New research on the complexity of particles from plutonium resulting from British atomic bomb tests at Maralinga
 Pu particles from nuclear testing more complex than previously thought https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-05/mu-ppf051821.php Plutonium particles from British nuclear testing in outback Australia more complex than previously thought, scientists warnMONASH UNIVERSITYResearch News 21 May 21More than 100 kg of highly toxic uranium (U) and plutonium (Pu) was dispersed in the form of tiny ‘hot’ radioactive particles after the British detonated nine atomic bombs in remote areas of South Australia, including Maralinga.Scientists say that these radioactive particles persist in soils to this day, more than 60 years after the detonations. Previously, we had limited understanding of how Pu was released from these “hot” particles into the environment for uptake by wildlife around Maralinga. |
But now, a new study published today in Scientific Reports and led by Monash University researchers warns that the particles are actually more complex and varied than previously thought. This means that the processes which slowly release Pu into the environment are also much more complex and varied.
“The British detonated nine nuclear bombs and conducted hundreds of nuclear tests in outback South Australia between 1953 and 1963,” said lead study author Megan Cook, a PhD student from the Monash University School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment. “The resulting radioactive contamination and cover-up continues to haunt us.”
“The results of our study profoundly changes our understanding of the nature of hot particles at Maralinga – despite the fact that those were some of the best studied particles anywhere in the world,” said study co-author Associate Professor Vanessa Wong.
The research team used synchrotron radiation at the Diamond Light Source near Oxford, UK to decipher the physical and chemical make-up of the particles.
At Monash University they dissected some of the hot particles using a nano-sized ion beam, and further characterised the complex make-up of these particles down to the nano-size in exquisite details.
The researchers demonstrated that the complexity of the hot particles arose from the cooling of polymetallic melts from thousands of degrees Celsius in the explosion cloud during their formation.
“We found that the particles contained low-valence plutonium-uranium-carbon compounds that are typically highly reactive, yet, had been stabilised in the hot-particle matrix for nearly 60 years,” said corresponding author Dr Barbara Etschmann.
Between 1950 and 1988 alone there were more than 230 recorded nuclear weapon accidents, including at least 10 with documented release of radioactive particles into the environment. The risks of such incidents are only increasing as international treaties such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty were cancelled.
“Understanding the fate of hot particles in the unique setting of the Australian outback is critical for securing Australia in case of nuclear incidents in the region, and returning all the native land affected by the British tests to the traditional Anangu owners of the Maralinga Tjarutja lands,” said study co-author Professor Joël Brugger.
Australia risks bringing on a nuclear war with China. Urgent need to change foreign policy.
Nuclear’: Grim prediction for what war with China would look like, Yahoo News. Brooke Rolfe· News ReporterSat, 8 May 2021
Australia’s escalating rift with China could see the hypothetical prospect of war swiftly become a reality if the government doesn’t urgently rethink its approach, according to Hugh White, a leading expert on Australia’s strategic defence………..
Now our government has begun, with disconcerting nonchalance, to talk of war,” he wrote in The Saturday Paper.
“And yet our government seems to have no idea how serious, and dangerous, our situation has become, and has no viable plan to fix it. This must count as one of the biggest failures of statecraft in Australia’s history.”………..
“It would be a war the US and its allies would have no clear chance of winning. Indeed, it is not even clear what winning a war with a country such as China means. And it would very likely become a nuclear war,” he wrote.
Recent reports from the government saying Australia’s troops should be ready for a military conflict suggest Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Defence Minister Peter Dutton are prepared to go to war with China, Prof White noted.
He urged against any notion of heated conflict and implored the Federal Government to rethink its relationship with China from the ground up.
China’s inevitable rise needs to be accepted, combined with “a new order in Asia” which includes the rise of India and Indonesia.
“Australia must conceive a new relationship with China, one that takes account of this reality and works to balance and protect the full range of our interests … this would require hard work, deep thought and subtle execution. It would mean a revolution in our foreign policy.”…….
He urged against any notion of heated conflict and implored the Federal Government to rethink its relationship with China from the ground up.
China’s inevitable rise needs to be accepted, combined with “a new order in Asia” which includes the rise of India and Indonesia.
“Australia must conceive a new relationship with China, one that takes account of this reality and works to balance and protect the full range of our interests … this would require hard work, deep thought and subtle execution. It would mean a revolution in our foreign policy.” https://au.news.yahoo.com/nuclear-grim-prediction-for-what-war-with-china-would-look-like-051637841.html
Nobel prize winner Beatrice Fihn urges Australia to join the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, as public support for it grows
Australian government urged to heed public support for treaty banning nuclear weapons. Nobel prize-winning anti-nuclear campaigner Beatrice Fihn says ‘change is not only possible, it’s inevitable’ https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/06/australian-government-urged-to-heed-public-support-for-treaty-banning-nuclear-weaponsDaniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspondent@danielhurstbne Thu 6 May 2021
The Australian government is being urged to rethink its opposition to a new international treaty banning nuclear weapons, with a leading campaigner warning of the “indiscriminate destructiveness” of such arms.
Beatrice Fihn, the head of the Nobel prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), will use a speech in Tasmania on Thursday to implore the government to heed strong public support for joining the treaty.
“Change is not only possible; it’s inevitable,” Fihn will say when she presents the annual Red Cross Oration at the University of Tasmania.
The Australian government has not joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a relatively new agreement that requires parties not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.
So far, the treaty has been signed by 86 countries, of which 54 have formally ratified it – but it has been snubbed by the nuclear weapons states including the US, Russia and China.
“Australia does not support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Wednesday.
