Antinuclear

A lot of nuclear and related news this week

Some bits of good news –  27 New UK Tree Cities of the World.   How Stockholm Is Sprouting Healthy Trees From Concrete. Degraded Lands Transformed into Productive Farms: With Science, We Can Create Wonders. Once feared extinct, Australia’s most endangered marsupial has had a comeback

TOP STORIES .

 “Difficult-to-Return” zones. 

Jeffrey Sachs: Negotiating a Lasting Peace in Ukraine. Zelensky’s hostility to peace triggered White House meltdown. 

British journalists are celebrating the lack of opposition to war in parliament.

 Failure After Failure: Let’s Ditch Small Modular Reactors. 

We’ve failed to stop climate change — this is what we need to do next ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/03/09/1-a-weve-failed-to-stop-climate-change-this-is-what-we-need-to-do-next/

Climate. Earth’s strongest ocean current could slow down by 20% by 2050 in a high emissions future. Global Ocean Treaty two years on: Australia’s chance for international cooperation. 

Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from 36 fossil fuel firms, study shows. UK’s richest can boost climate action but need to cut outsized emissions – study. 

First Trump threatened to nuke hurricanes. Now he’s waging war on weather forecasters.

Noel’s notes. Does the Deep State really exist? And if so, is it being dismantled?

AUSTRALIA. Surface tension: could the promised Aukus nuclear submarines simply never be handed over to Australia?
   How US Military Bases in Australia Threaten Our Future & How to Remove Them., More Australian nuclear news at https://antinuclear.net/2025/03/05/australian-nuclear-news-headlines-week-to-11-march/

NUCLEAR ITEMS.

POLITICS

• How the Media Walked us into Autocracy (w/ Ralph Nader) The Chris Hedges Report –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQZuzIzY8YQ
• Doug Ford: Rip up the GE-Hitachi US nuclear contract.
• Nuclear Policy in Scotland. Nuclear energy has no role in Scotland’s green future. Changing nuclear policy would make ‘SNP as bad as Tories’, MSP warns – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/03/10/1-b1-changing-nuclear-policy-would-make-snp-as-bad-as-tories-msp-warns/
• UK Government slaps down Ian Murray over UN nuclear weapons summit. Keir Starmer’s plan for UK growth – the Ukraine war.  Conservatives’ push to identify ‘suitable sites’ for nuclear reactors in Telford and Wrekin is defeated. Keir Starmer faces backbench rebellion over ‘shortsighted’ cuts to aid budget. Keir Starmer tells SNP to reverse nuclear weapons opposition.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.

• Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons States agree – the ban is the alternative to reckless nuclear deterrence and proliferation as Third Meeting of States Parties draws to a close.
• Trump plans to make Ukraine a US economic colony, exploiting its critical minerals.
• US Threatens Possible Military Response After Tehran Rejects Nuclear Outreach.
• The Russians aren’t coming, the Russians aren’t coming.
• Europe’s Face-Saving Theater on Ukraine.
• Macron’s Offer: France and the Delusions of Nuclear Deterrence.
• Zelensky reverses hardline position on peace talks.
• Russia agrees to help US in negotiations with Iran over nuclear program, Bloomberg reports.
• Non-Proliferation Treaty ‘struggling’ in new nuclear age, expert warns. One empty seat. UK fails again to send representation to UN nuke conference.  
• UK urged to prepare for Donald Trump halting Trident partnership ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/03/09/2-b1-uk-urged-to-prepare-for-donald-trump-halting-trident-partnership/ UK Government ignoring international law on nuclear weapons – experts ALSO At https://nuclear-news.net/2025/03/09/2-b-1-uk-government-ignoring-international-law-on-nuclear-weapons-experts/
• Delays in Trident renewal put our deterrent in peril.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.

• More Guns, Less Butter: Starmer’s Defence Spending Splash . Britain’s nuclear weapons fiasco is a nightmare for Rachel Reeves. Britain’s nuclear submarines bill spirals by £5bn. US support to maintain UK’s nuclear arsenal is in doubt, experts say. 
• US poised to house nuclear weapons in Britain for first time in two decades.
• Potentially ‘catastrophic’ use of AI in nuclear weapons systems raised by former Royal Navy boss.
• Air Force Activates Key Unit for Nuclear Modernization at VSFB.
• Trump Pauses All Military Aid to Ukraine.
• It’s time to ditch Virginia subs for AUKUS and go to Plan B.

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Britain’s nuclear submarines bill spirals by £5bn

The MoD blames inflation as the cost of replacing the UK’s at-sea deterrent hits £37bn

Szu Ping Chan Economics Editor. Matt Oliver Industry Editor

The cost of replacing the submarines carrying Britain’s nuclear deterrent
has ballooned by more than £5bn in just three years, according to official
documents. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has raised its estimate for the
lifetime cost of manufacturing and maintaining four new ballistic missile
submarines to £36.7bn as of March last year, up from an estimate of
£31.5bn in 2020-21. It is also £2.5bn more than projected in March 2023.

 Telegraph 9th March 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/09/cost-for-britains-new-nuclear-submarines-spirals-by-5bn/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Does the Deep State really exist, and if so, is it being dismantled?

March 9, 2025, https://theaimn.net/does-the-deep-state-really-exist-and-if-so-is-it-being-dismantled/

What is the Deep State? Does it really exist?

These questions are hard to answer. I had heard the term Deep State over many years, and I connected it with all sorts of conspiracies – not just about U.S. politics and intelligence systems, but with wild ideas about satanism, reptilian shapeshifters, the antichrist, child-trafficking, blood harvesting – and all connected with extreme right-wing and pro- Trump propaganda. So I just dismissed and ignored them – there was no such thing as the Deep State !

It is not that simple.

Indeed, it is very complex.

If you start delving, the term Deep State takes you back to Turkey, over 100 years ago, where the concept of a “shadow government” a “secret state within the state” was a real thing. In more modern times the Deep State is defined as:

“The deep state conspiracy theory in the United States is an American political conspiracy theory that posits the existence of the deep state, a clandestine network of members of the federal government (especially within the FBI and CIA). The theory argues that there exist networks of collaborators within the leadership of the high-level financial and industrial entities, which exercise power alongside or within the elected United States government” – Wikipedia

So, OK it’s still just a theory – a conspiracy theory pushed by Donald Trump’s supporters in order to discredit USA’s Biden Democrat administration? And various extreme religious and other wacky groups tacked the more sinister stuff onto it.

The trouble is, as with many problems, there is some truth in it. Over the decades since World War 2, successive U.S. Presidents have turned to secret discussions with unelected officials from the CIA in particular, but also from other agencies and business circles, relying on their advice to make decisions. The decisions were then pretty much rubber-stamped by a complacent and oblivious Congress.

The following (annoying advertisement-afflicted) video from early 2024, is unmistakably a propaganda piece for the Trump campaign. But it does contain some telling information. Even from its first example, we see that J.F. Kennedy, in the Cuban missile crisis, went not to his advisors, but to a social group of very secret members of the CIA to decide what to do. The development of the very powerful, very secretive CIA, in partnership with military leaders, rocket scientists from Germany, media and business leaders, produced an information network on which Presidents relied for decision-making. The CIA’s spying powers that were appropriate in war against the enemy are now directed also against the American public, even in peacetime. Huge well-funded resources went to secret activities that included misinformation and disinformation against civil rights and peace activists. Congress accepts these secret programmes in the name of security.

That video – however pro-Trump it might be, does not mention satanism, etc. If you separate that wacky stuff from the Deep State story – it is all remarkably convincing. To an American public, fed up with the secrecy, the endless expensive pointless wars – Vietnam, Iraq Afghanistan …, Donald Trump’s promise of change, and of dismantling the Deep State sounded attractive.

And hey – presto ! Trump is doing it! He’s sacking those unelected officials, thousands and thousands of them. He’s purging law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and plans to cut 70 percent of staff from various government agencies — freezing of billions of dollars in funding,

Ain’t that great!

Actually, no.

We might welcome the disruption of a Deep State system based on militarism, with the USA forever fomenting trouble overseas, and spending unknown $squillions on military gimmickry. A phrase springs to mind – “Throwing the baby out with the bath-water” . That’s a very corny metaphor. But what is really happening is this:

Trump’s aim is nothing to do with the “Deep State” . Trump’s goal and methodology was set out, detailed in Project 2025, the Center for Renewing America and the America First Policy Institute. The goal is the destruction of democracy – removing or rendering useless the laws, regulations, protocols and rules that prevent autocratic power. No more compromise, limited power, checks and balances and accountability. He made a good start in getting control over the Supreme Court

And I don’t know if everybody noticed two salient points in Trump’s “defeat of the Deep State”

1. the power and unaccountable funding of the Pentagon will continue.
2. Trump’s getting rid of “unelected officials” – but apparently taking orders from unelected Elon Musk.

The end goal is the dictatorship of Donald Trump. It would be funny if it were not so deadly serious. The first step – the “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day Holiday Establishment Act” gives a clue as to what will follow.

The President Trump phenomenon will end eventually, for sure in chaos. Western World leadership is in the hands of a powerful, but unhinged , dictator, who is taking the advice of another powerful unelected unhinged billionaire, Elon Musk.

The whole process is far too much to pay for the destruction of the Deep State. Yes, it is welcome that the secretive decision-making by unelected officials and business leaders – taking the USA into endless wars – has been stopped. But its replacement is a terrifying fascism.

And at the end of it all, after the chaos, what will emerge? If we’re lucky enough to avoid catastrophes of global heating, and war, will we again get a government of men that are happy to have decisions made by macho men in bureaucracy and industry, who are itching for war – another Deep State in the name of “security”?

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘Sacrifice’: Four Corners looks at the Australian War Memorial’s weapons ties.

Tonight, ABC’s Four Corners, with Michelle Fahy as a researcher, investigates the War Memorial’s ties to weapons makers and its controversial transformation and expansion.

Undue Influence, Michelle Fahy Mar 10, 2025

This is an update on what’s been happening at Undue Influence.

As this newsletter shows, our detailed work last year on Australia’s weapons exports to Israel and the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s refusal to investigate the Robodebt referrals proved critical, given the mainstream media’s lack of interest in properly pursuing either of these issues.

Revolving door database update

You may recall that in August 2023 we announced that we had been successful in securing a grant to research and develop a database to highlight the extent of the revolving door between the government/military/public service and the weapons industry in Australia. We had expected to complete the project in 2024.

However, then came the shocking and deadly terror attacks led by Hamas on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. These were followed by the vastly disproportionate response from Israel against Palestinians in Gaza in what had already been termed a “plausible” genocide by the world’s highest court in January 2024. (Amnesty International has since concluded Israel is conducting a genocide. See Amnesty’s December 2024 report.)

The Israeli military has been using its F-35 fighter jets during its indiscriminate carpet bombing of Gaza. Every F-35 fighter jet built, including Israeli ones, contains Australian parts and components.

To our dismay, the Australian government developed and repeated for many months a simplistic, misleading sentence claiming that Australia was not sending weapons to Israel and had not done so for five years. The Australian mainstream media failed in its duty to scrutinise and expose this propaganda.

As a result, we decided we had to set aside the database project temporarily and dig out what facts we could about Australia’s weapons exports to Israel.

Weapons exports

We lodged a freedom of information request for weapons export approvals data for several Middle East countries, including Israel.

