Antinuclear

Victorian Premier blasts nuclear plan as renewable appeals curbed

Canberra Times, By Callum Godde and Rachael Ward,  March 14 2024 

 Opponents of solar and wind farms will be stripped of the power to appeal approvals to a Victorian tribunal, as the premier blasts the federal opposition’s nuclear pitch as a cartoon-inspired distraction.

The Victorian government will remove the ability for third parties to appeal planning decisions for renewable energy projects through the Victorian Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

From April 1, shovel-ready renewable energy projects will be eligible for an accelerated pathway under an expansion of a development facilitation program.

The change will remove the planning panel process and third-party appeal rights at VCAT amid the rise of the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) movement.

Premier Jacinta Allan said more than one in five planning applications had ended up in VCAT since 2015, with the overwhelming majority of the initial decisions being upheld.

“Eventually these projects are getting built but it’s taking far too long,” she told reporters at a wind farm in Mount Wallace on Thursday.

“We want to spend more time on projects being build and less time on it being caught up in red tape.”……………………………

Ms Allan also took the opportunity to hit out at the federal opposition’s pre-election policy to establish nuclear reactors at retiring coal-fired power plants……………………

Ms Allan accused the federal coalition of deliberately “whipping up anxiety” over renewable projects in their backyards and pushing the nuclear debate to “distract” from Australia’s transition to net zero by 2050…………

Victoria has an estimated $90 billion worth of renewable projects in the pipeline and is targeting 95 per cent renewable energy generation by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2045…………………  https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8555578/premier-blasts-nuclear-plan-as-renewable-appeals-curbed/

March 15, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Aid Wars over Gaza: Resuming Funding to UNRWA

March 12, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark  https://theaimn.com/aid-wars-over-gaza-resuming-funding-to-unrwa/

The steady and ruthless campaign by Israel to internationally defund the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is unravelling. The lynchpin in the effort was a thin, poison pen dossier making claims that 12 individuals were Hamas operatives who had been involved in the October 7 attacks. Within a matter of days, two internal investigations were commenced, various individuals sacked, and US$450 million worth of funding from donor states suspended.

As the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, explained at a press conference on March 4, he has “never been informed” or received evidence of Israel’s claims substantiating their assertions, though he did receive the prompt about the profane twelve directly from Israeli officials. Every year, both Israel and the Palestinian authorities were furnished with staff lists, “and I never received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.”

Had Israeli authorities signed off on these alleged participants in bungling or conspiratorial understanding? Certainly, there was more than a pongy whiff of distraction about it all, given that Israel had come off poorly in The Hague proceedings launched by South Africa, during which the judges issued an interim order demanding an observance of the UN Genocide Convention, an increase of humanitarian aid, and the retention of evidence that might be used for future criminal prosecutions for genocide.

An abrupt wave of initial success in starving the agency followed, with a number of countries announcing plans to freeze funding. In the United States, irate members of Congress accused the agency of having “longstanding connections to terrorism and promotion of antisemitism.” A hearing was duly held titled “UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures” with Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies frothing at an agency that supposedly incited “violence against Israel, subsidizes US-designated terrorist organizations, denies Palestinians their basic human rights, and blocks the pathways to a sustainable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”

The attempt to cast UNRWA into gleefully welcomed oblivion has not worked. Questions were asked about the initial figure of twelve alleged militants. News outlets began questioning the numbers.

The funding channels are resuming. Canada, for instance, approving “the robust investigative process underway”, also acknowledged that “more can be done to respond to the urgent needs of Palestinian civilians.” The initial cancellation of funding to the agency, charged Thomas Woodley, president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, had been “a reckless political decision that never should have been made.”

The Swedish government was also encouraged by undertakings made by UNRWA “to allow independent auditing, strengthen internal supervision and enable additional staff controls”, promising an initial outlay of 200 million kroner (US$19 million).

The Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, Johan Forssell, promised that it would “monitor closely to ensure UNRWA follows through on what it has promised.” Aid policy spokesperson for the Christian Democrats, Gudrun Brunegård, also conceded that, given the “huge” needs on the part of the civilian population, that UNRWA was “the organisation that is best positioned to help vulnerable Palestinians.”

Much the same sentiment was expressed by the European Union, with the Commission agreeing to pay 50 million euros to UNRWA from a promised total of 82 million euros on the proviso that EU-appointed experts audit the screening of staff. “This audit,” a European Commission statement explains, “will review the control systems to prevent the possible involvement of its staff and assets in terrorist activities.” Having been found wanting in her screeching about-turn, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen insisted that the EU stood “by the Palestinian people in Gaza and elsewhere in the region. Innocent Palestinians should not have to pay the price for the crimes of [the] terrorist group Hamas.”

Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi was stiffly bureaucratic in expressing satisfaction at “the commitment of UNRWA to introduce robust measures to prevent possible misconduct and minimise the risk of allegations.” At no point was Israel’s own contribution to the calamity, and its insatiable vendetta against the agency, mentioned.

The bombast and blunder of the whole effort by Israel was further discoloured by claims that UNRWA staff had been victims of torture at the hands of the IDF in drafting the dossier. In a statement released by the agency, a grave accusation was levelled: “These forced confessions as a result of torture are being used by the Israeli Authorities to further spread misinformation about the agency as part of attempts to dismantle UNRWA.” In doing so, Israel was “putting our staff at risk and has serious implications on our operations in Gaza and around the region.”

For its part, the IDF, through a statement, claimed that this was all exaggerated piffle: “The mistreatment of detainees during their time in detention or whilst under interrogation violates IDF values and contravenes IDF [sic] and is therefore absolutely prohibited.”

Increasingly on the losing side of that battle, Israeli authorities decided to cook the figures further, declaring with crass confidence that 450 URWA employees in Gaza were members of militant groups including Hamas. Sticking to routine, those making that allegation decided that evidence of such claims was not needed. Those employees, claimed Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, “are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza”. “This was no coincidence. This is systematic. There is no claiming, ‘we did not know’.”

In the fog of war, mendacity thrives with virile vigour; but the current suggestion on the part of various donor states is that the humanitarian incentive to ameliorate the suffering of the Gaza populace has taken precedence over Israel’s persistently lethal efforts. That, at least, is the case with certain countries, leaving the doubters starkly exposed.

March 15, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Radioactive waste, baby bottles and Spam: the deep ocean has become a dumping ground

The ocean’s depths are not some remote alien realm, but are in fact intimately entangled with every other part of the planet. We should treat them that way

by James Bradley. Guardian 12 Mar…….

“…………………………………………………………………………………………..The ocean’s depths have also been used as the final resting place for large amounts of nuclear material.

A 2019 study found at least 18,000 radioactive objects scattered across the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, many of them dumped there by the Soviet Union. These objects include vessels such as the K-27, the 110-metre nuclear submarine powered by an experimental liquid-metal-cooled reactor, which was scuttled in 1982 with its reactor still on board (when the explosive charges that were supposed to sink the K-27 failed to fully detonate, it had to be rammed with a tug); the wreck of the K-141 Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea in 2000 during a naval exercise, killing all 118 on board and bearing its reactor and fuel to the bottom; and the K-159 attack submarine, which sank while being towed near Murmansk in 2003 with 800kg of spent uranium fuel on board. The head of Norway’s Nuclear Safety Authority says it is only a matter of time before these objects begin to release their toxic legacy into the water; others have called the situation a “Chornobyl in slow motion on the sea floor”.

While the Soviet Union dumped more nuclear waste on the sea floor than any other country, it was certainly not alone. Between 1948 and 1982, the British government consigned almost 70,000 tonnes of nuclear waste to the ocean’s depths, and the US, Switzerland, Japan and the Netherlands are just a few of the nations that have used the ocean to dispose of radioactive material, albeit in much smaller quantities. And while international treaties now prohibit the dumping of radioactive material at sea, the British government is exploring plans to dispose of up to 750,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste, including more than 100 tonnes of plutonium, beneath the sea floor off Cumbria. British officials argue this sort of geological disposal offers a way of keeping waste stable and secure over hundreds of thousands of years, although incidents such as the 2014 leak of radioactive material at a waste disposal facility half a kilometre beneath salt beds in New Mexico suggests that like many of the assurances offered by the nuclear industry, this claim should be approached with great caution.

The dumping of nuclear waste in the ocean is only one part of a far larger story of carelessness and greed. Human waste in the form of plastics and other objects is everywhere in the deep ocean, a fact that is made brutally apparent by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology’s Deep-sea Debris Database, which documents the presence of tyres, fishing nets, sports bags, mannequins, beach balls and baby’s bottles spread across the sea floor at depths of many thousands of metres. In some regions, the number of such objects exceeds 300/sq km.

This tide of garbage has even reached the deepest and most remote parts of the ocean: …………………………………………………………………………………….

Possibly more disturbing, though, is the growing accumulation of microplastics in the ocean depths………………………………………………..

Nor is plastic the only thing that drifts downwards. In 2019 Chinese scientists discovered radioactive carbon-14 from the detonation of nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 50s in the bodies of amphipods living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, borne into the deep not by ocean circulation, but in the rain of organic matter from above. More recent studies have found radioactive caesium from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in sediment more than 7,000 metres down in the Japan Trench……………………………………………………….. more https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/12/radioactive-waste-baby-bottles-and-spam-the-deep-ocean-has-become-a-dumping-ground

March 15, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Hollywood stars put their name to a good message, but it’s the messengers who are problematic.

Nuclear Threat Initiative’s CEO is, yes, Ernest Moniz, the former US Energy Secretary, who is at the forefront of promoting nuclear power to anyone and everyone who wants it

Moniz is one of the chief architects behind the pro-nuclear infiltration of the COP28 climate summit

Make (some) nukes history, Hollywood stars put their name to a good message, but it’s the messengers who are problematic

By Linda Pentz Gunter,  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/03/11/make-some-nukes-history/

A handful of Hollywood celebs, some highly recognizable including Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Lily Tomlin, Emma Thompson and Michael Douglas, as well as musicians such as Jackson Brown and Graham Nash, just signed their names to a letter published in the LA Times urging that we “Make Nukes History”.

Hooray, right? Well, only half hooray.

The Hollywood letter was part of a quickly launched campaign to coincide with the Oscar buzz around the successful feature film, Oppenheimer, in order to leverage attention for the need to abolish nuclear weapons. The Make Nukes History campaign aims to raise public awareness about the civilization-ending risks posed by today’s nuclear arsenals. It reminds us that while Oppenheimer is a history lesson, nuclear weapons are very much still with us, but that we can put an end to what J. Robert Oppenheimer started.

So far, all so good. Far too few of us are thinking about nuclear weapons and the threat they pose, let alone doing something about getting rid of them. It’s an important message that needs reiterating.

Meanwhile, Oppenheimer duly swept seven Academy Awards on Sunday. We waited hopefully for one of the winners to say something about the effect of Oppenheimer’s bomb down the ages. It came only from Cillian Murphy at the end of his Best Actor acceptance speech. “We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb and for better or for worse we are all living in Oppenheimer’s world so I would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers, everywhere,” Murphy said.

The Make Nukes History message did not make it to the Oscar stage and the LA Times letter was surprisingly skimpy, failing to get at the heart of the two key takeaways missed in the Oppenheimer film: the unwilling, unrecognized and still uncompensated victims of Oppenheimer’s original Trinity bomb; and the on-going harm down generations to all peoples whose lands were seized and used for atomic tests.

The letter includes a quote from President John F. Kennedy, then states:

“At a time of great uncertainty, even one nuclear weapon—on land, in the sea, in the air, or in space—is too many. To protect our families, our communities, and our world, we must demand that global leaders work to make nuclear weapons history—and build a brighter future.”

Demand indeed. Some of us have been doing this for decades. And we have a treaty for that. But thank you for waking up.

But what does “build a brighter future” actually mean? That, it turns out, is the slogan of the organization behind the orchestration of the Hollywood letter and Oscar campaign — the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Let’s first take a look at who actually signed the letter. With two exceptions, all the signatories are white. There are no Native Americans on there. No US Marshall Islanders. Almost none of the Oppenheimer film cast and crew signed it.  The last four signatures belong to the board of NTI.

NTI was the brainchild of Fonda’s ex, Ted Turner. NTI’s CEO is, yes, Ernest Moniz, the former US Energy Secretary, who is at the forefront of promoting nuclear power to anyone and everyone who wants it. Turner is also a firm supporter of nuclear power (I know because I tried to challenge him on it in person and was quickly deflected by a very large gentleman in possession of an impressive set of muscles.)

Moniz is one of the chief architects behind the pro-nuclear infiltration of the COP28 climate summit and its ridiculous “let’s triple global nuclear power capacity by 2050” proclamation. He will be in Brussels later this month, headlining the International Atomic Energy Agency’s propaganda-fest, billed as the First Ever Nuclear Energy Summit. So will Charles Oppenheimer, Robert Oppenheimer’s grandson and another signatory to the LA Times letter.