The Australian government argues the new treaty “would not eliminate a single nuclear weapon” because none of the nuclear weapons states have signed it and because it “ignores the realities of the global security environment”.
The government also says the treaty would be inconsistent with its US alliance obligations. However, campaigners point out that several US allies, such as New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines, have already ratified the treaty.
Fihn, who is based in Geneva and will be addressing the University of Tasmania via video link, will call on the government to act on the “strong and growing support that exists in Australia for this crucial new piece of international law”.
According to prepared remarks provided to Guardian Australia in advance, she will describe the treaty as an “incredible step forward towards a world without nuclear weapons”.
Fihn will say the countries that have joined the treaty are “leading the way forward to a world without nuclear weapons”.
“Meanwhile, in countries that have not yet joined the treaty, including Australia, people are speaking up against nuclear weapons and calling on their countries to join,” she will say.
“Cities around the world, including Berlin, Paris and Washington DC are adopting resolutions calling on their governments to join. In fact, the very first city to sign our Cities Appeal was Melbourne, followed soon after by Sydney – and we’re delighted that the City of Hobart is also on board.”
Polling commissioned by Greenpeace in 2017 found 72.7% of 1,669 Australians surveyed said they supported a ban on nuclear weapons as a step towards the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
“From Australia to Canada, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, polls show that the majority of people want their government to join,” Fihn will say.
“Thousands of parliamentarians have pledged to work to bring their respective countries on board. In Australia, 88 of the current members of parliament have taken Ican’s pledge.”
The Ican pledge commits parliamentarians “to work for the signature and ratification of this landmark treaty by our respective countries”.
The federal MPs and senators who have signed up are mostly Labor politicians, including the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, who has been campaigning against nuclear weapons since early in his political career.
The list also includes the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, and crossbenchers. The Liberal National party MP for Flynn in central Queensland, Ken O’Dowd, has also signed up.
In Thursday’s speech, Fihn will also emphasise the need to “amplify the voices of First Nations peoples in Australia and the Pacific who continue to suffer the horrendous impacts of nuclear tests carried out on their lands and in their waters by the United Kingdom, the United States and France”.
More than 75 years after the US bombing of the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, she says, nuclear-armed states are spending billions of dollars each year to build new weapons and to keep the 13,000 existing weapons.
But Fihn says nuclear-armed states “do not prepare for what comes next, after the bombs are dropped”, citing reports that about 80% of hospitals were destroyed in Hiroshima. Out of 300 doctors in the city, 270 died or were injured; out of 1,780 nurses, 1,654 were killed or injured.
“They do not prepare for the hundreds of thousands of burn victims, for the blasted hospitals, for the injured and dying medical professionals left to heal an entire city,” Fihn says.
“The trauma of overwhelmed hospitals and overburdened doctors and nurses around the world who are struggling to meet the needs of patients during the Covid-19 pandemic shows just how impossible it would be for medical infrastructure to respond to even one nuclear weapon detonation.” The Australian government and other non-signatories are being encouraged to send officials to attend, as observers, the first meeting of parties in Vienna early next year.
Guardian Australia understands Australia will consider attendance closer to the event.
Unrelenting dishonest propaganda leading us to war against China
Not sleepwalking but marching with eyes wide open to war. Independent Australia, By William Briggs | 13 April 2021 While the USA moves towards war, anti-China rhetoric grows on a daily basis and the idea of war is being sold as the “right” thing, writes Dr William Briggs.
A LIE told often enough can become accepted, but it can never be the truth. China has been declared a threat to all that we hold dear, but it is just not so. China, for all its faults, is not a threat and nor is it practising genocide!
The Uyghur genocide claim gets bigger as each day dawns. Peter Hartcher, in The Age on the 10 April, writes of this genocide and of ‘the evil genius of the system of genocide with Chinese characteristics.’ The “genius” according to Hartcher is that the Chinese are allowing the Uyghurs to live. What a clever and cunning genocide that is!
The plight of the Uyghurs is but the latest lurid episode in a sustained and enormously successful push to demonise China in the eyes of the world. The motivations behind this are simple enough. China’s economic star is rising and America’s best days are behind it.
The world is certainly on the edge of a precipice. There is a broad acceptance, despite an embarrassing lack of evidence, that China is an enemy and, as an enemy, a threat. Nobody is ever eager for war, but people have often enough been persuaded that war is an acceptable option. This is particularly so when an existential threat exists, or in this case, is manufactured. The potential for war, justifications for it and warnings of how it might almost “accidentally” become a reality have come to dominate thought……..
If the USA goes to war with China, it will not be by chance. It has been meticulously planned, costed, budgeted for and the weapons, including “low-yield” nuclear weapons, have been manufactured and deployed by the USA. The world should be aghast at such blatant preparations, but it is not. Those who would take us to war need first to convince us that we have no option, that we are protecting freedom, that we are standing for justice and that a threat exists that the enemy is engaging in genocide.
In the space of just a decade, the people have come to accept this. China has gone from economic saviour of the world to arch enemy. Governments begin the process but could not be expected to convince the people alone. Television and print media: editorials, opinion pieces from leading journalists and international editors, columnists and experts, have all played a decisive role.
A recent poll by the Lowy Institute showed that in 2018, 52 per cent of Australians believed that China would act responsibly in the world. Two very short years later and that figure had dropped to just 23 per cent! The polls are then used by the same anti-China crusaders to prove that a problem exists. They are happy to ignore the effect that a daily barrage of anti-China campaigning can do and how it can shift people’s views…….
The most recent reporting of the treatment of the Uyghurs is that the Chinese are engaged in a campaign of genocide. Genocide was practised in Nazi Germany, in Kampuchea, in Rwanda, in Armenia, in Australia, but to suggest that the Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghurs, while quite possibly repressive, even reprehensible, is genocidal is ludicrous.
There has been discrimination and persecution. Life, for the Uyghurs, has never been easy. However, the West paid little or no attention to these people until about the time that the USA began to talk of “containing” China. It was, for the USA, a fortuitous discovery.
The Chinese, at the end of the 20th Century, waged a campaign against Islamist separatist groups that had become active within the Uyghur population. Violence met violence and conditions worsened for the Uyghurs. None of this concerned Washington. What happened to make things change so dramatically? The Chinese, in all likelihood, did step up repressions but the USA have manipulated events to suit a specific propaganda purpose.
Uyghur stories become more and more horrifying. The Western media was once content to rail against the existence of “re-education” camps. Then it was reports of campaigns of mass rape and then mass sterilisation programs. This morphed into claims of social genocide. Reports of forced labour emerged and evolved into stories of slave labour. The term “social” genocide came into use but has now been shortened to genocide.
This ramping up of rhetoric has one real purpose. China must, at every turn, be shown to be a malignant force. The editorialists, international editors, columnists and journalists have become a willing and shameless weapon in this campaign. If it all ends in war it will not be a chance thing. The world will not be “sleepwalking”.
Nobody wants war but we are being prepared for it. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/not-sleepwalking-but-marching-with-eyes-wide-open-to-war,14982#.YHZ_2MRzAdY.twitter
Australia’s part in continuing nuclear havoc in Pacific islands – legacy of atomic bomb tests
| 75 years after nuclear testing in the Pacific began, the fallout continues to wreak havoc https://theconversation.com/75-years-after-nuclear-testing-in-the-pacific-began-the-fallout-continues-to-wreak-havoc-158208?fbclid=IwAR3q9QJvy507ds2kD0ibOvkD6ZzxFqgGjfHsGrwqJUVMNpujOu8sAeLVPtY April 6, 2021 Patricia A. O’Brien Patricia A. O’Brien is a Friend of The Conversation.Historian, Visiting Fellow in the School of History, Australian National University and Adjunct Professor in the Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University, This year marks 75 years since the United States launched its immense atomic testing program in the Pacific. The historical fallout from tests carried out over 12 years in the Marshall Islands, then a UN Trust Territory governed by the US, have framed seven decades of US relations with the Pacific nation.Due to the dramatic effects of climate change, the legacies of this history are shaping the present in myriad ways. This history has Australian dimensions too, though decades of diplomatic distance between Australia and the Marshall Islands have hidden an entangled atomic past. In 1946, the Marshall Islands seemed very close for many Australians. They feared the imminent launch of the US’s atomic testing program on Bikini Atoll might split the earth in two, catastrophically change the earth’s climate, or produce earthquakes and deadly tidal waves. A map accompanying one report noted Sydney was only 3,100 miles from ground zero. Residents as far away as Perth were warned if their houses shook on July 1, “it may be the atom bomb test”. Australia was “included in the tests” as a site for recording blast effects and monitoring for atom bombs detonated anywhere in the world by hostile nations. This Australian site served to keep enemies in check and achieve one of the Pacific testing program’s objectives: to deter future war. The other justification was the advancement of science. The earth did not split in two after the initial test (unless you were Marshallese) so they continued; 66 others followed over the next 12 years. But the insidious and multiple harms to people and place, regularly covered up or denied publicly, became increasingly hard to hide. Radiation poisoning, birth defects, leukaemia, thyroid and other cancers became prevalent in exposed Marshallese, at least four islands were “partially or completely vapourised”, the exposed Marshallese “became subjects of a medical research program” and atomic refugees. (Bikinians were allowed to return to their atoll for a decade before the US government removed them again when it was realised a careless error falsely claimed radiation levels were safe in 1968.) In late 1947, the US moved its operations to Eniwetok Atoll, a decision, it was argued, to ensure additional safety. Eniwetok was more isolated and winds were less likely to carry radioactive particles to populated areas. Australian reports noted this site was only 3,200 miles from Sydney. Troubling reports of radioactive clouds as far away as the French Alps and the known shocking health effects appeared. Dissenting voices were initially muted due to the steep escalation of the Cold War and Soviet atomic weapon tests beginning in 1949. Opinion in Australia split along political lines. Conservative Cold War warriors, chief among them Robert Menzies who became prime minister again in 1949, kept Australia in lockstep with the US, and downplayed the ill-effects of testing. Left-wing elements in Australia continued to draw attention to the “horrors” it unleashed. The atomic question came home in 1952, when the first of 12 British atomic tests began on the Montebello Islands, off Western Australia. Australia’s involvement in atomic testing expanded again in 1954, when it began supplying South Australian-mined uranium to the US and UK’s joint defence purchasing authority, the Combined Development Agency. Australia’s economic stake in the atomic age from 1954 collided with the galvanisation of global public opinion against US testing in Eniwetok. The massive “Castle Bravo” hydrogen bomb test in March exposed Marshall Islanders and a Japanese fishing crew on The Lucky Dragon to catastrophic radiation levels “equal to that received by Japanese people less than two miles from ground zero” in the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic blasts. Graphic details of the fishermen’s suffering and deaths and a Marshallese petition to the United Nations followed. When a UN resolution to halt US testing was voted on in July, Australia voted for its continuation. But the tide of public opinion was turning against testing. The events of 1954 dispelled the notion atomic waste was safe and could be contained. The problem of radioactive fish travelling into Australian waters highlighted these new dangers, which spurred increasing world wide protests until the US finally ceased testing in the Marshalls in 1958. In the 1970s, US atomic waste was concentrated under the Runit Island dome, part of Enewetak Atoll (about 3,200 miles from Sydney). Recent alarming descriptions of how precarious and dangerous this structure is due to age, sea water inundation and storm damage exacerbated by climate change were contested in a 2020 Trump-era report. The Biden administration’s current renegotiation of the Compact of Free Association with the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and its prioritisation of action on climate change, will put Runit Island high on the agenda. There is an opportunity for historical redress for the US that is even more urgent given the upsurge in discrimination against US-based Pacific Islander communities devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are peoples displaced by the tests. Australia is also embarking on a new level of engagement with the Marshall Islands: it is due to open its first embassy in the capital Majuro in 2021.It should be remembered this bilateral relationship has an atomic history too. Australia supported the US testing program, assisted with data collection and voted in the UN for its continuation when Marshallese pleaded for it to be stopped. It is also likely Australian-sourced atomic waste lies within Runit Island, cementing Australia in this history. |
Scott Morrison’s $billion missile spend, a gift to foreign war companies and their sponsor, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, (ASPI)
Foreign war lobby gets a $billion for missiles – media fawns
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/foreign-war-lobby-gets-a-billion-for-missiles-media-fawns/ 4 Apr 21,
Scott Morrison’s latest billion-dollar missile spend was deftly leaked to the media then talked up by ASPI whose sponsors have raked in $51 billion in Defence Department contracts while doling cash to the conflicted “think-tank”. Marcus Rubenstein investigates.
No sooner had Scott Morrison’s new cabinet been sworn in than it was back to business, feeding out distractions to the Canberra press gallery.
Nearly 14 hours before the prime minister announced to the nation that Australia was going to spend a billion dollars on building “our own missiles” Greg Sheridan from The Australian had the scoop—along with The Age/SMH, Nine Newspapers stablemate Australian Financial Review and the ABC. Along with the ranks of metropolitan mainstream media dailies who all fell in line behind the announcement.
And with military precision they all fired off their online reports at 10:30pm… or, to be more precise, 22:30 hrs.
The Age and Sydney Morning Herald both quoted ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) in their coverage as did The Conversation, along with others they listed potential weapons maker partners for this home grown missile mission.
Apart from the glaring fact that none of these companies are actually Australian, most were listed by ASPI in a report it published last year. Of the five potential partner companies being touted by mainstream media— Raytheon (USA), Lockheed Martin (USA), Kongsberg (Norway), Rafeal (Israel) and BAE Systems (UK)—all but one is a long-term financial backer of ASPI.
As is de rigueur there was no mention that ASPI’s enthusiasm for substantial new military expenditure was directed towards spending on weapons made by their sponsors.
A number of media reports included PR handout images from US missile maker Raytheon, which for years was a loyal ASPI sponsor and also the former employer of, recently demoted, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds.
The actual announcement was made by the prime minister, not at Parliament House, but at the South Australian facility of Raytheon.
Government access for weapons makers
Since ASPI’s foundation in 2001, when it was created to challenge the policy direction of Defence, it has become more and more commercialised.
This fact was highlighted by ASPI’s founding Executive Director Hugh White, who wrote on the 15th anniversary of its foundation, “The quality of defence policy slumped… [and] ASPI’s focus inevitably swung round to contributing to public debates not government policy-making.”
Under Hugh White’s leadership, ASPI preserved a great deal of independence and only took an average of $28,000 per year in commercial revenue.
In the last financial year, under the leadership of (former Howard Government adviser) Peter Jennings, ASPI raked in $6,953,000 in commercial revenue. Yet it maintains its façade of independence of outside influence.
ASPI sponsor, French-owned Naval Group was awarded the contract for Australia’s controversial $80 billion future submarine project. It has been in the headlines recently after an independent report released in March found the project was “dangerously off track”.
In 2016, when the contract was awarded Jennings, wrote a glowing opinion piece, about his sponsor, under the headline “Vive Australia’s choice of a French submarine”.
The release of the Future Submarines Report was very critical of the entire project and there were suggestions from highly credentialed defence strategists that Australia should walk away from the deal.
In response, ASPI wrote that not only should Naval Group keeps its contract but the Royal Australian Navy should commission un-maned Orca submarines whilst waiting decades for the French submarines order to be fulfilled.
And who makes the Orca? Another ASPI sponsor, Boeing Defense.
This comes after revelations in March that ASPI had been commissioned to write a report critical of the federal government’s awarding of cloud computing contracts to Australian company Canberra Data Centres (CDC).
As it transpires, ASPI had been commissioned to write the report by lobbying firm Australian Public Affairs (APA); the Commonwealth Lobbyists Register reveals APA represent CDC’s three main commercial rivals.
Last October, ASPI’s Peter Jennings told the ABC, “ASPI’s work as a think tank is genuinely independent” and suggestions it was controlled by sponsors were “frankly nonsense”.
The massive ASPI payoff
ASPI is not an independent think tank, it is in fact a Commonwealth Company which reports to the parliament through the Defence Ministry. In its latest annual report ASPI singled out the then Defence Minister for her “continuing close personal engagement and support”.
In her first speech as Defence Minister, Linda Reynolds boasted of her close friendship with ASPI’s Peter Jennings.
Clearly ASPI’s boss and his board, which is chaired by former Chief of the Army, Lt Gen (Ret’d) Kenneth Gillespie and includes former Liberal Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, has access to the highest levels of government and the Defence Department.
Since ASPI’s inception it has received sponsorship from 12 manufacturers of weapons and weapons systems. Over that period, they have been awarded 9,423 Defence Department contracts with a total value of $51.2 billion.
This does not include another 49 ASPI sponsors who do not manufacture weapons, yet Department of Finance data, reveals have benefitted from more than $30 billion in defence contracts since 2001.
ASPI’s most recent annual report revealed that in the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, it hosted 142 separate events and meetings, many of them bringing together defence policy makers and defence suppliers.
At one such event in 2019, sponsored by Thales, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, then Defence Minister Linda Reynolds was keynote speaker. Presumably executives from these foreign weapons makers had some level of access to the minister.
Department of Finance figures later revealed that ministerial and department staff were charged $30,723 by ASPI in order to attend that speech.
New research into the effects of nuclear bomb tests on Montebello islands
 By Susan Standen 22 Mar 21, A new Edith Cowan University research project hopes to collect important data on the impact of historical nuclear testing in the remote Montebello Islands area. Key points:
Sixty years after the British government conducted nuclear explosion testing on the islands, there is little data available to find how much residue plutonium still exists. The project hopes to be the first study to outline how and where man-made radioactivity is still existing in the marine sediment. Collections of sediment are being collected from remote field trips to the islands to analyse amounts of residue plutonium radionuclides.,,,,,,,,,,,, Ms Hoffman says other island nations affected by nuclear blasts will be able to use the Montebello Islands research as a reference baseline to start their own investigations. Will it inform health research? Ms Hoffman says the first step is to find out what remains there as a legacy………….. The project is a collaboration between the Edith Cowan University, the Department of Biodiversity and Conservation and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-22/montebellos-nucelar-fallout-research/13260242 |
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Australia’s purchase of vastly expensive French nuclear-powered submarine design, adapted to diesel, now to be scrapped?
These submarine designs were adapted from the French nuclear submarines. I thought, at the time, that they were chosen in preference to the more suitable, and more affordable German design, under the pressure of the nuclear lobby. Presumably, it would be practical to later adapt these submarines to be nuclear-powered.
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Government submarine contract sunk and unlikely to resurface, Independent Australia, 1 Mar 21, The submarine deal France proudly called ‘the contract of the Century’ appears to have collapsed, reports Alan Austin.IF THERE WAS one thing which should unite all media commentators, economic and military analysts, and informed citizens in outrage against the Morrison Government, it is this. The Government has wasted billions of dollars on a deal to buy 12 new submarines which have virtually no chance of fulfilment. As this is written, the head of the French naval construction company Naval Group, Pierre Eric Pommellet, is in Australia meeting federal ministers in an attempt to rescue the contract. Tragically for Australia – and for Monsieur Pommellet – not one of those ministers has the experience or competence to wrangle a successful result. Many informed commentators in France, Australia and elsewhere now expect the much-celebrated deal to be abandoned. If that happens, replacing the current ageing submarines would be delayed many years, depending on the timing of the change of government to a capable administration. Although defence is just one example of Coalition mismanagement, this is where Australia’s losses are arguably most devastating: both in billions of dollars wasted and in the risk to national security. Responsibility for the projectMultiple failures are evident. The most basic is accountability. Since negotiations with France began, Australia has had three prime ministers, three deputy PMs, three failed treasurers, five defence ministers and four ministers for defence industry. Of the 15 individuals to have held these portfolios, seven have left the Parliament. None remaining has the competence to deliver for Australia or the mettle to take responsibility. The current Defence Minister is in hospital on leave. Political priorities paramountA major factor in dashing into the connection with France was the set of promises the Coalition hoped to make chasing votes. In the run-up to the 2019 election, then Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne promised hundreds of new jobs, the “majority of which will be based in South Australia”. Cost and defence considerations were secondary. Many military observers were dismayed at Australia taking the French Shortfin Barracudas over the lower-cost and more suitable alternatives tendered by Japan and Germany. Design and cost errorsSeveral of Australia’s specifications were plain foolish, as Binoy Kampmark summarised for IA. A nuclear submarine with a diesel-electric engine is a fail. An American combat system won’t work in a French vessel because the Americans and the French do not talk. Lead-acid batteries will be obsolete well before the subs are delivered. France’s original tender documents put the cost of the project at between $20 billion and $25 billion. The cost in the initial agreement signed in late 2016 was $50 billion. By February 2020, the Parliamentary Library research service reported that the acquisition cost:
Today, estimates range up to double that quantum. Missed deadlinesDelays so far have pushed back delivery of the first Barracuda from the mid-2020s to the early 2030s and now to the 2040s. The latest missed date was finalising the critical Strategic Partnering Agreement which governs the entire project. This was due before last Christmas………… Excessive secrecy, even from the SenateCompounding all these failures is Morrison’s Cabinet refusing to be answerable to the Parliament. In an ugly confrontation in last month’s Senate Economics References Committee, Defence Department head Greg Moriarty refused point-blank to provide documents which the Committee had the constitutional right to access. Independent Senator Rex Patrick warned Moriarty:
Moriarty steadfastly refused the Committee’s requests, insisting he would do the bidding of the craven Minister and Cabinet. The remedyThus the solution is for the people of Australia to get rid of this secretive bungling regime at the earliest opportunity: to save hundreds of billions of dollars and to ensure effective military capability. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/government-submarine-contract-sunk-and-unlikely-to-resurface,14846 |
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Australian Strategic Policy Institute – a stooge for weapons industries and China-haters
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Independent” think-tank ASPI behind push for more defence spending rakes in advisory fees, Michael West Media, 1 Mar 21, by Marcus Reubenstein | Jul 1, 2020 Funded by the Department of Defence, the Australia Strategic Policy Institute collects millions more as it drives the “China threat” narrative. As Marcus Reubenstein reports, while ASPI is the media’s go-to experts for public comment, ASPI is remarkably coy about revealing all its funding sources.
On the day the Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a $270 billion defence spending plan, the Department of Defence paid the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) a $214,500 contract for “management advisory services”. Exactly one year ago today, it was awarded a similar “management advisory services” contract for the considerably larger amount of $614,536. ASPI has pushed hard for boosts to defence spending, in particular an upgrade of Australia’s missile capabilities. The Government says it will spend $800 million on the US-made AGM-158C Long Range Anti Ship Missile, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, which gave ASPI $135,909 in sponsorship funds in 2018-19. Go-to think tank on ChinaThe Australian Strategic Policy Institute is the “go to” think tank for the mainstream media seeking an “independent voice” to make sense of troubled times with China. Its analysts are knowledgeable and articulate, always forthcoming with research pointing to the strategic threat of China. However, it is less forthcoming about the funders of its research, although it is an open secret that foreign governments and multi-billion-dollar weapons makers are generous supporters. What is not widely known is the extent to which taxpayers are propping it up, through dozens of small contracts not listed in its annual reports. Last year, these contracts amounted to more than $2 million and were signed by the chiefs of a small group of government departments which, say ASPI’s critics, have vested interests in promoting China as Australia’s No. 1 strategic threat. On China’s radarTwo weeks ago, ASPI was again thrust into the international limelight after China’s foreign ministry directly named it as the source of claims by Prime Minister Scott Morrison that Australia was the victim of a sustained cyber security attack. Morrison did not name China but, ASPI’s executive director, Peter Jennings did. He told journalists it was a “95%” likelihood that China was behind the alleged attacks. Critics, including former foreign ministers, ambassadors and senior figures within the defence establishment, contend that ASPI is an anti-China lobby that has hoodwinked the media into believing it is independent. Labor Senator Kim Carr, who is pursuing ASPI through a Senate committee, argues it’s a conflicted government-funded body that lacks transparency, particularly in the way it reports who funds its research. It is an Australian government organisation, a Commonwealth company, and they’ve been at the centre of Sinophobia. This is what happened in the Cold War, you set up a front and create a world view that’s unchallengeable. Then you de-legitimize anyone who argues for engagement with China. Ironically, engagement with China remains official government policy”. Disguised defence largesseThe Howard Government set up ASPI in 2001 as an independent think tank that would challenge a supposed culture of stagnated thinking, weighed down by the defence bureaucracy. Its main funding was an annual grant from the Defence Department but over the past decade it has developed more and more revenue streams — and no obligation to reveal exactly who pays it what. Defence remains its biggest benefactor. Before the federal election, the Morrison Government not only increased this funding by more than 13%, it locked in a guaranteed $20 million until 2023. This largesse does not include one-off payments for sponsorship and commissioned reports. In its annual reports, ASPI declares the $4 million annual Defence grant but opaquely refers to this as “core funding”. According to Department of Finance figures, in 2018-19 it received an additional $1,363,002.84 in funding from Defence, which was not publicly declared. According to answers it provided to a Senate Estimates committee in February, ASPI collected $1,158,581.63 (pre-GST) in funding from Defence without clearly declaring the source of those funds. ASPI didn’t explain the discrepancy between its two reported figures. Shrinking support?In its annual report, ASPI splits income into two sources: “Defence funding” and “Sale of goods and rendering of services”. It also produced a gloomy graph [on original] showing how “core” funding had withered away from 100% of its income to a moderate 43%. However, the graph doesn’t take into account its numerous government tenders and contracts that have delivered a financial windfall. In the past five years the value of its government contracts has increased by more than 300%. (second graph on original] Figures from the Department of Finance’s procurement website AusTender show ASPI was awarded $2,133,716.62 in contracts between July 2019 and June 2020. ASPI records all these government payments in its annual reports but muddies the waters by consolidating them with sponsorships and other commercial revenue. ASPI has received 37 government contracts in the past two years. See below [on original] or click here for easier viewing………. Major backersASPI has received funding from the governments of Britain, Japan and Taiwan as well as NATO. Among its corporate supporters are global weapons makers Thales, BAE Systems, Raytheon, SAAB, Northrop Grumman, MDBA Missile Systems and Naval Group. Yet their contribution of over $330,000 last year is dwarfed by that of a handful of government departments and agencies. Disclosures to the Senate revealed that ASPI had at least 56 sources of income in 2018-19 which it categorised as either sponsorships or commissioned income. Critics might accuse ASPI of having a narrow world view, but its views are financially supported by a very broad base of benefactors. Michael West Editor’s Note: This is a special investigation by APAC News, Michael West Media and Pearls & Irritations https://www.michaelwest.com.au/independent-think-tank-aspi-behind-push-for-more-defence-spending-rakes-in-advisory-fees/ |
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Mount Isa City Council supports nuclear weapons ban
Mount Isa City Council supports nuclear weapons ban, Derek Barry, 10 Feb 21,
Australian Capital Territory politicians join calls for Australia to sign nuclear ban treaty
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ACT politicians join calls for Australia to sign nuclear ban treaty https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7097235/act-politicians-join-calls-for-australia-to-sign-nuclear-ban-treaty/, Jasper Lindell 24 Jan 21,
ACT politicians have renewed their calls for the federal government to join a United Nations treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons, which came into force on Friday. Politicians and members of the international diplomatic corps gathered on Saturday at the Canberra Rotary peace bell in Nara Peace Park to mark the entry-into-force of the treaty. Greens member for Ginninderra Jo Clay said Australia’s continued relationship with uranium mining and the creation of nuclear weapons was unacceptable.