The Defence Department ignored our request that the data be supplied in the same format the department had been willing to use in previous years (showing munitions list and dual use export approvals separately). Instead, the department amalgamated the data into a single set of figures, obscuring the picture of recent weapons exports to Israel. The department neither acknowledged nor explained its refusal to meet the terms of our FOI request using the same format it had been happy to use previously.

We next researched and produced a list of Australian companies involved in the F-35 supply chain as part of a collaborative global project being coordinated by researchers in the UK (see it here).

Then we investigated the government’s misinformation about Australia’s arms exports – into the F-35 global supply chain in particular – in a series of ground-breaking articles. See here, here and here.

Our detailed reporting forced additional disclosures from the Defence Department during parliamentary hearings. It also forced senior government ministers into admitting – after months of stonewalling – that Australia was still supplying parts and components into the F-35 global supply chain, something that international law prohibits when there is a risk those exports would or could be used in serious human rights violations.

Both Deputy Prime Minister (and Defence Minister) Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong attempted to gloss over this forced disclosure by describing Australia’s F-35 exports as “non-lethal”.

This was one of the lowest points in public commentary on weapons exports by senior members of the Australian government we have witnessed, particularly given the grave context.

National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and Robodebt

The second half of last year was equally intense………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… We have so far published three articles on this subject. The investigation is continuing.

WATCH! Four Corners, 8:30pm tonight (Monday 10 March)

In the final months of what was an exceptionally full year, Michelle was invited to join the ABC’s Four Corners team as a researcher for a program reported by Mark Willacy and produced by Jonathan Miller.

The program, Sacrifice, investigates the Australian War Memorial’s ties to weapons makers and its controversial expansion and transformation.

** Watch the promo here. **

Revolving door database: where to next?

Our main priority for this first half of 2025 is to complete work on this, our largest investigative project to date…………………..

We are continuing with additional smaller investigative projects alongside the database project. We’ll keep in touch about developments with those.  https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/sacrifice-four-corners-looks-at-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=158694610&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Radioactive pollution is increasing at Britain’s nuclear submarine bases.

7 Mar 25 https://cnduk.org/radioactive-pollution-is-increasing-at-britains-nuclear-bases/

Radioactive air emissions have been increasing year-on-year at Coulport one of Britain’s nuclear submarine bases in Scotland. This development is of some concern as it would lead to increased health risks wherever the emissions were inhaled. 

Investigations by The Ferret and The National newspaper found that emissions of radioactive tritiated water vapour had doubled at the Royal Navy’s nuclear weapons storage depot at Coulport on Loch Long between 2018 and 2023. According to the Scottish Pollution Release Inventory, tritiated water vapour emissions at Coulport were 1.7 billion becquerels (units of radioactivity) in 2018, rising steadily to 4.2 billion units in 2023. Tritiated water vapour is  harmful when inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin as its radiation causes cancer and cardiovascular diseases including strokes.

The investigation also found that eight miles from Coulport at Faslane, where Britain’s nuclear submarines are based, tritiated water containing over 50 billion units of radioactivity had been dumped into the Gareloch. The level of dumping peaked in 2020, when 16.6 billion units were discharged. 

The Ferret noted that in 2019,  the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) “changed the rules to allow certain tritium-contaminated effluents from nuclear submarines at Faslane to be discharged into the Gareloch.” Both SEPA and the MoD claim these emissions are within official safety limits.

However Dr Ian Fairlie, CND’s science advisor, states that these limits are unreliable, as official estimated doses from tritium contain “large uncertainties.”

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said: 

“From faulty nuclear-armed subs on dangerously extended patrols to crumbling nuclear waste sites, Britain’s nuclear industry is putting us all at great risk. Instead of enforcing the highest levels of environmental standards, the government is just redefining what ‘acceptable risk’ means. All so it can allow the dumping of radioactive water, putting local people at greater risk of cancer. This is beyond reckless. It’s time to scrap Trident and its replacement, and decommission the nuclear industry.”

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment