May 7 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “Analysis Points To Massive Photovoltaic Deployment To Meet Decarbonization Target” • An “unprecedented ramp-up of production capacity” over the next two decades is needed to provide enough solar power to completely decarbonize the global electrical system, but that goal can be achieved, an analysis led by NREL researchers says. [CleanTechnica] Solar […]
May 7 Energy News — geoharvey
AUKUS high-level nuclear waste dump must be subject to Indigenous veto
there is no question Defence would require the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous people before a high-level nuclear waste facility could proceed on their land. …. in those circumstances the government must provide a veto right, because the project would eliminate future access to traditional Indigenous land.
If Plibersek knew about the radioactive waste facility and its intended siting in remote Australia at the time AUKUS was announced she has kept quiet about it.
A far more substantial inequality of power now exists between the Indigenous groups to be consulted about the site of the radioactive waste facility and the Defence Department. The facility has solid bipartisan support. In addition, it is essential to the AUKUS submarine deal, meaning Defence embodies the combined wishes of the Australian, British and United States governments.
Bipartisan secrecy and Defence’s poor record with Indigenous groups at Woomera are red flags for the consultation over AUKUS high-level nuclear waste facility.
Undue Influence MICHELLE FAHY, MAY 6, 2023
This is part one of a two-part series
The federal government had no public mandate for any of the AUKUS decisions: no mandate to enter the agreement, none to acquire eight nuclear-powered submarines for up to $368 billion, and none to establish a high-level radioactive waste facility. On this last, in fact, it had long term evidence to suggest Australians would likely oppose the proposition.
Perhaps this is why both major political parties concealed for 18 months, a period including the federal election, their shared knowledge that AUKUS requires a high-level radioactive waste facility to be built.
The AUKUS agreement was revealed on 15 September 2021. On 14 March 2023, deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, announced the nuclear waste facility. Next day, opposition leader Peter Dutton said: ‘The Labor Party signed up to AUKUS knowing they would have to deal with the waste, and now that they’re in government they know that’s a part of the deal.’ The government has not denied Dutton’s claim.
Meanwhile, the Albanese government continues its work to establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Just nine days after the prime minister was in San Diego announcing the AUKUS submarine deal and his deputy Marles came clean about the radioactive waste facility, Anthony Albanese released the proposed Voice wording. The prime minister noted in his speech the importance of consultation, ‘it’s common courtesy and decency to ask people before you take a decision that will have an impact on them’.
Governments have been trying for decades to put a radioactive waste dump in outback Australia. They have been rebuffed time and time again. Yet the Albanese government is trying once more.
Legal experts have pointed out the international legal requirement to obtain the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples before making significant decisions that affect them. This process includes giving Indigenous peoples full information about a development in advance and respecting their choice to give or withhold consent.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Australia has pledged to support ‘in both word and deed’, says: ‘[No] storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.’
As to whether the government can claim ‘national security’ as a reason to avoid these obligations and dictate a radioactive waste site, international human rights law expert John Podgorelec says: ‘States may not derogate from their responsibilities on the basis of national security unless a “state of emergency” has been formally invoked.’
He adds, ‘A lesson to come out of the Iraq calamity is that manufactured or undisclosed national security intelligence cannot be used to subvert democracy.’
Unfortunately, the Defence Department’s fact sheet on nuclear stewardship and waste is light on detail. It does not mention free, prior and informed consent. Defence commits only to ‘consultation and engagement’ – a lesser standard – and adds that it will also consider ‘wider social license and economic implications’. Globally, the ‘economic implications’ of significant projects habitually undermine human rights, particularly those of Indigenous peoples.
Furthermore, Defence has a poor track record of engagement with Indigenous people in one of its key locations, South Australia’s Woomera Prohibited Area (explored further in part two).
Woomera is used by Australian and foreign military forces, in close partnership with multinational weapons corporations, for extensive weapons testing and military training activities.
‘When militaries around the world need a place to test their weapons and fly their new fighter jets, there’s nowhere better than the rugged expanses of South Australia,’ enthused US weapons giant Raytheon in 2016, talking up ‘a further expansion of US-Australian cooperation’.
The Woomera weapons testing range covers one-eighth of South Australia, occupying more than 122,000km2. Before Defence took over, less than a century ago, Indigenous people had inhabited the region for tens of thousands of years.
Despite the international outcry at the destruction of Juukan Gorge, the Defence Department has not changed its behaviour. For example, it continues to use a registered Indigenous heritage site in Woomera as a target zone for high explosive weapons tests. (I visited this and other sites inside Woomera last year at the invitation of Andrew and Bob Starkey, senior Kokatha lawmen and traditional owners.)
Defence is aware of the site’s significance, just as Rio Tinto was aware of the significance of Juukan Gorge. Defence’s heritage management plan, relevant sections of which I have seen, says the site has a ‘high level of Aboriginal heritage value’ and is a place of ‘sensitive cultural significance that can be easily impacted’. The public might wonder how Defence can know this yet still decide it’s acceptable to direct high explosive munitions onto the site.
‘The Commonwealth cannot give with one hand and take with the other,’ says Podgorelec, who acts for the Starkeys, on the tensions between federal commitments to Indigenous heritage protection and to AUKUS. He says there is no question Defence would require the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous people before a high-level nuclear waste facility could proceed on their land. He also says in those circumstances the government must provide a veto right, because the project would eliminate future access to traditional Indigenous land.