So here we have a slightly star-studded short-lived campaign to proclaim an end to one kind of nuke, while behind the scenes the same organization is working hard to promote the other kind of nuke, thus ensuring that the door to nuclear weapons development stays firmly open.

So sorry, no two thumbs up for this bit of Hollywood theatre.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. All opinions are her own.

March 15, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Why the US is trying to imprison Assange: Report from inside the Court

But even if what the United States is saying were true, these documents were not published first by Assange. John Young, the owner of a website called cryptome.org testified to the court that he was the one who published the documents first, and the United States never prosecuted him or asked him to take them down.

Extraditions for political offenses are forbidden under Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty 2003

The Extradition Act, which is the implementation of the US-UK treaty inside British law, is missing this section. This is likely due to the fact it was passed at the height of the “War on Terror” in 2003, giving the Americans carte blanche to snatch people, drag them to the US and throw them in dungeons

Richard Medhurst Al Mayadeen English, 7 Mar 2024,  https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/why-the-us-is-trying-to-imprison-assange–report-from-inside

Richard Medhurst is a British journalist who has covered Julian Assange’s extradition case from inside the court since 2020. In this article, he explains what took place in the latest hearings, why the United States is trying to extradite the WikiLeaks founder, and why everyone should care.

Julian Assange is an Australian journalist in the United Kingdom, and the founder of WikiLeaks. He published documents that were given to him by a US soldier called Chelsea Manning, which showed US war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and much more.

The United States want to extradite Assange from the UK to America, and put him on trial for publishing these classified documents. They are threatening him with 175 years in prison.

The reason this case is so serious is because it essentially makes journalism illegal. 

The United States claims Assange asked Manning for classified documents and that this is a crime. It’s not. 

The US alleges that Assange having classified documents in his possession and publishing them is a crime. It’s not.

Asking for classified documents; protecting sources, these are things journalists do every single day around the world.

But because these files were so embarrassing to the United States and exposed the brutality of their war crimes, they are threatening Assange with almost two centuries in prison; and to do it, they are accusing him of being a “spy” and a “hacker”, charging him with 17 counts under the “Espionage Act”, and with one count of “Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion”.

The goal of this indictment is to make an example out of Assange, and make other journalists afraid to publish things that the public has a right to know.

If extradited, Assange would be placed in the worst prison conditions imaginable, “Special Administrative Measures” (or SAMs): A strict regime of solitary confinement, no contact with other prisoners allowed, and barely any contact with your family. SAMs are internationally recognized as torture. Julian would be sent to the worst prison in America, ADX Florence, a super-maximum security facility in Colorado.

On January 4, 2021, British judge Vanessa Baraitser blocked Assange’s extradition because US prison conditions would be so oppressive in his current state as to drive him to suicide.

Nevertheless, despite blocking the extradition on health grounds, she agreed with all the political and trumped-up charges. 

I have attended all of Assange’s court hearings and saw the smears against him debunked by dozens of expert witnesses. But the judge still chose to side with the United States. She chose to essentially criminalize journalism, even drawing dangerous equivalences between the US Espionage Act and Britain’s Official Secrets Act (OSA).

After this, the United States went to the English High Court to appeal her ruling and won by providing empty promises that they would supposedly treat Assange well– even though the United States has a history of violating extradition assurances. I exposed this when I published classified documents from David Mendoza’s extradition from Spain to the US, a case previously cited in court by Julian’s lawyers.

After the US succeeded in overturning the lower court’s ruling in Dec 2021, there was only one thing left: A signature from the Home Secretary, who allowed the extradition to go ahead.

The above is everything that took place between 2020 and 2024, which brings us to the latest hearings at the Royal Courts of Justice in February 2024. 

Point 1: To appeal the ruling of the lower court from Jan 4, 2021. 

Assange’s lawyers argued that the judge was correct to block Assange’s extradition on health grounds, but she was wrong to agree with all the political charges (equating him with a “hacker” and a “spy”). 

They’re saying very plainly: This case is undemocratic, it criminalizes journalism, and doesn’t take into account the fact that the documents Assange published expose enormous US war crimes that the public had the right to know about. 

(See for example the “Collateral Murder” video published by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks: Footage from a US gunship crew laughing as they slaughter Iraqi civilians, among them children and reporters).

Another claim made by the United States is that Assange “harmed informants” by publishing unredacted cables. Ironically, this was proven false by the United States’ own military when they court-martialed Chelsea Manning (the soldier that gave the files to Assange). The US military couldn’t find a single example of anyone having been harmed by the disclosures. 

