Japan Earthquake: Water Levels Rose At Shika Nuclear Plant After Monday’s Tsunami, Says Report
Earlier, it was said that there was no significant change in water levels while monitoring the gauge at Shika nuclear plant.
The water levels rose at Japan nuclear plant— Shika after Monday’s tsunami.
The broadcaster NHK quoting the operator of the nuclear power plant in quake-hit Ishikawa Prefecture said water levels rose by about three meters at the site following tsunami triggered by the magnitude 7.6 earthquake in central Japan.
The plant is located in the prefecture’s Noto region, the report mentioned.
A major tsunami warning was temporarily issued for the area following the quake, which struck around 4:10 p.m. on Monday, the report mentioned.
It also stated the waves later reached multiple locations along the Sea of Japan coast.
Staff at Hokuriku Electric Power Company checked a water level gauge near a seawater intake. They found out the level had been three meters higher than usual between 5:45 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Monday,” it said.
Earlier, it was said that there was no significant change in water levels while monitoring the gauge at the plant.
It was also said a four-meter high seawall installed to protect the No.1 reactor was tilting by several centimeters when its workers took a second look at the plant premises, the report mentioned.
The report mentioned some systems at the plant are not functioning after pipes of transformers used to supply outside electricity to the reactors sustained damage in the earthquake. The rupture led to oil leaks, it said.
The operator says the plant is using other means to supply power to critical equipment, the report said.
The report said the recovery work started on Tuesday and is proceeding quickly. That work includes retrieving the leaked oil, it said.
Both the No.1 and No.2 reactors at the plant were taken offline long before the earthquake, the report said.
Nuke policy quietly nuked: Australia to fund US nuclear weapon delivery program
Greens Defence Spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge said, “When will the Albanese government start telling the whole truth about AUKUS and how Australians will be paying to help build the next class of US ballistic missile submarines?”
by Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling | Jan 2, 2024, https://michaelwest.com.au/australia-to-fund-nuclear-missiles-aukus/
A newly released Congressional Research Service report confirms that Australian funds will be used to support the United States Navy’s nuclear ballistic missile submarine program. The Government has sunk Labor’s nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation pledges. Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling explain.
The Columbia class submarines will carry 16 thirteen metre long Trident II D5 missiles. Each of those missiles can carry up to eight (they can carry 12 but, by treaty, the number has been limited to eight) multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles. Each re-entry vehicle can deliver a thermonuclear warhead to an individual target.
Fully loaded, each submarine will be able deliver thermonuclear weapons to 128 cities or hardened military targets.
When on patrol, the submarines are virtually undetectable, and there are no known, near-term credible threats to the survivability of the SSBN force. The ballistic missile submarines are the most survivable leg of the triad.
The US Navy for more than a decade consistently identified the Columbia Class program as its top priority program.
Enter AUKUS
There has been a lot of focus on how the US will meet its own production requirements for the conventionally armed Virginia class nuclear attack submarines with the AUKUS agreements providing for two existing submarines to be transferred to Australia and at least another new vessel acquired off the production line.
No-one in Australia has paid much attention to the Columbia Program. That’s been an oversight.
The Columbia class ballistic missile submarines will be built at General Dynamics’ Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding (HII/NNS), in Newport News, Virginia. That’s exactly the same shipyards the Virginia class attack submarines will be built.
And this will all be happening at the same time. The first Columbia submarine is to be delivered in October 2027, the second in April 2030, the third in August 2032, the fourth in September 2032, and the fifth in August 2033. At the same time those same shipyards will be pumping out Virginia Class submarine for the US Navy, and Australia. As the fifth Columbia is being delivered, Australia will get its first second hand Virginia Class submarine.
Both shipyards are currently collectively punching out 1.4 Virginia class boats per annum. By 2028 it is expected that the yards will be collectively be producing 2 per annum. That will meet US Navy requirements, but AUKUS takes the required production rate to 2.33 per annum. When the Columbia submarines are added to the mix, the US submarine industrial base needs to be producing 1+2.33 submarines per annum.
AUKUS funding to be used
In the meantime, Australia has agreed to contribute US$3B (AUD$4.7B) to “the US industrial base to support increased production and maintenance capacity to ensure there is no capability gap for Australia in acquiring Nuclear Powered Submarines.”
The latest Congressional Research Service report on the Columbia class program makes to clear that the Australian commitment is to generic US submarine industrial base funding; covering construction for both the Virginia and Columbia submarine programs.
“Building up the industrial base’s capacity to a 1+2.33 capacity will require investing several billion dollars for capital plant expansion and improvements and workforce development at both the two submarine-construction shipyards and submarine supplier firms.
Some of this funding has been provided in FY2023 and prior years, some of it is requested for FY2024, some of it would be requested in FY2025 and subsequent years, and some of it would be provided, under the AUKUS proposed Pillar 1 pathway, by Australia.”
Parliament in the dark on nuclear funding
To be perfectly clear, Australian AUKUS funding will support construction of a key delivery component of the US nuclear strike force, keeping that program on track while overall submarine production accelerates.
This fact has not been shared with the Australian public or Parliament.
Greens Defence Spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge said, “When will the Albanese government start telling the whole truth about AUKUS and how Australians will be paying to help build the next class of US ballistic missile submarines?”
Of course, the Government hasn’t exactly been upfront about a number of things in the AUKUS program, with Michael West Media being left to reveal (in contrast to statements made by Defence Minister Richard Marles) that Australia will be taking nuclear waste from the US and UK under the program.
TODAY. Nuclear safety no problem these days?
I can almost hear the joyful responses that are about to come from the world’s top nuclear industry publicist Rafael Grossi.
The murmurings of nuclear safety success are already out there in the media.
As a tsunami is predicted from a 7.6 magnitude earthquake:
“Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said no irregularities have been confirmed at nuclear power plants along the Sea of Japan, including five active reactors at Kansai Electric Power’s Ohi and Takahama plants in Fukui prefecture.“
Yes, as Western Japan coastal towns evacuate in anticipation of a tsunami, it looks as though the nuclear lobby is gearing up for another joyful success, if there is no nuclear disaster this time.