“With climate change upon us, the ACT Greens believe that there has never been a more urgent time for Australia to join its 86 international counterparts and show its commitment to a more peaceful and sustainable future for all of us,” Ms Clay said in a statement. All Greens members of the Legislative Assembly have signed the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ parliamentary pledge.
Some Labor members, including Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Deputy Chief Minister Yvette Berry, have signed the pledge. Federal member for Canberra Alicia Payne has also signed. The Australian government has not signed the treaty, which compels signatories to stop developing, testing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons. Signatories are also banned from threatening to use the weapons. Fifty countries ratified the treaty in October, which was condemned by the United States. Red Cross International humanitarian law adviser Tara Gutman welcomed the treaty, saying the law was the cornerstone of a world free of nuclear weapons. “There has been no humanitarian response developed that is remotely capable of being applied to a nuclear weapon attack. We simply will not be there to assist victims,” she said. “These weapons are an inhumane response to any military threat … They decimate populations, cause untold and needless suffering, and their environmental impact would accelerate climate change making some areas of the planet uninhabitable. |
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Red Cross celebrates Nuclear Ban Treaty- an incremental process towards elimination of nuclear weapons
 Crucial to sign up for a nuclear-free celebration. https://www.theage.com.au/national/crucial-to-sign-up-for-a-nuclear-free-celebration-20210121-p56vtl.htmly Kym Pfitzner
January 22, 2021 — It’s taken 75 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to reach the historic day when we finally have a ban on nuclear weapons enshrined in international law.
Today is a day for celebration. From January 22, all nations that ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons are banned from possessing, developing or having any direct dealings with these weapons of mass destruction. This development heralds progress towards a safer and more humane world. The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement across the globe has been striving towards this moment for three-quarters of a century. How timely it is to achieve this milestone after a year of uncertainty and difficulties. I commend the 86 countries which have already signed this important treaty – from Austria to Zimbabwe – and particularly the 51 nations that have ratified it. They’ve put the interests of humanity and the environment above other considerations. I’d like to remind all other nations of our organisation’s inability to provide any remotely adequate medical or humanitarian response to a nuclear crisis and call on all countries which are yet to sign – including Australia, the nuclear-armed nations, and some of their allies – to do so now. But today should still be celebrated. It’s the dawn of new era in which the last weapon of mass destruction to be regulated by international law will finally begin to be controlled. Other weapons that cause unacceptable harm – contrary to the laws of war – have already been banned, such as cluster munitions, anti-personnel landmine and chemical weapons. Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the rules of international humanitarian law. The laws of war are unambiguous: weapons must be able to distinguish between civilians and combatants, as only combatants can be legally attacked. Weapons must not cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering. Their effects must be proportionate to their military objective. And weapons cannot be used if they cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the environment. Rather than leaving the fate of these weapons to the handful of countries that legally own them, and which were not fulfilling their obligation to work towards their elimination, the public debate has been reframed from being defined as a matter of defence policy, to being about the unacceptable humanitarian consequences of use of nuclear weapons. We know all about those consequences. Members of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement were there when the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was little they could do to deal with the immediate needs of those needing help, or to alleviate the long-term suffering of the people on the ground. The impacts lasted decades and, devastatingly, even affected the children of those who survived those bombs. Research is still being conducted to determine whether the illnesses being experienced by descendants – two generations later – can be explained by mutations in their DNA that was caused by radiation. With the coming into force of this treaty, let’s hope we’re getting closer to the time that we’re never that helpless again. We want Australians to know that nuclear weapons are not an acceptable defence policy option. They are barbaric tools that cause hellish devastation and untold suffering to civilians. Some critics argue the treaty is toothless because the nuclear-armed nations and their allies have not yet signed it. This ignores the reality of International law-making, which is that creating new norms is an incremental process. It takes patience and persistence. No weapon has ever been eliminated without first being studied, stigmatised and prohibited. With the advent of a vaccine for COVID-19, we can be cautiously hopeful that the end of the current global pandemic is in sight. Unfortunately, though, we can’t rely on medical science to save us from the impacts of a nuclear attack. There can be no vaccine for the health effects of a nuclear weapon. Elimination is the only option. This is why we believe in a future without nuclear weapons. Kym Pfitzner is the CEO of Australian Red Cross. |
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Australia could sign the Nuclear Ban Treaty and still keep its military co=operation with America
The nuclear weapons ban treaty is groundbreaking, even if the nuclear powers haven’t signed The Conversation 22, 2021 Tilman Ruff– Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population anobal Health, University of Melbourne,
The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted at the United Nations in 2017 and finally reached the milestone of 50 ratifications in October. The countries that have signed and ratified include Austria, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Nigeria and Thailand.
The treaty completes the suite of international bans on all major weapons considered unacceptable because of their indiscriminate and inhumane effects, including anti-personnel landmines, cluster munitions, biological and chemical weapons………
The TPNW strengthens the current nuclear safeguards found in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons by requiring all states that join to have comprehensive provisions in place and not allowing states to weaken their existing safeguards.
The treaty provides the first legally binding multilateral framework for a process by which all nations can work toward eliminating nuclear weapons………
Further, the TPNW is the first treaty to commit member nations to provide long-neglected assistance for the victims of atomic bombs and weapon testing. It also calls for nations to clean up environments contaminated by nuclear weapons use and testing, where feasible.
Nuclear-armed states have been put on notice
Currently, 86 nations have signed the TPNW, and 51 have ratified it (meaning they are bound by its provisions). The treaty now becomes part of international law, and the number of signatories and ratifications will continue to grow……..
While any treaty is technically only binding on the states that join it, the TPNW establishes a new international legal standard against which all nuclear policies will now be judged.
The treaty, in short, is a game-changer, and the nuclear-armed and dependent countries have been put on notice. They know the treaty jeopardises their claimed right to continue to threaten the planet with their weapons, as well as their plans to modernise and maintain their nuclear arsenals indefinitely…………
The strength of the opposition is a measure of the treaty’s importance. It will have implications for everything from defence policies and military plans to weapons manufacturing to financial investments in the companies that profit from making now illegal nuclear weapons………….
A ‘dangerous’ belief nuclear weapons enhance securityWould joining the treaty mean nations like Australia, Japan, South Korea and NATO members would have to end their military cooperation with nuclear-armed states like the US? No. There is nothing in the TPNW that prevents military cooperation with a nuclear-armed state, provided nuclear weapons activities are excluded. Countries like New Zealand and Kazakhstan have already demonstrated that joining the treaty is fully compatible with ongoing military cooperation with, respectively, the US and Russia. In a recent letter urging their governments to join the treaty, 56 former presidents, prime ministers and defence and foreign ministers from these nations said: By claiming protection from nuclear weapons, we are promoting the dangerous and misguided belief that nuclear weapons enhance security. As states parties, we could remain in alliances with nuclear-armed states, as nothing in the treaty itself nor in our respective defence pacts precludes that. But we would be legally bound never under any circumstances to assist or encourage our allies to use,
The signatories include two former NATO secretaries-general, Willy Claes and Javier Solana. Ban treaties have been proven to work with other outlawed weapons — landmines, cluster munitions and biological and chemical weapons. They have provided the basis and motivation for progressive efforts to control and eliminate these weapons. They are now significantly less produced, deployed and used, even by states that haven’t joined the treaties. We can achieve the same result with nuclear weapons. As Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow said at the UN after the treaty was adopted, This is the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons. https://theconversation.com/the-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty-is-groundbreaking-even-if-the-nuclear-powers-havent-signed-153197 |
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Morrison government gets in early to disparage nuclear ban treaty, but Labor supports it
New nuclear treaty will be ‘ineffective’: DFAT, SMH, Anthony Galloway, January 21, 2021, Australia says a new United Nations nuclear treaty signed by more than 80 countries will be ineffective in eliminating nuclear weapons from the world.The Morrison government has not signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which comes into effect on Friday.
The treaty, signed by 86 countries, bans signatories from testing, developing, producing, stockpiling or threatening to use nuclear weapons.
The Australian government decided not to sign the treaty on the basis that it failed to recognise the realities of the current international security environment.
Government sources confirmed there was concern about how the treaty would affect Australia’s dealings with the United States, including intelligence sharing through the Pine Gap satellite surveillance base near Alice Springs, because it banned signatories from doing anything to assist a nuclear weapon state in its nuclear plans.
New Zealand, which is part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement with the US, Australia, Canada and Britain, has signed the treaty…….
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said Labor welcomed the treaty.
“After taking into account the need to ensure an effective verification and enforcement architecture, the interaction of the treaty with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and achieve universal support, a Labor government would sign and ratify the treaty,” she said.
“Australia can and should lead international efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. A Labor government would work with our allies and partners to this end and would always act consistently with the US alliance.”
Helen Durham, director for international law and policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross, said all countries should sign the treaty as it was the “most explicit and clearest expression that the horrific weapons need to be banned”.
“It deals not only with their use but also with their threat of use, with their stockpiling, with their production, with their development and their testing,” she said.
“This treaty is a great opportunity to move a very stagnated, to date, agenda forward and we would encourage every state to take up this opportunity.”
Dave Sweeney, co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said the treaty was a “sign of hope for our planet”.
“The changed status of nuclear weapons means Australia faces a clear choice,” he said. “We either choose to be a responsible and lawful member of the global community or we remain silent and complicit in plans to fight illegal wars https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/new-nuclear-treaty-will-be-ineffective-dfat-20210121-p56vst.html
Australian government complicit in nuclear weapons, silent on Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty
 Nuclear weapons illegal from 22 January https://www.miragenews.com/nuclear-weapons-illegal-from-22-january/ 21 Jan 21, As President Joe Biden takes charge in the United States – and is expected to immediately move to rejoin the Paris climate agreement – this week also sees a very significant shift in the global status of nuclear weapons.On Friday 22 January the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons takes effect, making nuclear weapons finally and formally illegal under international law. “This is a sign of hope for our planet,” said Dave Sweeney, ACF nuclear free campaigner and co-founder of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. “Nuclear weapons pose an existential threat. They are weapons of mass and indiscriminate murder. From this week, they are illegal under international law.” The treaty prohibits signatories from testing, developing, producing, stockpiling or threatening to use nuclear weapons. It also obliges parties to support the widespread adoption of the treaty and address the human and environmental impacts of nuclear testing. While the treaty cannot force non-signatories – including the USA, China and Russia – to disarm, it will increase the political, legal and economic pressure on these nations and their allies. The Morrison government has opposed the progress of the treaty and refuses to support or sign the initiative. Labor has committed to sign and ratify the treaty when it is next in government. The Greens and some cross benchers also support the treaty. “The changed status of nuclear weapons means Australia faces a clear choice,” Dave Sweeney said. “We either choose to be a responsible and lawful member of the global community or we remain silent and complicit in plans to fight illegal wars. “It’s time for Australia to be on the right side of law and history – this treaty is the best way to finally get rid of the world’s worst weapons. We should celebrate it and support it.” The ban follows years of advocacy led by ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which started in Melbourne in 2007 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for drawing attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons. ICAN briefing paper on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and Australia /Public Release. The material in this public release comes from the originating organization and may be of a point-in-time nature, edited for clarity, style and length. View in full here. |
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1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 