Spending Unlimited – The Pentagon’s Budget Follies Come at a High Price.
More waste, fraud, and financial abuse are inevitable as the Pentagon prepares to shovel money out the door as quickly as possible. This is no way to craft a budget or defend a country.
One way to begin reining in runaway Pentagon spending is to eliminate the ability of Congress and the president to arbitrarily increase that department’s budget. The best way to do so would be by doing away with the very concept of “emergency spending.
BY JULIA GLEDHILL AND WILLIAM D. HARTUNG, MARCH 26, 2024, https://tomdispatch.com/spending-unlimited-2/
The White House released its budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2025 on March 11th, and the news was depressingly familiar: $895 billion for the Pentagon and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy. After adjusting for inflation, that’s only slightly less than last year’s proposal, but far higher than the levels reached during either the Korean or Vietnam wars or at the height of the Cold War. And that figure doesn’t even include related spending on veterans, the Department of Homeland Security, or the additional tens of billions of dollars in “emergency” military spending likely to come later this year. One thing is all too obvious: a trillion-dollar budget for the Pentagon alone is right around the corner, at the expense of urgently needed action to address climate change, epidemics of disease, economic inequality, and other issues that threaten our lives and safety at least as much as, if not more than, traditional military challenges.
Americans would be hard-pressed to find members of Congress carefully scrutinizing such vast sums of national security spending, asking tough questions, or reining in Pentagon excess — despite the fact that this country is no longer fighting any major ground wars. Just a handful of senators and members of the House do that work while many more search for ways to increase the department’s already bloated budget and steer further contracts into their own states and districts.
Congress isn’t just shirking its oversight duties: these days, it can’t even seem to pass a budget on time. Our elected representatives settled on a final national budget just last week, leaving Pentagon spending at the already generous 2023 level for nearly half of the 2024 fiscal year. Now, the department will be inundated with a flood of new money that it has to spend in about six months instead of a year. More waste, fraud, and financial abuse are inevitable as the Pentagon prepares to shovel money out the door as quickly as possible. This is no way to craft a budget or defend a country.
And while congressional dysfunction is par for the course, in this instance it offers an opportunity to reevaluate what we’re spending all this money for. The biggest driver of overspending is an unrealistic, self-indulgent, and — yes — militaristic national defense strategy. It’s designed to maintain a capacity to go almost everywhere and do almost anything, from winning wars with rival superpowers to intervening in key regions across the planet to continuing the disastrous Global War on Terror, which was launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and never truly ended. As long as such a “cover the globe” strategy persists, the pressure to continue spending ever more on the Pentagon will prove irresistible, no matter how delusional the rationale for doing so may be.
Defending “the Free World”?
President Biden began his recent State of the Union address by comparing the present moment to the time when the United States was preparing to enter World War II. Like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941, Joe Biden told the American people that the country now faces an “unprecedented moment in the history of the Union,” one in which freedom and democracy are “under attack” both at home and abroad. He disparaged Congress’s failure to approve his emergency supplemental bill, claiming that, without additional aid for Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will threaten not just that country but all of Europe and even the “free world.” Comparing (as he did) the challenge posed by Russia now to the threat that Hitler’s regime posed in World War II is a major exaggeration that’s of no value in developing an effective response to Moscow’s activities in Ukraine and beyond.
Engaging in such fearmongering to get the public on board with an increasingly militarized foreign policy ignores reality in service of the status quo. In truth, Russia poses no direct security threat to the United States. And while Putin may have ambitions beyond Ukraine, Russia simply doesn’t have the capability to threaten the “free world” with a military campaign. Neither does China, for that matter. But facing the facts about these powers would require a critical reassessment of the maximalist U.S. defense strategy that rules the roost. Currently, it reflects the profoundly misguided belief that, on matters of national security, U.S. military dominance takes precedence over the collective economic strength and prosperity of Americans.
As a result, the administration places more emphasis on deterring potential (if unlikely) aggression from competitors than on improving relations with them. Of course, this approach depends almost entirely on increasing the production, distribution, and stockpiling of arms. The war in Ukraine and Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza have unfortunately only solidified the administration’s dedication to the concept of military-centric deterrence.
Contractor Dysfunction: Earning More, Doing Less
Ironically, such a defense strategy depends on an industry that continually exploits the government for its own benefit and wastes staggering amounts of taxpayer dollars. The major corporations that act as military contractors pocket about half of all Pentagon outlays while ripping off the government in a multitude of ways. But what’s even more striking is how little they accomplish with the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars they receive year in, year out. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), from 2020 to 2022, the total number of major defense acquisition programs actually declined even as total costs and average delivery time for new weapons systems increase
Americans would be hard-pressed to find members of Congress carefully scrutinizing such vast sums of national security spending, asking tough questions, or reining in Pentagon excess — despite the fact that this country is no longer fighting any major ground wars. Just a handful of senators and members of the House do that work while many more search for ways to increase the department’s already bloated budget and steer further contracts into their own states and districts.
Congress isn’t just shirking its oversight duties: these days, it can’t even seem to pass a budget on time. Our elected representatives settled on a final national budget just last week, leaving Pentagon spending at the already generous 2023 level for nearly half of the 2024 fiscal year. Now, the department will be inundated with a flood of new money that it has to spend in about six months instead of a year. More waste, fraud, and financial abuse are inevitable as the Pentagon prepares to shovel money out the door as quickly as possible. This is no way to craft a budget or defend a country.
And while congressional dysfunction is par for the course, in this instance it offers an opportunity to reevaluate what we’re spending all this money for. The biggest driver of overspending is an unrealistic, self-indulgent, and — yes — militaristic national defense strategy. It’s designed to maintain a capacity to go almost everywhere and do almost anything, from winning wars with rival superpowers to intervening in key regions across the planet to continuing the disastrous Global War on Terror, which was launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and never truly ended. As long as such a “cover the globe” strategy persists, the pressure to continue spending ever more on the Pentagon will prove irresistible, no matter how delusional the rationale for doing so may be.
Defending “the Free World”?
President Biden began his recent State of the Union address by comparing the present moment to the time when the United States was preparing to enter World War II. Like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941, Joe Biden told the American people that the country now faces an “unprecedented moment in the history of the Union,” one in which freedom and democracy are “under attack” both at home and abroad. He disparaged Congress’s failure to approve his emergency supplemental bill, claiming that, without additional aid for Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will threaten not just that country but all of Europe and even the “free world.” Comparing (as he did) the challenge posed by Russia now to the threat that Hitler’s regime posed in World War II is a major exaggeration that’s of no value in developing an effective response to Moscow’s activities in Ukraine and beyond.
Engaging in such fearmongering to get the public on board with an increasingly militarized foreign policy ignores reality in service of the status quo. In truth, Russia poses no direct security threat to the United States. And while Putin may have ambitions beyond Ukraine, Russia simply doesn’t have the capability to threaten the “free world” with a military campaign. Neither does China, for that matter. But facing the facts about these powers would require a critical reassessment of the maximalist U.S. defense strategy that rules the roost. Currently, it reflects the profoundly misguided belief that, on matters of national security, U.S. military dominance takes precedence over the collective economic strength and prosperity of Americans.
As a result, the administration places more emphasis on deterring potential (if unlikely) aggression from competitors than on improving relations with them. Of course, this approach depends almost entirely on increasing the production, distribution, and stockpiling of arms. The war in Ukraine and Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza have unfortunately only solidified the administration’s dedication to the concept of military-centric deterrence.
Contractor Dysfunction: Earning More, Doing Less
Ironically, such a defense strategy depends on an industry that continually exploits the government for its own benefit and wastes staggering amounts of taxpayer dollars. The major corporations that act as military contractors pocket about half of all Pentagon outlays while ripping off the government in a multitude of ways. But what’s even more striking is how little they accomplish with the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars they receive year in, year out. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), from 2020 to 2022, the total number of major defense acquisition programs actually declined even as total costs and average delivery time for new weapons systems increased.
Take the Navy’s top acquisition program, for example. Earlier this month, the news broke that the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine is already at least a year behind schedule. That sub is the sea-based part of the next-generation nuclear (air-sea-and-land) triad that the administration considers the “ultimate backstop” for global deterrence. As a key part of this country’s never-ending arms buildup, the Columbia is supposedly the Navy’s most important program, so you might wonder why the Pentagon hasn’t implemented a single one of the GAO’s six recommendations to help keep it on track.
As the GAO report made clear, the Navy proposed delivering the first Columbia-class vessel in record time — a wildly unrealistic goal — despite it being the “largest and most complex submarine” in its history.
Yet the war economy persists, even as the giant weapons corporations deliver less weaponry for more money in an ever more predictable fashion (and often way behind schedule as well). This happens in part because the Pentagon regularly advances weapons programs before design and testing are even completed, a phenomenon known as “concurrent development.” Building systems before they’re fully tested means, of course, rushing them into production at the taxpayer’s expense before the bugs are out. Not surprisingly, operations and maintenance costs account for about 70% of the money spent on any U.S. weapons program.
Lockheed Martin’s F-35 is the classic example of this enormously expensive tendency. The Pentagon just greenlit the fighter jet for full-scale production this month, 23 years (yes, that’s not a misprint!) after the program was launched. The fighter has suffered from persistent engine problems and deficient software. But the official go-ahead from the Pentagon means little, since Congress has long funded the F-35 as if it were already approved for full-scale production. At a projected cost of at least $1.7 trillion over its lifetime, America’s most expensive weapons program ever should offer a lesson in the necessity of trying before buying.
Unfortunately, this lesson is lost on those who need to learn it the most. Acquisition failures of the past never seem to financially impact the executives or shareholders of America’s biggest military contractors. On the contrary, those corporate leaders depend on Pentagon bloat and overpriced, often unnecessary weaponry. In 2023, America’s biggest military contractor, Lockheed Martin, paid its CEO John Taiclit $22.8 million. Annual compensation for the CEOs of RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Boeing ranged from $14.5 and $22.5 million in the past two years. And shareholders of those weapons makers are similarly cashing in. The arms industry increased cash paid to its shareholders by 73% in the 2010s compared to the prior decade. And they did so at the expense of investing in their own businesses. Now they expect taxpayers to bail them out to ramp up weapons production for Ukraine and Israel.
Reining in the Military-Industrial Complex
One way to begin reining in runaway Pentagon spending is to eliminate the ability of Congress and the president to arbitrarily increase that department’s budget. The best way to do so would be by doing away with the very concept of “emergency spending.” Otherwise, thanks to such spending, that $895 billion Pentagon budget will undoubtedly prove to be anything but a ceiling on military spending next year. As an example, the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that passed the Senate in February is still hung up in the House, but some portion of it will eventually get through and add substantially to the Pentagon’s already enormous budget.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has fallen back on the same kind of budgetary maneuvers it perfected at the peak of its disastrous Afghan and Iraq wars earlier in this century, adding billions to the war budget to fund items on the department’s wish list that have little to do with “defense” in our present world. That includes emergency outlays destined to expand this country’s “defense industrial base” and further supersize the military-industrial complex — an expensive loophole that Congress should simply shut down. That, however, will undoubtedly prove a tough political fight, given how many stakeholders — from Pentagon officials to those corporate executives to compromised members of Congress — benefit from such spending sprees.
Ultimately, of course, the debate about Pentagon spending should be focused on far more than the staggering sums being spent. It should be about the impact of such spending on this planet. That includes the Biden administration’s stubborn continuation of support for Israel’s campaign of mass slaughter in Gaza, which has already killed more than 31,000 people while putting many more at risk of starvation. A recent Washington Post investigation found that the U.S. has made 100 arms sales to Israel since the start of the war last October, most of them set at value thresholds just low enough to bypass any requirement to report them to Congress.
The relentless supply of military equipment to a government that the International Court of Justice has said is plausibly engaged in a genocidal campaign is a deep moral stain on the foreign-policy record of the Biden administration, as well as a blow to American credibility and influence globally. No amount of airdrops or humanitarian supplies through a makeshift port can remotely make up for the damage still being done by U.S.-supplied weapons in Gaza.
The case of Gaza may be extreme in its brutality and the sheer speed of the slaughter, but it underscores the need to thoroughly rethink both the purpose of and funding for America’s foreign and military policies. It’s hard to imagine a more devastating example than Gaza of why the use of force so often makes matters far, far worse — particularly in conflicts rooted in longstanding political and social despair. A similar point could have been made with respect to the calamitous U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost untold numbers of lives, while pouring yet more money into the coffers of America’s major weapons makers. Both of those military campaigns, of course, failed disastrously in their stated objectives of promoting democracy, or at least stability, in troubled regions, even as they exacted huge costs in blood and treasure.
Before our government moves full speed ahead expanding the weapons industry and further militarizing geopolitical challenges posed by China and Russia, we should reflect on America’s disastrous performance in the costly, prolonged wars already waged in this century. After all, they did enormous damage, made the world a far more dangerous place, and only increased the significance of those weapons makers. Throwing another trillion dollars-plus at the Pentagon won’t change that.
Antarctic sea ice ‘behaving strangely’ as Arctic reaches ‘below-average’ winter peak
Carbon Brief, AYESHA TANDON, 26 Mar 24,
Antarctic sea ice is “behaving strangely” and might have entered a “new regime”, the director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) tells Carbon Brief.
Following an all-time low maximum in September 2023, Antarctic sea ice has been tracking at near-record-low extent for the past six months. Last month, it hit its 2024 minimum extent, tying with 2022 for the second-lowest Antarctic minimum in the 46-year satellite record.
Dr Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC tells Carbon Brief that more warm ocean water is reaching the surface to melt ice and keep it from forming. He says that we “must wait and see” whether this is a “temporary effect” or whether the Antarctic has entered a “new regime”.
Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice has reached its maximum extent for the year, peaking at 15.01m square kilometres (km2) on 14 March. The provisional data from the NSIDC shows that this year’s Arctic winter peak, despite favourable winds that encouraged sea ice formation, was 640,000km2 smaller than the 1981-2010 average maximum.
This year’s maximum was the 14th lowest in the satellite record…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Record-breaking Antarctic extent
Antarctic sea ice has been tracking at or near record-low levels for months.
The Antarctic set a record-low maximum on 10 September 2023, with an extent of 16.96m km2. This was “the lowest sea ice maximum in the 1979 to 2023 sea ice record by a wide margin”, and one of the earliest, the NSIDC says.
Antarctic conditions over 2023 were “truly exceptional” and “completely outside the bounds of normality”, one expert told Carbon Brief.
As 2023 progressed, Antarctic sea ice melt was “slower than average”, the NSIDC says. The total decline in Antarctic sea ice extent through October was 903,000km2, while the October average was 985,000km2.
Nevertheless, Antarctic sea ice extent continued to track at a record low. On 31 October 2023, Antarctic sea ice extent was still tracking at a record-low of 15.79m km2. This is 750,000km2 below the previous 31 October record low………….. more https://www.carbonbrief.org/antarctic-sea-ice-behaving-strangely-as-arctic-reaches-below-average-winter-peak/
UK court orders delay to extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to US on espionage charges
By Associated Press, By OLIVER PRICE , 27 March 2024 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239885/Julian-Assange-appeal-against-extradition-court-rules.html?fbclid=IwAR05bAhgRzHKwygiC0ljNnPEU_bL1uwPz2mIRy7vU9RzSU0J_Qbi4aOpK_M_aem_AahKjiDK6G3wRltDvIaC_MtPOcRzYRMwUFpdRPeR7yiJcdMyJyjQi03SWVMX6MWQenTiiAm9LmgWVamqopIy9ZT_
The United States must give assurances that Julian Assange will not face the death penalty before judges will consider dismissing the WikiLeaks founder’s bid to bring an extradition appeal, the High Court has ruled.
Assange, 52, faces prosecution in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
In a 66-page ruling, Dame Victoria Sharp said: ‘Before making a final decision on the application for leave to appeal, we will give the respondent an opportunity to give assurances.
‘If assurances are not given then we will grant leave to appeal without a further hearing.
‘If assurances are given then we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.’
These assurances are that Assange would be protected by and allowed to rely on the First Amendment – which protects freedom of speech in the US, that he is not ‘prejudiced at trial’ due to his nationality, and that the death penalty is not imposed.
The judges said the US authorities had three weeks to give those assurances, with a final hearing potentially taking place in late May.
In her ruling, Dame Sharp said any assurances from the United States would need to include ‘that the applicant (Julian Assange) is permitted to rely on the First Amendment, that the applicant is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed’.
Speaking after the judgment, the Australian’s wife Stella Assange described the ruling as ‘astounding’.
She said: ‘What the courts have done has been to invite a political intervention from the United States… send a letter saying ‘its all ok’. I find this astounding.
‘This case is a retribution. It is a signal to all of you that if you expose the interests that are driving war they will come after you, they will put you in prison and will try to kill you.
‘The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought.’
Addressing Julian Assange’s legal ground about freedom of speech guarantees in the US, Dame Victoria Sharp said: ‘The applicant wishes to argue, at any trial in the United States, that his actions were protected by the First Amendment.
‘He contends that if he is given First Amendment rights, the prosecution will be stopped. The First Amendment is therefore of central importance to his defence to the extradition charge.’
She continued: ‘If he is not permitted to rely on the First Amendment because of his status as a foreign national, he will thereby be prejudiced, potentially very greatly prejudiced, by reason of his nationality.’
Dame Victoria concluded: ‘It follows that it is arguable that the applicant might be treated differently at trial on the grounds of his nationality.
‘Subject to the question of whether this could be addressed by means of an assurance from the respondent, we would grant leave to appeal.’
WikiLeaks initially reacted positively to the news, saying Assange had been granted ‘leave to appeal’ his extradition, but he will only be allowed to do so if ‘assurances’ are not met.
Reacting to the ruling on X, formerly Twitter, this morning, WikiLeaks posted: ‘Julian Assange has been granted leave to appeal extradition to the US.
‘Having spent almost five years detained at the UK’s most secure prison the publisher will continue his long detention separated from his young family for revealing war crimes. #FreeAssangeNOW.’
WikiLeaks has now deleted this tweet.
WikiLeaks later added: ‘The court has given US Gov 3 weeks to give satisfactory assurances: That Mr. Assange is permitted to rely on the First Amendment to the US constitution; not prejudiced at trial by reason of his nationality; and that the death penalty is not imposed. #FreeAssange.’
The hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice today was attended by Assange’s wife Stella, dozens of journalists and members of the public, with hundreds observing remotely.
Dozens of people stood outside the central London courthouse to await the judgment, holding placards bearing the message ‘Free Julian Assange’ and chanting ‘There is only one decision, no extradition’.
Speaking at a press conference after Julian Assange’s bid to appeal against extradition to the US was delayed, Jennifer Robinson, WikiLeaks legal counsel, said the decision raised ‘fundamental concerns about free speech’.
She added: ‘It is absurd that we are five years into this case and the US has not offered assurance to protect him from (the death penalty).’
Ms Robinson added: ‘The judgment today demonstrates that if Julian was extradited to the United States there is a real risk and concern that he would not be afforded free speech protections.
‘We say the US should not be offering assurance in response to this judgment, they should be dropping the case and it is a case that should never have been brought in the first place.’
Speaking after the latest Julian Assange ruling, Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: ‘A temporary reprieve is clearly preferable to an extradition that would have taken place in the coming days.
‘However, the conditionality around the grounds of appeal, which are contingent on the examination of US government assurances that he will not face the death penalty and has the right to free speech, mean the risks to Assange and press freedom remain stark.
‘Assange’s prosecution by the US is for activities that are daily work for investigative journalists – finding sources with evidence of criminality and helping them to get their stories out into the world.
‘If Assange is prosecuted, free expression the world over will be damaged.’
She added: ‘The nuanced nature of this appeal judgment makes an alternative ending to this situation even more pressing.
‘In recent months there has been increasing speculation about some kind of plea deal, to bring this saga to a swift and straightforward conclusion. I urge the US to return to these options.
‘Media freedom is under threat all over the world, compassion and common sense from the US Department of Justice would do much to restore Washington’s reputation as a bastion of free expression.’
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for the US to drop the charges against Julian Assange.
Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Corbyn said Tuesday’s decision was ‘big step forward’ for Assange’s case but that it is ‘not the victory’ his supporters are looking for.
Mr Corbyn said: ‘Above all, the pressure has to be on the US administration to drop the charges against Julian Assange.
‘He’s a brave journalist who tells the truth.’
When asked why Assange’s case was important to him, the Corbyn said: ‘Because he’s told some very uncomfortable truths about the military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places around the world, but also the effects of corporate greed on the natural world and environment.
‘If Julian goes down for that, then every serious journalist around the world is going to be feel a bit constrained, and that’s dangerous.’
n a January 2021 ruling, then-district judge Vanessa Baraitser said that Assange should not be sent to the US, citing a real and ‘oppressive’ risk of suicide, while ruling against him on all other issues.
But later that year, US authorities won their High Court bid to overturn this block, paving the way towards Assange’s extradition.
During a two-day hearing in February, lawyers for the 52-year-old asked for the go-ahead to challenge the original judge’s dismissal of other parts of his case to prevent his extradition.
And in a judgment today, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson dismissed most of Assange’s legal arguments but said that unless assurances were given by the United States, he would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds.
The judges said the US authorities had three weeks to give those assurances, with a final decision to be made in late May.
At the start of Assange’s bid last month, Mark Summers KC argued the US’s prosecution would be retribution for his political opinions, meaning it would be unlawful to extradite him under UK law.
However the two judges rejected this argument.
Dame Victoria said: ‘The applicant’s case before us amounts simply to a reassertion of his case on this issue, and a disagreement with the (district) judge’s conclusion.
‘It does not engage with the judge’s reasoning. Far less does it identify any flaw in her factual conclusions.’
Nuclear ranks last on list of good investments by big institutions
Marion Rae, Mar 25, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-ranks-last-on-list-of-good-investments-by-big-institutions/
Nuclear energy is last on the list of technologies that investors want exposure to, according to a survey of big financial institutions.
The vast majority of investors do not see nuclear power as a good investment, with less than one in 10 exploring this technology, the survey released on Monday found.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is spruiking nuclear reactors as an option for Australia’s future low-carbon economy although the energy source is illegal under existing laws and Labor has ruled it out.
Renewable energy is tipped to deliver the best long-term financial returns, with half the investors surveyed exploring opportunities to invest.
Investors have also become more confident about Australian climate policy under the Albanese government, according to the survey by the Investor Group on Climate Change.
“Investors have given the government a pretty good report card,” the group’s policy chief Erwin Jackson said.
But Australia will need globally competitive, targeted incentives to suit the nation’s economic strengths and values to stop “ongoing capital flight” to the United States and Europe where there are more generous tax breaks.
Clear timelines for the phase-out of fossil fuels by 2050 would also help investors manage transition risks and remain invested in the Australian economy, according to the group.
This year’s data includes 63 superannuation funds as well as other asset owners and managers, with more than $37 trillion in assets under management globally. Their beneficiaries include more than 15 million Australians.
Emerging priorities include clear timelines for phasing out coal, oil and gas and clear policies to build resilience and adapt to physical damage from climate change.
Opinions citing policy and regulatory uncertainty as a barrier to clean economy investment in Australia have changed dramatically, supported by four out of 10 investors compared with 7 out of 10 in 2021.
Renewable energy (47 per cent) was picked as the best option for long-term climate solutions, followed by nature-based schemes including biodiversity projects (34 per cent).
But investors are still in the dark on the federal government’s sector-by-sector decarbonisation plans for heavy polluters such as the energy, transport, agriculture and resources industries – and on the scope of the 2035 emissions reduction target.
“Credible and clear sector by sector decarbonisation plans to achieve a 2035 target with the highest possible level of ambition are critical for investment and it is critical to build on the steps already taken,” Mr Jackson said.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has said the 2035 target will be “ambitious and achievable”, with advice to come from Australia’s recently beefed-up Climate Change Authority.
The sectoral review by the authority has an August 1 deadline, and will be released shortly afterwards.
AAP
The AUKUS Cash Cow: Robbing the Australian Taxpayer
The eye-opener in the AUKMIN chatter is the promise from Canberra to send A$4.6 billion (£2.4 billion) to speed up lethargic construction at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line. There are already questions that the reactor cores, being built at Derby, will be delayed for the UK’s own Dreadnought nuclear submarine.
The eye-opener in the AUKMIN chatter is the promise from Canberra to send A$4.6 billion (£2.4 billion) to speed up lethargic construction at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line.
March 26, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/the-aukus-cash-cow-robbing-the-australian-taxpayer/
Two British ministers, the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, paid a recent visit to Australia recently as part of the AUKMIN (Australia-United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations) talks. It showed, yet again, that Australia’s government loves being mugged. Stomped on. Mowed over. Beaten.
It was mugged, from the outset, in its unconditional surrender to the US military industrial complex with the AUKUS security agreement. It was mugged in throwing money (that of the Australian taxpayer) at the US submarine industry, which is lagging in its production schedule for both the Virginia-class boats and new designs such as the Columbia class. British shipyards were hardly going to miss out on this generous distribution of Australian money, largesse ill-deserved for a flagging production line.
A joint statement on the March 22 meeting, conducted with Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, was packed with trite observations and lazy reflections about the nature of the “international order”. Ministers “agreed the contemporary [UK-Australian] relationship is responding in an agile and coordinated way to global challenges.” When it comes to matters of submarine finance and construction, agility is that last word that comes to mind.
Boxes were ticked with managerial, inconsequential rigour. Russia, condemned for its “full-scale, illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine.” Encouragement offered for Australia in training Ukrainian personnel through Operation Kudu and joining the Drone Capability Coalition. Exaggerated “concern at the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Praise for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and “respect of navigation.”
The relevant pointers were to be found later in the statement. The UK has been hoping for a greater engagement in the Indo-Pacific (those damn French take all the plaudits from the European power perspective), and the AUKUS bridge has been one excuse for doing so. Accordingly, this signalled a “commitment to a comprehensive and modern defence relationship, underlined by the signing of the updated Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Defence and Security Cooperation.”
When politicians need to justify opening the public wallet, such tired terms as “unprecedented”, “threat” and “changing” are used. These are the words of foreign minister Wong: “Australia and the United Kingdom are building on our longstanding strategic partnership to address our challenging and rapidly changing world.” Marles preferred the words “an increasingly complex strategic environment.” Shapps followed a similar line of thinking. “Nuclear-powered submarines are not cheap, but we live in a much more dangerous world, where we are seeing a much more assertive region [with] China, a much more dangerous world all around with what is happening in the Middle East and Europe.” Hardly a basis for the submarines, but the fetish is strong and gripping.
With dread, critics of AUKUS would have noted yet another round of promised disgorging. Britain’s submarine industry is even more lagging than that of the United States, and bringing Britannia aboard the subsidy truck is yet another signal that the AUKUS submarines, when and if they ever get off the design page and groan off the shipyards, are guaranteed well deserved obsolescence or glorious unworkability.
A separate statement released by all the partners of the AUKUS agreement glories in the SSN-AUKUS submarine, intended as a joint effort between BAE Systems and the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC). (BAE Systems, it should be remembered, is behind the troubled Hunter-class frigate program, one plagued by difficulties in unproven capabilities.)
An already challenging series of ingredients is further complicated by the US role as well. “SSN-AUKUS is being trilaterally developed, based on the United Kingdom’s next designs and incorporation technology from all three nations, including cutting edge United States submarine technologies.” This fabled fiction “will be equipped for intelligence, surveillance, undersea warfare and strike missions, and will provide maximum interoperability among AUKUS partners.” The ink on this is clear: the Royal Australian Navy will, as with any of the promised second-hand Virginia-class boats, be a subordinate partner.
In this, a false sense of submarine construction is being conveyed through what is termed the “Optimal Pathway”, ostensibly to “create a stronger, more resilient trilateral submarine industrial base, supporting submarine production and maintenance in all three countries.” In actual fact, the Australian leg of this entire effort is considerably greater in supporting the two partners, be it in terms of upgrading HMAS Stirling in Western Australia to permit UK and US SSNs to dock as part of Submarine Rotational Force West from 2027, and infrastructure upgrades in South Australia. It all has the appearance of garrisoning by foreign powers, a reality all the more startling given various upgrades to land and aerial platforms for the United States in the Northern Territory.
The eye-opener in the AUKMIN chatter is the promise from Canberra to send A$4.6 billion (£2.4 billion) to speed up lethargic construction at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line. There are already questions that the reactor cores, being built at Derby, will be delayed for the UK’s own Dreadnought nuclear submarine. The amount, it was stated by the Australian government, was deemed “an appropriate and proportionate contribution to expand production and accommodate Australia’s requirements.” Hardly.
Ultimately, this absurd spectacle entails a windfall of cash, ill-deserved funding to two powers with little promise of returns and no guarantees of speedier boat construction. The shipyards of both the UK and the United States can take much joy from this, as can those keen to further proliferate nuclear platforms, leaving the Australian voter with that terrible feeling of being, well, mugged.
On nuclear, Coalition prefers the optimism of misleading, decade-old, unverified claims
The Coalition is a fan of quoting the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s optimism on nuclear timelines compared to the CSIRO. But do the numbers add up?
JOHN QUIGGIN, MAR 22, 2024, https://johnquigginblog.substack.com/p/on-nuclear-coalition-prefers-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=806934&post_id=142847313&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
To the extent that most Australians have heard of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), we know it as a supplier of radio-isotopes for use in medicine and as the operator of a small research reactor at Lucas Heights in the suburbs of Sydney.
So, it may have come as a surprise to hear shadow energy minister Ted O’Brien cite ANSTO as the source for an estimate that a small modular reactor (SMR) could be constructed in three to five years, and a large reactor in eight to 12 years.
Appearing on the ABC’s 7:30 report in mid-March, O’Brien stated “that is the advice from ANSTO. That is the advice of the Albanese government’s nuclear agency”. In view of the fact that widely publicised advice from an extensive study undertaken by CSIRO yields much less optimistic conclusions, that seems like a surprising claim.
But O’Brien is correct. ANSTO is indeed the government agency officially advising on nuclear technology, including nuclear power.
Section 5 of the ANSTO Act mandates the organisation provide advice on aspects of and the application and use of nuclear science and nuclear technology. ANSTO provides such advice to government, parliaments, ministers, departments and agencies, inquiries and investigations, members of the public, and international, multilateral and bilateral partners — in pursuit of the national interest.
In a submission to the Senate standing committee on environment and the communications inquiry into the environment and other legislation amendment (Removing Nuclear Energy Prohibitions) Bill 2022, ANSTO stated that SMRs “have the potential to reduce build costs using a variety of strategies, including reducing plant build times from six to eight years for large reactors to two and a half to four years for SMRs via the use of series-production methods“.
These numbers are even more optimistic than those cited by Ted O’Brien. But terms like “potential” can do a lot of work in claims of this kind. Nuclear fusion, for example, has the potential to meet all the energy needs of the planet, but it won’t do so any time soon.
A natural response from an interested member of the public would be to visit the ANSTO website to get more detailed information on the assessment of nuclear technology. This leads us to a webpage titled “What are small modular reactors and what makes them different?”, which leads with the claim “the USA is expected to have its first SMR operating by 2026” and includes the timeframe of three to five years for construction.
A note hastily added in the last week states: “Please note that this content was current at the time of publishing (July 2020), and the projected construction time of SMRs (three to five years) is referenced from a University of Leeds research paper. In November 2023, NuScale [the subject of the 2026 claim] announced it was discontinuing its SMR project in Idaho.”
Even in 2020, this research was out of date. The NuScale project, originally projected to be delivering power in 2023, had already pushed its target past 2026 by then. But given that the project has been abandoned, there’s no need to look too closely at this.
The University of Leeds paper is more interesting. It turns out to be a literature survey covering the period 2004-19. The three- to five-year estimate for the construction time for SMRs is taken from a non-peer-reviewed 2016 report by consulting firm Ernst and Young (which worked with one of the authors on the University of Leeds study). The information used to compile the report is even older, going back to 2014 or earlier. To put it bluntly, this is worthless.
Rather than complying with its legal obligation to keep abreast of nuclear power technology and inform the public of its findings, ANSTO has relied on decade-old, unverified claims, made by a consulting company. This sloppy treatment of an issue that should be a central focus of ANSTO analysis contrasts sharply with the careful assessment undertaken by CSIRO.
I went to ANSTO for a response but didn’t hear back.
Ted O’Brien can scarcely be blamed for taking ANSTO’s word on these matters, particularly when its claims are so convenient to his case. But ANSTO needs to retract its misleading claims as soon as possible. That would give the LNP an opportunity, if it wants it, to drop its nuclear policy and put the blame on an Albanese government agency for misleading it.
One final irony. The ban on nuclear power, which is now the subject of so much controversy, was introduced by the Howard government to secure the passage of legislation that allowed ANSTO to build a new research reactor at Lucas Heights. In light of this history, maybe ANSTO’s remit should be revised to steer the organisation clear of nuclear power once and for all.
The extraordinary financial costs of ‘small’ nuclear power stations
By Alan Finkel, Cosmos, 21 Mar 24
Partial extract from an article to be posted in 360info.org
They’re being touted as the solution to kickstarting a nuclear power industry in Australia.
According to the Opposition’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Ted O’Brien, small modular reactors (SMR) could be built within ten-year period if it wins the next election.
However, it would likely take 20 years to commence commercial operation of any nuclear reactors in Australia from the time in-principle approval was reached. To reach that starting point and enable detailed consideration of the challenges and costs of nuclear power, the existing legislative ban on nuclear power in Australia will need to be removed.
There are other obstacles.
While there’s plenty of excitement about SMRs, the problem is there just isn’t enough data about them, mainly because there are none operating in any OECD country.
And it’s unknown when any might be. As Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory commission, argues in her article,The end of Oppenheimer’s energy dream, the proposal for small modular reactors to help us in the clean energy transition is fanciful.
The SMR furthest along the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approval process, from the US company NuScale, cancelled its first planned installation in Utah last November when the initial cost blew out to USD$9 billion, corresponding to USD$20 billion per GW.
The only countries with working SMRs are China and Russia.
Micro and large reactors
Micro reactors are intended to generate electrical power up to 10 MW per unit. Although companies such as Rolls Royce are developing these, there do not appear to be any commercial micro modular reactors that have completed their design.
That leaves full-scale reactors, which have also been mentioned as part of a possible Australian nuclear power play.
Korean company KEPCO builds most of the nuclear reactors in Korea and has now built one at Barakah in the United Arab Emirates. This 5.6 GW plant, scheduled to open this year, has taken 16 years to complete and cost USD$24 billion (AUD$36 billion). At 5.6 GW, that is AUD$6.4 billion per GW. Given salaries and skills shortages in Australia, inflation, interest rates and our regulatory requirements, it would cost more and take longer in Australia.
The Hinkley C plant in the UK was supposed to be finished in 2017 but has been delayed again until 2031 – 23 years after approval. The estimated construction cost ballooned to AUD$89 billion. At 3.2 GW electrical power, that is AUD$28 billion per GW.
In the US, the most recent nuclear reactors to be built are the Vogtle 3 and 4built at the existing facility that is home to the Vogtle 1 and 2 reactors. Both were anticipated to be in service in 2016. Vogtle 3 began commercial operation in July 2023. Vogtle 4 is projected to commence operation in the second quarter of 2024 – 15 years after the construction contract was awarded.
Construction cost USD$34 billion (AUD$52 billion) for the combined 2.2 GW output of the two reactors, or AUD$24 billion per GW.
Construction of nuclear plants in the United States has declined dramatically over the years. Approximately 130 were built from the mid 1950s to the mid 1990s. Only four commenced operation in the 30 years from the mid 1990s to now, and at the time of writing there are no nuclear reactors under construction in the United States.
In France, only one nuclear power plant is under construction. The 1.65 GW Flamanville EPR reactor is hoped to be completed and begin to supply electricity later this year, 17 years after construction began. The most recent cost estimate was AUD$22 billion or AUD$13 billion per GW. No other nuclear power plants are planned in France.
These high costs and long delivery durations for full-scale reactors are the reasons SMRs are proposed as a way forward in Australia. However, SMRs are a new technology. There are none in operation or construction in any OECD countries, thus it is not possible to estimate the costs or delivery schedules. NuScale’s investment to date suggests that the capital cost for the first units to be delivered will be very high. ………… https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/energy/the-extraordinary-financial-costs-of-nuclear-power/
Climate-conscious investors put nuclear dead last on list of desirable Australian ventures
Fewer than one in 10 investors exploring new investments in the technology, with most preferring renewables
Guardian, Paul Karp Chief political correspondent, 25 Mar 24
Nuclear energy ranks last on the list of climate technologies that big institutional investors want exposure to, according to a survey of climate conscious investors with $37tn under management.
Fewer than one in 10 investors were exploring new investments in nuclear technology in the survey of the Investor Group on Climate Change, whose 100 members include super funds and asset managers looking after the funds of 15 million Australians.
The survey found a rebound in confidence in Australia’s climate policy but a growing appetite for clear timelines for the phase-out of coal, oil and gas.
The opposition, led by Peter Dutton, plans to propose locating nuclear power plants on the site of retiring coal power plants, claiming that this would save having to build new transmission infrastructure for renewables.
But the plan has been widely panned. The energy department has estimated it would cost $387bn to go nuclear, and Dutton faces opposition from his own state colleagues.
Australia’s big private electricity generators have dismissed nuclear energy as a viable source of power for their customers for at least another decade, and likely more.
In the yearly survey by the Investor Group on Climate Change investors were asked which energy and climate solutions they believed had good long-term returns. Nuclear energy was ranked last of 14 possible responses, along with sustainable oceans.
“This is due to nuclear energy’s very high cost, and the lack of maturity and deployment in next generation technologies,” a policy brief on the survey said, citing the CSIRO’s gencost report.
The five most popular options were: renewable energy (backed by 47% of respondents); nature solutions, including biodiversity or nature capital (34%); energy storage (32%); low carbon transport (32%); and industry/materials, including critical minerals (32%).
In 2021 about 70% of investors cited policy and regulatory uncertainty as a barrier to investing in climate solutions, a figure that dropped to 40% in the 2023 data released on Monday.
Asked to nominate the policies they wanted the government to prioritise, most investors (56%) called for sector-by-sector decarbonisation plans to keep global heating under the 1.5C threshold.
There was also majority support for improved carbon pricing through the safeguard mechanism (54%), funding support for new technology (53%), and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies (51%).
The policy brief said “emerging priorities” included mandatory climate-related disclosures, timelines for the phase-out of coal, oil and gas, and clear policies to build resilience and adapt to the physical damages of climate change.
Erwin Jackson, Investor Group on Climate Change’s managing director of policy, said: “Investors have given the government a pretty good report card………………………………………………….more https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/25/climate-conscious-investors-put-nuclear-dead-last-on-list-of-desirable-australian-ventures
Man blames nuclear meltdown for deformities in city more radioactive than Chernobyl
Ozersk – code named City 40 – was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme, now it’s one of the most contaminated places on the planet with residents exposed to high radiation levels.
By Kelly Williams, Assistant News Editor (Live) https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/man-blames-nuclear-meltdown-deformities-32405120
A man living in a secret city five times more radioactive than Chernobyl has been left with facial deformities he blames on huge nuclear meltdowns.
Vakil Batirshin has massively swollen lymph nodes said to be caused by radiation-related illness. He lives in Ozersk – code named City 40 in Russia – which was built in total secrecy around the huge Mayak nuclear power plant by the Soviets in 1946.
For the first eight years after City 40 was built, Ozersk residents were forbidden from communicating with the outside world. Like Chernobyl, it was designed as a place to house the scientists working at the plant who – unbeknownst to the world – were leading the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons programme during the Cold War era.
Locals were told they were “the nuclear shield and saviours of the world,” and everyone on the outside was an enemy.
They also kept it a secret that the extreme exposure to radiation was affecting the health of the city’s inhabitants. They started to get sick and die and the authorities were clandestine about the mortality rate.
However, the city’s graveyard with all its young victims tells the story.
Ozersk, nicknamed “The graveyard of the Earth,” was surrounded by guarded gates and barbed wire fences and did not appear on any maps.
Its inhabitants’ identities were also erased from the Soviet census to guard their secret.
The Mayak nuclear plant went through Russia’s biggest nuclear disaster when the facility allegedly dumped 200million curies worth of radioactive material into the environment around Ozersk.
The residents also suffered the Kyshtym disaster in 1957, the worst nuclear disaster the world had seen before Chernobyl.
Radiation bathed the city when a cooling system exploded at Mayak with the force of 100 tons of dynamite.
One of the nearby lakes has been so heavily contaminated by plutonium that locals have renamed it the “Lake of Death” or “Plutonium Lake”.
In an interview which resurfaced earlier this week on X (formerly Twitter), Vakil Batirshin struggles to speak, his neck is painfully swollen from lymph nodes that have grown to triple their normal size.
His exact diagnosis remains steeped in mystery as doctors say it can be hard to trace any one condition to radiation.
But asked if he has any doubt his symptoms are related to radioactivity, he said: “Well, when I lived in my home village, I didn’t have anything. Everything was great.
“When I came here, it all started.”
Another resident, Gilani Dambaev is riddled with diseases doctors think are linked to a lifetime’s exposure to excessive radiation. He and his family have government-issued cards identifying them as residents of radiation-tainted territory.
He said: “Sometimes they would put up signs warning us not to swim in the river, but they never said why. After work, we would go swimming in the river. The kids would too.”
Although the secret is now out and Ozyorsk resembles “a suburban 1950s American town” according to The Guardian, residents know their water is contaminated, their crops are poisoned, and their children may be sick.
Half a million people in Ozersk and its surrounding area are said to have been exposed to five times as much radiation as those living in the areas of Ukraine affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
But most refused to leave, because while the Soviet population were suffering from famine and living in extreme poverty, the city was regarded as a paradise as authorities gave them private apartments, plenty of food, good schools and healthcare, and a plethora of entertainment and cultural activities.
Even still, residents opt against leaving. The Guardian reported that “it is prestigious to live in Ozersk.”
Residents describe it as a town of “intellectuals”, where they are used to getting “the best of everything for free”.
Living in Mayak’s nuclear shadow and resigned to her fate, one said: “I don’t hope for anything anymore. If we get sick, we get sick.”
Some locals, however, claim that long term dumping by the nuclear plant’s management continues today.
The government has started resettling residents to new homes away from the river, but the process only began in 2008.
‘The graveyard of the Earth’: inside City 40, Russia’s deadly nuclear secret
The city’s residents know the truth, however: that their water is contaminated, their mushrooms and berries are poisoned, and their children may be sick. Ozersk and the surrounding region is one of the most contaminated places on the planet, referred to by some as the “graveyard of the Earth”.
City 40’s inhabitants were told they were “the nuclear shield and saviours of the world”
From the late 1940s, people here started to get sick and die: the victims of long-term exposure to radiation.
‘The graveyard of the Earth’: inside City 40, Russia’s deadly nuclear secret, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/20/graveyard-earth-inside-city-40-ozersk-russia-deadly-secret-nuclear Samira Goetschel, Wed 20 Jul 2016 Ozersk, codenamed City 40, was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme. Now it is one of the most contaminated places on the planet – so why do so many residents still view it as a fenced-in paradise?
“Those in paradise were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.” (From the dystopian novel We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1924)
Deep in the vast forests of Russia’s Ural mountains lies the forbidden city of Ozersk. Behind guarded gates and barbed wire fences stands a beautiful enigma – a hypnotic place that seems to exist in a different dimension.
Codenamed City 40, Ozersk was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme after the second world war. For decades, this city of 100,000 people did not appear on any maps, and its inhabitants’ identities were erased from the Soviet census.
Today, with its beautiful lakes, perfumed flowers and picturesque tree-lined streets, Ozersk resembles a suburban 1950s American town – like one of those too-perfect places depicted in The Twilight Zone.
Continue readingTODAY. UK High Court caving in before USA’s power, leaving decision on Julian Assange’s future up to USA’s “kindness”?
Well, well, what better example of America’s dominance over the anglophone world could you find?
The UK High Court was charged with making a decision on whether or not Julian Assange could appeal against the British government’s decision to extradite him to the USA on charges of ” complicity in illegal acts to obtain or receive voluminous databases of classified information and for agreeing and attempting to obtain classified information through computer hacking”, under the rarely used Espionage Act of 1917
This High Court case is the latest in the series of legal cases around the issue of extradition.
Julian Assange has languished for almost five years, in solitary confinement, in the notorious Belmarsh prison, Britain’s “Guantanamo Bay” for the worst criminals. Now he has to endure this for more weeks. Talk about death by a thousand cuts. ( Perhaps Russia is kinder – they just poison their problem people, or crash them in a plane – it’s quicker)
All this because Assange revealed and published the truth about America’s military atrocities.
So – now we know.
If a journalist anywhere in the world should have the temerity to reveal inconvenient facts about the USA military, then look out!
Not only are the Western political leaders, and especially in the anglophone countries, subservient to their master – the USA, but now we know that even their legal systems are subservient too.
Dame Victoria Sharp, took 66 pages to explain why the High Court couldn’t actually make a decision, without the blessing of the USA government.
So – the High Court will reconvene in three weeks, after receiving “assurances” from the USA government – about no death penalty (on the present charges, they could make new ones?), that he is permitted to rely on the First Amendment, – he is not ‘prejudiced at trial’ .
Of course the USA government will come up with kindly phrases – not worth the paper they are written on.
It’s a sad day for justice.
UK Court to Decide Tuesday If Julian Assange Can Appeal Extradition
The decision will be issued at 10:30 am London time
by Dave DeCamp March 25, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/03/25/uk-court-to-decide-if-julian-assange-can-appeal-extradition/
London’s High Court will rule on Tuesday whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the United States, where he would face trial for exposing US war crimes.
According to WikiLeaks, the written ruling is due to be delivered by 10:30 am London time.
Last month, Assange’s legal team presented its case for the appeal. His lawyers also introduced new evidence, including a bombshell report from Yahoo News that revealed the CIA in 2017, under Mike Pompeo at the time, considered kidnapping and even discussed assassinating Assange over WikiLeaks publishing detailed the CIA’s hacking tools, known as Vault 7.
Assange did not attend the two-day hearing due to his poor health, and he remains in London’s Belmarsh Prison, where he’s been held since 2019. Assange’s family and legal team believe he will die if extradited to the US.
The news of the High Court’s impending decision comes after The Wall Street Journal reported that the US was considering offering a plea deal to Assange and that Justice Department officials had preliminary talks with his legal team. However, Assange’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said in response to the report that the US has “given no indication” that the US will take a deal.
Assange faces 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one charge for conspiracy to commit a computer intrusion for obtaining and publishing documents from a source, a standard journalistic practice. If Assange is convicted, it would set a grave precedent for press freedom in the US and around the world. A plea deal that criminalizes the journalist-source relationship could also set a dangerous precedent.
WikiLeaks has been asking Americans to put pressure on the Biden administration to stop its pursuit of Assange by contacting their House representatives and telling them to support H.Res.934, a bill introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) that calls for the US to drop the charges against Assange.
UN Security Council ceasefire resolution a turning point in Gaza war
March 26, 2024, by: The AIM Network, m https://theaimn.com/un-security-council-ceasefire-resolution-a-turning-point-in-gaza-war/
Australian Council for International Development Media Release
Australia’s peak body for international humanitarian organisations welcomes the United Nations Security Council’s resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and release of all hostages as a crucial turning point in the war.
Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) CEO Marc Purcell said it marked a significant breakthrough despite the United States’ decision to abstain from voting.
“This passage of this binding resolution, following four failed attempts since the start of the war, shows global leaders are no longer willing to accept the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, many of them children, as collateral,” he said.
“The US’ decision to abstain is disappointing, particularly since it put forward its own failed proposal for a ceasefire just days ago. It is essential the US use its influence and relationship with Israel to obtain a permanent ceasefire.
“We are hopeful the passage of this resolution overnight marks a crucial turning point in the war that has killed nearly 32,000 civilians through bombing, starvation and dehydration.
“It is vital that both the state of Israel and militant groups immediately lay down arms to allow for the passage of humanitarian assistance, which is still being blocked from entry into Gaza, and the release of all hostages.”
ACFID is urging the Australian government to commit additional and ongoing funding for the humanitarian response in Gaza and the West bank, including for Australian non-government organisations providing lifesaving assistance.
BASE study: Alternative reactor concepts do not solve the repository problem
A new scientific study commissioned by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) indicates that the market launch of alternative reactor concepts (also known as “Generation IV”) is currently not on the horizon.
“Despite some intensive advertising by manufacturers, we currently see no development that would make the construction of alternative reactor types on a large scale likely in the coming years. On the contrary: “From a safety perspective, we should expect the potential advantages of these reactor concepts to be outweighed by the disadvantages and the questions that remain unresolved,” says BASE President Christian Kühn, and emphasises that “The concepts solve neither the need to find a repository for radio-active waste nor the pressing issues of climate protection.”
The alternative reactor concepts, which include SMRs, are also often linked to the hope that they can minimise or even resolve the safety risks and disposal problems associated with nuclear power. To examine these claims, BASE commissioned the “Analysis and evaluation of the development status, the safety and the regulatory framework for so-called novel reactor concepts” study. The scientific work was carried out by the Öko-Institut, the Technical University of Berlin and the Physikerbüro Bremen.
“No alternative reactor type would make a repository superfluous”
The study analysed seven technology lines for alternative reactor concepts, which have been discussed internationally for many years, and are sometimes referred to as “fourth-generation reactors”. These include, for example, so-called lead and gas-cooled reactors, molten salt reactors and accelerator-driven systems. “Anyone who is euphoric about alternative reactor concepts today is ignoring unanswered questions and safety risks. As far as the safety of nuclear waste management is concerned, one thing is clear: no alternative reactor type makes the construction of a repository superfluous,” thus BASE President Kühn.
According to their developers, the reactors of the generation IV reactors will offer advantages over today’s nuclear power plants in terms of fuel utilisation, safety and reliability, economic efficiency and nuclear non-proliferation. Another advantage is said to be that less high-level radioactive waste is produced or that even existing waste can be disposed of with the help of these reactors.
The study compared the reactor concepts in terms of their safety, efficiency, proliferation resistance and fuel consumption.
“Individual technology lines could – with a systematic design – achieve potential advantages over today’s light water reactors regarding some of the criteria. However, none of the technology lines can be expected to have an overall advantage; in some areas, disadvantages compared to today’s light water reactors are also possible,” says Christoph Pistner of the Öko-Institut.
An analysis of six countries revealed as follows: “Even in an international context, alternative reactor concepts neither call into question the current trend towards light water reactors, nor do they represent a feasible, economical option for future energy supply,” says Christian von Hirschhausen of TU Berlin. “The study explains this on the basis of six detailed country studies (USA, Russia, China, South Korea, Poland, Belgium). Especially the United States, who are often the subject of public discussion, have not achieved any breakthroughs in the development of non-light water reactors, and have even cancelled previously announced inventions (“travelling wave reactor”).”
Findings of the study
The BASE-funded research project draws the following conclusions:
- State of development: All the concepts that are currently being discussed as belonging to the term “Generation IV” have been under development for decades, in some cases since the 1950s, and have not yet reached market maturity. There is still a considerable need for research and development. If the technical hurdles and safety issues can be resolved, further development would most likely take several decades. Against this background, we cannot assume that such reactor concepts will be used on a relevant scale by the middle of this century. In particular, individual country studies show that a system change from light water reactors to alternative reactor concepts ready for series production is not in sight.
- Waste generation: The alternative reactors would still generate high-level radioactive waste, some of which would be very different to the waste from light water reactors, for example because it would not be present as solid fuel elements but as molten salt. This would make waste treatment much more difficult, as current repository plans are generally not designed for this kind of waste. The volume of high-level radioactive waste could be reduced in conjunction with reprocessing technologies, but the volume of intermediate and low-level radioactive waste would increase significantly.
Transmutation properties: Some of the reactor concepts studied could, in theory, be used to split (transmute) individual parts of the existing high-level radioactive waste. This would involve a great deal of effort over a long period of time. However, the foreseeable effect of these measures would only make a comparatively small contribution to reducing the space requirements of a repository and to its long-term safety. This is due, in particular, to the fact that the substances with the greatest impact on safety (long-lived fission products) are difficult to transmute, and are therefore not intended for this purpose.- Regulations: The regulations of international organisations (e.g. IAEA) and national regulations (USA, Canada and the UK) examined in this study sometimes make very detailed, technology-specific provisions based on decades of operating experience with light water reactors. These regulations are, therefore, not directly applicable to the alternative reactor concepts studied. Revisions are currently underway, but due to a significantly lower level of operating experience, the time required to produce a similarly well-founded set of rules is likely to be very long.
Transmutation properties: Some of the reactor concepts studied could, in theory, be used to split (transmute) individual parts of the existing high-level radioactive waste. This would involve a great deal of effort over a long period of time. However, the foreseeable effect of these measures would only make a comparatively small contribution to reducing the space requirements of a repository and to its long-term safety. This is due, in particular, to the fact that the substances with the greatest impact on safety (long-lived fission products) are difficult to transmute, and are therefore not intended for this purpose.- Regulations: The regulations of international organisations (e.g. IAEA) and national regulations (USA, Canada and the UK) examined in this study sometimes make very detailed, technology-specific provisions based on decades of operating experience with light water reactors. These regulations are, therefore, not directly applicable to the alternative reactor concepts studied. Revisions are currently underway, but due to a significantly lower level of operating experience, the time required to produce a similarly well-founded set of rules is likely to be very long.
Conclusion: The expectation expressed both in public debate and by developers that the alternative reactor concepts can make a significant contribution to solving today’s problems in nuclear technology cannot be considered realistic in view of the current state of development of these systems and the actually proven and expected advantages and disadvantages of the individual technology lines.
The summary of the study results (in German only)
Conclusion: The expectation expressed both in public debate and by developers that the alternative reactor concepts can make a significant contribution to solving today’s problems in nuclear technology cannot be considered realistic in view of the current state of development of these systems and the actually proven and expected advantages and disadvantages of the individual technology lines
AUKUS: Red flag for arms industry corruption
There has been almost no public commentary about the likely influence of the arms industry in the secretive AUKUS deal.
MICHELLE FAHY, MAR 22, 2024, https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/aukus-red-flag-for-arms-industry?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=142851171&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The arms trade is known for being one of the most corrupt of all legal international trades.
UK research shows that this corruption drives and distorts arms procurement decisions. Arms purchases that were not previously being considered can suddenly appear on the agenda.
Before delving into AUKUS, an egregious distortion in Australian defence procurement, I’ll briefly revisit the original French submarine contract.
The research shows that submarines, in particular, are a procurement area where a very high proportion of the small overall number of deals involve major corruption.
French multinational Naval Group had been wrangling with Malcolm Turnbull’s government for almost two years trying to get the formal contract signed.
In August 2018, Scott Morrison became PM.
Soon after, Naval Group hired David Gazard, well-connected lobbyist, former Liberal candidate, and close friend of Scott Morrison, to help them get the deal over the line.
Within months, the Morrison government had signed the contract.
In early 2019, the ABC reported, ‘Naval Group confirmed the arrangement but did not disclose how much Mr Gazard’s company was being paid for its lobbying services’.
Mr Gazard’s company, DPG Advisory Solutions, declined to comment to the ABC about its role. I sent similar questions to Mr Gazard this week and received no response by deadline.
At the time Australia put Naval Group on the shortlist, the company was under investigation for corruption in three other arms deals: two for submarines (Pakistan and Malaysia) and one for frigates (Taiwan). The Abbott government would have known this.
These were not minor corruption cases: all involved murder.
French authorities commenced another corruption investigation into Naval Group (submarines; Brazil) in late 2016, after Australia had awarded Naval Group the deal, but before we signed the contract.
How did the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments shortlist, select, and then sign a contract with a company being investigated in four separate corruption cases?
Murder, corruption, bombings – the company at centre of Australia’s submarine deal
Naval Group was selected by the Australian government to build its new fleet of submarines while at the centre of a deadly criminal saga and numerous global corruption scandals. How did this happen? MICHELLE FAHY, OCT 24, 2020
AUKUS submarines
BAE Systems Australia is Defence’s largest contractor and has been for six of the past eight years.
BAE Systems is set to be a significant beneficiary of AUKUS.
Six months ago, the UK Government awarded the company a £3.95 billion (A$7.5 billion) contract for the detailed design phase of the AUKUS submarines.
On Friday, Defence Minister Richard Marles announced that Australia will send $4.6 billion (£2.4 billion) to the UK. Australia’s money will contribute to BAE’s detailed design phase of the AUKUS submarines and will also help clear bottlenecks in the Rolls Royce nuclear reactor production line.
This $4.6 billion expenditure is in addition to the $3 billion of Australian money already committed to support US naval shipyards.
The UK’s current submarine programs (managed by BAE) are running well behind schedule raising questions about whether BAE can deliver on the AUKUS agreement.
BAE Systems also provides perhaps the best-known example of systematic high-level arms industry corruption.
Britain’s series of arms deals with Saudi Arabia was, and remains, its biggest ever arms deal. It earned BAE Systems at least £43 billion in revenue between 1985 and 2007, with further deals still ongoing. The deal included £6 billion pounds in ‘commissions’ (bribes), paid to the Saudis.
In addition, during the 1990s and 2000s, in ‘a deliberate choice that came from the top’, BAE Systems maintained a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands called Red Diamond Trading. This vehicle channelled hundreds of millions of pounds of bribes around the globe to key decision makers in a succession of arms deals.
The Guardian’s BAE Files contain 15 years of reporting on this subject.
Sinking billions: Undergunned and overpriced. Missing records, billions in over-runs, conflicts of interest, and flawed ships. How the Defence Department’s new frigates project is a boondoggle for a British weapons-maker. MICHELLE FAHY, JUL 03, 2023
It has also been revealed that BAE Systems was given the Hunter class frigate contract despite ‘long-running concerns’ inside Defence about BAE’s alleged inflation of invoices by tens of millions of dollars on the earlier Adelaide class of frigates.
Detailed allegations of fraud in the Adelaide-class contracts, including by Thales Australia, were published in three separate articles by The Weekend Australian in May 2019.
A Defence internal audit had reportedly found that BAE’s contract was ‘riddled with cost overruns, with the British company consistently invoicing questionable charges’.
Defence launched a second investigation.
18 months later, I asked Defence about the outcome of its second investigation. This was their response:
An independent internal review of this matter found no evidence of inappropriate excess charges by BAE and Thales. The investigation did find some minor administrative issues which have been subsequently addressed through additional training. This training is now part of the normal cycle and is routinely refreshed.
The ‘independent’ review was conducted in secret by an existing defence contractor. His report was not made public.
Defence said ‘no evidence’ was found of inappropriate excess charges. Yet the allegations were apparently so serious they were referred to Defence’s assistant secretary of fraud control who then referred several matters to the Independent Assurance Business Analysis and Reform Branch of Defence.
Recently, I have been collaborating with UK colleagues trying to uncover more about the Adelaide-class contracts. Freedom of Information requests have been lodged. Defence has blocked them, refusing to release a single page.
An appeal was submitted, Defence blocked that too. We have now appealed to the Information Commissioner.
If this was merely ‘a minor administrative issue’ that has been resolved by ‘additional training’, why the aggressive blocking of any release of information through FoI?
Undue influence and the revolving door
I will finish by outlining a mini case study of undue influence and the revolving door – that of former CEO of BAE Systems Australia, Jim McDowell.
I am not implying any illegality on the part of Mr McDowell. I am simply laying out an array of his government appointments – not all of them – to highlight the extensive influence that just one person can have.
Jim McDowell had a 17-year career with BAE Systems including a decade as its chief executive in Australia, then two years running its lucrative Saudi Arabian business. He resigned from BAE in Saudi Arabia in December 2013.
In 2014, McDowell was appointed by the Coalition to a four-person panel undertaking the First Principles Review of Defence. This Review recommended sweeping reforms to the Defence Department, including its procurement processes, which have largely benefited major arms companies.
In 2015, the Coalition appointed McDowell to a 4-person expert advisory panel overseeing the tender process for the original submarine contract. When he announced McDowell as being part of this panel, Defence Minister Kevin Andrews didn’t mention McDowell’s long history with BAE Systems, which had ended only 18 months earlier. It was highly relevant, as BAE designs and manufactures Britain’s submarines.
In late 2016, then-defence industry minister Christopher Pyne hired McDowell as his adviser to develop the Naval Shipbuilding Plan. The appointment was not announced publicly. At that time, McDowell was also on the board of Australian shipbuilder Austal.
Under the shipbuilding plan, Austal subsequently won a contract to build six more Cape-class patrol boats while BAE Systems won the biggest prize, the Hunter-class frigate contract.
After the frigate deal was announced, South Australian premier Steve Marshall hired McDowell to head his Department of Premier and Cabinet. SA was the state that gained most from the shipbuilding plan.
In 2020, McDowell left the South Australian public service to become CEO of Nova Systems, a key defence contractor.
Last year, McDowell moved back through the revolving door into a senior role with the Defence Department. He is now Deputy Secretary for Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment, reporting directly to defence secretary Greg Moriarty.
When appointed, McDowell said his new role was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down because it ‘provides the ability for me to shape the future of Australia’s shipbuilding and sustainment’.
In my view, McDowell’s long list of sensitive senior appointments should not have been possible. He cannot be the only person in the country qualified to undertake each of these roles.
This was a brief discussion of some aspects of the undue influence of the arms industry in Australia. I raise these issues in this AUKUS context because there has been almost no public commentary about the likely influence of the arms industry in the AUKUS deal.
This is an edited and updated version of a speech given on 12.3.24 at the Independent & Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) forum, ‘AUKUS and Military Escalation: Who Pays and Who Benefits?’. The other speakers were Allan Behm, Dr Sue Wareham and Professor Hugh White. Speeches can be viewed here.
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