Giving Mastodon another go. They approved my appeal
Now, to add to my confusion – Mastodon sent me a message “My appeal has been approved. My account is back again” . My appeal was just “I don’t understand why my account has been suspended. No reason was given” . So, now I am going to give Mastodon another go
Bitterly disappointed in Mastodon
Like many others, I left Twitter- X, because of Elon Musk and the whole weird setup developing there.
Today, on Mastodon, I find “Suspension of account from Jan 27, 2024”.
No warning, no notice, nothing.
My posts are almost always references to: my opposition to the nuclear industry, and to my condemnation of the genocide that Israel is perpetrating in Gaza.
Not personal attacks, not criminal accusations, not sexual content. No reason given for my suspension.
WHAT IS GOING ON WITH MASTODON?
I have done a little research, on Reddit. It turns out that many others have had the same experience. Apparently you can appeal, but your Mastodon account will be permanently deleted. Hard to know how to appeal, as you have no idea what prompted them to cut you off. It seems that all that is need is for one person to make an objection to you – and you’re out! But of course, not knowing what their objection was, it’s hard to answer it. My lame appeal was:
I don’t understand why my account is suspended. I think that I deserve an explanation.”
Where to, from here?
I have a Facebook account. It doesn’t get anything like the same volume of traffic that Mastodon does. With Facebook, I feel that we enthusiasts for a particular cause (a nuclear-free world) are just talking to each other.
And by the way, the nuclear industry has a huge presence on Mastodon.
Is there any open-source, non-profit, alternative to Twitter?
Can anyone help me?
The War On Journalism In Belmarsh, The War On Journalism In Gaza
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, JAN 26, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-war-on-journalism-in-belmarsh?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=141058691&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email—
I haven’t written much about Julian Assange lately because I’ve been so fixated on what’s been happening in Gaza, but we should all be acutely aware that the 20th and 21st of February may be the WikiLeaks founder’s final chance to avoid extradition to the United States to face persecution for the crime of good journalism.
Assange and his legal team will face two High Court judges during the two-day hearing in London, who will then determine whether or not the UK will allow the Australian journalist to be dragged to the US in chains for a crooked show trial and cast into one of the world’s most draconian prison systems for exposing the war crimes of the world’s most powerful government.
Some US lawmakers are attempting to block the extradition from the other end with House Resolution 934, which asserts that “regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment, and that the United States ought to drop all charges against and attempts to extradite Julian Assange.” If charges were dropped it would not only prevent the extradition but allow for Assange to be freed from the Belmarsh maximum security prison, where he has been jailed by the British government since 2019.
The fight to free Assange is a fight to protect press freedoms around the world, since the US is using the case in an attempt to set a legal precedent for extraditing and imprisoning any journalist or publisher anywhere in the world who shares information with the public that the US doesn’t want shared.
And it’s worth mentioning that this fight is not actually separate from the fight against Israel’s efforts to keep journalism out of Gaza by assassinating reporters and blocking the press from entering the enclave. It’s also not separate from humanity’s overall struggle to build a truth-based civilization, nor ultimately from our greater struggle to become a conscious species.
All throughout humanity there are pushes toward truth and seeing and pushes toward secrecy and darkness. In the press we see both: the authentic journalists like Assange who want all that is hidden to be made transparent, and the propagandists of the mainstream media who work to obfuscate and distort the truth. Those who seek the emergence of a harmonious and truth-based society want as much visibility into what’s really happening as possible, while tyrannical power structures like the US empire and Israel are constantly working to dim the lights.
Wherever you see domination and abuse, you see efforts to limit perception and keep human minds from seeing and understanding what’s going on. It’s true of empires, it’s true of governments, it’s true of cult leaders, it’s true of abusive spouses, and it’s true of the unpleasant dynamics within our own psyches that we would rather not look at. The less seeing there is, the more abusiveness is possible; the more seen things become, the closer we get to freedom.
I’m no prophet, but I strongly suspect that our future as a species will be determined by the outcome of this struggle. If the impulse toward truth and seeing wins out, we are probably headed toward a world of health and harmony. If the impulse to keep everything confused and hidden and unconscious wins, we are probably headed for dystopia and extinction.
In any case, all we can do is fight to make things more visible so that health and harmony become possible. Fight to make things conscious within ourselves. Fight to keep journalism legal in the shadow of the empire. Fight to spotlight Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Fight to make the unseen seen. Fight to bring humanity into the light of consciousness.
International Court of Justice Rules That Israel Must Stop Killing Palestinians
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, January 26, 2024
The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel must cease its warmaking in Gaza — cease committing and inciting genocidal acts — and that the case charging Israel with genocide must proceed.
DETAILS OF THE RULING:
- By 15-2: Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent all acts within the scope of Genocide Convention article 2
- 15-2: Israel must immediately ensure that its military does not commit acts within the scope of GC.2
- 16-1: Direct and punish all members of the public who engage in the incitement of genocide against Palestinians
- 16-1: Ensure provision of urgently needed basic services, humanitarian aid
- 15-2: Prevent the destruction of and ensure the preservation of evidence to allegation of acts of GC.2
- 15-2: Israel will submit report as to how they’re adhering to these orders to the ICJ within 1 month
This is Article 2 of the Genocide Convention:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Therefore, Israel must cease killing Palestinians.
This was a make or break moment for international law, or rather a break or make-a-first-step moment. There is hope for the idea and reality of international law, but this is only a beginning.
The president of the International Court of Justice, who read the ruling, is Judge Joan Donoghue, former top legal advisor under Hillary Clinton at the U.S. State Department during the Obama Administration. She previously was the lawyer for the United States in its unsuccessful defense before the ICJ against charges by Nicaragua of minining its harbor.
The court voted for portions of this decision by 15-2 and 16-1. The “No” votes came from Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda and Ad Hoc Judge Aharon Barak of Israel.
The case presented by South Africa was overwhelming (read it or watch a key part of it), and Israel’s defense paper-thin. And the case just grew more overwhelming during the bizarre delay (yes, courts are slow, but this genocide is swift).
People all over the world built the pressure to move South Africa to act and other nations to add their support. Over 1,500 organizations signed a statement. Individuals signed a petition by CODEPINK, and sent almost 500,000 emails to key governments’ United Nations consulates through World BEYOND War and RootsAction.org. Click those links because more emails are needed now. While several nations have made public statements in support of South Africa’s case, we need them to file papers officially with the International Court of Justice. To reach out to additional national governments, go here.
Governments that have made statement in support of the case against genocide include Malaysia, Turkey, Jordan, Bolivia, the 57 nations of the Organization of Islamic Countries, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Maldives, Namibia, and Pakistan, Colombia, Brazil, and Cuba.
Germany has backed Israel’s defense against the charge of genocide, which has been denounced by Namibia, victimn of a German genocide. Prominent Jews have denounced Germany’s shameful action.
Mass demonstrations in the streets of the world have continued in support of peace and justice, and to a far greater extent than major media outlets have reported.
Here’s a discussion of this campaign for justice with Sam Husseini on Talk World Radio.
Prior to today’s ruling from the International Court of Justice, the U.S. government pointedly refused to say whether it would comply with ruling, despite insisting that other nations comply with rulings by the ICJ.
Hamas said that it would cease fire if Israel does, and release all prisoners if Israel does
Germany, to its credit, reportedly said that it would comply……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://worldbeyondwar.org/international-court-of-justice-rules-that-israel-must-cease-fire/
Growing mountain of wasted money is a radioactive prospect.
Alistair Osborne: Growing mountain of wasted money is a radioactive
prospect. Rishi Sunak’s apparent determination to press ahead with
mammoth investment in new nuclear reactors, whatever the cost, might not
prove to be the best solution.
It’s only a week since he set off — again — with his uncosted “nuclear road map”: a plan to have 24 gigawatts of new reactors by 2050, or seven more Hinkley Point Cs. On
Monday, the government sank another £1.3 billion into Sizewell C, so it
could “steam ahead” with that project, too, as Andrew Bowie, the
minister for nukes, put it.
Listen to him and investors are queueing up. So
what better news to encourage them than this jaw-dropper from EDF, the
state-backed French outfit behind both schemes? Hinkley Point’s costs
have shot up by as much as £10 billion to a top-end £35 billion, in 2015
prices.
And, instead of firing up in 2027, the first of the Somerset
nuke’s twin reactors could in an “unfavourable scenario” (the likely
outcome) be delayed until 2031. This is what comes with Hinkley’s
European pressurised reactor tech, as EDF has also proved at France’s
Flamanville, Finland’s Olkiluoto and China’s Taishan.
Indeed, two years after the Chinese nuke became operational, one unit had to be taken offline for a year’s repairs. So why is the government hellbent on a re-run with
Sizewell in Suffolk? Alison Downes from the Stop Sizewell C campaign is no
neutral voice. But she’s right to say the project “epitomises the
definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a
different result”. With Sizewell, though, things would be far pricier.
Under the contracts-for-difference regime, EDF is on the hook for
Hinkley’s costs. Repeat the trick at Sizewell and, under the new
regulated asset base model, consumers would find £10 billion added to
their bills — before the nuke’s even operational.
Times 25th Jan 2024
TODAY. A new Waterloo defeat for France – a nuclear economic one.
Almost 200 years before Electricite de France (EDF) signed a nuclear contract with Britain, France got decisively beaten by England, in the battle of Waterloo. That defeat ended France’s attempts to dominate Europe.
Now in 2024, France is suffering a humiliating blow, because of that 2016 contract. In essence, EDF agreed to be solely responsible for cost overruns during construction of Britain’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
To make matters worse, in 2022, the debt-laden EDF was fully nationalised by the French government, – which paid 9.7 billion euros to take on this burden. Back in 2016, the plant was meant to cost £18bn; it’s now headed to cost. £46bn .
Sacre bleu indeed!
France’s President Macron aims to make the nation the dominating nuclear industry power. Delusions of grandeur indeed. Apart from his grandiose plans for new fleets of big and little reactors, - around his neck is – as The Guardian puts it – a financial albatross that has only become heavier.
Electricite de France (EDF) DF a total basket case, weighed down by its 50 Billion pound nuclear turkey at Hinkley point
Jonathon Porritt, https://www.jonathonporritt.com/edf-a-total-basket-case-weighed-down-by-its-50-billion-nuclear-turkey-at-hinkley-point/ 25 Jan 24
EdF’s bosses must be thanking their lucky stars that President Macron decided to take complete control of EdF back in 2022. Otherwise, its latest announcements about further delays and cost increases for its new reactors at Hinkley Point would have sent any remaining investors running for the hills.
The scale of those announcements is staggering:
- The price tag for Hinkley Point C has now been reset at £31-34 billion (in 2015 prices), twice the original £18 billion.
- In today’s money, that’s around £46 billion – with further delays and cost hikes (rising to at least £50 billion) all but inevitable.
- EdF’s shortfall in completing Hinkley Point has risen substantially, and could now be as high as £25 billion on its balance sheet.
- EdF has admitted that 2029 is now the earliest Hinkley Point will come online. Fat chance of that.
Which makes Hinkley Point C even more of a bust than EdF’s current worst reactor construction nightmare at Flamanville in France. And significantly worse than its plant at Olkiluoto in Finland, which it just managed to get over the line last year.
So, watch out for the fallout.
Hinkley Point C was meant to be coming online in 2027. All neutral commentators now reckon 2031 (EdF’s so-called ”unfavourable scenario”) is the earliest that will happen. That’s a further four-year delay before its low-carbon electrons (providing 7% of the UK’s electricity) will be available to help the UK meet its various decarbonisation targets.
Add to that the knock-on impact of this on the Government’s/Labour’s hopes for a Hinkley Point look-alike (really!) at Sizewell C. The sales pitch to investors for that has now become even trickier than it was before: “Just look at this beautiful £50 billion turkey: another one just like it could be all yours at a bargain-basement price of, say, £40 billion”.
Which leads to the following conclusions:
EdF is even more screwed than it was before, deeper in debt, with further delays for rolling out its look-alike plant at Sizewell C now inevitable.- The Tory Government is screwed, with no chance of Hinkley Point C (let alone Sizewell C) making any serious short-term contribution to its decarbonisation strategy.
- Labour is screwed – for exactly the same reasons.
- The UK’s Net Zero strategy by 2050 looks less and less viable. And that will soon be tested, again, in the courts.
- All this because of the nuclear obsessions of the UK’s entire political establishment – Labour just as much as the Tories.
Happily, there’s no need to panic: the case for the “renewables + efficiency + storage + smart grids” option just got a whole lot stronger, both economically and politically. We just need the donkeys in Whitehall to give up on their nuclear turkeys. Finally!
It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped
The ruling by the International Court of Justice was a legal victory for South Africa and the Palestinians, but it will not halt the slaughter.
SCHEERPOST, By Chris Hedges 26 Jan 24
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) refused to implement the most crucial demand made by South African jurists: “the State of Israel shall immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.” But at the same time, it delivered a devastating blow to the foundational myth of Israel. Israel, which paints itself as eternally persecuted, has been credibly accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the “crime of crimes.” A people, once in need of protection from genocide, are now potentially committing it. The court’s ruling questions the very raison d’être of the “Jewish State” and challenges the impunity Israel has enjoyed since its founding 75 years ago.
The ICJ ordered Israel to take six provisional measures to prevent acts of genocide, measures that will be very difficult if not impossible to fulfill if Israel continues its saturation bombing of Gaza and wholesale targeting of vital infrastructure.
The court called on Israel “to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” It demanded Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” It ordered Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. It called on Israel to protect the some 50,000 women giving birth in Gaza. It ordered Israel to take “effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.”
The court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent the crimes which amount to genocide such as “killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
Israel was ordered to report back in one month to explain what it had done to implement the provisional measures.
Gaza was pounded with bombs, missiles and artillery shells as the ruling was read in The Hague — at least 183 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours. Since Oct. 7, more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed. Almost 65,000 have been wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Thousands more are missing. The carnage continues. This is the cold reality.
Translated into the vernacular, the court is saying Israel must feed and provide medical care for the victims, cease public statements advocating genocide, preserve evidence of genocide and stop killing Palestinian civilians. Come back and report in a month.
It is hard to see how these provisional measures can be achieved if the carnage in Gaza continues.