Why on Earth would anyone plan for nuclear reactors along the coast of a highly earthquake-prone country
Well, I think that it was one of those manipulative master-strokes of the USA nuclear-military-industrial complex – way back in the 1950s - helping Japan to get the “benefits” of the nuclear industry – to make up for the “drawbacks” of the nuclear industry – like the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Grossi’s busy telling us that nuclear reactors are safe, not a terrorism or war danger.
And that it’s OK to pour liquid nuclear waste into the oceans,
And that, with a heating, sea-level rise world, look, reactors can cope with tsunamis?
Tsunami Waves Hit Japan After Massive Earthquake: Nuclear Power Plants On Alert; Evacuations Ordered
A massive, 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit Japan on January 1, leading to warnings of huge tsunami waves hitting the island nation. Wajima city in Ishikawa prefecture reported waves as high as 1 metre lashing the coast. Japanese media reports said the waves could go as high as 5 metres, or 16.5 feet. The developments brought back memories of the 2011 quake and tsunami which left 18,500 dead or missing in Japan. Watch the full video for more.
Nuclear concerns as a magnitude-7.6 earthquake hits north central Japan, prompting tsunami warnings
ABC News 1 Dec 24
A powerful earthquake struck central Japan on Monday, killing at least one person, destroying buildings, knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes, and prompting residents in some coastal areas to flee to higher ground.
Key points:
- It was the strongest quake in the region in more than four decades, according to the US Geological Survey
- The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 triggered waves of about 1 metre along Japan’s west coast
- Russia and North Korea also issued tsunami warnings for some areas
The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 triggered waves of about 1 metre along Japan’s west coast and neighbouring South Korea, with authorities saying larger waves could follow……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Nuclear concerns
The quake comes at a sensitive time for Japan’s nuclear industry, which has faced fierce opposition from some locals since a 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima. Nearly 20,000 people were killed and whole towns devastated in the disaster.
Japan last week lifted an operational ban imposed on the world’s biggest nuclear plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, which has been offline since the 2011 tsunami.
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said no irregularities have been confirmed at nuclear power plants along the Sea of Japan, including five active reactors at Kansai Electric Power’s Ohi and Takahama plants in Fukui Prefecture.
Hokuriku’s Shika plant in Ishikawa, the closest nuclear power station to the epicentre, had already halted its two reactors before the quake for regular inspections and saw no impact from the quake, the agency said……………………… more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-01/tsunami-warnings-issued-in-japan-after-earthquake/103277706
Nuclear News 1st January 2024
Good news? Yes, it’s hard to find. But it’s out there. So many millions of people working towards a clean and peaceful planet, working with compassion for the victims of war, of injustice, and of extreme weather. Impossible to name the many agencies – from the numerous United Nations ones, (UNICEF, UNHCR, UNESCO ……..), and ICAN, Red Cross , Red Crescent, MSF, Greenpeace, FOE …. … many more… Millions give their time voluntarily.
It’s a pity that the nature of news is to tell us the bad things, to glorify the global phalanx that promotes war and the nuclear industry, and to focus on the sociopaths who dominate politics and corporations. But the good movements and the good workers are there, carrying our hopes for 2024
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My resolution for 2024 – to make this newsletter shorter – (from next time), more to the point – and leave out Israel, Gaza, Ukraine as much as possible.
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TOP STORIES
Nuclear expert Mycle Schneider on the COP 28 pledge to triple nuclear energy production:‘Trumpism enters energy policy’.
Shuttering the Nuclear Weapons Sites: There’s Gold in Those Warheads but the Scrap Metal is Radioactive.
Why AI is a disaster for the climate.
The failed Nuscale project lets Utah down — again.
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From the archives. The spread of radiation- internal contamination through fresh produce in Japan
Climate. Amazon drought: ‘We’ve never seen anything like this’. The faith leaders fighting for the climate: ‘we have a moral obligation’. Sea level rise: ‘We can’t afford to wait’: a Cornish town faces climate threat head on.
Noel’s notes. The rise of the Übermensch – the tech gods. Are we ignoring GAZA – the new Auschwitz, as the world ignored Nazi camps from 1933-39? . Nuclear Industry’s New Year Resolution – “Let’s get sloppier about safety”.
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AUSTRALIA.
- Price Waterhouse Cooper’s (PWC’s) $8m nuclear submarine payday revealed. More serious governance failures in Defence contracting.
- Nuclear dreams rudely awoken by blast of CSIRO reality. Let’s Talk About Why Nuclear Won’t Work in Australia. Ted O’Brien’s fact-free nuclear cheerleading is cover for the same old climate vandalism. Renewables cheaper than nuclear, coal now and into the future: CSIRO. Cost update blasts nuclear out of energy mix. Opposition need to explain whether they’ll will stick with their ‘nuclear fantasy’.
- Atlas Network strategies: how fossil fuel is using “think” tanks to delay action.
- A Merry AUKUS Surprise, Western Australia! Busting the government spin about “radioactive waste management” at Garden Island, Western Australia.
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CIVIL LIBERTIES. With the Persecution of Julian Assange Biden Is Overseeing the Silent Death of the First Amendment
CLIMATE. COP28’s Unrealistic Tripling of Nuclear Power.
ECONOMICS.
- European nuclear Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) may be unworkable – analysts.
- UK guarantees for minimum price for nuclear-produced electricity – an expensive disaster.
- CSIRO says wind and solar much cheaper than nuclear, even with added integration costs.
- Regulators approve deal for ratepayers to pay for Georgia Power’s new nuclear reactors.
- Meet the Companies Profiting From Israel’s War on Gaza.
- China’s Low-Cost Nuclear Offer Faces Scrutiny in Kazakhstan.
ENERGY. Talen Energy Is Building Data Centers That Run on Nuclear Power. Now, It Needs to Find Buyers.
ENVIRONMENT.
