukrainian president said he will replace the fired commissars with officers who have experience on the battlefield. The replacements will be reviewed by the country’s Security Service.
Earlier this year, Zelensky fired one of his top generals and numerous top officials were fired or resigned after they were hit with allegations of corruption. Many of the officials who were fired or resigned were accused of leaving the country and living lavish lifestyles while their country fought the Russian invaders.
Zelensky’s firing of the enlistment office chiefs comes as President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve more than $24 billion in aid to Ukraine as part of a $40 billion package. In the package, Biden asked for $20 billion more to go to Ukraine than he requested be used to address the ongoing border crisis, POLITICO reported.
The U.S., which is by far the largest supporter of Ukraine’s war effort, has failed to track its shipments of weapons and military equipment to the European country, according to a report last month from the inspector general for the Department of Defense. After describing the inability of the U.S. to track all of the weapons it had sent to Ukraine, the report listed several examples of groups in the country obtaining military equipment for nefarious purposes, though the origin of the equipment remained unclear as the report was heavily redacted.
Americans are becoming increasingly wary of U.S. involvement in the Ukraine-Russia war with a majority of voters now saying they oppose more funding for Ukraine, according to a recent CNN poll. Biden, however, has repeatedly said that the U.S. will support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”
Secret Pakistan cable documents US pressure to remove Imran Khan
“All will be forgiven,” said a U.S. diplomat, if the no-confidence vote against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds.
The Intercept, Ryan Grim, Murtaza Hussain, August 9 2023,
THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept.
The meeting, between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department officials, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and speculation in Pakistan over the past year and a half, as supporters of Khan and his military and civilian opponents jockeyed for power. The political struggle escalated on August 5 when Khan was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges and taken into custody for the second time since his ouster. Khan’s defenders dismiss the charges as baseless. The sentence also blocks Khan, Pakistan’s most popular politician, from contesting elections expected in Pakistan later this year.
One month after the meeting with U.S. officials documented in the leaked Pakistani government document, a no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power. The vote is believed to have been organized with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military. Since that time, Khan and his supporters have been engaged in a struggle with the military and its civilian allies, whom Khan claims engineered his removal from power at the request of the U.S.
The text of the Pakistani cable, produced from the meeting by the ambassador and transmitted to Pakistan, has not previously been published. The cable, known internally as a “cypher,” reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Khan, promising warmer relations if Khan was removed, and isolation if he was not.
The document, labeled “Secret,” includes an account of the meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S.
The document was provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source in the Pakistani military who said that they had no ties to Imran Khan or Khan’s party. The Intercept is publishing the body of the cable below, correcting minor typos in the text because such details can be used to watermark documents and track their dissemination………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Intercept has made extensive efforts to authenticate the document. Given the security climate in Pakistan, independent confirmation from sources in the Pakistani government was not possible. The Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to a request for comment……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
more https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cypher-ukraine-russia/—
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of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 