“Without a ceasefire, the order doesn’t actually work,” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of international relations, stated bluntly after the ruling.
Time is not on the side of the Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians will die within a month. Palestinians in Gaza make up 80 percent of all the people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, according to the United Nations. The entire population of Gaza by early February is projected to lack sufficient food, with half a million people suffering from starvation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, drawing on data from U.N. agencies and NGOs. The famine is engineered by Israel.
At best, the court — while it will not rule for a few years on whether Israel is
committing genocide — has given legal license to use the word “genocide” to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza. This is very significant, but it is not enough, given the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Israel has dropped almost 30,000 bombs and shells on Gaza — eight times more bombs than the U.S. dropped on Iraq during six years of war. It has used hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs to obliterate densely populated areas, including refugee camps. These “bunker buster” bombs have a kill radius of a thousand feet. The Israeli aerial assault is unlike anything seen since Vietnam. Gaza, only 20 miles long and five miles wide, is rapidly becoming, by design, uninhabitable.
Israel will no doubt continue its assault arguing that it is not in violation of the court’s directives. In addition, the Biden administration will undoubtedly veto the resolution at the Security Council demanding Israel implement the provisional measures. The General Assembly, if the Security Council does not endorse the measures, can vote again calling for a ceasefire, but has no power to enforce it.
Defense for Children International – Palestine v. Biden was filed in November by the Center for Constitutional Rights against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The case challenges the U.S. government’s failure to prevent complicity in Israel’s unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people. It asks the court to order the Biden administration to cease diplomatic and military support and comply with its legal obligations under international and federal law.
The only active resistance to halt the Gaza genocide is provided by Yemen’s Red Sea blockade. ………………………………………………………………….
The ICJ was founded in 1945 following the Nazi Holocaust. The first case it heard was submitted to the court in 1947.
“Decisions that endanger the continued existence of the State of Israel must not be listened to,” Ben-Gvir added. “We must continue defeating the enemy until complete victory.”……………………………………………………
It is clear from the ruling that the court is fully aware of the magnitude of Israel’s crimes. This makes the decision not to call for the immediate suspension of Israeli military activity in and against Gaza all the more distressing.
But the court did deliver a devastating blow to the mystique Israel has used since its founding to carry out its settler colonial project against the indigenous inhabitants of historic Palestine. It made the word genocide, when applied to Israel, credible. https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/26/chris-hedges-it-may-be-genocide-but-it-wont-be-stopped/
In Assange’s Darkest Hour, Committee To Protect Journalists Yet Again Excludes Him From Jailed Journalist Index
for another year, CPJ excluded the imprisoned former WikiLeaks editor-in-chief from their database of jailed journalists.
Assange is a member of the International Federation of Journalists, which is the world’s largest federation of journalists.
if Assange was brought to trial that it would “effectively criminalize journalists everywhere.”
Assange is and will always be a detained journalist so long as the Justice Department pushes onward with this political case. It is too bad CPJ staff cannot get past their professional hangups and include him in their annual index. It would strengthen their opposition to the prosecution in a way that would give their advocacy even more clarity.
Kevin Gosztola, 20 Jan 24, https://thedissenter.org/assange-darkest-hour-cpj-yet-again-excludes-jailed-journalist-index/
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its census report for 2023. Three hundred and twenty detained or imprisoned journalists were counted by the press freedom organization, as of December 1, 2023.
As indicated, that number is not far from the record high of 360 jailed journalists that was set in 2022.
The 2023 census takes on greater significance given the Israeli government’s war on Gaza and the military attacks and crackdown on Palestinian journalists. Seventeen journalists were jailed by Israel, the “highest number of arrests” since CPJ began tracking arrests in 1992. It is the first time that Israel has “ranked among the top six offenders.”
But at this moment, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his legal team are preparing for a major hearing on February 20 before the High Court of the Justice in the United Kingdom. They view the hearing as a final opportunity to save him from extradition to the United States, where he was charged with violating the Espionage Act in 2019.
Assange needs press freedom organizations, especially those with U.S. headquarters, to strengthen their stand against the charges from the Justice Department. However, for another year, CPJ excluded the imprisoned former WikiLeaks editor-in-chief from their database of jailed journalists.
I emailed CPJ a request for comment and asked why Assange remains excluded from the organization’s annual jailed journalist census, especially given CPJ’s methodology. The response that a CPJ communications person sent me was disappointing.
“After extensive research and consideration, CPJ chose not to list Assange as a journalist, in part because his role has just as often been as a source and because WikiLeaks does not generally perform as a news outlet with an editorial process,” CPJ answered.
The statement was copied-and-pasted from a 2019 post that then-CPJ executive editor Robert Mahoney authored, where he defended the exclusion of Assange.
I pointed out to CPJ that this “extensive research and consideration” was completed in 2019, and I did so because perhaps it is time for CPJ to reassess their determination. To that, CPJ replied, “Yes, there have been many articles about our position on Assange. While you’re free to disagree, our position has been clear, transparent, and consistent for years.”
Indeed, CPJ’s position has been clear. The organization has been consistent in their exclusion of Assange from the press freedom organization’s annual census.
It is debatable whether the organization has been transparent. To my knowledge, the “extensive research and consideration” that they did to decide that Assange is not a journalist has never been shared with the public.
Also, it remains puzzling how a press freedom organization led primarily by journalists with experience in newsgathering can insist that Assange is a source. He has never held a security clearance or a position in the U.S. government that would give him access to classified documents.
The source of the documents at issue in the Espionage Act prosecution against Assange was a U.S. Army intelligence analyst known as Chelsea Manning. She had access to the classified military and government documents, submitted over 700,000 files to WikiLeaks, and Assange published them in 2010 and 2011.
My request for comment mentioned CPJ’s own methodology for labeling someone a journalist, however, CPJ ignored this part of my question.
According to CPJ, a journalist is someone who covers the news or comments on public affairs through any media—including in print, in photographs, on radio, on television, and online.”
Between 2010 and 2017, Assange appeared numerous times on news networks, such as CNN and Al Jazeera English, to comment on WikiLeaks publications as well as public affairs, like National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, NSA surveillance, and internet freedom. He frequently appeared on the independent news program “Democracy Now!” to discuss Google, corruption within U.S. security agencies, and even the Catalonia independence movement in Spain.
Assange is a member of the International Federation of Journalists, which is the world’s largest federation of journalists. Twenty affiliates of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, granted Assange honorary membership.
Since 2010, Assange has also been a member of the Media, Entertainment, and Arts Alliance, a trade union in Australia.
CPJ partnered with various civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom organizations in December 2022 to send a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding that the Justice Department drop all charges against Assange.
On World Press Freedom Day in 2023, CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg spoke at an event hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the UN headquarters in New York.
Ginsberg called out lawfare targeting journalists and clearly stated, “One thing that the United States could concretely do is drop the charges against Julian Assange.” She noted if Assange was brought to trial that it would “effectively criminalize journalists everywhere.”
So, why the refusal to label Assange a journalist?
I asked CPJ if they have come under pressure from officials within the U.S. government and that is why they will not acknowledge Assange is a jailed journalist. After all, if the Chinese or Russian governments detained someone like Assange, that person would almost certainly be included in CPJ’s index.
The press freedom organization disregarded this portion of my request for comment.
Continue readingTODAY. Time that Israel stopped being a religious dictatorship
What is so badly needed right now ? The truth. Facts. A bit of logic.
Israel has no official religion. Yet the declaration of independence in 1948 made it clear that Israel is “The Jewish State”.
And now – all the Western powers seem to agree with Benjamin Netanyahu - yes Israel IS the Jewish State.
And why does that matter?
Well, look at the past , and the present. What does a theocracy mean for its people?
Well, for hundreds of years up to around the 500 BC time, the Israel lands, especially Judah, were controlled by a state ideology of “Zion theology,” the idea that Yahweh, the god of Israel, had chosen Jerusalem for his dwelling-place and that the Davidic dynasty would reign there forever. Then the Babylonian conquest happened, and the Hebrew Bible developed in the exiled community. The exiles saw themselves as a people distinct from other peoples.
Oppressed by the Romans, the Jews later became persecuted for centuries by the Christians. In theocratic Europe, the Inquisition developed, culminating in the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, torturing and killing non-Christians.
So, we see what religiously controlled States did to people, in the past.
And today.
Iran’s Islamic Republic says it all – enforcement of sharia law, oppression of women, oppression of religious minorities, the Supreme Leader exerts ideological and political control over a system dominated by clerics who shadow every major function of the state.
Saudi Arabia is an Islamic theocracy and the government has declared the Qur’an and the Sunnah (tradition) of Muhammad to be the country’s Constitution. Laws are enforced against religious minorities. It has the Committee for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, which carries out religious policing, including control over women’s clothing and their lives. There are severe punishments for blasphemy. Education is dominated by a religious focus.
How does Israel get away with pretending not to be a theocracy?
There’s a worldwide pretence that Jews are an ethnic minority. But Jews are all over the world, and do not have distinctive physical traits or genetic markers.
From the Balfour Declaration of 1917, to the Declaration of Independence in 1948, the world powers seemed to agree that the Palestine communities didn’t matter, and the land could be claimed by Jews who had previously bought properties there, and by the European Jews who survived the Holocaust.
This was grossly unfair to the Palestinians, – and to the Jews, who had little other choice.
But they’re there now. And can’t realistically be moved elsewhere. And Palestinians exist too.
So – everybody has to live with this. It would be a good start if everybody, especially Israeli citizens, recognised the humanity of all people, stopped banging on about “God’s chosen people”, and clearly stated Israel as a secular state.
Nuclear hype in meltdown
The latest nuclear power ‘renaissance’ is going in reverse.
Dr Jim Green , 23rd January 2024, https://theecologist.org/2024/jan/23/nuclear-hype-meltdown
Nuclear power went backwards last year and shrunk to below 10 percent of global electricity generation despite all the hype about a new nuclear ‘renaissance’. Meanwhile, renewables enjoyed record growth for the 22nd consecutive year and now accounts for more than 30 percent.
The nuclear renaissance of the late-2000s was a bust due to the Fukushima disaster and catastrophic cost overruns with reactor projects. The latest renaissance is heading the same way – nowhere.
There were five reactor start-ups and five permanent closures in 2023 with a net loss of 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. There were just six reactor construction starts in 2023, five of them in China.
Hype
Due to the ageing of the reactor fleet, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) anticipates the closure of 10 reactors (10 GW) per year from 2018 to 2050.
Therefore the industry needs an annual average of 10 reactor construction starts, and 10 reactor startups (grid connections), just to maintain its current output. Over the past decade (2014-23), construction starts have averaged 6.1 per year and reactor startups have averaged 6.7.
The number of operable power reactors is 407 to 413 depending on the definition of operability, well down from the 2002 peak of 438.
Nuclear power’s share of global electricity generation has fallen to 9.2 percent, its lowest share in four decades and little more than half of its peak of 17.5 percent in 1996.
Over the two decades 2004-2023, there were 102 power reactor startups and 104 closures worldwide: 49 startups in China with no closures; and a net decline of 51 reactors in the rest of the world.
In China, there were five reactor construction starts in 2023 and just one reactor startup. Put another way, there was just one reactor construction start outside China in 2023. One. So much for the hype about a new nuclear ‘renaissance’.
Deployment
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are the subject of endless hype but there were no SMR construction starts or startups last year.
Indeed, the biggest SMR news in 2023 was NuScale Power’s decision to abandon its flagship project in Idaho despite securing astronomical subsidies amounting to around US$4 billion from the US Government. The company is far more likely to go bankrupt than to break ground on its first reactor.
The pro-nuclear Breakthrough Institute noted in a November 2023 article that efforts to commercialise a new generation of ‘advanced’ nuclear reactors “are simply not on track” and it warned nuclear advocates not to “whistle past this graveyard”.
The Institute said: “The NuScale announcement follows several other setbacks for advanced reactors. Last month, X-Energy, another promising SMR company, announced that it was canceling plans to go public. This week, it was forced to lay off about 100 staff.
“In early 2022, Oklo’s first license application was summarily rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before the agency had even commenced a technical review of Oklo’s Aurora reactor.
“Meanwhile, forthcoming new cost estimates from TerraPower and XEnergy as part of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Deployment Program are likely to reveal substantially higher cost estimates for the deployment of those new reactor technologies as well.”
Installed
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has just released its ‘Renewables 2023’ report and it makes for a striking contrast with the nuclear industry’s malaise.
Nuclear power suffered a net loss of 1.7 GW capacity in 2023, whereas renewable capacity additions amounted to a record 507 GW, almost 50 percent higher than 2022. This is the 22nd year in a row that renewable capacity additions set a new record, the IEA states.
Nuclear power accounts for a declining share of global electricity generation (currently 9.2 percent) whereas renewables have grown to 30.2 percent.
The IEA expects renewables to reach 42 percent by 2028 thanks to a projected 3,700 GW of new capacity over the next five years in the IEA’s ‘main case’.
The IEA states that the world is on course to add more renewable capacity in the next five years than has been installed since the first commercial renewable energy power plant was built more than 100 years ago.
Milestones
Solar and wind combined have already surpassed nuclear power generation and the IEA notes that several other milestones are in sight:
‒ In 2025, renewables surpass coal-fired electricity generation to become the largest source of electricity generation
‒ In 2025, wind surpasses nuclear electricity generation
‒ In 2026, solar PV surpasses nuclear electricity generation
‒ In 2028, renewable energy sources account for over 42 percent of global electricity generation, with the share of wind and solar PV doubling to 25 percent.
An estimated 96 percent of newly installed, utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind capacity had lower generation costs than new coal and natural gas plants in 2023, the IEA states.
Tripling
The IEA states in its ‘Renewables 2023’ report that: “Prior to the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai, the International Energy Agency (IEA) urged governments to support five pillars for action by 2030, among them the goal of tripling global renewable power capacity.
“Several of the IEA priorities were reflected in the Global Stocktake text agreed by the 198 governments at COP28, including the goals of tripling renewables and doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements every year to 2030.
“Tripling global renewable capacity in the power sector from 2022 levels by 2030 would take it above 11 000 GW, in line with IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) Scenario.”
It adds: “Under existing policies and market conditions, global renewable capacity is forecast to reach 7300 GW by 2028. This growth trajectory would see global capacity increase to 2.5 times its current level by 2030, falling short of the tripling goal.”
In the IEA’s ‘accelerated case’, 4,500 GW of new renewable capacity will be added over the next five years (compared to 3,700 GW in the ‘main case’), nearing the tripling goal. The goal of tripling renewables by 2030 is a stretch but it is not impossible. Conversely, the ‘pledge’ signed by just 22 nations at COP28 to triple nuclear power by 2050 is absurd.
Military-strategic
China’s nuclear program added only 1.2 GW capacity in 2023 while wind and solar combined added 278 GW. Michael Barnard noted in CleanTechnica that allowing for capacity factors, the nuclear additions amount to about seven terrawatt-hours (TWh) of new low carbon generation per year, while wind and solar between them will contribute about 427 TWh annually, over 60 times more than nuclear.
Barnard commented: “One of the things that western nuclear proponents claim is that governments have over-regulated nuclear compared to wind and solar, and China’s regulatory regime for nuclear is clearly not the USA’s or the UK’s.
“They claim that fears of radiation have created massive and unfair headwinds, and China has a very different balancing act on public health and public health perceptions than the west. They claim that environmentalists have stopped nuclear development in the west, and while there are vastly more protests in China than most westerners realise, governmental strategic programs are much less susceptible to public hostility.
“And finally, western nuclear proponents complain that NIMBYs block nuclear expansion, and public sentiment and NIMBYism is much less powerful in China with its Confucian, much more top down governance system.
“China’s central government has a 30-year track record of building massive infrastructure programs, so it’s not like it is missing any skills there. China has a nuclear weapons programme, so the alignment of commercial nuclear generation with military strategic aims is in hand too. China has a strong willingness to finance strategic infrastructure with long-running state debt, so there are no headwinds there either.
“Yet China can’t scale its nuclear program at all. It peaked in 2018 with seven reactors with a capacity of 8.2 GW. For the five years since then then it’s been averaging 2.3 GW of new nuclear capacity, and last year only added 1.2 GW…”
This Author
Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group.
Israel minister renews call for striking Gaza with ‘nuclear bomb’
Israel’s far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu today renewed his call for striking the Gaza Strip with a “nuclear bomb.”
“Even in The Hague they know my position,” the Times of Israel newspaper quoted Eliyahu as saying during a tour of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, in reference to his previous call for using nuclear weapons in the Gaza Strip.
In November, Eliyahu said dropping a “nuclear bomb” on the Gaza Strip is “an option.”
The hardline minister also called for encouraging Gaza’s population to leave the enclave.
During the two-day public hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 11-12 January, South Africa quoted extremist Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have time and again called for erraticating Palestinians, resettling Gaza and blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state, as evidence that Tel Aviv is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
France presses UK to help fill multibillion-pound hole in nuclear projects
Call comes day after EDF flagged more delays of construction of power plant at Hinkley Point
Sarah White in Paris and Jim Pickard and Rachel Millard in London, 25 Jan 24, https://www.ft.com/content/3320c06e-7ce3-4a6b-ab22-4b8201a4cfca
The French government is pressing the UK to help plug a multibillion-pound hole in the budget of nuclear power projects being built in Britain by France’s electricity operator EDF. The call for a contribution from the UK is likely to cause tensions between Paris and London, a day after state-owned EDF admitted its construction of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset would suffer further costly delays, taking the bill to as much as £46bn. The UK has said it will not put cash into the project, which counts EDF as a majority shareholder, and is already backed by a government guarantee on its revenues once it is up and running.
But Paris is pushing for a “global solution” that would also encompass funding issues at another planned UK plant, Sizewell C, said a French economy ministry official and another person close to the talks. “It’s a Franco-British matter,” the French economy ministry official said. “The British government cannot at the same time say EDF has to figure it out alone on Hinkley Point and at the same time ask EDF to put money into Sizewell. We’re determined to find a global solution to see these projects through.”
Sizewell in Suffolk has a different financial set-up to Hinkley. The UK this week said it would inject another £800mn of state funds, bringing its total contribution to £2.5bn at the £20bn plant, where it is the top shareholder. Its partner EDF has no obligation to put more money in. French officials said discussions on various options had begun several months ago with British counterparts, although they acknowledged London had flagged budgetary constraints that would have to be taken into account. In the UK, a government official played down the talks, adding that on Hinkley Point: “Costs will be the responsibility of EDF.”
An EDF executive told the BBC on Wednesday that the French company picks up “the tab for the cost overruns”. EDF on Tuesday warned Hinkley Point would not now be completed until 2029 at the earliest, four years later than its original start date, while the two reactors could cost up to £46bn to build at today’s prices, compared with a £18bn budget in 2016.
Other factors might play into the discussions, however. Under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Britain took the political initiative to eject Chinese group CGN as an investor in Sizewell — leaving that project in need of fresh private capital, but also prompting CGN to pull back from Hinkley, where it is a 33.5 per cent shareholder. The Chinese group has fulfilled its contracted payments on Hinkley but has no obligation to fund over-costs and stopped doing so a few months ago.
“The French don’t have many levers here but the CGN issue is a very real one,” a third person close to the talks said. Finding private investors to make up the Hinkley shortfall may be tough, several people close to the group said, although formulas such as state guarantees could be discussed. EDF is only just coming out of a period of financial turmoil, and has big investments to make at home, too, in the coming decades. It was fully renationalised last year
“Our goal here . . . is for what’s happening at Hinkley Point, with the delays and the issue with the Chinese partner’s decision, not to impact EDF’s financial trajectory excessively,” the French economy ministry official said. However, one UK nuclear industry figure said that EDF’s plight at Hinkley was the consequence of signing up to a deal with the UK government a decade ago, which at the time was criticised for being too generous to the French group. Under a so-called contract for difference signed with the state, construction costs are not covered but future electricity production is backed up by subsidies in case power prices fall below a certain threshold.
UK nuclear plant hit by new multiyear delay and could cost up to £46bn.
Britain’s flagship Hinkley Point C nuclear plant has been delayed until
2029 at the earliest, with the cost spiralling to as much as £46bn, in the
latest blow to a project at the heart of the country’s long-term energy
plans.
The surging bill and slipping schedule, announced on Tuesday by the
French state-owned operator and constructor EDF, will put pressure on the
UK government to provide extra financial support for the project.
EDF, which has also experienced long delays on recent parallel projects in
Finland and France that use the same reactor technology, blamed the latest
problems at Hinkley in Somerset on the complexity of installing
electromechanical systems and intricate piping. Hinkley was previously
delayed due to construction disruption during Covid pandemic.
Under EDF’s latest scenario, one of the two planned reactors at Hinkley Point C could
be ready in 2029, a two-year hold-up compared with the company’s previous
estimate of 2027. But it could be further delayed to 2031 in adverse
conditions, EDF said. It did not give an estimate for the second reactor.
EDF said the cost would now be between £31bn-£35bn based on 2015 prices,
depending on when Hinkley Point C was completed.
In today’s prices, the cost would balloon to as much as £46bn. The initial budget was £18bn, with a scheduled completion date of 2025. Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C, a
campaign group opposed to the planned Suffolk nuclear plant, said EDF was
an “unmitigated disaster”. She added the UK government should cancel
Sizewell C, saying state funding for the project could be better spent on
“renewables, energy efficiency or, in this election year, schools and
hospitals”.
FT 23rd Jan 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/1157591c-d514-4520-aa17-158349203abd
TODAY. If you care about safety, you don’t get a job on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission!
Yes, the nuclear lobby ‘killed’ the job of Jeff Baran, because his prime concern is safety, rather than promoting the nuclear industry !
What really got me about this – is that Jeff Baran is actually a very pro nuclear person! He wants the new nuclear renaissance to thrive. wants the new advanced reactors to go ahead.
It’s just unfortunate that Jeff Baran shows a bit of concern for environmental justice, for indigenous communities impacted by nuclear matters, and, biggest mistake of all “he prioritises safety”.
Ya can’t have a nuclear regular with that attitude!
Now in the past, the nuclear industry was held back by dreadful people, now thoroughly discredited, of course.
Greg Jaczko, the former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, published an explosive new book: Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator. In it, he gets honest with the American people about the dangers of nuclear technology, which he labels “failed,” “dangerous,” “not reliable.” He particularly comes down against nuclear as having any part in mitigating the problems of climate change/global warming.
Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). “I encourage countries that are just embarking on nuclear power to make sure that they have a plan for disposal, before they turn on the reactor.”
‘Earthquakes are just one of many natural hazards nuclear plants must
be prepared for’, she said. ‘Others include tornadoes, flooding, drought
and tsunamis.’
she says ‘one of the reasons SMRs will cost more has to do with fuel costs’ with some designs requiring ‘high-assay low enriched uranium fuel (HALEU), in other words, fuel enriched in the isotope uranium-235 between 10-19.99%, just below the level of what is termed “highly enriched uranium,” suitable for nuclear bombs. ………… an enrichment company wants assurance from reactor vendors to invest in developing HALEU production. But since commercial-scale SMRs are likely decades away, if they are at all viable, there is risk to doing so.’
At least we know where we are, people! If you had any idea that the USA government was in charge of nuclear safety, well you can put that idea to bed.
When Ted Norhaus and the Breakthrough Institute can finish off the job of a pro- nuclear regulator, because he has the temerity to prioritise safety, well, you really know that the nuclear lobby controls the USA government.
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
15 April – Zoom –Nuclear Power is Not the Solution
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 