- Oceans. US Promotion of Banned Fukushima Seafood Contradicts Biden’s Cancer Initiatives.
- How green is the UK Government’s nuclear energy strategy?
- Inside the Pentagon’s Painfully Slow Effort to Clean Up Decades of PFAS Contamination.
- Effect of U.S. nuclear weapons tests on the otters of Alaska.
- Water: State papers: Plans for nuclear power plant on shores of Lough Neagh shelved over drinking water concerns.
ETHICS and RELIGION. Catholic activists arrested for anti-nuclear protest outside UN. ‘We will coup whoever we want!’: the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech bros.
HEALTH. Buried secrets, plutonium poisoned bodies. Radiation heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP0NU65SKAo&t=1s Documents show toxins in Air Force nuclear missile capsules.
HISTORY. The Long History Of Zionist Proposals To Ethnically Cleanse The Gaza Strip.
LEGAL. Day X Marks the Calendar: Julian Assange’s ‘Final’ Appeal. Assange Appeal Hearing Set for February. Constitutional Violations: Julian Assange, Privacy and the CIA. Judge Rules Assange Visitors May Sue CIA For Allegedly Violating Privacy.
Former chair of Ohio utility regulator surrenders in $60 million bribery scheme linked to energy bill.
Tokyo High Court holds Japan government not liable for Fukushima nuclear disaster. Tokyo court holds only the utility responsible to compensate Fukushima evacuees, and reduces damages.
MEDIA. What? Ukraine Is Not Winning the War? The Narrative Turns. Now What? Meta’s Broken Promises -Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook. New Book: Energy Revolutions -Profiteering versus Democracy .
POLITICS. The Biden Administration Is Quietly Shifting Its Strategy in Ukraine. Biden has the power to rein in the nuclear presidency. He should use it. U.S. Nuclear Sector Set for Major Transformation.
Sunak to scale back nuclear target in latest UK net zero climbdown Time to shelve Hinkley Point C? UK’s Nuclear Minister has so far failed to meet East Suffolk communities who have concerns about Sizewell C nuclear project . NFLA Policy Briefing 283: Nuclear Free Local Authorities submission to the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into the ‘The Potential Role of Proposed Small Modular Reactors’
France’s Council of State opinion on a Bill relating to governance of nuclear safety in relaunching the nuclear sector . Spain Confirms 2035 Nuclear Phase Out Deadline.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Geopolitics has already doomed the second nuclear renaissance. Sweden, France strengthen cooperation on nuclear. Why Egypt’s new nuclear plant is a long-term win for Russia. US eyes reports Iran has accelerated uranium enrichment.
SAFETY.
- DRUGS IN THE NUCLEAR SPHERE: UNVEILING A TROUBLING NEXUS.
- Documents Reveal Hidden Problems at Russia’s Nuclear Powerhouse.
- GMB union says urgent action needed to tackle safety concerns at Sellafield. EDF to extend nuclear outages in 2024, 2025 on corrosion issue.
- Incidents: A nuclear-powered ship in Murmansk started to burn: only few locals got to know about the serious incident. Mystery fire breaks out on Russia’s only nuclear-powered icebreaker vessel as it was docked at Arctic port.
- Japan allows world’s biggest nuclear plant to restart. Japan Lifts Operational Ban on Fukushima Nuclear Plant Owners.
- South Carolina nuclear plant’s cracked pipes get downgraded warning from officials. Low-Flying Helicopters Will Monitor Any Nuclear Threat In Las Vegas This Weekend.
- Cyber-hackers target UK nuclear waste company Radioactive Waste Management. Nuclear attack on Northern Ireland viewed as ‘possibility’ after 9/11.
SECRETS and LIES. ‘Cover-up’ hearing Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for late January 2024.
TECHNOLOGY. SMR – Spending Money Recklessly – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL7kwLMANK0 Microsoft is training an AI to help get nuclear reactors approved.
URANIUM. Iran undoes slowdown in enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade -IAEA
WASTES. Cold War nuclear waste is prioritized at Carlsbad-area repository. How much is there? Site for Canada’s underground nuclear waste repository to be selected next year.
WAR and CONFLICT. US Trying to Water Down New Cease-Fire Resolution at UN Security Council. Surrender or die – Netanyahu.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.
- Israel receives 230 planes, 20 ships loaded with US arms amid Gaza war. US….Arsenal of Genocide in Gaza .
- Year of the drone — how the hi-tech weapon has transformed warfare.
- Spiralling nuclear costs make UK’s Ministry Of Defence’s equipment plan unsustainable.
- Russia has completed delivery of nuclear weapons to Belarus, Lukashenko says. Russia To Retire World’s Only Nuclear-Powered, Largest Battle-Cruiser Pyotr Veliky.
- Kim Jong Un announces his nuclear resolutions for 2024.
DRUGS IN THE NUCLEAR SPHERE: UNVEILING A TROUBLING NEXUS
Alastair philip wiper captures the unexpected connection between nuclear missiles and drugs
DesignBoom 31 Dec 23
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………As Alastair Philip Wiper explains in Drugs and Missiles, there is a compelling argument for the main danger posed by nuclear weapons: the unintended risk of self-destruction. History is full of declassified cases, from planes accidentally crashing with nuclear payloads to governments mistaking computer simulations of war for actual events. The accidental release of weapons through human error, such as pulling the wrong handle, and the explosion of missile silos underscore this vulnerability. ‘Once, a bear climbing the fence of an Air Force base was mistaken for Russian special forces beginning an invasion,’ shares the photographer. ‘And then there are the drugs.’
In Eric Schlosser’s book Command and Control, it’s revealed that of the individuals authorized to handle nuclear weapons in 1980, 1.5% lost their clearance due to drug abuse, totaling at least 1,728 individuals who were caught using drugs in proximity to nuclear weapons. Fast forward to 2016, a disconcerting reality unfolded as over a dozen Air Force members responsible for safeguarding nuclear missiles were convicted of both using and distributing substances such as LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, and marijuana. This juxtaposition underscores the persistent and concerning intersection between drug use and the guardianship of powerful weaponry……………………………….. more https://www.designboom.com/art/alastair-philip-wiper-unexpected-connection-nuclear-missiles-drugs-12-25-2023/
Over 1,000 Children in Gaza Have Had One or Both Legs Amputated Since Oct 7
it is “beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue.”
| ScheerPost, By Kyle Anzalone / Antiwar.com, 31 Dec 23 |
International aid workers describe a growing humanitarian nightmare in the Strip.
International aid workers visiting the Gaza Strip are relaying the horrific situation Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians. UNICEF reports over 1,000 children have lost legs. Israel is forcing the 2.3 million residents of Gaza into increasingly small areas that lack the ability to accommodate basic needs for survival.
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said, “Around 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both their legs.” He told journalists in Geneva that “every single child is enduring these ten weeks of hell and not one of them can escape.”
Due to the conditions in Gaza, as well as the lack of aid, doctors are often forced to conduct surgeries in unsanitary facilities and without painkillers. “Not only were they amputated without anesthesia, but many of them were amputated in a very quick fashion,” he said.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a London-based surgeon who traveled to Gaza to treat patients, told Middle East Eye that having to perform these operations without anesthetic was “one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in my career.” At a November press conference, he said, “One night, at Al-Ahli Hospital, I performed amputations on six children.”
The UNICEF official said that even if children recover from the amputation, they do not escape the hell of the threat of death. “As a parent of a critically sick child told me, ‘Our situation is pure misery…I don’t know if we will make it through this.’”
Spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris added that WHO staff in Gaza spoke of not being able to walk in the emergency wards “for fear of stepping on people” lying on the floor “in severe pain” and asking for food and water. She called the situation “unconscionable” and said that it is “beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue.”
The Israeli military has destroyed most hospitals in Gaza. The medical facilities continuing to operate face frequent attacks and a lack of supplies. A Washington Post investigation recently found that the Israeli Air Force is using 2,000-pound bombs near hospitals…………………………………. more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/31/over-1000-children-in-gaza-have-had-one-or-both-legs-amputated-since-oct-7/
TODAY. Nuclear Industry’s New Year Resolution – “Let’s get sloppier about safety
yeah, well - it’s a new day, it’s a beautiful new year - let’s look on the bright side. The global nuclear lobby is certainly doing that with its glowing plans for tripling of nuclear energy by 2050
Safety is now a downgraded priority. A couple of today’s examples – Japanese nuclear safety regulators lifted an operational ban on a nuclear plant owned by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, deciding that it’s now safe after all. In the USA, the NRC (federal nuclear safety agency) decides that cracks in a backup emergency fuel line at a South Carolina nuclear plant are not so serious any more.
Let’s forget the nuclear industry’s history of major (and continuing) disasters, “minor” mishaps and near-misses. And let’s forget the dangers of crumbling old reactors, untested new gee-whiz ones, cracking and corroding copper pipes and waste containers, terrorism risks, drone dangers, cyber-security hazards, transport risks, extreme weather events, weapons proliferation, mishaps in space, and crookedness and corruption in the industry.
Yey! let’s waltz away into 2024 with the jolly prospect of nuclear power solving the climate crisis, energy crisis and so on. We can brush up the old big reactors (saves us the cost of scrapping them – leave that job to our grandchildren ), build myriad little tiny reactors in every country, (sell them especially developing places that have no expertise in nuclear technology) , and bring happiness and wealth to that small but highly organised phalanx of global nuclear ‘Influencers” – while the rest of us party on, and our bought politicians smile benignly.
After all, there are the various nationall safety and radiation protection agencies to save us . Right?
Trouble is – safety reporting procedures are designed to protect the nuclear industry, not the public.
Agencies like USA’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission rely on the International Atomic Energy Agency – whose brief is to promote the nuclear industry - a brief beautifully expressed by its slimy Director General, Rafael Grossi.
Let’s consider- the “safety” of ionising radiation:
- The established health ministeries rely on the Commission on Radiological Protection, which relies on The Radiation Protection Commission which relies on the international Commission on Radiological Protection, which relies on the IAEA / RERF (Reference Materials)
- The IAEA / RERF relies on the military industrial nuclear complex of five veto-wielding Security Council members
They pass the nuclear safety handball back and forth between each other - as the nuclear-industrial-military complex rolls on towards armageddon.
Constitutional Violations: Julian Assange, Privacy and the CIA
December 28, 2023, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/constitutional-violations-julian-assange-privacy-and-the-cia/
As a private citizen, the options for suing an intelligence agency are few and far between. The US Central Intelligence Agency, as with other members of the secret club, pour scorn on such efforts. To a degree, such a dismissive sentiment is understandable: Why sue an agency for its bread-and-butter task, which is surveillance?
This matter has cropped up in the US courts in what has become an international affair, namely, the case of WikiLeaks founder and publisher, Julian Assange. While the US Department of Justice battles to sink its fangs into the Australian national for absurd espionage charges, various offshoots of his case have begun to grow. The issue of CIA sponsored surveillance during his stint in the Ecuadorian embassy in London has been of particular interest, since it violated both general principles of privacy and more specific ones regarding attorney-client privilege. Of particular interest to US Constitution watchers was whether such actions violated the reasonable expectation of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Four US citizens took issue with such surveillance, which was executed by the Spanish security firm Undercover (UC) Global and its starry-eyed, impressionable director David Morales under instruction from the CIA. Civil rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler and media lawyer Deborah Hrbek, and journalists John Goetz and Charles Glass, took the matter to the US District Court of the Southern District of New York in August last year. They had four targets of litigation: the CIA itself, its former director, Michael R. Pompeo, Morales and his company, UC Global SL.
All four alleged that the US Government had conducted surveillance on them and copied their information during visits to Assange in the embassy, thereby violating the Fourth Amendment. In doing so, the plaintiffs argued they were entitled to money damages and injunctive relief. The government moved to dismiss the complaint as amended.
On December 19, District Judge John G. Koeltl delivered a judgment of much interest, granting, in part, the US government’s motion to dismiss but denying other parts of it. Before turning to the relevant features of Koeltl’s reasons, various observations made in the case bear repeating. The judge notes, for instance, Pompeo’s April 2017 speech, in which he “‘pledged that his office would embark upon a ‘long term’ campaign against WikiLeaks.’” He is cognisant of the plaintiffs’ claims “Morales was recruited to conduct surveillance on Assange and his visitors on behalf of the CIA and that this recruitment occurred at a January 2017 private security industry convention at the Las Vegas Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.”
From that meeting, it is claimed that “Morales created an operations unit, improved UC Global’s systems, and set up live streaming from the United States so that surveillance could be accessed instantly by the CIA.” The data gathered from UC Global “was either personally delivered to Las Vegas; Washington, D.C.; and New York City by Morales (who travelled to these locations more than sixty times in the three years following the Las Vegas convention) or placed on a server that provided external access to the CIA.”
Koeltl preferred to avoid deciding on the claims that Morales and UC Global were, in fact, “acting as agents of Pompeo and the CIA.” Such matters were questions of fact “that cannot be decided on a motion to dismiss.”
A vital issue in the case was whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue the CIA in the first place. Citing the case of ACLU v Clapper, which involved a challenge to the National Security Agency’s bulk telephone metadata collection program, Koeltl accepted that they did. In doing so, he rejected a similar argument made by the government in Clapper – that the injuries alleged were simply “too speculative and generalized” and that the information gathered via surveillance would necessarily even be used against them. “In this case, the plaintiffs need not allege, as the Government argues, that the Government will imminently use their information collected at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.” If the search of the conversations and electronic devices along with the seizure of the contents of the electronic devices “were unlawful, the plaintiffs have suffered a concrete and particularized injury fairly traceable to the challenged program and redressable by favorable ruling.”
Less satisfactory for the plaintiffs was the finding they had no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their conversations with the publisher given that “they knew Assange was surveilled even before the CIA’s alleged involvement.” The judge thought it significant that they did “not allege that they would not have met Assange had they known their conversations would be surveilled.” Additionally, it “would not be recognized as reasonable by society” to have expected conversations held with Assange at the embassy in London to be protected, given such societal acceptance of, for instance video surveillance in government buildings.
This reasoning is faulty, given that the visits by the four plaintiffs to the embassy did not take place with their knowledge of the operation being conducted by UC Global with CIA blessing. In a general sense, anyone visiting the embassy could not help but suspect that Assange might be the object of surveillance, but to suggest something akin to a waiver of privacy rights on the part of attorneys and journalists aiding a persecuted publisher is an odd turn.
The US Government also succeeded on the point that the plaintiffs had no reasonable expectation to privacy regarding their passports or their devices they voluntarily left at the Embassy reception desk. In doing so, they “assumed the risk that the information may be conveyed to the Government.” Those visiting embassies must, it would seem, be perennially on guard.
That said, the plaintiffs convinced the judge that they had “sufficient allegations that the CIA and Pompeo, through Morales and UC Global, violated their reasonable expectation to privacy in the contents of their electronic devices.” The government even went so far as to concede that point.
Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, the biggest fish was let off the hook. The plaintiffs had attempted to use the 1971 US Supreme Court case of Bivens to argue that the former CIA director be held accountable and liable for violating constitutional rights. Koeltl thought the effort to extend the application of Bivens inappropriate in terms of the high standing nature of the defendant and the context. “As a presidential appointee confirmed by Congress […] Defendant Pompeo is in a different category of defendant from a law enforcement agent of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.” More’s the pity.
Leaving aside some of the more questionable turns of reasoning in Koeltl’s judgment, public interest litigants and activists can take heart from the prospect that civil trials against the CIA for violations of the US Constitution are no longer unrealistic. “We are thrilled,” declared Richard Roth, the plaintiffs’ attorney, “that the court rejected the CIA’s efforts to silence the plaintiffs, who merely seek to expose the CIA’s attempt to carry out Pompeo’s vendetta against WikiLeaks.” The appeals process, however, is bound to be tested.
The failed Nuscale project lets Utah down — again
Every time we gamble on a nuclear project like Nuscale to deliver carbon-free power, we are hampering our ability to meet critical climate goals by 2030.
By Lexi Tuddenham | For The Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 29, 2023 https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2023/12/29/opinion-failed-nuscale-project/
Early last month, Nuscale made headlines by canceling its 462 MW proposal for a small modular nuclear reactor (SMNR) at the Idaho National Laboratory. Here in Utah, the news was met with little surprise.
For the past six years, we’ve been raising crucial questions about the viability of the so-called “Carbon Free Power Project” (CFPP). Was it a project that could deliver power on time and at a reasonable cost to ratepayers? How much would taxpayers and ratepayers ultimately pay, and who would bear the environmental, public health and financial risks? Could it meet our energy needs at a time when electrification is more critical than ever?
In 2015, the Nuscale project was eight years out. In 2022, it was still eight years out. As we watched other nuclear power projects be abandoned or blunder online years late and billions of dollars over cost, there was a sense of inevitability about who would suffer when this project failed: the communities who had placed their faith in its fantastical promises of affordable, reliable and “clean” power.
We were told that these SMNRs would be revolutionary — smaller, more cost-effective and with cutting-edge technology, but as we watched the costs swell from $55/MWh to $89/MWh and well beyond, even with huge federal subsidies, it was clear the financial risks were only mounting. With the collapse of the hypothetical project, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) member communities in rapidly growing areas like Hurricane and Washington City are now left with the reality of scrambling for alternatives to meet their future energy needs.
As we see nuclear projects around the country experience delay after delay, the Nuscale experience is one reason why we continue to watch the developments of the Terrapower Natrium reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, with a mix of skepticism and concern. The other reason is that the Terrapower project has promised not just electricity to Pacificorp customers, but also jobs in a community that desperately needs them. This is irresponsible at best.
The projected timeline for the Terrapower reactor to come online has already been pushed to 2030, which Terrapower external affairs director Jeff Navin admits is “cutting it close.” In addition, the community faces an economic abyss between the projected closure of the coal plant and the startup of the nuclear facility, and federal officials recently noted that with no permanent waste repository existent in the U.S., spent nuclear fuel will be stored “temporarily” on-site. Similar concerns can and should be raised about the proposed nuclear plants at Hunter and Huntington in Utah. At the end of the day, it is workers who are being let down, and it is communities who have to deal with the long term consequences.
We know that the next few years are of critical importance in our ability to combat the worst effects of climate change before we kick off even more warming feedback loops. Every time we gamble on a nuclear project like Nuscale to deliver carbon-free power, we are hampering our ability to meet critical climate goals by 2030. As timelines for such projects are inevitably dragged out, in the interim we continue to burn fossil fuels that choke the air that people breathe and force the climate ever closer to its tipping point.
The hard truth is that there is no silver bullet for climate change. Relying on nuclear power maintains dependence on a flawed energy system that primarily benefits industries that have historically profited from past harms. Now they promise to seamlessly plug in nuclear power and conduct business as usual.
According to the latest estimates, about a billion dollars was sunk into the now-abandoned Nuscale CFPP. This is a drop in the bucket compared to some other nuclear projects this country has seen over the last 30 years. But imagine that $1 billion spent elsewhere on legacy cleanups of the nuclear and uranium mining industry, aiding Downwinders or boosting renewable energy capacity that we know can work. There is an opportunity cost for investing in nuclear when we have faster, lower-risk options that we can prioritize now. Instead, we can take on climate change with what has been called “rational hope,” by investing in wind, solar, geothermal power, storage, grid improvements and efficiency technologies that offer cost-effective climate solutions. And Utah’s potential in these areas is immense.
But this energy future requires a reimagining. It requires permitting and energy-sourcing processes that put the health and vitality of communities front and center. It means changing course to avoid mistakes of the past.
Here at HEAL Utah, we collaborate with communities to shape an energy future crafted by the people it serves. This future prioritizes clean air, a healthy environment and family-sustaining jobs, all powered by accessible, sustainable and affordable renewable energy sources. In short, this is rational hope in practice. Together, we can make it a reality.
Lexi Tuddenham is the executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah).
Christmas Eve Massacre in Gaza Refugee Camp
The Grayzone goes to the scene of one of the most heinous crimes Israel committed in the besieged Gaza Strip: the Christmas Eve massacre in Maghazi Refugee Camp, which left over 70 dead in a single airstrike. We speak to survivors of the attack and expose the scale of damage with exclusive drone footage.
The Long History Of Zionist Proposals To Ethnically Cleanse The Gaza Strip
Ethnic cleansing or “transfer” is an intrinsic part of Zionism’s early history, and has remained an essential feature of Israeli political life. More recently, “transfer” has been mainstreamed by billing it as encouraging “voluntary emigration.”
SCHEERPOST, By Mouin Rabbani / Mondoweiss, December 29, 2023
Senior Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, are again publicly advocating the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. Their proposals are being presented as voluntary emigration schemes, in which Israel is merely playing the role of Good Samaritan, selflessly mediating with foreign governments to find new homes for destitute and desperate Palestinians. But it is ethnic cleansing all the same.
Alarm bells should have started ringing in early November when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other Western politicians began insisting there could be “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.” Rather than rejecting any mass removal of Palestinians, Blinken and colleagues objected only to optically challenging expulsions at gunpoint. The option of “voluntary” displacement by leaving residents of the Gaza Strip with no choice but departure was pointedly left open.
Ethnic cleansing, or “transfer” as it is known in Israeli parlance, has a long pedigree that goes back to the late-nineteenth-century beginnings of the Zionist movement. While the early Zionists adopted the slogan, “A Land Without a People for a People Without a Land,” the evidence demonstrates that, from the very outset, their leaders knew better. More to the point, they clearly understood that the Palestinians formed the main obstacle to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This is for the simple reason that, to them, a “Jewish state” denotes one in which its Jewish population acquires and maintains unchallenged demographic, territorial, and political supremacy.
Enter “transfer.” As early as 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of the contemporary Zionist movement, identified the necessity of removing the inhabitants of Palestine in the following terms: “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country … expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” David Ben-Gurion (née Grün), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and later Israel’s first prime minister, was more blunt. In a 1937 letter to his son, he wrote: “We must expel the Arabs and take their place.”
Writing in his diary in 1940, Yosef Weitz, a senior Jewish National Fund official who chaired the influential Transfer Committee before and during the Nakba (“Catastrophe”), and became known as the Architect of Transfer, put it thus: “The only solution is a Land of Israel devoid of Arabs. There is no room here for compromise. They must all be moved. Not one village, not one tribe, can remain. Only through this transfer of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel will redemption come.” His diaries are littered with similar sentiments.
The point of the above is not to demonstrate that individual Zionist leaders held such views, but that the senior leadership of the Zionist movement consistently considered the ethnic cleansing of Palestine an objective and priority. Initiatives such as the Transfer Committee, and Plan Dalet, initially formulated in 1944 and described by the pre-eminent Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi as the “Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine,” additionally demonstrate that the Zionist movement actively planned for it.
The 1948 Nakba, during which more than four-fifths of Palestinians residing in territory that came under Israeli rule were ethnically cleansed, should, therefore, be seen as the fulfillment of a longstanding ambition and implementation of a key policy. A product of design, not of war (historical Christmas footnote: the Palestinian town of Nazareth was spared a similar fate only because the commander of Israeli forces that seized the city, a Canadian Jew named Ben Dunkelman, disobeyed orders to expel the population, and was relieved of his command the following day).
That the Nakba was a product of design is further substantiated by the Transfer Committee’s terms of reference. These comprised not only proposals for the expulsion of the Palestinians but, just as importantly, active measures to prevent their return, destroy their homes and villages, expropriate their property, and resettle those territories with Jewish immigrants. Weitz, together with fellow Committee members Eliahu Sassoon and Ezra Danin, on June 5, 1948, presented a three-page blueprint, entitled “Scheme for the Solution of the Arab Problem in the State of Israel,” to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to achieve these goals. According to leading Israeli historian Benny Morris, “there is no doubt Ben-Gurion agreed to Weitz’s scheme,” which included “what amounted to an enormous project of destruction” that saw more than 450 Palestinian villages razed to the ground.
The understandable focus on the expulsions of 1948 often overlooks the fact that ethnic cleansing remains incomplete unless its victims are barred from returning to their homes by a combination of armed force and legislation, and thereafter replaced by others. It is Israel’s determination to make Palestinian dispossession permanent that distinguishes Palestinian refugees from many other war refugees.
After 1948, Israel put out a whole series of fabrications to shift responsibility for the transformation of the Palestinians into dispossessed and stateless refugees onto the Arab states and the refugees themselves. These included claims that the refugees voluntarily left (they were either expelled or fled in justified terror); that Arab radio broadcasts ordered the Palestinians to flee (in fact, they were encouraged to stay put); that Israel conducted a population exchange with Arab states (there was nothing of the sort); and the bizarre argument that because they’re Arabs, Palestinians had numerous other states while Jews have only Israel (by the same logic, Sikhs would be entitled to seize British Columbia and deport its population to either the rest of Canada or the United States). More importantly, even if uniformly substantiated, none of these pretexts entitles Israel to prohibit the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes at the conclusion of hostilities. It is, furthermore, a right that was consecrated in United Nations General Assembly resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, which has been reaffirmed repeatedly since.
Ethnic cleansing after 1967
In 1967, Israel seized the remaining 22 percent of Mandatory Palestine — the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. Depopulation in these territories operated differently than in 1948. Most importantly, Israel, in addition to prohibiting the return of Palestinians who fled hostilities during the 1967 June War, and encouraging others to leave (by, for example, providing a daily bus service from Gaza City to the Allenby Bridge connecting the West Bank to Jordan), conducted a census during the summer of 1967 . Any resident who was not present during the census was ineligible for an Israeli identity document and automatically lost their right of residency.
As a result, the population of these territories declined by more than twenty percent overnight. Many of those thus displaced were already refugees from 1948. Aqbat Jabr Refugee Camp near Jericho, for example — until 1967, the West Bank’s largest — became a virtual ghost town after almost all its inhabitants became refugees once again in Jordan. So many Palestinians from the Gaza Strip ended up in Jordan that a new refugee camp, Gaza Camp, was established on the outskirts of Jerash. The occupied Palestinian territories would not recover their 1967 population levels until the early 1980s.
Within the West Bank, there were also cases of mass expulsion………………………………………………….
Depopulation through administrative rule
In subsequent years, Israel employed all kinds of administrative shenanigans to further reduce the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Until the 1993 Oslo Accords, for example, an exit permit from Israel’s military government was required to leave the occupied territory. It was valid for only three years and thereafter renewable annually for a maximum of three additional years (for a fee) at an Israeli consulate. If a Palestinian lost an exit permit or failed to renew an exit permit prior to its expiration for any reason (including bureaucratic foot-dragging), or couldn’t pay the renewal fee, or failed to return to Palestine prior to its expiration, that Palestinian automatically lost residency rights………………………………………………..
………………………………………. the mass expulsion was, as always in such matters, approved by Israel’s High Court of Justice after minor modifications. It ruled, among other things, that this was not a collective deportation but rather a collection of individual deportations……………………………………………….
Israel’s strategies to ‘thin’ Gaza’s population
With the focus in recent years on the intensified campaigns of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, it is often forgotten that, for decades, the primary target for depopulation was the Gaza Strip, particularly its refugee population, which accounts for approximately three-quarters of the territory’s residents. Even before it occupied Gaza in 1967, Israel regularly promoted initiatives to achieve the “thinning” of its refugee population, with destinations as far afield as Libya and Iraq………………………………………………………………………………….
‘Transfer’ and Gaza today
In the decades since, “transfer,” often presented as the encouragement of voluntary emigration either by providing material incentives or making the conditions of life impossible, has become increasingly mainstreamed in Israeli political life. In 2019, for example, a “senior government official,” quoted in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, expressed a willingness to help Palestinians emigrate from the Gaza Strip.
Mass expulsion has been gaining its share of adherents as well, and it is a position that is today represented within Israel’s coalition government. As has the idea that “transfer” should include Palestinian citizens of Israel — Avigdor Lieberman, for example, who was Israel’s Minister of Defense several years ago, is an advocate of not only emptying the West Bank and Gaza Strip of Palestinians but of getting rid of Palestinian citizens of Israel as well. As one might expect from a minister who was in charge of the Israeli military, he is also an advocate of “beheading” disloyal Palestinian citizens of Israel with “an axe.”
Against this background, Israel saw the attacks of October 7 as not only a threat but also as an opportunity. Fortified with unconditional U.S. and European support, Israeli political and military leaders immediately began promoting the transfer of Gaza’s Palestinian population to the Sinai desert.
The proposal was enthusiastically embraced by the United States and by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in particular. As ever hopelessly out of his depth when it comes to the Middle East, he appears to have genuinely believed he could recruit or pressure Washington’s Arab client regimes to make Israel’s wish a reality. Given Egyptian strongman Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi’s economic troubles, the fallout of the Menendez scandal, and the looming Egyptian presidential elections, it was suggested to him by the Washington echo chamber that it would take only an IMF loan, debt relief, and a promise to file away Menendez to bring Cairo on board. As so often when it comes to the Middle East, Blinken, armed only with Israel’s latest wish list, didn’t have a clue his indecent proposal would be categorically rejected, first and foremost by Egypt.
‘Transfer’ as ‘voluntary immigration’
The fallback position is opposition to “forcible displacement” at the point of a gun, while anything else is fair game. This includes reducing the Gaza Strip to rubble in what may well be the most intensive bombing campaign in history; a genocidal assault on an entire society that has killed civilians at an unprecedentedly rapid pace; the deliberate destruction of an entire civilian infrastructure, including the targeted obliteration of its health and education sectors; the highest proportion of households in hunger crisis ever recorded globally and the real prospect of pre-meditated famine; severance of the water and electricity supply leading to acute thirst, widespread consumption of non-potable water, and termination of sewage treatment; and promotion of a sharp rise in infectious disease. …………………………………………………..
In other words, if desperate Palestinians seek to flee this seventh circle of hell to save their skins, that’s considered voluntary emigration — their choice……………………………………………………………….
As an editorial in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz put it on December 27: “Israeli lawmakers keep pushing for transfer under the guise of humanitarian aid.”………………………………………………
Not individual Gazans, but “the people of Gaza.” Notably, such proposals consistently take it as a given that those departing will never return. ………………………………………….
While ethnic cleansing has been intrinsic to Zionist/Israeli ideology and practice from the very outset, it also has a flip side: the 1948 expulsion of the Palestinians expanded what had been a conflict between the Zionist movement and the Palestinians into a regional, Arab-Israeli one. The second Nakba Israel is currently inflicting on the Gaza Strip similarly appears well on its way to instigating the renewal of hostilities across the Middle East.
As importantly, the 1948 Nakba did not defeat the Palestinians, who initiated their struggle from the camps of exile, those in the Gaza Strip most prominently among them. It would take a Blinken level of foolishness to assume the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip would produce a different outcome. https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/29/the-long-history-of-zionist-proposals-to-ethnically-cleanse-the-gaza-strip/
Nuclear dreams rudely awoken by blast of CSIRO reality
National Party Leader David Littleproud has publicly stated that the National’s goal is to stop renewables and wait for nuclear, and it’s a similar story with the Liberals
by Rosco Jones | Dec 27, 2023 , https://michaelwest.com.au/nuclear-energy-too-expensive-csiro-gencost/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2023-12-28&utm_campaign=Michael+West+Media+Weekly+Update
CSIRO, Australia’s top science agency, has relegated nuclear reactors and hydrogen to the energy bench. They simply cost too much to be viable sources for our energy future.
on the latest GenCost report.
It was revealed in the shadows of Christmas, and its impact has so far been muted as there were more pressing matters to attend to, such as last-minute shopping and holidays. Yet the importance of the latest big-ticket analysis of energy costs cannot be understated. Indeed it will shape decision-making in politics and the energy markets this year and Australia’s energy future.
The CSIRO’s annual GenCost report has confirmed the view of new energy experts that small nuclear reactors and hydrogen – lauded as ‘wonder-technologies’ by pro-fossil-fuel political figures in their ideological campaign against renewable energy are fast losing allure as price projections skyrocket.
The 2023-24 GenCost report by CSIRO and AEMO is Australia’s most comprehensive electricity generation cost projection report. It uses the best available information each cycle to provide a benchmark on cost projections and updates forecasts to guide decision-making, as electricity costs change significantly each year.
This year’s analysis has cast ever more doubt on the Coalition’s nuclear fantasy, with a raft of issues plaguing nascent Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology, accompanied by investor disinterest in large-scale nuclear power plants. Additionally, renewables are still by far the cheapest option for Australia’s grid despite this year’s inclusion of infrastructure costs. Unsurprisingly these results have left a wave of frustration rippling across the political right. They also come as a slap to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s campaigning against the Albanese government.
Although sidetracked by fossil industry distractions such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, the government has pressed ahead with wind, solar and hydro as its focus for Australia’s energy future. The Coalition, in the absence of constructive policy ideas, has been pushing nuclear power through its usual media channels. However, the GenCost report estimates that SMR cost of production has risen 70% and also suggests demand for hydrogen is massively overinflated given the cost outlook.
…………. Utah venture dashes hopes
The much-hyped UAMPS project in Utah has proven commercially unviable and was cancelled with inflationary pressures on construction costs contributing to its demise.
This failure of the argument for nuclear in the face of cheaper, proven renewable technologies has inflamed Australia’s conservative pro-nuclear lobby, which has resorted to attacking the CSIRO’s credibility and analysis.
Critics have taken issue with the usage of a single project’s failure as a broad indicator of SMR’s capital costings. However, as noted in GenCost, UAMPS is an industry leader in the SMR field and represents one of the only sources of data available to derive non-theoretical cost estimates.
“GenCost requires first-of-a-kind cost estimates given the first commercial project is yet to be completed”.
UAMPS was set to be the first completed commercial SMR. With the added context of Chinese ventures into SMRs having similarly rising costs even prior to 2023. It seems likely that theoretical estimates, most of which have been performed by organisations heavily influenced by the nuclear industry, were likely of poor quality rather than UAMPS being an improper proxy.
This explanation, included within the report, did not prevent scathing commentary by the likes of lobbyist turned LNP minister Ted O’Brien:
“They’re not looking at companies like Westinghouse, GE or Hitachi, and they’ve chosen that one design from a start-up for one customer that has run into problems and based the entire analysis of nuclear on that.”
UAMPS is the only SMR that has actually received design approval.
In addition to the cost hikes, the delivery timeframe for the implementation of SMRs was larger than expected. A common criticism of Nuclear Power is, of course, its lengthy set up times, which range from 6-8 years for conventional power stations. SMRs were intended to address this, with construction as short as 3-5 years, however this seems to no longer be an advantage in an Australian context:
“If a decision to pursue a nuclear SMR project in Australia were taken today, with political support for the required legislative changes, then the first full operation would be in 2038.”
Waiting until 2038 to begin using nuclear power guarantees another 15 years of dependence upon fossil fuels for energy production. Party Leader David Littleproud has publicly stated that the National’s goal is to stop renewables and wait for nuclear, continuing their tradition of unwavering support for petrochemical extraction and use, and it’s a similar story with the Liberals, who have publicly stated that no nuclear means no net zero.
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 