Australia is not alone in being unable to find a radioactive waste solution. The UK has failed for decades to make meaningful progress on dismantling decommissioned nuclear submarines – it currently has 21 of them floating in dockyards awaiting disposal, mirroring its wider failure to resolve its nuclear waste problems. The US has also failed in this regard: spent fuel from its nuclear submarines remains in temporary storage. Griffith University’s Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe has written that the nuclear waste from US military and civilian reactors ‘is just piling up with no long-term solution in sight’.
Defence does not mention this pertinent information in its brief positive account of US and UK nuclear stewardship.
The federal government gave its response to the Juukan Gorge inquiry report in November 2022. Minister Tanya Plibersek, whose Environment portfolio encompasses Indigenous heritage protection, said:
[T]hese are thorough and considerate reports… the recommendations speak to the principles and priorities that will shape our [heritage protection] legislation. Free, prior, and informed consent.
If Plibersek knew about the radioactive waste facility and its intended siting in remote Australia at the time AUKUS was announced she has kept quiet about it.
Free, prior and informed consent requires that intimidation and coercion be avoided. Plibersek is well aware of the possibility of abuses of power in high stakes developments. In her speech, she noted partnership agreements were signed under ‘gross inequalities of power’ between the traditional owners of Juukan Gorge and Rio Tinto.
A far more substantial inequality of power now exists between the Indigenous groups to be consulted about the site of the radioactive waste facility and the Defence Department. The facility has solid bipartisan support. In addition, it is essential to the AUKUS submarine deal, meaning Defence embodies the combined wishes of the Australian, British and United States governments.
Podgorelec is adamant. ‘Australia cannot enact domestic laws that undermine its international legal obligations. If a project will take away Indigenous cultural connection to land forever – as a high-level nuclear waste facility will do – then the government is obliged to give a right of veto.’
Note: The legal basis for free, prior and informed consent was explained by John Podgorelec as lead author of Adelaide University’s submission to the 2015 SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission. Unfortunately, having been available until recently, the Royal Commission’s website is presently inaccessible. Email us if you would like a copy of the submission: undueinfluence@protonmail.com
A KINGLY PROPOSAL: LETTER FROM JULIAN ASSANGE TO KING CHARLES III
JULIAN ASSANGE, 5 MAY 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/06/port-kembla-rally-to-demand-nsw-site-be-ruled-out-as-aukus-nuclear-submarine-base
To His Majesty King Charles III,
On the coronation of my liege, I thought it only fitting to extend a heartfelt invitation to you to commemorate this momentous occasion by visiting your very own kingdom within a kingdom: His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.
You will no doubt recall the wise words of a renowned playwright: “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.”
Ah, but what would that bard know of mercy faced with the reckoning at the dawn of your historic reign? After all, one can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners, and your kingdom has surely excelled in that regard.
Your Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh is located at the prestigious address of One Western Way, London, just a short foxhunt from the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. How delightful it must be to have such an esteemed establishment bear your name.
“One can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners”
It is here that 687 of your loyal subjects are held, supporting the United Kingdom’s record as the nation with the largest prison population in Western Europe. As your noble government has recently declared, your kingdom is currently undergoing “the biggest expansion of prison places in over a century”, with its ambitious projections showing an increase of the prison population from 82,000 to 106,000 within the next four years. Quite the legacy, indeed.
As a political prisoner, held at Your Majesty’s pleasure on behalf of an embarrassed foreign sovereign, I am honoured to reside within the walls of this world class institution. Truly, your kingdom knows no bounds.
During your visit, you will have the opportunity to feast upon the culinary delights prepared for your loyal subjects on a generous budget of two pounds per day. Savour the blended tuna heads and the ubiquitous reconstituted forms that are purportedly made from chicken. And worry not, for unlike lesser institutions such as Alcatraz or San Quentin, there is no communal dining in a mess hall. At Belmarsh, prisoners dine alone in their cells, ensuring the utmost intimacy with their meal.
Beyond the gustatory pleasures, I can assure you that Belmarsh provides ample educational opportunities for your subjects. As Proverbs 22:6 has it: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Observe the shuffling queues at the medicine hatch, where inmates gather their prescriptions, not for daily use, but for the horizon-expanding experience of a “big day out”—all at once.
You will also have the opportunity to pay your respects to my late friend Manoel Santos, a gay man facing deportation to Bolsonaro’s Brazil, who took his own life just eight yards from my cell using a crude rope fashioned from his bedsheets. His exquisite tenor voice now silenced forever.
Venture further into the depths of Belmarsh and you will find the most isolated place within its walls: Healthcare, or “Hellcare” as its inhabitants lovingly call it. Here, you will marvel at sensible rules designed for everyone’s safety, such as the prohibition of chess, whilst permitting the far less dangerous game of checkers.
Deep within Hellcare lies the most gloriously uplifting place in all of Belmarsh, nay, the whole of the United Kingdom: the sublimely named Belmarsh End of Life Suite. Listen closely, and you may hear the prisoners’ cries of “Brother, I’m going to die in here”, a testament to the quality of both life and death within your prison.
But fear not, for there is beauty to be found within these walls. Feast your eyes upon the picturesque crows nesting in the razor wire and the hundreds of hungry rats that call Belmarsh home. And if you come in the spring, you may even catch a glimpse of the ducklings laid by wayward mallards within the prison grounds. But don’t delay, for the ravenous rats ensure their lives are fleeting.
I implore you, King Charles, to visit His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, for it is an honour befitting a king. As you embark upon your reign, may you always remember the words of the King James Bible: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). And may mercy be the guiding light of your kingdom, both within and without the walls of Belmarsh.
Your most devoted subject,
Julian Assange A9379AY
WWIII on the Installment Plan
One need only to look at the “Down Under” Australian press’ frightful China fear-mongering to know what we in the ‘Up Above’ can expect. This has been well chronicled by Caitlin Johnstone, whose Substack posts are a must read.
Witness: The U.S. has brought Australia, South Korea, Japan into an alliance against China and is pressuring the Philippines and Indonesia to join in as we ship arms to Taiwan. The intent is to bait China, to try to make Taiwan the next Ukraine, while coordinating submarine patrols amidst risible plans to send ships from the EU to patrol the Straits of Taiwan. If China did something similar in our sphere, Congress would declare war.
The Invention of a Wartime Presidency to Save the Biden Administration
DENNIS KUCINICH, MAY 5, 2023 https://denniskucinich.substack.com/p/wwiii-on-the-installment-plan?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1441588&post_id=119326426&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Yesterday’s attempt to attack the Kremlin with a drone strike, supposedly to assassinate Vladimir Putin, is being pinned on Ukraine. But this is a proxy war of the U.S. versus Russia, and no one is fooled. Ukraine is a simply a U.S. pawn and can make no major moves without checking with Washington.
The U.S. has successfully muzzled its energy-starved allies in Europe from even objecting to, let alone investigating the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline. Europe is stuck with the skyrocketing cost of U.S. supplied replacement fuel.
The destruction of Nord Stream followed well-publicized mock U.S. nuclear strikes targeting Russia and the equally provocative shipment of depleted-uranium munitions transferred to the Ukraine battlefield through our “special relationship” with the British government. The Russian government has publicly warned that the use of such weapons, as were used by the U.S. in Iraq and Syria, will lead to escalation.
The Biden Administration has done everything it could to incite a hot war directly between the U.S. and Russia, sacrificing Ukrainian youth and the majesty of Ukrainian cities.
The drone strike and the depleted uranium transfer are made to look like the West is somehow succeeding in the battle which, for all intents and purposes, will soon come to an end— with a phony declaration of victory of sorts (definitely not for Ukrainians). Then the infernal Enemy Engine will pivot its wrath and venom towards CHINA.
Get ready for a parceling out of some of the manufactured hate that has been reserved for Russia and President Putin — to hate China and President Xi, and to suffer a fully-machinated Red Peril.
One need only to look at the “Down Under” Australian press’ frightful China fear-mongering to know what we in the ‘Up Above’ can expect. This has been well chronicled by Caitlin Johnstone, whose Substack posts are a must read.
The Biden Administration, having unsuccessfully diminished the Russian economy with its broad sanctions, and having failed to defeat the Russian military, will soon lead us to believe that the same geniuses in Washington, London and Belgium who brought us the war in Ukraine, will somehow succeed in holding in check China, or perhaps even toppling President Xi, through military means.
The depraved thinking that resulted in approximately $140 billion wasted for the war in Ukraine and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, countenances even greater opportunities in the East.
Witness: The U.S. has brought Australia, South Korea, Japan into an alliance against China and is pressuring the Philippines and Indonesia to join in as we ship arms to Taiwan. The intent is to bait China, to try to make Taiwan the next Ukraine, while coordinating submarine patrols amidst risible plans to send ships from the EU to patrol the Straits of Taiwan. If China did something similar in our sphere, Congress would declare war.
The geographically-confused North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (NATO) ever ready to be the U.S.’ wrecking ball, now considers China “a threat to global security.” Remember, China has brokered a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and attempted to do so in Ukraine.
Remember, the U.S. has 800 military bases abroad and China has zero.
Remember, China is holding almost a trillion dollars of US debt.
So, what is this all about? The White House, which bet on the forbearance of a nuclear-armed Russia, in a conventional proxy war in Ukraine, is similarly counting on the forbearance of nuclear-armed China in a conventional war over Taiwan. Thus is the horror of unfettered brinkmanship.
NBC News obtained a memo in January where a four-star general instructed his logistical command of nearly 50,000 to get ready for war with China by 2025. His charges were told to further prepare by getting their “legal affairs” in order and to engage in the calisthenics of war, by firing an ammo clip often at a target and to aim for the head. Is this just hysterical puffery?
The 2022 National Security Strategy of the United States identified China as the greatest military and economic threat to the United States. Forget that Mr. Biden voted for China trade, NAFTA and the WTO, all which sharply eroded America’s strategic industrial base of steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping and ultimately set the stage for China’s rise as a world power. Forget that we have shipped high technology to military labs in China – and the Ukraine.
While the US continues its military muscle-flexing globally, incurring rising resentment in its continual challenges to the very idea of national sovereignty, China has focused instead on economic expansion, assisting in economic development throughout the world and strengthening the capacities of nations to support their own interests. China has played the long game, while US leaders have played the wrong game.
So, with only sanctions as a tool, the US has limited options to respond to China, except for war.
If the Biden Administration continues to ramp up for war against China, it could mean the end, not of China, but of the United States itself.
China and Russia are not natural allies, to say the least. However, with NATO encroachment, the placement of missiles on Russia’s border, the war in Ukraine, the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline, the U.S. has pushed Russia into China’s waiting arms.
As a result of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, together with the saber rattling over Taiwan, we have forced a once unthinkable China-Russia alliance whose combined manufacturing, energy production and offensive capabilities exceed that of the US.
A US war with China will not only bring in Russia on China’s side, but likely India, Brazil, and Iran. That is, if such a war were “conventional,” meaning not nuclear. However, the idea of containing such a war to conventional weapons is pure fantasy.
The Biden Administration’s cyclopean foreign policy will be the ruin of us all.
There is not a shred of diplomatic skill exhibited by the Sullivan-Blinken-Nuland troika. They pull away from treaties. Engage in continual provocations. Recklessly spend hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on military adventures. It’s escalate, escalate, escalate. The defense contractors, the war profiteers as FDR rightfully called them, cash in and the rest of us lose.
The average American family has seen nearly $100,000 of its wealth spent on regime change adventures since 2001, with highly negative results for our country and the world. The U.S. is viewed in many circles as the greatest threat to world peace. Alarmingly and poignantly, the national debt is close to $100,000 per person in America.
While the Biden Administration plans for a hot war with China in 2025, the White House will use cold war psychology now, for the 2024 election season, to scare the bejesus out of even the most pacific U.S. voter. And, with the help of the American media, which has largely been reduced to a posse of electronic spear carriers, we will be afflicted with every ‘alarm of struggle and flight’ appropriate to cowing Americans into silence and compliance.
President Biden, like President George W. Bush in the Iraq War, will seek to burnish his Commander in Chief status as a war-time president, beginning in the later part of 2023. Going into 2024, the American people will be told not to change presidents in the middle of a manufactured war.
Unless held in check by the voters, President Biden’s foreign policy handlers are merrily leading America and the world down the path of World War III. New Hampshire, are you listening?
Enough is enough: Australian PM expresses frustration at US effort to extradite Julian Assange
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed frustration at the United States’s continuing efforts to extradite WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange, saying: “There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.”
Multiple US Officials Confronted About US Assange Hypocrisy On World Press Freedom Day
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAY 4, 2023
Wednesday was World Press Freedom Day, and it saw US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and Deputy State Department Spokesman Vedant Patel confronted about the glaring hypocrisy of the Biden administration’s persecution of Julian Assange for the crime of good journalism.
During an appearance at a World Press Freedom event hosted by The Washington Post’s David Ignatius on Wednesday morning, Blinken was confronted by Code Pink activists Medea Benjamin and Tighe Barry demanding justice for Assange before being swiftly dragged off stage.
“Excuse us, we can’t use this day without calling for the freedom of Julian Assange,” said Benjamin, holding a sign saying “FREE JULIAN ASSANGE”.
The two were immediately rushed by many security staffers, and the audio from the stage was temporarily cut.
“Stop the extradition request of Julian Assange,” Benjamin can be heard saying.
“Two hours and not one word about journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh, who was murdered by the Israeli occupation forces in Palestine, not one word about Julian Assange,” said Barry.
“We’re here to celebrate freedom of expression, and we just experienced it,” said Ignatius without a trace of irony once the dissent had been silenced. He then returned to the subject of how bad and awful the Russian government is for imprisoning American journalist Evan Gershkovich.
Then during a White House press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, Karine Jean-Pierre was asked a question by CBS News’ Steven Portnoy that was so inconvenient the press secretary flat-out said she wouldn’t answer it.
“Advocates on Twitter today have been talking a great deal about how the United States has engaged in hypocrisy by talking about how Evan Gershkovich is held in Russia on espionage charges but the United States has Espionage Act charges pending against Julian Assange. Can you respond to that criticism?” asked Portnoy.
“What is the criticism?” asked Jean-Pierre.
“Well, the criticism is that — the argument is that Julian Assange is a journalist who engaged in the publication of government documents,” Portnoy replied. “The United States is accusing him of a crime under the Espionage Act, and that, therefore, the United States is losing the moral high ground when it comes to the question of whether a reporter engages in espionage as a function of his work. So can you respond to that?”
“Look, I’m not going to speak to Julian Assange and that case from here,” said Jean-Pierre.
And then she didn’t. She just dismissed Portnoy’s question without explanation, then babbled for a while about things Biden has said that are supportive of press freedoms, then again said “I’m not going to weigh in on comments about Julian Assange.”
This type of “I’m not answering that, screw you” dodge is a rare move for a White House press secretary. They don’t normally just come right out and say they refuse to answer the highly relevant and easily answerable question a reporter just asked; typically when the question is too inconvenient they’ll either word-salad a bewildering non-response, say the answer is the jurisdiction of another department, or say they’ll get back to them when they have more information. It’s not the norm for them to just wave away the question without even pretending to provide a reason for doing so.
But really, what choice did she have? As Wall Street Journal White House correspondent Sabrina Siddiqi recently acknowledged on MSNBC, the job of the White House press secretary is not to tell the truth, but to “stay on message and control the narrative.” There is nothing about the Assange case that is on-message with the White House narrative; just the other day Biden said at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that “journalism is not a crime,” yet his persecution of Assange is deliberately designed to criminalize journalism.
There’s simply no way to reconcile the US government’s story about itself with its efforts to normalize the extradition and persecution of journalists around the world under the Espionage Act. If your job is to make the White House look good, the only way to respond to questions of US hypocrisy regarding the Assange case is not to respond at all.
Later in the press conference, Jean-Pierre responded to another reporter’s questions about press freedoms in China with an assurance that the Biden administration will “hold accountable the autocrats and their enablers who continue to repress a free, independent media.”
Also on Wednesday afternoon, AP’s Matt Lee cited the aforementioned Code Pink protest earlier that day to question Deputy State Department Spokesman Vedant Patel about Assange, and was met with a similar amount of evasiveness.
“So then can I ask you, as was raised perhaps a bit abruptly at the very beginning of his comments this morning, whether or not the State Department regards Julian Assange as a journalist who would be covered by the ideas embodied in World Press Freedom Day?” asked Lee.
“The State Department thinks that Mr. Assange has been charged with serious criminal conduct in the United States, in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in our nation’s history,” Patel replied. “His actions risked serious harm to US national security to the benefit of our adversaries. It put named human sources to grave and imminent risk and risk of serious physical harm and arbitrary detention. So, it does not matter how we categorize any person, but this is – we view this as a – as something he’s been charged with serious criminal conduct.”
“Well, but it does matter actually, and that’s my question. Do you believe that he is a journalist or not?” asked Lee.
“Our view on Mr. Assange is that he’s been charged with serious criminal conduct in the United States,” said Patel………………………………………………..
Okay. So, basically, the bottom line is that you don’t have an answer. You won’t say whether you think he is a journalist or not,” Lee replied.
Again, Patel was left with no safe answers to Lee’s questions, because of course Assange is indisputably a journalist. Publishing information and reporting that is in the public interest is precisely the thing that journalism is; that’s why Assange has won so many awards for journalism. Trying to contend that Assange is not a journalist is an unwinnable argument.
Later in that same press conference Patel was challenged on his claim that Assange damaged US national security by journalist Sam Husseini.
“You refer to WikiLeaks allegedly damaging US national security,” said Husseini. “People might remember that WikiLeaks came to prominence because they released the Collateral Murder video. And what that showed was US military mowing down Reuters reporters – workers in Iraq. Reuters repeatedly asked the US Government to disclose such information about those killings, and the US government repeatedly refused to do so. Only then did we know what happened, that the US helicopter gunship mowed down these Reuters workers, through the Collateral Murder video? Are you saying that disclosure of such criminality by the US government impinges US national security?”
“I’m not going to parse or get into specifics,” Patel said, before again repeating his line that Assange stands accused of serious crimes in a way that harmed US national security.
Journalist Max Blumenthal tweeted about Patel’s remarks, “According to this State Dept flack, Julian Assange’s jailing is justified because he ‘harmed US national security.’ But Assange is not an American citizen. By this logic, the US can kidnap and indefinitely detain any foreign journalist who offends the US national security state.”
It is good that activists and journalists have been doing so much to highlight the US empire’s hypocrisy as it crows self-righteously about its love of press freedoms while persecuting the world’s most famous journalist for doing great journalism. Highlighting this hypocrisy shows that the US empire does not in fact care about press freedoms at all, save only to the extent that it can pretend to care about them to wag its finger at governments it doesn’t like.
Assange exposed many things about our rulers during his work with WikiLeaks, but none of those revelations have been as significant as what he’s forced them to reveal about themselves in the lengths that they will go to to silence a journalist who tells inconvenient truths. https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/multiple-us-officials-confronted?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=119185041&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
—
Unions to march against nuclear subs, citing health risks over jobs
Angus Thompson, May 5, 2023 —
Labor’s red-shirted rank and file will join a coalition of unions to protest against a major container port south of Sydney becoming a nuclear-powered zone under the AUKUS deal.
Representatives from the Electrical Trades Union, Maritime Union of Australia, Australian Services Union and Unions NSW are among those who will on Saturday rally against the possibility of Port Kembla, near Wollongong, becoming a nuclear submarine base.
NSW Electrical Trades Union secretary Allen Hicks, who represents a workforce that would be expected to work on the future fleet, should it be docked at the commercial port, said his members were resolutely opposed to nuclear propelled submarines in Australia.
“Electricians and engineers have deep and long-standing health and safety concerns about nuclear technology,” said Hicks, who is scheduled to speak at the May Day march.
The Australian Services Union’s NSW secretary, Angus McFarland, said his union was opposed to such a base anywhere on Australia’s coastline.
“The presence of nuclear attack-class submarines in our ports would make us a nuclear target and pose an unacceptable risk to the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of people given potential exposure to hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium,” he said.
South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris said opposition to the nuclear submarines was widespread among the labour movement.
“What we’ve tried to do is to paint a picture of how deep and serious the concern is over the AUKUS submarine base proposal,” Rorris said.
South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris said opposition to the nuclear submarines was widespread among the labour movement.
“What we’ve tried to do is to paint a picture of how deep and serious the concern is over the AUKUS submarine base proposal,” Rorris said.
Former Albanese government press secretary Marcus Strom, now a spokesman for Labor Against War, said he was worried about the direction the government had adopted with AUKUS. “Australians do not want to be dragged into another US-led war,” he said.
Opposition to the new submarines extends to the top of the union movement, and ACTU president Michele O’Neil voiced the peak body’s decades-long stance at the National Press Club in March, although the Australian Workers Union supports the AUKUS deal…………………..
Port Kembla has also been floated as a future hydrogen hub, and Rorris said renewable energy “dwarfs any benefit that we might get from a nuclear parking lot”…………..
On Friday, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced the introduction of a national energy transition authority helmed by unions, employers and the government to help fossil fuel workers train for jobs in the renewables sector. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/unions-to-march-against-nuclear-subs-citing-health-risks-over-jobs-20230505-p5d5ug.html
Former CIA Officer Says Decision to Drone Attack Kremlin Was Made by the United States
Deadly escalation an effort to provoke major Russian response.
Summit News, 5 May, 2023, Paul Joseph Watson
Former CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson says the decision to launch a drone attack on the Kremlin was made by the United States.
The Wednesday attack, which was likely to have been targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, was stopped by electronic warfare systems which disabled the drones before they could reach their target.
According to Johnson, the attack must have been spearheaded by the Biden administration and the US military-industrial complex because “decisions on such attacks are made not in Kiev, but in Washington.”
“Washington should understand clearly that we know this,” Johnson told reporters.
Although the attack, which Ukraine denied it was involved in, failed to accomplish its tactical goal, it was still highly “symbolic,” according to Johnson……………………………………….
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denounced the attempted drone attack as a dangerous escalation. https://summit.news/2023/05/05/former-cia-officer-says-decision-to-drone-attack-kremlin-was-made-by-the-united-states/
As US-China Tensions Mount, We Must Resist the Push Toward Interimperialist War
What would it look like to build international solidarity against imperial rivalry from below?By Ashley Smith , TRUTHOUT, May 4, 2023
The daily news is filled with stories about the spiraling conflict between the U.S. and China over everything from trade to geopolitical squabbles and dueling military exercises. All of these converge over Taiwan — a small nation claimed by China as a renegade province, backed by the U.S., and home to the most advanced microchip manufacturing plants in the world.
These plants produce chips that power everything from iPhones to Washington’s F-35 fighter bomber, and other high-tech weaponry. That fact raises the stakes of a long-simmering dispute punctuated with periodic “Taiwan Strait Crises,” turning it into a volatile diplomatic, economic and military confrontation.
On Capitol Hill and in boardrooms, as Edward Luce notes, “the old Washington Consensus” of integrating of China has been replaced with a new one of “dis-integrating China.” Joe Biden has continued Donald Trump’s grand strategy of great power rivalry with Beijing………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
the relative decline of U.S. imperialism and the rise of today’s asymmetric multipolar world order. The U.S. remains, of course, the most dominant imperialist state, but it now faces China as a rising rival, a revitalized Russia as an outsize regional power and a host of sub-imperialist states from Saudi Arabia to Israel and Brazil, which variously challenge and cooperate with the U.S.
The Rise of Chinese Imperialism
Washington views China as its biggest rival. Beijing has transformed itself from an autarchic, underdeveloped economy into a capitalist superpower. It is now the world’s second-largest economy, the number one manufacturer, the largest exporter, main trade partner with most of the world’s major economies, a leading exporter of capital, largest creditor and a top recipient of foreign direct investment……………………………………………………
Biden’s Imperialist Keynesianism
Of course, the U.S. remains the world’s largest economy, controls the dollar as the international reserve currency, boasts the largest network of military allies, spends nearly three times as much as China on defense and possesses over 750 bases around the world. To enforce its supremacy, it has taken an increasingly aggressive turn to contain Beijing……………………………………………………………………………….
“Democracies” Versus Autocracies
To complement this imperialist industrial policy, Biden has launched a geopolitical campaign to forge a front of democracies against autocracies. A lot of this is ideological posturing, as U.S. democracy is, to say the least, ridden with crisis (remember January 6?) and the allies it invited to its two “Democracy Summits” included states that Freedom House categorized as “partly free,” “not free at all” and “electoral autocracies.”……………………………………………………………………………………………….
Taiwan: Strategic Flashpoint of Imperial Rivalry
The conflict between the U.S. and China is coming to a head over Taiwan, with American Gen. Mike Minihan going so far as to predict war in 2025. Beijing claims the island as a renegade province it aims to reintegrate, while the U.S. holds a position of “strategic ambiguity,” upholding a One China policy that only officially recognizes Beijing, while remaining unclear whether it would militarily defend Taiwan in order to deter China from invading and Taiwan from declaring independence.
………………………………………………………………………….. The Taiwanese people are caught between China and the U.S., their right to self-determination threatened by Beijing and cynically supported by the U.S. for imperial motives.
Neither Washington, Nor Beijing
War between the U.S. and China is, however, unlikely at this point. Their economies remain deeply integrated, both possess enormous stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and they are embedded in elaborate international geopolitical and economic institutions, all factors that mitigate the chances of war.
But, amid global capitalism’s multiple crises, both powers are whipping up nationalist hostility and implementing increasingly antagonistic geopolitical and economic policies. In such volatile conditions, it is essential for the international left to agitate against the drive toward imperialist war.
In the U.S., the left’s top priority must be to oppose Washington’s attempt to enforce its hegemony against China’s challenge. Washington remains, as Martin Luther King Jr. said decades ago, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” a fact most recently confirmed by its destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq.
At the same time, we should not fall for the politics of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” and support Washington’s main imperial rival, China, nor lesser ones like Russia. They are no less predatory and avaricious imperialist states, as Beijing’s record in Xinjiang and Hong Kong attests, as does Moscow’s similarly brutal one in Syria and Ukraine.
Building International Solidarity From Below
Instead, the left must build international solidarity from below between oppressed nations like Palestine, Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as exploited workers in both countries and throughout the world. This project is not an abstraction, but a necessity and possibility…………………………………………
Finally, the U.S. left must collaborate with the Chinese left (and the Asian left more broadly), which despite repression and difficult conditions, have developed extensive networks and publications like Hong Kong’s Lausan, Taiwan’s New Bloom, and Chinese groups and publications like Gongchao, Chuang and Made in China Journal. Now is the time to build internationalist anti-imperialism that rejects the false choice between Washington and Beijing and organizes across borders in a fight for international socialism that puts people and the planet first. https://truthout.org/articles/as-us-china-tensions-mount-we-must-resist-the-push-toward-interimperialist-war/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=43fadf3893-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-43fadf3893-650192793&mc_cid=43fadf3893&mc_eid=73e1cd43d0
Former Nuclear Leaders: Say ‘No’ to New Reactors
The former heads of nuclear power regulation in the U.S., Germany, and France, along with the former secretary to the UK’s government radiation protection committee, have issued a joint statement that in part says, “Nuclear is just not part of any feasible strategy that could counter climate change.”
The statement issued Jan. 25 notes the importance of global action to combat climate issues, but the four leaders say nuclear power is too costly, and too risky an investment, to be a viable strategy against climate change.
The four leaders issuing the joint statement include:
- Dr. Greg Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and founder of Maxean, an energy company.
- Prof. Wolfgang Renneberg, a university professor and former Head of the Reactor Safety, Radiation Protection and Nuclear Waste, Federal Environment Ministry, Germany.
- Dr. Bernard Laponche, a French engineer and author, and former Director General, French Agency for Energy Management, former Advisor to French Minister of Environment, Energy and Nuclear Safety.
- Dr. Paul Dorfman, an associate fellow and researcher at the University of Sussex, and former Secretary UK Govt. Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters.
Here’s the text of the statement:
“The climate is running hot. Evolving knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt-rate makes clear that sea-level rise is ramping, along with destructive storm, storm surge, severe precipitation and flooding, not forgetting wildfire. With mounting concern and recognition over the speed and pace of the low carbon energy transition that’s needed, nuclear has been reframed as a partial response to the threat of global heating. But at the heart of this are questions about whether nuclear could help with the climate crisis, whether nuclear is economically viable, what are the consequences of nuclear accidents, what to do with the waste, and whether there’s a place for nuclear within the swiftly expanding renewable energy evolution.
“As key experts who have worked on the front-line of the nuclear issue, we’ve all involved at the highest governmental nuclear regulatory and radiation protection levels in the US, Germany, France and UK. In this context, we consider it our collective responsibility to comment on the main issue: Whether nuclear could play a significant role as a strategy against climate change.
“The central message, repeated again and again, that a new generation of nuclear will be clean, safe, smart and cheap, is fiction. The reality is nuclear is neither clean, safe or smart; but a very complex technology with the potential to cause significant harm. Nuclear isn’t cheap, but extremely costly. Perhaps most importantly nuclear is just not part of any feasible strategy that could counter climate change. To make a relevant contribution to global power generation, up to more than ten thousand new reactors would be required, depending on reactor design.”
The statement includes a list of items (below) the leaders see as making an argument against nuclear power.
In short, nuclear as strategy against climate change is:
- Too costly in absolute terms to make a relevant contribution to global power production
- More expensive than renewable energy in terms of energy production and CO2 mitigation, even taking into account costs of grid management tools like energy storage associated with renewables rollout.
- Too costly and risky for financial market investment, and therefore dependent on very large public subsidies and loan guarantees.
- Unsustainable due to the unresolved problem of very long-lived radioactive waste.
- Financially unsustainable as no economic institution is prepared to insure against the full potential cost, environmental and human impacts of accidental radiation release – with the majority of those very significant costs being borne by the public.
- Militarily hazardous since newly promoted reactor designs increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.
- Inherently risky due to unavoidable cascading accidents from human error, internal faults, and external impacts; vulnerability to climate-driven sea-level rise, storm, storm surge, inundation and flooding hazard, resulting in international economic impacts.
- Subject to too many unresolved technical and safety problems associated with newer unproven concepts, including ‘Advanced’ and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
- Too unwieldy and complex to create an efficient industrial regime for reactor construction and operation processes within the intended build-time and scope needed for climate change mitigation.
- Unlikely to make a relevant contribution to necessary climate change mitigation
- needed by the 2030’s due to nuclear’s impracticably lengthy development and construction time-lines, and the overwhelming construction costs of the very great volume of reactors that would be needed to make a difference.
TODAY. Time for a laugh – in this sorry world
My thanks to Caitlin Johnstone for her jolly thought about how we good upright Westerners can destroy Russia. We’re being told by our betters, the Western experts – that the recent drone attack on the Kremlin could be “ a false flag operation by Moscow designed to justify more intense attacks in Ukraine or more conscription“.
So, as Caitlin observes, the logical conclusion is to send heaps of weaponry to Russia and let Russia destroy itself!
Another laugh could come from watching the gyrations of the Australian government, as it aims for setting up a high-level radioactive waste dump on Aboriginal land. (ABORIGINAL LAND is, of course, what they mean when they say ‘A “REMOTE SITE“).
The Australian government is currently fighting a legal battle against an Aboriginal group who are objecting to the government siting a radioactive waste dump on their traditional land.
At the same time, the Australian government is ever so piously saying that it wants to establish an “Aboriginal Voice to Parliament”.
Record low Antarctic sea ice is another alarming sign the ocean’s role as climate regulator is changing
Craig Stevens
A changing climate is upon us, with more frequent land and marine heatwaves, forest fires, atmospheric rivers and floods. For some, it is the backdrop to day-to-day life, but for a growing number of people it is a life-changing reality.
Port Kembla rally to demand NSW site be ruled out as Aukus nuclear submarine base
March organisers say delaying a decision on the location – one of three flagged as possible – will deter renewable energy investment
Guardian, Daniel Hurst 6 May 23
Labor members are set to join unionists at a rally in Wollongong’s Port Kembla on Saturday to urge the Albanese government to rule out the location as a future base for the Aukus nuclear-powered submarines.
Rally organisers say the debate is “a proxy battle” for Australia’s future and warn the delay in making a decision will only deter renewable energy investment in Port Kembla.
The former Morrison government named it as well as Newcastle and Brisbane as three potential sites for a new east coast base, with reports earlier this year suggesting Port Kembla was favoured by defence planners.
But in the wake of the defence strategic review, the Labor government has delayed a decision on the location and has signalled it will not limit itself to the Morrison government-era shortlist. It also now talks about a “facility”, not necessarily a base.
A spokesperson for the defence minister, Richard Marles, said the government would “develop a process to consider all feasible options for an east coast facility to support Australia’s future submarine capability”.
A decision would be made “late in this decade”, the spokesperson said………………..
The South Coast Labour Council’s annual May Day march has been moved from Wollongong to Port Kembla to shine a spotlight on opposition to the proposed base………..
Rorris said locals had “grave fears” that the prospect of a submarine base would crowd out potential energy investors.
“That is why we are asking the federal government: rule it out, take it off the table and say that it will never be a nuclear base. Until that happens, economically and industrially, we have a major and unacceptable problem.”………….
Rorris said it was a “choice between the industries of the future to save the planet versus the war machines that may well destroy it”.
“We understand that unlike the Morrison government, this Albanese federal government is a bit more attuned to the feeling on this matter on the ground,” Rorris said………………………………….. more https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/06/port-kembla-rally-to-demand-nsw-site-be-ruled-out-as-aukus-nuclear-submarine-base
May 5 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “The People Living Ultra Low-Carbon Lifestyles” • Surveys show that many people want to participate in climate actions, but putting a very low-carbon life into practice can mean be tricky: it can mean changing several aspects of daily life, particularly for the richer parts of society. What do truly low-carbon lifestyles […]
May 5 Energy News — geoharvey
Location for nuclear subs base ‘close to a decade’ away as selection process rebooted
ABC Illawarra / By Tim Fernandez 3 May 23
The federal government has revealed it will spend almost a decade choosing a location for an east coast submarine base.
Key points:
- Matt Thistlethwaite says all options are on the table regarding the selection of an east coast submarine base
- The process of selecting a location for a base is expected to be almost a decade
- Unions claim the lengthy selection period will hurt business interests in Port Kembla
Scott Morrison identified Brisbane, Newcastle and Port Kembla last year as the three options for the home of an Australian nuclear submarine fleet as part of the AUKUS agreement.
The ABC understands Illawarra harbour was strongly favoured by the Department of Defence and industry figures.
In a recent briefing with Illawarra industry, community and business leaders, Assistant Defence Minister Matt Thistlethwaite said other locations would be considered.
“Everything is on the table,” he said.
“There are a number of factors — deepwater ports are essential, ensuring that there is a domestic industry base that can service a base like that, ensuring there is a skilled work force.
…………………….. “We are looking at close to a decade before that decision is made.”
Other locations ‘hot potatoes’
The announcement opens the door for defence to reconsider the Garden Island naval base in Sydney and Jervis Bay on the NSW south coast.
The sites were among the top locations identified by Defence in a 2011 report obtained by former South Australian Senator and submariner Rex Patrick under freedom of information laws.
“I think the other sites are political hot potatoes and the government is seeking to diffuse those aspects of this particular AUKUS program,” Mr Patrick said.
“Garden Island in Sydney is a significant population site surrounded by the residents of Sydney who simply will be uncomfortable with the stationing of a nuclear submarine in the harbour.
He said winning community support for a base in Jervis Bay would also be a difficult proposition due to the environmental sensitivity of the site.
“There have been many campaigns over the years to stop the navy conducting activities in Jervis Bay, even though it is a pretty good environmental tenant,” he said.
“I can see huge problems with government trying to impose a nuclear base in that pristine environment.”
‘The air has to be cleared’
The government is also facing a challenge at Port Kembla, where the Illawarra community also has a long history of opposing nuclear projects and has already begun rallying opposition to a base.
NSW Ports, which operates the harbour, has released plans for an off-shore wind turbine assembly facility at Outer Harbour, a site which is already being scouted by Defence. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-03/nuclear-submarine-base-decision-delayed/102293870
1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 