The assertion by the United States that Julian Assange simply published all these documents without censoring or redacting names simply isn’t true: I listened to many journalists tell the court how they spent countless hours meticulously redacting names with Assange.

Assange’s lawyers are also arguing that the judge in the lower court failed to undertake a balancing act. She blindly accepted the United States’ premise that the lives of informants– who weren’t even harmed– are more important than the people killed and tortured by the United States. This is tantamount to saying: The United States should be allowed to continue committing these war crimes in secret; that it’s somehow okay for them to butcher people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the public have no right to know.

But even if what the United States is saying were true, these documents were not published first by Assange. John Young, the owner of a website called cryptome.org testified to the court that he was the one who published the documents first, and the United States never prosecuted him or asked him to take them down.

This demonstrates that the whole case against Assange is selective, political, and has nothing to do with the law.

Assange’s lawyers are also arguing that the judge in the lower court failed to undertake a balancing act. She blindly accepted the United States’ premise that the lives of informants– who weren’t even harmed– are more important than the people killed and tortured by the United States. This is tantamount to saying: The United States should be allowed to continue committing these war crimes in secret; that it’s somehow okay for them to butcher people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the public have no right to know.

But even if what the United States is saying were true, these documents were not published first by Assange. John Young, the owner of a website called cryptome.org testified to the court that he was the one who published the documents first, and the United States never prosecuted him or asked him to take them down.

This demonstrates that the whole case against Assange is selective, political, and has nothing to do with the law.

The Espionage Act that Assange is being charged under was created during World War I, in 1917. It has always been used as a political tool against dissidents such as Eugene Debs, or whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden, who exposed the true extent of the US war in Vietnam, and NSA mass surveillance.

If you’re charged under the Espionage Act, you’re also forbidden from arguing a public interest defense. This means that even if you expose colossal government crimes, you still go to prison. 

Point 2: The Home Secretary was wrong to allow the extradition

This constitutes the second part of Assange’s appeal: It is illegal in Britain to extradite someone to another country, knowing they could face the death penalty.

If the Home Secretary, who has the final say on extraditions, is aware of such a risk, they are compelled to bar the extradition.

It is inconceivable that Priti Patel was unaware of who Julian Assange is, and the likelihood he would be killed in the United States. Once in US jurisdiction, the US could pile on additional charges, or simply execute him, as espionage is a capital offense.

Even without a specific death sentence, at 52 years old, even a 30-year bid is akin to a death sentence. 

The hollow assurances given by the United States do not preclude the death penalty. And on top of that, the Home Secretary didn’t even bother asking for assurances that would.

So how could the Home Secretary agree to send Assange to a foreign country that so clearly wants to see him dead? 

Mike Pompeo, who back then was head of the CIA, and then-president Donald Trump, launched this legal case against Julian Assange. In the past, Donald Trump had called for Assange to be given the death penalty, while Mike Pompeo proclaimed Assange “has no First Amendment rights”. After WikiLeaks published a trove of CIA documents, dubbed the Vault 7 files, Mike Pompeo declared war on WikiLeaks by publicly labeling it a “non-state hostile intelligence service”

All these political denunciations of WikiLeaks and Assange were then followed up with threats against him and his family. As we heard in court in 2020 from protected witnesses, the CIA had drawn up plans to potentially kidnap or assassinate Julian.

The United States is accusing Julian Assange of “espionage”. Normally, this is where the case should be thrown out, because espionage is considered a textbook political offense. And it is forbidden to extradite someone for a political offense under the US-UK Extradition Treaty, Art 4. 

Customary extradition treaties have always forbidden extradition for political offenses such as “espionage” and “treason”. And this line of defense has been used before in court to successfully block extraditions.

• Extraditions for political offenses are forbidden under Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty 2003

Here is where the problem arises: 

The Extradition Act, which is the implementation of the US-UK treaty inside British law, is missing this section. This is likely due to the fact it was passed at the height of the “War on Terror” in 2003, giving the Americans carte blanche to snatch people, drag them to the US and throw them in dungeons. 

At the time of its passage, many criticized the Extradition Treaty as being extremely one-sided in favor of the United States. 

• The Extradition Act is the implementation of the US-UK Extradition Treaty inside British law.

No matter how you look at Assange’s case, it is unfair and illegal.

The United States wants to prosecute Julian Assange under US law, but at the same time deny him any protections under US law, such as free speech. If Assange has no First Amendment rights as a foreign national, then how can he be punished as a foreign national – who is not even in the US? This is such a flagrant double standard, and selective application of the law.  

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is incorporated into British law through the Human Rights Act. Upon examination, it is clear that Julian’s rights are being flagrantly violated

Article 5 protects one from arbitrary detention. 

Because this is a political case, it would be a violation of the Extradition Treaty to send Julian to America. Therefore, he has no reason to be in prison right now, and is therefore being arbitrarily detained in violation of his Article 5 rights.

Article 6 guarantees the right to a fair trial. 

We know the United States spied on Assange’s conversations with his lawyers when he was inside the Ecuadorian embassy; stole his electronic devices; and collected medical and legal records. 

In 2020, I sat in court with Fidel Narvaez, the former Consul to the Ecuadorian embassy in London. We listened to the submissions of two protected witnesses who confirmed they had spied on Assange because the security company they worked for, UC Global, had been contracted by the CIA to do so. They also discussed plans to potentially kidnap and poison Julian Assange and harvest DNA from his baby.

To spy on someone’s privileged conversations with their lawyers, and to use tainted evidence in court is scandalous beyond words, and violates the fundamentals of due process in any jurisdiction. Any judge would have thrown this case out from day one. 

We also know Assange will not get a fair trial in America because the jury will be selected from a pool of people who work for the CIA, NSA, or have friends and family working in the intelligence community. These are the very same people whose crimes Julian Assange exposed.

The court in Virginia that issued the charges and would hold this trial is used specifically for this reason; because the jury is biased and the government knows it can’t lose. It is already 100% guaranteed that he will get convicted and go to prison.

Additionally, the United States could use secret evidence against Julian Assange, that he wouldn’t even be allowed to view due to it being “classified”.

Article 7 protects one from being punished retroactively. The case against Julian Assange is unprecedented: No publisher in America has ever been prosecuted, let alone convicted for publishing classified documents.

This case criminalizes journalism, and therefore violates Article 10, which guarantees freedom of expression.

Assange’s lawyers went over the ECHR repeatedly because it is incorporated into British law, meaning the court is obliged to follow it. Not only that, but this was their way of hinting to the judges: If you don’t give us permission to appeal, we will go to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, and that court will look upon your decision unfavorably.

(The United Kingdom is a founding and current member of the European Council, which is separate from the European Union).

Assange’s lawyer, Mark Summers, argued very clearly: The Strasbourg court will see that a) these US war crimes were real; b) they were happening on the ground at the time, and; c) by publishing these documents Assange altered the United States’ behavior: The helicopter massacres like in the “Collateral Murder” video stopped, and the Iraq war came to an end.

Assange’s team put together a very compelling defense during this week’s hearing.

March 14, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Surf Coast federal member rejects nuclear reactor in region

March 14, 2024 BY Angus Smith, Surf Coast Times,

CORANGAMITE Labor federal member Libby Coker has slammed suggestions a nuclear power station could be built in her electorate.

Since September last year, the Coalition has been promoting former coal-fired power station sites, such as Anglesea and the Latrobe Valley, as ideal locations for nuclear power, and will soon launch an energy policy with sites for six nuclear power stations.

Speaking on Sunrise last week, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton highlighted the potential of such sites…………………………………

Critics, including environmental and community groups, say nuclear power stations are very expensive, other alternatives are better, and adopting the technology could bring Australia into the global nuclear waste market, with other countries potentially sending their waste here.

Ms Coker demanded clarity on the proposed location of a nuclear reactor and its waste disposal in the Geelong area.

“Peter Dutton and the Liberals must tell us exactly where on the Surf Coast they’re planning to build this nuclear reactor and put its waste,” she said.

“Anyone who has done their homework knows nuclear is not viable.

“The alleged boom in Small Modular Reactors is a furphy.

“Renewables will bring down emissions so much faster and without the radioactive waste.”

Greens Member for Western Victoria Sarah Mansfield said the government should be focused on ensuring Australia was better placed to prevent and respond to climate disasters in the future.

“Nuclear is just a distraction being put forward by those who fundamentally don’t support renewable energy – the time and cost alone mean that nuclear isn’t a viable option.”  https://timesnewsgroup.com.au/surfcoasttimes/news/coker-rejects-nuclear-reactor-in-region/

March 14, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment