Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

World teeters on brink as Trump and cronies prepare to flood the zone with shit

By Giles ParkinsonNov 10, 2024,  https://johnmenadue.com/world-teeters-on-brink-as-trump-and-cronies-prepare-to-flood-the-zone-with-shit/

Are you OK? It seems an important question as the unhinged and unrestrained president Donald Trump is swept back into power and the world contemplates the implications for the climate, for civil discourse, for women, for minorities, for society as a whole, and for our children and their children.

We have, of course, been here before. This time round, however, the guard rails have been removed: Trump will be back in the White House and in control of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the judiciary and, thanks to fellow and like minded billionaires who own it or fund it, mainstream and social media. Only the filibuster stands in his way.

It’s a kick in the guts to those who care about the future. The implications weigh heavy on anyone minded to consider them: Trump is a climate denier who describes the science as a hoax and his vow to wind back policies and frack, frack, frack, will – according to the best estimates – add around four billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030, when the opposite needs to happen.

That, of course, means that the small window to cap average global warming within the Paris climate target of 1.5°C is all but lost. But by how big a margin it will be missed will depend on the actions elsewhere in the world. That includes Australia but mostly it is China, whose role could get complicated with the threat of a tariff war.

Trump has been especially enabled by the likes of Tesla and Twitter/X boss Elon Musk, who used to say that his prime mission was to end the use of fossil fuels in the grid and transport with electric cars, storage and renewables.

Musk’s technology, the cars and the batteries in particular, have helped tip the balance towards a green energy transition. But he now appears more concerned by other ideological pursuits.

Bizarrely, Musk now dismisses the science – maybe if greenhouse emissions get close to 1,000 parts per million it might be hard to breathe, he has said. He is obsessed about getting to Mars, and is happy to enable and promote misogynists and conspiracy theorists on his social media platform. On earth, or at least in cyberspace and the Metaverse, Musk is, to borrow a phrase, flooding the zone with shit.

What does that mean for Australia?

The good news – and these things are comparative – is that at least in the short term, the green energy transition will continue apace.

While wind and solar stocks plunged in the US in anticipation of Trump’s fossil fuel fracking frenzy, and his planned dismantling of the Inflation Reduction Act, the program in Australia accelerates, as we report here, with added urgency.

Australia is getting close to the half way mark of kicking fossil fuels out of the grid, and replacing them with wind, solar and storage – essential for any significant emissions cuts in the broader economy.

Some argue that the tipping point – aided by new technology, falling prices, better engineering, and deep pocketed investors – has already arrived.

But that won’t stop others from trying to throw a spanner in the nacelle, as it were, and Australia’s conservative Coalition – emboldened by the chutzpah of the Trump campaign and the backing of the Murdoch and Musk media machines – will continue with its campaign of mischief and misinformation.

What the Coalition and Peter Dutton have learned is that if you do flood the zone with shit – it’s the Steve Bannon mantra – then a lot will stick, particularly when you find ways of making people fearful.

So expect to hear a lot about immigration, transgender, women, elites and any other group that can easily be demonised in a tweet or an Instagram post.

The federal Coalition’s pursuit and promotion of nuclear power as a solution for Australia is about as nonsensical and incoherent as anything that Trump has ever proposed, but as the New York Times’ Seth Abramson notes in a depressing analysis, many of the public are too frivolous, selfish, self-interested, ignorant, or petty to care.

And, I would add, they are also too fearful, too impressionable, and too vulnerable to the machinations of billionaires who want to be trillionaires, and their supporting cast of psychopaths, to care.

Which brings it back to those who do care. The world has seen the likes of Trump, Abbott, Morrison before. The work has fallen to others to get on with the job – be it sub-national governments, investors, and campaigners. There is a lot at stake.

In Australia, that means individuals, too. Which is a good thing. The grid has changed so much, thanks largely to the massive popularity of rooftop solar, that consumers and communities here are in a position not enjoyed by others in the world: They are poised, quite literally, to take the power into their own hands, if only they were allowed.

Their ability to do so will grow with the rollout of EVs, vehicle to grid technology, heat pumps, and software that allows and promotes demand management.

The biggest impediment appears to be the system itself, and entrenched interests. Voters in the US and Australia are being hurt by changing economic circumstances and inflation. Trump managed to con the US public by pretending that he wasn’t part of the system, or the problem.

His attack on established and respected institutions is echoed in Australia by Dutton and co, who appear more concerned about protecting the vested and often venal interests of legacy industry – many now crouching behind the veil of net zero by 2050 that they know they can use as an excuse rather than a target.

It seems to be working. Polls put the Coalition at a 52-48 per cent advantage, just six months out from the federal poll. At least in Australia there is strength in minor parties, and their role has never been as crucial as it is now. The world is is in desperate need of grown-ups. Australia cannot afford to follow the American path.

So, when the rest of us are able to pick ourselves up from the floor, and check with others that they are OK, then it might be time to set about convincing doubters that the push to zero emissions offers a safe and more prosperous future, and the chance to be part of a community rather than oppressed by a system.

Sadly, it’s not yet apparent that enough in the green energy industry have learned how to do that, or even that they know that they should.

Good luck, take care, and don’t give up. We won’t.

November 11, 2024 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Climate, nuclear, news and more -this week

Some bits of good news –  

World Children’s Day 2024 – Every year, World’s Children Day is celebrated on 20 November, marking the date that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted.  Jordan Recognized as First in the World to Eradicate Leprosy


TOP STORIES

Israeli Scholar Lays Out ‘True Brutality’ of Ethnic Cleansing Now Underway in Gaza. 

The Evil Warmongering Zionist Won (No Not That One, The Other One). 

From the archives: Trump has a strategic plan for the country: Gearing up for nuclear war.

Climate. 

Environment. The Guardian view on Trump’s planet-wrecking plans: the UK government’s resolve will be tested.

Noel’s notes. The International Atomic Energy Agency in full force with its lying propaganda, at COP 29, with at least 20 ‘Events”. The Trump period and the use of language.

***********************************

AUSTRALIA. 

NUCLEAR ITEMS 

ATROCITIES. Israel Killed Over 50 Children in Jabalia in 48 Hours: UN. Report Details Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Campaign in Beit Lahia, Northern Gaza.
CULTURE. Trump Puts An Appropriately Ugly Face On A Very Ugly Empire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRThFwyddvk
ECONOMICS. Regulators deliver successive blows to Amazon and Meta’s nuclear power ambitions. Amazon’s nuclear datacenter dreams stall as watchdog rejects power deal.Talen-Amazon Nuclear Power Deal Hits Speed Bump – Why Constellation Stock Is Down More. This is why nuclear power stocks are falling

EDUCATION. Nuclear lobby continues its infiltration of education.
EMPLOYMENT. Hinkley workers ‘unfair’ pay claim leads to action. Hinkley Point and Sizewell nuclear plant engineers go on strike. ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/11/07/1-b-hinkley-point-and-sizewell-nuclear-plant-engineers-go-on-strike/

ENERGY. IEA: Countries not on course to double rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030. Compelling Economics of Renewables Unmask Fossil Fuels and Nuclear.

Endangered Bees Halt Meta’s Nuclear-Powered AI Data Center Plans.

Minimal role for nuclear in UK government agency’s Clean Energy plan.

Clean Energy Community Mobilizes as Trump Rises, Supporters Embrace Project 2025.

ENVIRONMENT. Radioactive pollution from bomb plant sparks cancer fears. Radioactivity in Food and the Environment (RIFE) report UK published.

HEALTH. Radiation. Occupational exposure to radiation among health workers: Genome integrity and predictors of exposure.

LEGAL. The death of Karen Silkwood—and the plutonium economy. Three sentenced to death for role in Iranian nuclear scientist’s assassination .

MEDIA. A massacre within a massacre: How journalists reporting on Gaza deaths are being targeted.The Government-Media-Academia Misinformation Machine and “Ukraine’s Victory”.
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Seven Canadian environmental groups challenge the nuclear industry’s false claims ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/11/07/1-b1-seven-canadian-environmental-groups-challenge-the-nuclear-industrys-false-claims/

POLITICS.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.Everybody Wants to Join BRICS.Can Trump 2.0 defuse the nuclear threat? These Washington heavyweights fear not.Iran says it rejects nuclear weapons, but will defend itself by all means. UN nuclear head to visit Iran for talks on country’s nuclear program as next Trump presidency looms.UK says it voted against UN nuclear war panel because consequences already known. Poodles and puppet masters – Mutual Defence Agreement puts USA in charge of UK military policy.
SAFETY. Can quake-prone Japan ever embrace nuclear energy again? When you combine AI and nuclear power, the results can be catastrophic .
SECRETS and LIES. COP 29 chief exec filmed promoting fossil fuel deals.
TECHNOLOGY. Japanese nuclear reactor that restarted 13 years after Fukushima disaster is shut down again. Micro-reactor developer optimistic about connecting South Wales project by 2027.
WASTES. Germany excludes over half of its territory in search for long-term nuclear waste storage.
Robot Removes First Bit Of Fukushima’s Nuclear Fuel Debris – Just 880 Tons More To Go. Nuclear debris retrieved from Fukushima reactor weighs 0.7 gram. Tepco removes [a tiny sceric] of nuclear fuel debris from Fukushima disaster site.
WAR and CONFLICT. Israel’s attacks on Iran were an apocalyptic error by Netanyahu. Here’s why.
Foreign Policy: NATO knows Ukraine is losing. Russia’s Swift March Forward in Ukraine’s East. Biden, Zelensky ponder face saving off ramp from failed US proxy war against Russia.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.
US F-15 Fighter Jets Arrive in Middle East as Part of Buildup Aimed at Iran, US Bombers Arrive in Middle East as Part of New Deployment for Israel. F-35 components sent to Israel from Royal Air Force base.

Iran says it can produce nuclear weapon if faced with existential threat.

The Great American Nuclear Weapons Upgrade.
US nuclear weapons could be sited in RAF Lakenheath in spring, CND protest hears.

Fifty two nations call for global arms embargo on Israel. Depleted uranium: Is Israel using depleted uranium to bomb Lebanon?

Biden Team Wants To Rush Weapons Shipments to Ukraine Before Trump Inauguration. With Trump back in White House, can Ukraine opt for nuclear deterrence?

November 11, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Airstrip One: How Albanese has integrated us into Trump’s military machine

Thanks to the Albanese government, the new Trump administration will find Australia a well-established launch pad for any conflict with China.

Bernard Keane, Nov 11, 2024,  https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/11/11/anthony-albanese-australia-us-military-integration-donald-trump/
The next Trump administration will arrive in power to learn that Australia is far more deeply enmeshed in in the US military and intelligence apparatus than in 2020, partly thanks to an eager Albanese government subordinating Australian sovereignty to Washington.

AUKUS is a Biden-era initiative that advocates worry Trump may look askance at, given the pressure it will place on US nuclear submarine production — although the fact that America and the UK can walk away whenever they like, and that Australia is handing $5 billion to each for the privilege of participating, should mitigate Trump’s hostility. That AUKUS will effectively place Australia’s submarine fleet — if it ever arrives — under US control in the 2040s and 2050s may be appealing, but that’s far beyond Trump’s short-term mindset.

But the bigger story of Australian sovereignty under the Albanese government isn’t AUKUS but the steady integration of Australia’s military systems into America’s, and Australia’s transformation into a launch pad for the deployment of American power. The Albanese government has:

  • Facilitated “regular and longer visits of US [nuclear submarines] from 2023 to Australia, with a focus on HMAS Stirling. These visits would help build Australia’s capacity in preparation for Submarine Rotational Force-West, an important milestone for the AUKUS Optimal Pathway that would commence as early as 2027”. Submarine Rotational Force-West is the permanent operation of one British and four US nuclear submarines from Perth.
  • Allowed US intelligence officials to be embedded in the Defence Intelligence Organisation, a “significant step” toward what Defence Minister (and, as he always insists on being called, Deputy Prime Minister) Richard Marles hailed as “seamless” intelligence ties between the US and Australia.
  • Established sharing of satellite imagery “and analysis capability” between Geoscience Australia and the US government.

  • Established rotation of State Department officials through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade “in the areas of technical security, cyber security, and threat analysis”.
  • Upgraded Top End RAAF airfields to accommodate more US military aircraft, with more upgrades planned, in work hailed by Stars and Stripes as reflecting how “Australians are alarmed at Chinese efforts to gain influence among their South Pacific neighbours”.
  • Established facilities for “prepositioning of initial US Army equipment and materiel in Australia at Albury-Wodonga”.
  • Continued the Morrison government’s support for the expansion of the Pine Gap surveillance facility, while it is being used, inter alia, to provide intelligence to the Israeli Defence Forces in their genocidal campaign against Palestinians.
  • US Marine rotations through Darwin have also been used as “a hub in a lengthy kill web that could protect the region, should Australia face outside threats. ‘Every single day Darwin is becoming more of a hub for us, not just in Australia but through the island chain,’” one American officer says.


In one recent exercise, “Marines set up a bare bones air base on the York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia complete with a fires unit armed with anti-ship missiles and a sensing unit to run air defense … Marines also used their own and Australian aircraft, including C-130s, C-17s and Ospreys to establish an Expeditionary Advanced Base that set up an Osprey maintenance base to extend the aircrafts operations during military exercises. ‘These are real posture gains being made there that will be useful for us in conflict.’”

This demonstrates the validity of Paul Keating’s description of Australia under Albanese as becoming “a continental extension of American power akin to that which it enjoys in Hawaii, Alaska and more limitedly in places like Guam … the national administrator of what would be broadly viewed in Asia as a US protectorate”.

The difference now is that from January, this “continental extension” will be under the control not of a traditional centrist Democrat, but an unstable populist with a deep hostility to China and a stated determination to weaken the country he believes caused the COVID pandemic, as well as an outright hostility to international law and desire to unshackle Israel from any limitations on its mass slaughter of Palestinians. In the event Trump’s proposed trade war with China significantly increases military tensions, Australia will be Airstrip One for the deployment of American power.

November 11, 2024 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

How a Secluded 1984 Conference Forged Israel’s Unprecedented Influence Over US Media

Buoyed by its success, the operation soon expanded to include school and university students worldwide, training them to act as vigorous advocates for Israel in classrooms and on campuses. Graduates of these Israeli-funded programs frequently enter influential fields, including journalism, where they continue to promote Hasbara narratives and defend Israel’s actions. The impact on Western media coverage of Palestine has been profound.

Mint Press News, November 11, 2024 

As Israel’s October 1 invasion of Lebanon unfolds, the media’s complicity in shaping public perception raises urgent questions, particularly when viewed through the lens of a controversial 1984 conference where influential advertising and media figures gathered to refine Israel’s narrative strategies. This conference laid the groundwork for a sophisticated propaganda campaign—Hasbara—that sought to sanitize Israel’s actions and cast its military operations in a favorable light. Today, as Western journalists whitewash, distort, and conceal Israel’s the realities of Israel’s deadly campaign of violence, the enduring legacy of this meeting becomes alarmingly clear, revealing how narratives crafted decades ago continue to shape the coverage of a conflict that claims countless lives.

…………………………………………………………………………… The mainstream media’s systematic use of distancing and evasive language, omission and other duplicitous chicanery to downplay or outright justify Israel’s murder of innocent civilians while simultaneously dehumanizing their victims and delegitimizing Palestinian resistance against brutal, illegal IDF occupation is as unconscionable as it is well-documented. Amazingly though, ‘twasn’t ever thus. Once upon a time, mainstream news networks exposed Israel’s war crimes without qualification, and anchors and pundits openly condemned these actions on live TV to audiences of millions.

The story of how Western media was transformed into Israel’s doting, servile propaganda appendage is not only a fascinating and sordid hidden chronicle. It is a deeply educational lesson in how imperial power can easily subordinate supposed arbiters of truth to its will. Comprehending how we got to this point equips us with the tools to assess, identify, and deconstruct lies large and small – and effectively challenge and counter not only Israel’s falsehoods but the entire settler colonial endeavor.

‘Neighborhood Bully’

On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. The effort was ostensibly intended to drive Palestinian Liberation Organization freedom fighters away from their positions on Israel’s northern border. But, as the IDF savagely pushed ever-deeper into the country, including Beirut, it became clear that ethnic cleansing, massacres, and land theft were – as in Palestine – the true goal. Throughout the Lebanese capital, news crews from major networks and reporters from the West’s biggest newspapers were waiting.

Israel’s rapacious bloodlust and casual contempt for Arab lives had hitherto been, by and large, successfully concealed from the outside world. Suddenly, though, scenes of deliberate IDF airstrikes on residential housing blocks, Tel Aviv’s trigger-happy soldiers running amok in Beirut’s streets, and hospitals overflowing with civilians suffering from grave injuries, including chemical burns due to Israel’s use of phosphorus shells, were broadcast the world over, to nigh-universal outcry. As veteran NBC news anchor John Chancellor contemporarily explained to Western viewers:

What in the world is going on? Israel’s security problem, on its border, is 50 miles to the south. What’s an Israeli army doing here in Beirut? The answer is we are now dealing with an imperial Israel, which is solving its problems in someone else’s country, world opinion be damned.”

Global shock and repulsion at Israel’s conduct would only ratchet during the IDF’s resultant illegal military occupation of swaths of Lebanon. …………………………………………………………..

To say the least, Israel had an international PR disaster of historic proportions on its blood-soaked hands…………………………………………………..

So it was that in the summer of 1984, the American Jewish Congress – a major Zionist lobby organization – convened a conference in Jerusalem, Israel’s Public Image: Problems and Remedies. It was chaired by U.S. advertising supremo Carl Spielgovel, who a decade earlier provided pro bono advice to the Israeli government on strategies for publicly communicating why Tel Aviv refused to adhere to the terms of the Henry Kissinger-brokered 1973 Sinai Accords. Spielgovel later recalled:

It occurred to me then that the Israelis were doing a good job at training their military people, and they were doing a relatively good job at training their diplomatic corps. But they weren’t spending any time training information officers, people who could present Israel’s case to embassies and TV anchormen around the world. Over the years, I made this a personal cause celebre.”

The 1984 Jerusalem conference offered Spielgovel and a welter of Western advertising and public relations executives, media specialists, editors, journalists, and leaders of major Zionist advocacy groups an opportunity to achieve that malign objective. Together, they hammered out a dedicated strategy for ensuring the “crisis” caused by news reporting on the invasion of Lebanon two years earlier would never be repeated. Their antidote? Ceaseless, methodical, and wide-ranging “Hasbara” – Hebrew for propaganda – for “changing people’s minds [and] making them think differently.”

‘Big Scoop’

The AJC subsequently published records of the conference. They offer extraordinarily candid insight into how multiple Hasbara strategies, which have been in perpetual operation ever since were birthed. …………………………………………………………

There was extensive discussion of how to present “unpalatable policies” to Western populations…….. ” The necessity of training the Jewish diaspora in countering criticism of Israel was considered paramount.

………………….. media framing on Israel’s actions needed to be determined in advance…………………

 It was also suggested that on an individual and organizational level, Zionist activists serve as a rapid reaction force, deluging news outlets with complaints en masse should their coverage of Israel be at all critical. One attendee boasted of their personal success in this regard:

“One day CBS News Radio reported that an American soldier had been hurt by stepping on an Israeli cluster bomb at the Beirut airport. I called CBS to point out that no one had established the bomb was an Israeli one. One hour later CBS reported that an American soldier had stepped on a bomb; this time the report omitted any reference to Israel.”

‘Frequent Violations’

Another significant recommendation came from Carl Spielgovel: creating a “training program” to bring carefully selected Israeli information specialists into U.S. advertising, PR agencies, and major news outlets. The initiative aimed to equip them with industry insights, ensure Hasbara efforts were maximized, and establish close relationships between Israeli officials and the organizations to which they were assigned.

These “specialists” would operate under the guidance of a U.S.-Israeli council described as “wise persons who can project different scenarios and how to cope with them” on complex issues like “annexation and Jerusalem.”

………………………………………………………………..  Since then, a dedicated Hasbara program aimed at cultivating skilled Zionist advocates in the U.S. has operated continuously.

Buoyed by its success, the operation soon expanded to include school and university students worldwide, training them to act as vigorous advocates for Israel in classrooms and on campuses. Graduates of these Israeli-funded programs frequently enter influential fields, including journalism, where they continue to promote Hasbara narratives and defend Israel’s actions. The impact on Western media coverage of Palestine has been profound.

To a significant degree, the portrayal of Tel Aviv as “the gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds” has been firmly reestablished. Despite the ongoing crisis in Gaza, mainstream outlets seldom provide context for Palestinian resistance to Israel’s policies of annexation, occupation, and military actions. Coverage nearly always frames Israel’s actions as “self-defense” against “terrorist” threats, with Western journalists keenly aware of potential repercussions for diverging from this narrative.

The rapid reaction force proposed at the 1984 AJC conference remains highly active. An extensive network of Hasbara-trained individuals and Israel lobby organizations is always on standby, ready to pressure and intimidate news outlets if coverage diverges from favorable framing or casts Israel in a critical light. As a senior BBC producer once confided to veteran media critic Greg Philo:

“We wait in fear for the telephone call from the Israelis. The only issue we face then is how high up it’s come from them. Has it come from a monitoring group? Has it come from the Israeli embassy? And how high has it gone up our organization? Has it reached the editor or director general? I have had journalists on the phone to me before a major news report, asking which words can I use – ‘is it alright I say this’?”

An October exposé by Al Jazeera, citing testimony from BBC and CNN whistleblowers, detailed “pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards, and frequent violations of journalistic principles” at both networks. 

Were it not for the persistent investigations by outlets like MintPress News, The Grayzone, and Electronic Intifada, unfounded allegations promoted by Israel since the outset of the Gaza conflict—such as claims of Hamas committing mass rape or beheading infants—might never have been thoroughly debunked and might still shape the “context” for Israel’s actions against Palestinians. Meanwhile, countless concerned citizens have actively challenged Western narratives on the conflict in real-time across social media, a groundswell of critique that may be fueling pushback within some mainstream newsrooms. ……………………………………. https://www.mintpressnews.com/1984-hasbara-conference-israel-influence-us-media/288534/

November 11, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment