Defence Minister insists nuclear submarine deal will not damage Australia’s sovereignty
By Richard Wood • Senior Journalist 9 News, Feb 9, 2023
Defence Minister Richard Marles is hitting back at claims the AUKUS military alliance will undermine the future of Australia’s military sovereignty.
In a speech to Parliament today, he will seek to ease worries that the defence pact between Australia, Britain and the US poses any risk.
Former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull have critcised AUKUS, saying it makes Australia too dependent on the US…………
Marles’ speech to MPs comes ahead of next month’s announcement about the type of nuclear-propelled submarine technology Australia will obtain. https://www.9news.com.au/national/aukus-submarine-pact-will-not-compromise-australian-sovereignty-defence-minister-says/906cf0bc-0c2f-426b-9720-0acaae9ad5c8
Former Australian PM Tony Abbott joins board of UK climate sceptic thinktank
Christina’s note: The mad monk rides again. Madder than ever. As he’s an enthusiastic promoter of the nuclear industry, it is puzzling that Abbott is still a climate denialist.
Nowdays, the nuclear industry pushes their lie that nuclear beats global heating. So a good nuclear zealot should believe in climate change.
Abbott says ‘we need more genuine science and less groupthink’ in announcing position at Global Warming Policy Foundation
Guardian. Graham Readfearn 7 Feb 23
The former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has joined the board of a UK-based thinktank that has been highly critical of climate science and action on global heating.
Since its launch in 2009, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has become known for its consistent attacks on climate science, the risks of global heating and – more recently – policies to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The group, founded by the former Thatcher government treasurer Sir Nigel Lawson, is facing a complaint from three UK MPs and a not-for-profit campaign group accusing the GWPF of inappropriately claiming status as an educational charity while carrying out lobbying and skewed research.
Abbott said he was pleased to join the foundation “because it’s consistently injected a note of realism into the climate debate”………………
Dr Jerome Booth, the foundation’s chairman, said Abbott brings “a global perspective and policy insight at the very highest level” and he would help the group “to foster a culture of debate, respect and scrutiny in policy areas that are currently dominated by intolerance, high emotions, moral reasoning and confusion”.
Abbott is currently an adviser to the UK government’s Board of Trade. His name was raised last month as a possible replacement for the late senator Jim Molan in the upper house.
During his prime ministership between 2013 and 2015, Abbott drove to dismantle much of the country’s public policy architecture on climate change, successfully repealing a legislated price on carbon, defunding the independent Climate Commission but failing to dismantle the Climate Change Authority and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
In 2017, he flew to London to deliver the GWPF’s annual lecture, where he suggested natural factors could be to blame for global warming, that CO2 was a trace gas and hinted at a global conspiracy to tamper with temperature data to make global heating seem worse.
The foundation is seen as influential among some conservatives. Conservative MP Steve Baker resigned as a GWPF trustee when he became minister for Northern Ireland.
A group of Conservative MPs and peers – several with links to the foundation – have formed the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which has used the GWPF’s work as part of its advocacy.
The GWPF’s non-charitable arm – the Global Warming Policy Forum – runs a project called Net Zero Watch, which claims to scrutinise climate and decarbonisation policies.
The foundation has several Australian links. As the Guardian reported, one of its earliest funders was Australian billionaire hedge fund manager Sir Michael Hintze, who last year was handed a seat in the House of Lords at the recommendation of the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson.
Four Australian climate sceptics sit on the GWPF academic advisory board, including mining industry figure Prof Ian Plimer and controversial marine scientist Dr Peter Ridd of the Institute of Public Affairs, an Australian thinktank known to promote climate science denial.
The late Cardinal George Pell also delivered a GWPF annual lecture in 2011.
Presenting a report last year, the GWPF’s director, Dr Benny Peiser, said: “It’s extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis.”
Last year three MPs – one each from Labor, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats – joined with a not-for-profit campaign group to complain to the UK’s Charity Commission.
The group questioned if the GWPF was breaking charity rules by commissioning unbalanced research and carrying out political advocacy from charitable funds……………….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/07/former-australian-pm-tony-abbott-joins-board-climate-sceptic-thinktank-global-warming-policy-foundation
The US shooting down a Chinese spy balloon is a risk for Australia’s tired submarine fleet
Michael West Media, by Rex Patrick | Feb 6, 2023 |
For many Australians watching the events over the past week, where the United States Air Force tracked a Chinese balloon overflying US territory and then shot it down, might seem to be of indirect significance to our security. Former senator and submariner, Rex Patrick suggests that it is of direct significance to Australia, increasing the risk we might be drawn into war in South East Asia.
Over the weekend the US Air Force shot down a Chinese balloon. The United States have said that the balloon was carrying out intelligence gathering. The Chinese Government has said it wasn’t. They claim it was just a wandering weather balloon. That’s important for reasons I’ll come back to, but I first need to provide some background – not about balloons, but about another surveillance platform.
What submarines do
Submarines can perform a whole range of different tasks in time of war……………………….
In preparing for war they train, they engage in tactical development and they conduct intelligence gathering. It is the latter which is their most important and challenging tasks………………….
Balloons and ballast tanks
…. Imagine a South Korean, Japanese or Australian submarine operating very close to (or perhaps inside) China’s territorial waters conducting intelligence gathering. China might now be inclined to treat that submarine the same way the United States treated a balloon purported to be conducting intelligence collection.
If detected, even if just outside of their territorial waters, the Chinese will just say they were inside their waters when, or in the minutes before, they were engaged. We’ll say, just as the US has for the balloon, that we weren’t spying and they’ll say we were.
And getting detected in our newest Australian submarine, the 20 year old HMAS Rankin, is far more likely than is the case for South Korea’s newest submarine, the 1 year old ROKS Dosan Ahn Changho, or Japan’s newest submarine, the 1 year old Tōryū.
The stakes are greater for us because Australian governments of various political flavours have left us with ageing Collins Class submarines to carry out this most serious and complex of peace time tasks.
One option would be to eventually withdraw our ageing Collins class submarines from surveillance operations anywhere close to Chinese waters, but that’s unlikely. Our Navy and our government will be anxious to continue to do all they can to assist the United States Navy in the Northern Pacific, in the Sea of Japan and the South China Sea.
Alliances are not just pieces of paper, they are dynamic relationships in which there’s a strong obligation to contribute and share risk.
The China risk
The risks are likely to increase in the years ahead, as China continues to ramp up military tensions in an effort to coerce Taiwan into some form of political subordination to Beijing.
The possibility that China will choose a vessel of a US ally to make an example of cannot be dismissed.
And that risk will be disproportionately carried by our Navy as it operates a submarine force with decreasing relative capability across the next two decades or longer. Thanks to government spending $170bn pursuing a distant nuclear-powered capability, our submariners will be at greater risk in less capable vessels than our so-called ‘great and powerful’ friend.
For a long time, we’ve been able to see Defence procurement failures and kick ourselves on account of cost to the taxpayer. Now, as the balloon goes up in the South China Sea, the lack of capability may well cost us many lives.
It’s not just about a war before the arrival of new submarines in 2040, its all the peace time intelligence operations between now and then. https://michaelwest.com.au/the-us-shooting-down-a-chinese-spy-balloon-is-a-risk-for-australias-tired-submarine-fleet/—
‘Save the only planet we have’: Tony Abbott joins climate-sceptic think tank
EMMA ELSWORTHY, FEB 07, 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/07/former-australian-pm-tony-abbott-joins-board-climate-sceptic-thinktank-global-warming-policy-foundation
The former Australian PM says he has joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK think tank founded by a ‘climate denier-in-chief’.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who once compared taking action on climate change with killing goats “to appease volcano gods”, has joined the board of a UK climate-sceptic think tank founded by a politician dubbed “the climate denier-in-chief”.
Abbott said he was pleased to join the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which “consistently injected a note of realism into the climate debate”, despite the charity spearheading the backlash against the UK government’s net-zero goal.
“All of us want to save the only planet we have, but this should not be by means which impoverish poorer people in richer countries and hold poorer countries back,” Abbott said of his appointment.
“Right now, in countries like Australia, the impact of climate policy is to make electricity less affordable and less reliable rather than perceptibly to cool the planet.
“We need more genuine science and less groupthink in this debate. That’s where the GWPF has been a commendably consistent if lonely voice.”
The GWPF was founded in 2009 by Thatcher-era chancellor Nigel Lawson, who reportedly resigned from the House of Lords last month. Described by UK Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay as the “climate denier-in-chief”, Lawson claimed that “global warming is not a problem” in a 2021 article written for The Spectator during the COP26 in Glasgow.
The foundation’s director, Benny Peiser, also made headlines for spurious statements, including that he found it “extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis” and that climate “alarmism” was driven by “scientists’ computer modelling rather than observational evidence”.
Despite Lawson’s apparent departure from politics, his foundation continues to cause a headache for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. There has been outrage after a UK register of interests disclosure revealed Conservative MP Steve Baker accepted a £10,000 (A$17,464) donation from the chair of GWPF’s Net Zero Watch.
The campaign arm has urged the UK government to recommit to fossil fuels, commission a fleet of coal-fired power plants, and wind down wind and solar completely, while its alleged breaches of charity law were the subject of a complaint from three British MPs in October.
This isn’t Abbott’s first brush with the foundation. In 2017 he delivered an eyebrow-raising annual lecture that suggested climate change was “probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm”.
Abbott also claimed that photos from his electorate showed the sea level hadn’t risen. (The Bureau of Meteorology found last year that the rates of sea level rise to the north and south-east of Australia have been “significantly higher” than the global average for the past 30 years.)
“Contrary to the breathless assertions that climate change is behind every weather event, in Australia the floods are not bigger, the bushfires are not worse, the droughts are not deeper or longer, and the cyclones are not more severe than they were in the 1800s,” Abbott said at the time.
In an echo of Lawson’s claim that rising temperatures are “no bad thing: many more people die each year from cold-related illnesses than from heat-related ones”, Abbott suggested in 2017 that sweltering heatwaves are good, actually.
“There’s the evidence that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide (which is a plant food after all) are actually greening the planet and helping to lift agricultural yields,” he said. “In most countries, far more people die in cold snaps than in heatwaves, so a gradual lift in global temperatures, especially if it’s accompanied by more prosperity and more capacity to adapt to change, might even be beneficial.”
Heat is the biggest natural killer in Australia (and in the US) and has been for the past 200 years, with fatalities outstripping all other natural killers including bushfires, cyclones and floods. Research has found there were 36,000 deaths associated with heat in Australia between 2006 and 2017.
Endgame is going on in Ukraine crisis
When studying today’s daily AFU troop losses and considering Ukraine’s recent presidential order, according to which even underage children at 16-17 aged can be called for armed service, the overall military situation of Ukraine appears to be catastrophic. Anyway, the situation is totally opposite to the picture the western MSM is propagating “Ukraine is winning … Ukraine is winning”. No doubt, Ukraine has already lost the war and by the same token, the NATO as well.
The US ending its financial, humanitarian and particularly military support promptly would cause Ukraine to completely collapse and RAND cites several reasons, why doing so would be sensible, not least because a Ukrainian victory is regarded as both “improbable” and “unlikely,” due to Russian “resolve,” and its military mobilization having “rectified the manpower deficit that enabled Ukraine’s success in the Kharkiv counteroffensive.”
Great Power Relations, February 7, 2023 | Seppo Niemi
Basically, great power competition and the fight for hegemonic control between America on the one side and Russia and China on the other, is being fought on two fronts.
The one is Ukraine war with enlarging NATO engagement, the other front is financial with America facing a coordinated attack by Russia and China on its dollar hegemony. The Russians are planning a replacement trade settlement currency, which could unleash a flood of foreign-owned dollars onto the foreign exchange markets. In fact, the second front encases also the third front, the formation of global alliances. Ultimately, there is a competition of new world order and fight for global power (world hegemon).
All these topics have been analysed in various articles on this website and will be analysed also in the future but this article focuses again on military side of this subject, because there is, as the title indicates, endgame currently going. Some fundamental factors are now emerging for further analysis.
Frontline news
The Biden administration as well as Pentagon know that Ukraine’s army is not able to hold the current defense line in its east part. The big fear is that the Ukrainian army will totally collapse and run away, when the frontline is breached in Ugledar, Bakhmut, Seversk and Krasny-Liman.
Russia’s winter offensive is going in full speed but in another way than western “experts” assumed. No “Big Arrows” so far but slowly accelerating pressure along the whole frontline and when break-points emerge, they will be utilized immediately throwing more reserves in those places from back-areas. Due to autumn mobilizations and very low KIA-rate, Russia has plenty of trained reserves available.
The reason for this kind of warfare is the fact that western spy satellites follow the ground situation 24/7 covering the whole theatre of operations. Russia fully knows and understands that and therefore hide their military operations to the latest possible point, thus holding a surprise moment. However, 1-2 massive, “Big Arrow” Russian offensives are probable during February-April period.
A new wave of activity is expected for the Russian side during February. The recent changes in the command of the operation appear to have been carefully planned in order to elevate the combat to a new level and several of Moscow’s strategic objectives may soon be achieved, radically changing the course of the conflict. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, was promoted to the position of Commander of the Joint Forces of the Russian Federation in the Special Military Operation Zone. Gerasimov’s arrival to power seems to have been a move towards the final stage of the special military operation.
Obviously, a major offensive (Big Arrow) is being prepared for February with the probable aims: 1) Reaching the borders of the regions recently reintegrated into the Russian Federation, pacifying the new oblasts. 2) capturing Nikolaev, Odessa, as well as the entire Black Sea coast, reaching Transnistria. 3) seizing/blocking Kiev, forcing a political capitulation of the Zelensky regime until early March.
The territory of Belarus will become the main springboard for the upcoming strike. In parallel to Belarus, Zaporozhye and Lugansk are also key zones for the Russian strategy. It is expected that massive attacks will come from these regions during the offensive, destroying enemy units in a short period of time which will allow a rapid Russian advance on the battlefield, reaching the zones listed in the above-mentioned objectives. For the offensive to be successful, Russian forces will focus on blocking all enemy’s supply lines. The main route of arrival of supplies to Ukraine is the border with Poland, where there is the transit of NATO’s ammunition and military equipment.
Some days ago, Washington announced preparing a new package of military aid worth $2.2 billion that is expected to include longer-range rockets for the first time. Soon thereafter, in a televised interview, Sergei Lavrov said an important principle of policy: “We’re now seeking to push back Ukrainian army artillery to a distance that will not pose a threat to our territories. The greater the range of the weapons supplied to the Kiev regime, the more we will have to push them back from territories which are part of our country.”
Latest statistics of losses
A Turkish newspaper, Hurseda Haber, published January 25, 2023, an article of military losses by parties in Ukraine war with the data, allegedly produced by the Israeli Secret Service Mossad. Here is this highly interesting statistical comparison: [graph on original]….
Russian Ministry of Defense (RMOD) statistics since February 24, 2022 up to December 31, 2022. Ukrainian losses: 355 aircraft, 199 helicopters, 2779 UAV, 7350 tanks and armoured vehicles, 4713 artillery & MLRS systems (as well as 7859 units of special military equipment)………….
Late January 2023, the well-informed American Col.(ret.) Doug Macgregor put the numbers of dead on the Ukrainian side (video) at 122,000 killed plus 35,000 missed in action (presumed dead). The number of dead Russians (including Wagner forces and Donbas militia) is at 16,000 to 25,000 with 20 to 40,000 additionally wounded. The numbers are in good consistency with those figures of Mossad.
When studying today’s daily AFU troop losses and considering Ukraine’s recent presidential order, according to which even underage children at 16-17 aged can be called for armed service, the overall military situation of Ukraine appears to be catastrophic. Anyway, the situation is totally opposite to the picture the western MSM is propagating “Ukraine is winning … Ukraine is winning”. No doubt, Ukraine has already lost the war and by the same token, the NATO as well.
Statistics of January 2023 [graph on original]
Please, note that just in January 2023, Russia has destroyed more than 300 AFU tanks and armoured vehicles, nearly three times more than what the West has promised to deliver to Ukraine over next half of year and all those western tanks are old models with old technology.
NATO tank deliveries – Leopard hunting begins
Promises of tank deliveries by models and countries: Leopard 2 totalling about 50 (Germany, Poland, others), Abrams M1 up to 31 (the US) and Challenger 2 up to 14 (the UK); totalling approx. 100 tanks. None of those models, now in delivery plan, are in production or are produced in last 15-20 years.
Germany has issued a permit to export Leopard 1 main battle tanks to Ukraine, on February 3. Berlin had approved German arms-maker Rheinmetall’s plans to sell 88 of the older Leopards to Kyiv, once these are repaired, for a total cost of more than €100 million. The Leopard 1, which first entered service in the 1960s, is the forerunner of the more advanced Leopard 2. The tank is armed with a 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7A3 L/52 rifled gun.
The big problem is and will be, how to obtain the required 105 mm ammunition for the Leopard 1 tanks. The tank features moderate armor, only effective against low caliber autocannons and heavy machine guns. This makes it vulnerable to most, if not all second and third generation anti-tank weapons.
These decisions regarding western tank deliveries to Ukraine disclose that all possible old scrapping equipment has been dug up now.
Modern tank warfare
Technological innovations have made main battle tanks (MBT) more survivable but anti-tank weapons have become even more effective outstripping MBT’s protective capabilities…………………………………………..
Western optics, media hype
Western MSM debated in “hothead” mood about the deliveries of tanks to Ukraine, suddenly dozens of “tank experts” came to public and demanded vociferously “express delivery of Leopards”.
When considering the matter in light of the analytical background, stated above, it appears once again how “mass hysteria” or “herd stupidity” is a rapidly contagious disease. In addition, it easily causes an anti-action, which is already happened on the frontlines. Leopard hunting begins.
Russia’s state tech corporation Rostec has already warned that existing Russian anti-tank missiles and shells are more than capable of destroying Western-made tanks, specifically the German Leopard 2. Pro-Russian military Telegram channels are already sharing posters pointing out the weak points of Challenger 2, Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks………………….
Report of RAND Corporation
RAND Report: Avoiding a Long War; U.S. Policy and the Trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict; January 2023.
The RAND Corporation, a highly influential American security think tank funded directly by the Pentagon, has published a landmark report stating that prolonging the proxy war is actively harming the US and its allies and warning Washington that it should avoid “a protracted conflict” in Ukraine. The war, Report says, represents “the most significant interstate conflict in decades, and its evolution will have major consequences” for Washington, which includes US “interests” being actively harmed. “The costs and risks of a long war in Ukraine are significant and outweigh the possible benefits of such a trajectory for the United States.”
The US ending its financial, humanitarian and particularly military support promptly would cause Ukraine to completely collapse and RAND cites several reasons, why doing so would be sensible, not least because a Ukrainian victory is regarded as both “improbable” and “unlikely,” due to Russian “resolve,” and its military mobilization having “rectified the manpower deficit that enabled Ukraine’s success in the Kharkiv counteroffensive.”
It is so funny that the top Pentagon thinkers just say publicly these facts, while the entire US mainstream media, which also represents the US government, is out there saying the precise opposite. They are still literally saying that Russia is losing and Ukraine winning as their colleagues in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The US media is just not even mentioning this RAND report at all.
What makes the RAND Report on Ukraine so significant, is not the quality of the analysis but the fact that the US’s most prestigious national security think-tank has taken an opposite position on the war than the Washington political elite and their globalist allies. This is a very big deal.
Keep in mind, wars end when a critical split emerges between ruling elites that eventually leads to a change in policy. RAND report represents just such a split. It indicates that powerful elites have broken, one part thinks the current policy is hurting the United States. This shift is going to gain momentum until it triggers a more-assertive demand for negotiations. Thus, the RAND report is the first step towards ending the war.
Biden administration has told repeatedly that the US will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” The United States should not undermine its own interests to pursue the unachievable dream of expelling Russia from Ukraine. The US plan to reshape Europe and the global balance of power by degrading Russia is turning out to fail badly and backfiring worse. Rational members of the foreign policy establishment should evaluate Ukraine’s prospects for success and weigh them against the growing likelihood that the conflict could unexpectedly spiral out-of-control.
The RAND report seems to represent the views of the Pentagon and the US Military establishment, who believe the United States is racing headlong towards a direct conflagration with Russia. In other words, the report may be the first ideological broadsides against the neocons, who run the State Department and the White House. It appears now this split between “War Department” and “State Department” will become more visible in the days ahead.
RAND report is just the first in a long line of falling dominoes. As Ukraine’s battlefield losses mount, the flaws in Washington’s strategy will become more apparent and will be more sharply criticized. American people will question the wisdom of economic sanctions that hurt US closest allies while helping Russia. Why the United States is following a policy that has precipitated a strong move away from the dollar and US debt? Why the US deliberately sabotaged a peace deal in March 2022, when the probability of a Ukrainian victory is near zero. The Rand report seems to anticipate all these questions as well as the “shift in mood” they will generate. This is why the authors are pushing for negotiations and a swift end to the conflict.
Peace talks … or not
There have been some peace talks between the US and Russia in last couple of months. William Burns, the CIA’s director was to meet his opposite Russian intelligence chief Naryshkin in Ankara in November 2022. This back-channel meeting was to explore compromises before America finds itself to sacrifice the Ukrainian population in a proxy war……………………………….
Militarily, the consensus of western expert opinion within the US and allied countries has changed from Russia’s losing the war in 2022 (Russian forces pulled back from Kharkiv and Kherson), to the Ukrainian forces losing the war, while NATO runs out of weapons and ammunition to send there and yet Russia unrelentingly continues to supply new weaponry and ammunition and slowly to take new ground in Ukraine. This war of attrition is going very badly now against the West (the US and its foreign allies, especially the ones in Europe: EU and NATO).
Economically, expert opinion in the west is increasingly saying their sanctions that were meant to strangle Russia’s economy have been by now a massive failure, which has probably been doing more damage to America’s European allies than to Russia. If this turns out to be true also in the mid-term (highly likely), then the entire belief-system that has been standing behind the West’s anti-Russia sanctions is going to collapse.
In addition, being deeply disappointed with all agreements with the West, Russia’s distrust on any deal with the west is huge. Thus, it is highly likely that the war will go to the bitter end, to the unconditional surrender of Ukraine.
EU – Ukraine summit in conjunction with EU – NATO declaration
European public attention was on Ukraine as the EU’s top officials visit Kyiv for a historic summit, February 2-3, the first to be held in an active war zone. Kyiv wants to join the bloc within two years but Ukraine got cold shoulder on rapid EU entry……………………..
By this summit, once again, the EU publicly and officially engaged closely and tightly with the destiny of Ukraine. Similar engagement was made with the NATO by “Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation, 10 January 2023”.
From this on, the destinies of the EU, the NATO and Ukraine have been combined and tied so closely that one part collapsing will make a domino effect to the rest.
Final look over the situation
As to the NATO, it is a good reason to take a look at the real and practical track record: military operations in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, which all ended in total defeat, debacle and turmoil.
Afghanistan and Ukraine are almost the same size in terms of land mass and the US/NATO failed to defeat a bunch of Afghani goat herders, who had no air power or artillery. The US and NATO poured billions of dollars into Afghanistan and failed to vanquish the Taliban, who easily took control of Kabul in August 2021, causing NATO troops to escape in total disarray.
In Ukraine, NATO is continuing its disarmament mission, more and more heavy weapons and other military material are poured in the black hole of Ukraine; Russia destroys them and NATO’s warehouse alert limits show red. Military material is simply finished in Europe and there is no military-industrial capacity to produce required quantities in next few years.
War fighting is a messy, complicated, resource intensive activity. “War is dirty business” as a British General said in Falkland operation. The conflict in Ukraine is exposing NATO as an impotent anachronism. If/when Russia wins militarily in Ukraine, the “raison d’etre” for NATO will be in question, in fact it disappears. Why any country is interested in applying the membership in such impotent alliance with such a failure track record?
If the reader can set aside emotion and consider the current situation unfolding in Ukraine, the evidence shows that Kiev’s army (AFU) is moving backwards on all frontlines. Without support from the United States and NATO, Ukraine does not have the manpower, munitions, tanks, artillery, air craft, financial resources and industrial capability to stop Russia. Even with more Western support flowing in, Ukraine will still lack the manpower to block the Russian advance.
Western analysts and MSM are downplaying the Russian offense in the Donbass along the Ukrainian defensive line that stretches from Bakhmut to Seversk in the north and to Ugledar in the south as some sort of sideshow with no strategic importance. That is nonsense. As said above, Russian winter offensive is underway on multiple fronts and Ukraine is paying a heavy toll. https://greatpowerrelations.com/endgame-is-going-in-ukraine-crisis/
Dr. Helen Caldicott Says The World Is Closer To Nuclear Annihilation Than Ever Before
In Interview Released Today Famed Peace Activist, Dr. Helen Caldicott, says the World is Closer to Nuclear Annihilation than Ever Before
Caldicott believes the Doomsday Clock should be at 20 seconds to midnight.
Dr. Helen Caldicott is concerned that we are the closest we have ever been to nuclear annihilation and that citizens are no longer informed as to the incomprehensible destruction and suffering that it would bring.
Caldicott told Breaking Green, “I think we are in an extremely invidious position where nuclear war could occur tonight, by accident or design. “She added that “it is the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the two huge nuclear behemoths are facing each other militarily.”
Dr. Caldicott described to Breaking Green the nightmarish effects of a nuclear war, as she had described to worldwide audiences during the Cold War. As cofounder of Physicians for Social Responsibility in the USA, her talks awakened a generation.
Caldicott believes that many people are engaging in “psychic numbing” or blocking out the reality of the threat as the Doomsday Clock is now set at 90 seconds to midnight.
Video of Caldicott’s description of nuclear war to Breaking Green can be viewed at https://globaljusticeecology.org/helen-caldicott/ .
The interview is available at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1785184/12121153 .
Breaking Green is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.
Ukraine purges libraries of Russian-language books – official
Christina note: Does this remind you of anything?
Germany in 1933?
Rt.com 8 Feb 23, More than 10 million volumes have been pulled from the shelves, a senior Rada MP has said.
Ukraine has removed millions of copies of Russian-language books from its public libraries, Yevgeniya Kravchuk, a senior member of the country’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, said on Monday.
She stated that the Culture Ministry had provided recommendations on what titles should be taken off the shelves.
This move was provoked by an initiative declared by the Ukrainian government to “overcome the consequences of Russification,” which in practice means purging schools of certain literature, renaming streets, and dismantling monuments to Russian historical figures……………….
Ukraine has a sizable Russian-speaking minority, and many Ukrainian speakers are fluent in Russian.
In June, the Ukrainian Education Ministry proposed removing more than 40 books by Russian and Soviet authors from the curriculum. The list included the works of such renowned classical writers as Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Alexander Pushkin, as well as Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Sholokhov, both of whom won the Nobel Prize for literature. Ukrainian Culture Minister Aleksander Tkachenko urged the world in December to “boycott” Russian culture, arguing that Moscow has been using it for propaganda………………….. https://www.rt.com/russia/571099-ukraine-purges-russian-books/
Hooray – Australia’s cultural cringe is over! We’re gonna be important, like Ukraine!
Bewdy, mate!
For a long time, we thought we wasn’t as good as other countries. I mean – we have to live near to all those yellow and brown people, who speak Asian languages and can’t even talk proper Strine (that’s Australian lingo)
But we have shown we was tough, – we wiped out heaps of blackfellas.
However, lately the blacks have got uppity, and so have the women. Hell, we even had a woman Prime Minister for a while. Things haven’t been real good for real blokes.
By the way, good to see the back of that Jacinda Adern, back in the bedroom and kitchen, where a woman belongs
Anyway, proper Australian blokes can hold their heads up high, now. Australia’s not frittering away its money on soppy stuff – education, health, welfare. Nah – we’re buying $171 billion of nuclear submarines, and lots of secret stuff for Pine Gap. And we’re welcoming American tough guys and their stuff to Northern Australia – and buying everything we can from our favourite shops – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Thales, NorthropGrumman. (check this all out at The US is preparing Australia to fight its war against China)
Best of all – we’re learning something we’d forgotten during the namby-pamby decades – how to hate the Chinks.
And, thanks to our best mate the USA, we’re gonna run a war against China. USA will sell us all the weapons, and we’ll show that we can do the brave fighting. And Australia will at last really be BigTime.
Our Prime Minister will be adored by the Western world, and strut around the world in the limelight, just like Zelensky.
Though I’m not sure that P.M Anthony Albanese will be up to it. Bring back Scott Morrison, or better still, Peter Dutton.
West is best for wind farm performance as renewables blow away gas market share — RenewEconomy
Western Australia takes up six out of 10 spots in the top rankings for wind farm performance in January, with South Australia occupying the remaining four. The post West is best for wind farm performance as renewables blow away gas market share appeared first on RenewEconomy.
West is best for wind farm performance as renewables blow away gas market share — RenewEconomy
AGL’s coal sore: Boring is OK in share markets, clueless is not — RenewEconomy
AGL has yet to demonstrate a “story” that investors could realistically embrace. The post AGL’s coal sore: Boring is OK in share markets, clueless is not appeared first on RenewEconomy.
AGL’s coal sore: Boring is OK in share markets, clueless is not — RenewEconomy
Wind turbine failure rates are rising – has the industry gone too big, too fast? — RenewEconomy
Faulty components in turbines still under warranty are starting to savage the profits of some of the industry’s biggest players. So what’s going on? The post Wind turbine failure rates are rising – has the industry gone too big, too fast? appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Wind turbine failure rates are rising – has the industry gone too big, too fast? — RenewEconomy
Labor criticises Coalition energy spokesman Ted )’Brien for filming nuclear power videos at Hiroshima
Guardian, Josh Butler, Tue 7 Feb 2023
A Labor government MP has accused Coalition energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien of “bizarre and disrespectful” behaviour after filming videos discussing Australia’s potential for nuclear energy at the site of the Hiroshima atomic blast and the Fukushima power plant in Japan.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, accused O’Brien of a “frolic” on advocating for nuclear power, but the Liberal MP said he had sought to be respectful on his privately funded trip to study the technology………….
O’Brien, the member for the Queensland seat of Fairfax, recently posted two videos from a trip to Japan on YouTube titled “Time to Talk Nuclear: What can Australia learn from Japan?” and “Time to Talk Nuclear: What can we learn from Hiroshima?”
Guardian Australia previously revealed O’Brien’s “Time To Talk Nuclear” campaign, which he described as a “grassroots” community engagement program, was using a website registered by a business that helps an American small modular reactor company.
he Coalition opposition has consistently advocated for the government to investigate nuclear energy, despite not building such options during its previous nine years in federal office.
O’Brien wrote alongside the videos that he visited Japan as part of “an in-depth analysis into the possibility of including advanced nuclear technology in Australia’s future energy mix”.
“No people have a more complicated relationship with nuclear technology than the Japanese,” he wrote in a caption, saying he had visited Tokyo, Hiroshima, Fukushima and Rokkasho to meet business owners, government officials, nuclear experts and locals.
“We all know the tragedy of war and we all know how Japan certainly suffered at the end of World War II. In some ways, it’s had the ability to turn what has been a tragedy for the nation into a message of hope,” O’Brien said in one video.
“Despite actually having two atomic bombs land on it, it’s firing on all cylinders on nuclear energy.”
O’Brien said Australia should “have the humility to learn from those nations that know about [nuclear] technology far greater than us”. That video says he also visited Fukushima, the region where an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 led to a nuclear disaster at a power plant.
In another video filmed last week, O’Brien went to Hiroshima’s Peace Park, overlooking the famous dome which was devastated when American forces dropped an atomic bomb on the city in August 1945. Up to 140,000 people were estimated to have died from the blast and related radiation effects.
“If we are going to talk about the potential for advanced nuclear energy to be used in Australia, we’ve got to understand the full range of implications of the technology,” O’Brien wrote.
The shadow minister interviewed a man he said was a tour guide from the Hiroshima Museum, named Yukio Yokohama, about how Japanese people viewed nuclear energy. Yokohama answered that nuclear was used for cheap energy to support industry.
O’Brien has been absent from parliament this week as he is in Canada on a study tour.
Labor senator Catryna Bilyk, chair of the Australia-Japan Parliamentary Friendship Group, criticised O’Brien for filming the videos at Hiroshima.
“It’s up to the shadow minister to explain why he chose to travel to Japan, stand at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and spruik nuclear energy,” she told Guardian Australia.
“Using the site of the deaths of tens of thousands of people to cynically push a domestic ideological obsession is bizarre and frankly disrespectful behaviour.”
O’Brien’s spokesperson said the MP’s trip to Japan “was privately funded, not taxpayer funded” and rebuffed those criticisms from Labor…………………………………………
Albanese, in parliament’s question time on Tuesday, noted O’Brien’s absence.
“He’s been researching his solution on a YouTube video that he put up,” Albanese said, to laughter from government benches.
“The shadow minister is off on this frolic of nuclear energy, even though we know it’s the most expensive form possible for Australia.” ………… https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/07/labor-criticises-coalition-energy-spokesman-for-filming-nuclear-power-videos-at-hiroshima
Kiwis firmly remain anti-nuclear as AUKUS submarines draw near
Andrew Tillett, Political correspondent, Financial Review, 7 Feb 23
Canberra | New Zealand’s new prime minister, Chris Hipkins, has indicated no watering down of his country’s anti-nuclear stance just weeks out from Australia unveiling its AUKUS submarine plan and says China remains an “incredibly important partner” following talks with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
But Mr Hipkins promised he would speak out when disagreeing with China as needed in response to questions over whether he would follow the approach of his predecessor Jacinda Ardern, who often took a softer line on Beijing’s behaviour in the region.
Mr Albanese hosted Mr Hipkins, making his first overseas trip since succeeding Ms Ardern last month, at Parliament House on Tuesday, with the two leaders discussing the impact of the deteriorating global economy on their respective countries, climate change, security and Pacific co-operation.
“Many other countries don’t have the same closeness as New Zealand and Australia, and that’s something that we will never take for granted in New Zealand. We’re able to tackle issues together in ways that other countries can’t,” Mr Hipkins said.
Despite the declaration of closeness, Mr Hipkins maintained Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines with American and British help would not change New Zealand’s nuclear-free status.
“Our foreign policy position hasn’t changed just because there’s a change of prime minister, the government’s foreign policy is the same as it was under prime minister Ardern,” Mr Hipkins said.
“Australia, the US and the UK are incredibly important security partners for New Zealand, but our nuclear-free policy hasn’t changed either.”
The AUKUS members are poised to unveil within weeks the so-called optimal pathway to acquire nuclear submarines………………………….. https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/kiwis-firmly-remain-anti-nuclear-as-aukus-submarines-draw-near-20230207-p5cih6
Graph of the Day: Solar covers all of South Australia demand for six hours straight — RenewEconomy
South Australia demand met by rooftop and utility scale solar for six hours straight. The post Graph of the Day: Solar covers all of South Australia demand for six hours straight appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Graph of the Day: Solar covers all of South Australia demand for six hours straight — RenewEconomy
Neo-Nazi previously implicated in plot to attack nuclear plants now arrested for planning grid sabotage around Baltimore — Beyond Nuclear
Brandon Russell
Beyond Nuclear 7 Feb 23
As reported by the Washington Post, in an article entitled “Duo accused of neo-Nazi plot to target Maryland power stations: Atomwaffen founder Brandon Russell and Sarah Clendaniel allegedly sought to attack substations around Baltimore,” white supremacists are again implicated in playing with radioactive fire.
The article reports:
Neo-Nazi previously implicated in plot to attack nuclear plants now arrested for planning grid sabotage around Baltimore — Beyond Nuclear
Russell, a former Florida National Guard member, is the founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division, which attempted to use violent attacks to spark a race war in the United States. Experts say the group, while small, is dangerous because of its influence on the broader far-right movement to eschew politics and spill blood…
A former Atomwaffen member named Devon Arthurs, who lived with Russell in Tampa, killed two of their roommates in 2017 and subsequently told authorities they had been planning attacks on U.S. nuclear plants and power lines.
See an October 25, 2020 post about Atomwaffen Division’s prior plot to attack nuclear power plants. (Atomwaffen means nuclear weapons in German.)
The Washington Post article reports:
According to prosecutors, their plan was to attack with gunfire five substations that serve the Baltimore area. In conversations about the plot, according to court documents, Clendaniel “described how there was a ‘ring’ around Baltimore and if they hit a number of them all in the same day, they ‘would completely destroy this whole city.”…
Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Sobocinski of the FBI field office in Baltimore said Clendaniel and Russell conspired to inflict “maximum harm” to the power grid.
“The accused were not just talking, but taking steps to fulfill their threats and further their extremist goals,” Sobocinski said…
According to prosecutors, they used open-source information on the national infrastructure grid to pick five electrical substations around Baltimore that would, if attacked on the same day, create a “cascading failure” in the system.
Their actions threatened the electricity and heat of our homes, hospitals and businesses,” Sobocinski said.
But a grid failure in Maryland would also carry nuclear power risks. For example, Exelon’s twin reactors at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Lusby, Maryland on the shore of Chesapeake Bay (pictured above) depend on the electric grid for its primary electricity supply to run safety and cooling systems needed to prevent core meltdowns, as well as to prevent overheating of highly radioactive waste indoor wet storage pools. There are backup emergency diesel generators (EDGs) on site, in case the grid is inoperable. But EDGs are themselves notoriously unreliable, and will eventually run out of fuel unless resupplied. https://beyondnuclear.org/neo-nazi-previously-implicated-in-plot-to-attack-nuclear-plants-now-arrested-for-planning-grid-sabotage-around-baltimore/
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 