Assange Appeal Hearing Set for February
Julian Assange’s wife Stella Assange confirmed that the hearing will take place at the Royal Courts of Justice in the middle of February.
By Joe Lauria / Consortium News, https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/19/assange-appeal-hearing-set-for-february/
Imprisoned publisher Julian Assange will face two High Court judges over two days on Feb. 20-21, 2024 in London in what will likely be his last appeal against being extradited to the United States to face charges of violating the Espionage Act.
Assange’s wife Stella Assange confirmed that the hearing will take place at the Royal Courts of Justice. Assange had had an earlier request to appeal rejected by High Court Judge Jonathan Swift on June 6.
Assange then filed an application to appeal that decision and the dates have now been set. Assange is seeking to challenge both the home secretary’s decision to extradite him as well as to cross appeal the decision by the lower court judge, Vanessa Baraitser.
Baraitser had ruled in January 2021 to release Assange from Belmarsh Prison and deny the U.S. request for extradition based on Assange’s mental health, his propensity to commit suicide and conditions of U.S. prisons. On every point of law, however, Baraitser sided with the United States.
The U.S. appealed her decision, issuing “diplomatic assurances” that Assange would not be mistreated in prison. The High Court, after a two-day hearing in March 2022, accepted those “assurances” and rejected Assange’s appeal.
His application to the U.K. Supreme Court to hear the case was then denied. Assange then applied for a new appeal of Baraitser’s legal decisions and the home secretary’s extradition order.
Swift rejected Assange’s 150-page argument in a three-page rejection. The appeal of that decision will now take place two months from now.
If convicted under the World War I-era Espionage Act, the WikiLeaks publisher and journalist is facing up to 175 years in a U.S. dungeon for publishing classified material revealing crimes by the U.S. state, including war crimes.
Assange was also charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, though the indictment agains him does not accuse him of stealing U.S. documents or even of helping his source, Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, to do so.
A Merry AUKUS Surprise, Western Australia!
December 20, 2023, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/a-merry-aukus-surprise-western-australia/
The secretive Australian government just cannot help itself. Clamouring and hectoring of other countries and their secret arrangements (who can forget the criticism of the Solomon Islands over its security pact with China for that reason?) the Albanese government is a bit too keen on keeping a lid on things regarding the withering away of Australian independence before a powerful and spoiling friend.
A degree of this may be put down to basic lack of sensibility or competence. But there may also be an inadvertent confession in the works here: Australians may not be too keen on such arrangements once the proof gets out of the dense, floury pudding.
It took, as usual, those terrier-like efforts from Rex Patrick, Australia’s foremost transparency knight, forever tilting at the windmill of government secrecy, to discover that Western Australians are in for a real treat. The US imperium, it transpires from material produced by the Australian Department of Defence, will be deploying some 700 personnel, with their families, to the state. And to make matters more interesting, Western Australia will also host a site for low-level radioactive waste produced by US and UK submarines doing their rotational rounds under the AUKUS arrangements.
The briefing notes from the recently created Australian Submarine Agency reveal that the Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) will host as many as four US nuclear submarines of the US Navy Virginia-class at HMAS Stirling and one UK nuclear-powered boat from 2027. As part of what is designated the first phase of AUKUS, an Australian workforce of some 500-700 maintenance and support personnel is projected to grow in response to the program before Australia owns and operates its own US-made nuclear-powered boats. Once established and blooded by experience, “This workforce will then move to support our enduring nuclear-powered submarine program and will be a key enabler for SRF-West.”
The ASA documents go on to project that “over 700 United States Personnel could be living and working in Western Australia to support SRF-West, with some also bringing families.” The UK will not be getting the same treatment, largely because the contingent from the Royal Navy will be moving through on shorter rotations.
The stationing of the personnel in question finally puts to rest those contemptible apologetics that Australia is not a garrison for the US armed forces. At long last Australians can be reassured, if rather grimly, that these are not fleeting visits from great defenders, but the constant, and lingering presence of an imperial power jealously guarding its interests.
The issue of storing waste will have piqued some interest, given Australia’s current and reliably consistent failure to establish any long-term storage facility for any sort of nuclear waste, be it low, medium or high grade. But never fear, the doltish poseurs of the Defence Department are always willing to please and, as the department documents show, learn in their servile role.
As Patrick reveals, the documents released under FOI tell us that “operational waste” arising from the Submarine Rotational Force operation at HMAS Stirling will include the storage of low to intermediate level radioactive waste on Australian defence sites. One document notes that, “The rotational presence of United Kingdom and United States SSNs in Western Australia as part of the Submarine Rotational Force – West (SRF-West) will provide an opportunity to learn how these vessels operate, including the management of low-level radioactive waste from routine sustainment.”
The ASA also confirms with bold foolhardiness that, “All low and intermediate radioactive waste will be safely stored at Defence sites in Australia.” The storage facility in question is “being planned as part of the infrastructure works proposed for HMAS Stirling to support SRF-West.”
The Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles has retained a consultant, Steve Grzeskowiak, to the remunerative value of AU$396,000 from February to December this year to identify a suitable site on land owned by the Commonwealth. Absurdly, the same consultant, when Deputy Secretary of Defence Estates, conducted an analysis of over 200 Defence sites in terms of suitability for low-level waste management, finding none to pass muster.
In a troubling development, Patrick also notes that the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023, in its current form, would permit the managing, storing or disposing of radioactive waste from an AUKUS submarine, which would include UK or US submarines. Importantly, that waste could well be of a high-level nature. “While the Albanese Government has made a commitment that it will not do so, the Bill leaves the legal door open for possible future agreement from the Australian Government to store high-level nuclear waste generated from US or UK nuclear-powered submarines.”
To round matters off, Australia’s citizenry was enlightened to the fact that they will be adding some $US3 billion (AU$4.45 billion) to the US submarine industrial base. In the words of the ASA, “Australia’s commitment to invest in the US submarine industrial base recognises the lift the United States is making to supporting Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.” This will entail the pre-purchase of “submarine components and materials, so they are on hand at the start of the maintenance period” thereby “saving time” and “outsourcing less complex sustainment and expanding planning efforts for private sector overhauls, to reduce backlog.”
Decoding such naval, middle-management gibberish is a painful task, but nothing as painful as the implications for a country that has not only surrendered itself wholly and without qualification to Washington but is all too happy to subsidise it.
CSIRO says wind and solar much cheaper than nuclear, even with added integration costs
The big mover – and one that is significant in the context of the Australian debate on the energy transition, and the federal Coalition’s insistence that nuclear is the answer to most questions – is the cost of nuclear and small modular reactors.
Giles Parkinson 21 December 2023 ReNewEconomy
The CSIRO has published the latest edition of its important GenCost report, and responded to critics by dialling in near term integration costs for wind, solar and storage. But the result is just the same – renewables are clearly Australia’s cheapest energy option, and the story for nuclear just got a whole ot worse.
The annual GenCost report, prepared in collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator since 2018, is an important guide to where Australia’s energy transition is at and where it should be heading, but over the past has become the target of attack from conservative naysayers and the pro-nuclear lobby.
CSIRO has defended its methodology, but to satisfy the critics has added in pre-2030 integration costs – including the new transmission lines being built to connect new generation – and finds that the story is much the same.
“While this change leads to higher cost estimates, variable renewables (wind and solar) were still found to have the lowest cost range of any new-build technology,” the CSIRO says, noting that this includes all integration costs up to and including 90 per cent renewables.
In the past year, cost of solar and offshore wind has fallen, the cost of battery storage has remained steady, but the cost of other technologies such as onshore wind and pumped hydro has increased.
The big mover – and one that is significant in the context of the Australian debate on the energy transition, and the federal Coalition’s insistence that nuclear is the answer to most questions – is the cost of nuclear and small modular reactors.
The CSIRO has been attacked by the pro-nuclear lobby, including conservative media and right wing think tanks, for what the lobby claims are inflated cost estimates, but the CSIRO says recent events have backed its numbers. In fact, they make clear that nuclear SMR costs are worse than thought.
CSIRO economist Paul Graham points to the collapse of a major deal this year involving the most advanced SMR projects in the US, the NucScale projects in Utah, which were withdrawn because of soaring costs.
Graham says it is significant because, as NuScale was listed and had to abide by strict regulatory disclosure rules, it had to be “honest” about the anticipated costs of SMRs.
And these were nearly double what was previously thought. In fact they ended up at the equivalent of $A31,000/MW, according to NuScale filings, and much higher than the $A19,000/MW estimated by the CSIRO in its previous report, and for which it was accused of inflating.
“The UAMPS (Utah utility) estimate implies nuclear SMR has been hit by a 70 per cent cost increase which is much larger than the average 20% observed in other technologies,” the CSIRO writes.
“The cancellation of this project is significant because it was the only SMR project in the US that had received design certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which is an essential step before construction can commence.” Graham says that all other claims on nuclear SMR costs are just marketing and sales talk.
The reality, however, is that talk of nuclear SMRs as a solution for Australia’s energy transition and near term emissions targets are a distraction, given that the SMR technology is simply not available, and unlikely to be so for two decades.
The CSIRO report says some interesting things about the costs of wind and solar, technologies which are available and which do work. It says the costs of these technologies will continue to fall in coming years after the various price shocks that have affected the technologies over the last couple of years.
By including the costs of transmission and storage that is underway now and committed out to 2030 adds 40 to 60 per cent to the 2023 cost of deploying high shares of wind and solar, although that also ignores the technologies cost falls that will occur over time……………………………………………………………………………………….more https://reneweconomy.com.au/csiro-says-wind-and-solar-much-cheaper-than-nuclear-even-with-added-integration-costs/
Opposition need to explain whether they’ll will stick with their ‘nuclear fantasy’
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen says the Opposition has some explaining to do about whether they’ll stick with their “nuclear fantasy”.
“So, of course, projects will encounter some challenges – Snowy 2.0 has encountered delays and cost increases,” he said during a media conference on Thursday.
“That’s just one example.
“Nevertheless, it remains a very important project.
“Renewable energy, in all the evidence independently examined by the CSIRO and AEMO, is the cheapest form of energy.”
US Trying to Water Down New Cease-Fire Resolution at UN Security Council
“support for Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza is losing him respect all over the world.” – Mary Robinson
“The U.S. is increasingly isolated, with allies like Australia, Canada, India, Japan, and Poland switching their votes in the UN General Assembly to support an immediate humanitarian cease-fire,” said Robinson. “The U.S. cannot afford to be further isolated by vetoing this resolution.”
“The U.S. cannot afford to be further isolated by vetoing this resolution,” said one human rights advocate.
SCHEERPOST, By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams, 19 Dec 23
The United Nations Security Council on Monday delayed an expected vote on a new Gaza cease-fire resolution as the U.S. worked to weaken the measure’s language, objecting to the proposed call for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
Unnamed diplomats toldThe Associated Press that the wording will likely be changed to call for a “suspension” of hostilities or some other watered down phrasing amenable to the U.S., which used its veto power to tank a Security Council cease-fire resolution less than two weeks ago.
The veto drew international condemnation, and calls for a cease-fire have grown in the days since. In an overwhelming 153-10 vote on December 12, the U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution demanding an “immediate humanitarian cease-fire,” with the U.S. and Israel among the small number of opponents. Unlike those passed by the Security Council, General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding.
The 15-member Security Council is expected to vote on the new, potentially watered down cease-fire resolution as early as Tuesday morning.
Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders and former president of Ireland, said in a statement ahead of the vote that U.S. President Joe Biden’s “support for Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza is losing him respect all over the world.”
“The U.S. is increasingly isolated, with allies like Australia, Canada, India, Japan, and Poland switching their votes in the UN General Assembly to support an immediate humanitarian cease-fire,” said Robinson. “The U.S. cannot afford to be further isolated by vetoing this resolution.”
“But even if passed, such resolutions are not enough,” she continued. “UNSCR 2712, agreed last month, is not being fully implemented. It calls for the protection of civilians, the release of all hostages, and immediate humanitarian access. Only a cease-fire will allow for these calls to be met.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/19/us-trying-to-water-down-new-cease-fire-resolution-at-un-security-council/
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 