Antinuclear

TODAY. Nuclear lobby busting to control COP 28 – now their stooge John Kerry is touting the fantasy of nuclear fusion.

Yeah yeah – we all know that nuclear fusion is theoretically “carbon-emissions-free”

Great! BUT:

Time. “The reality is that fusion energy will not be viable at scale anytime within the next decade, a time frame over which carbon emissions must be reduced by 50% to avoid catastrophic warming of more than 1.5°C,”  – climate expert Michael Mann

 Energy. Nuclear fusion requires 100 times more energy to charge than the energy it ends up producing.

Cost. Requires highly expensive tritium and lithium.

Space. Current efforts have taken up a huge area – how much space would be needed to do fusion on a commercial scale? 

Wastes. tritium is the radioactive form of hydrogen. Its little isotopes are great at permeating metals and finding ways to escape tight enclosures. Obviously, this will pose a significant problem for those who want to continuously breed tritium in a fusion reactor.

Weapons connection. Since first tried out in that monstrous Marshall Islands explosion, fusion has been intended as a tool of war. the American government is interested not in using fusion technology to power the energy grid, but in using it to further strengthen this country’s already massive arsenal of atomic weapons.

November 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A new Palestinian state could never be free as long as its neighbor, Israel, possesses nuclear weapons.

The 2-State Solution’s Nuclear Option

SCHEERPOST, By Scott Ritter / Consortium News, November 20, 2023

“………………………………………………………………………………………………. the United States continues to provide diplomatic cover for Israel’s nuclear weapons, maintaining the fiction of ambiguity despite knowing full well Israel possesses a very robust nuclear arsenal. This posture is becoming more difficult to sustain, given the increasingly aggressive posture assumed by the Israeli government regarding its own policy of ambiguity. 

In 2022, during a periodic review by the United Nations of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) , then-Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid addressed the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission about Israel’s “defensive and offensive capabilities, and what is referred to in the foreign media as other capabilities. These other capabilities,” Lapid said, clearly alluding to Israel’s nuclear weapons, “keep us alive and will keep us alive as long as we and our children are here.”

As things stand, the threat posed by Israeli nuclear weapons to both regional and global security is as great today as at any time in Israeli history. With the potential of the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict expanding to include Hezbollah and perhaps Iran, Israel for the first time since 1973 faces a genuine existential threat — the kind of threat Israel’s nuclear weapons were built to deter. 

An Israeli minister has already alluded to the attractiveness of using nuclear weapons against Hamas in Gaza. But the real threat comes from what happens if Iran is dragged into the war. Here, Israel’s much rumored “Samson Option” could come into play, where Israel uses its nuclear arsenal to destroy as many enemies as possible once the continued survival of Israel is at risk.

Given the present risk posed by Israel’s nuclear arsenal, it is essential that the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict be prevented from expanding. Once the conflict can be ended, the process must begin for a long-term solution that includes a free and independent Palestine. However, a new Palestinian state can never be free if its neighbor, Israel possesses nuclear weapons. 

Operating with the understanding that the creation of a Palestinian state would coincide with a renewed push for normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the result vis-à-vis the security of Israel would be a much-improved situation that made Israel’s need for nuclear weapons moot. 

South African Example

The question then becomes how Israel can be persuaded to voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons. Fortunately, there is an example from history. 

Apartheid South Africa had embarked on a nuclear weapons program in the early 1970s. U.S. intelligence reports show that South Africa formally began its nuclear weapons program in 1973.  By 1982, it had developed and built its first nuclear explosive device.

Seven years later, in 1989, South Africa had manufactured six functional nuclear bombs, each capable of delivering an explosive equivalent of 19 kilotons of TNT.

The South African nuclear weapons program mirrored that of the Israeli program in that it was conducted in great secrecy and designed to deter the threat posed by communist-supported black liberation movements operating all along the periphery of the South African nation. 

In 1989, South Africa elected a new president, F. W. de Klerk, who quickly realized that the political winds were changing and that the country could very well, in the span of a few years, fall under the control of black nationalists led by Nelson Mandela.

To prevent that, De Klerk took the unprecedented decision to join the NPT as a non-nuclear state and open its nuclear program for inspection and dismantlement. South Africa joined the NPT in 1991; by 1994, all South Africa’s nuclear weapons had been dismantled under international supervision.

Once the Palestinian-Israeli war comes to an end, and if Israel begins negotiating in good faith about the possibility of a free and independent Palestinian state, the United States should lead an effort to get the Israeli government to follow the path taken by F. W. de Klerk by signing the NPT and working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to dismantle the totality of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. 

Such a move should be non-negotiable — if the United States is serious about creating the conditions of a long and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine, then it should use all the leverage at its disposal to pressure Israel to voluntarily disarm itself of nuclear weapons.

This is the only viable path to peace between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world that surrounds it. 

November 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear Fusion Won’t Save the Climate But It Might Blow Up the World

the United States’ first full-scale hydrogen bomb was, in fact, a fission explosion that initiated a fusion reaction.

since first tried out in that monstrous Marshall Islands explosion, fusion has been intended as a tool of war. And sadly, so it remains,

Buried deep in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s website, the government comes clean about what these fusion experiments at the $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility (NIF) are really all about.

above – Edward Teller – inventor of the thermonuclear fusion bomb – (a man consumed by his fear and hatred of Russia)

they require 100 times more energy to charge than the energy they ended up producing.

Resilience, By Joshua Frank, originally published by TomDispatch 23 Jan 23

.”…………………. the New York Times and CNN alerted me that morning, at stake was a new technology that could potentially solve the worst dilemma humanity faces: climate change and the desperate overheating of our planet. Net-energy-gain fusion, a long-sought-after panacea for all that’s wrong with traditional nuclear-fission energy (read: accidents, radioactive waste), had finally been achieved at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California…………………..

…All in all, the reviews for fusion were positively glowing and it seemed to make instant sense. After all, what could possibly be wrong ……………..

The Big Catch

On a very basic level, fusion is the stuff of stars. Within the Earth’s sun, hydrogen combines with helium to create heat in the form of sunlight. Inside the walls of the Livermore Lab, this natural process was imitated by blasting 192 gigantic lasers into a tube the size of a baby’s toe. Inside that cylinder sat a “hydrogen-encased diamond.” When the laser shot through the small hole, it destroyed that diamond quicker than the blink of an eye. In doing so, it created a bunch of invisible x-rays that compressed a small pellet of deuterium and tritium, which scientists refer to as “heavy hydrogen.

“In a brief moment lasting less than 100 trillionths of a second, 2.05 megajoules of energy — roughly the equivalent of a pound of TNT — bombarded the hydrogen pellet,”explained New York Times reporter Kenneth Chang. “Out flowed a flood of neutron particles — the product of fusion — which carried about 3 megajoules of energy, a factor of 1.5 in energy gain.”

As with so many breakthroughs, there was a catch. First, 3 megajoules isn’t much energy. After all, it takes 360,000 megajoules to create 300 hours of light from a single 100-watt light bulb. So, Livermore’s fusion development isn’t going to electrify a single home, let alone a million homes, anytime soon. And there was another nagging issue with this little fusion creation as well: it took 300 megajoules to power up those 192 lasers. Simply put, at the moment, they require 100 times more energy to charge than the energy they ended up producing.

“The reality is that fusion energy will not be viable at scale anytime within the next decade, a time frame over which carbon emissions must be reduced by 50% to avoid catastrophic warming of more than 1.5°C,”  – climate expert Michael Mann

Tritium Trials and Tribulations

The secretive and heavily secured National Ignition Facility where that test took place is the size of a sprawling sports arena. It could, in fact, hold three football fields. Which makes me wonder: how much space would be needed to do fusion on a commercial scale? No good answer is yet available. Then there’s the trouble with that isotope tritium needed to help along the fusion reaction. It’s not easy to come by and costs about as much as diamonds, around $30,000 per gram. Right now, even some of the bigwigs at the Department of Defense are worried that we’re running out of usable tritium.

…………”tritium, with a half-life of 12.3 years, exists naturally only in trace amounts in the upper atmosphere, the product of cosmic ray bombardment.” – writes Daniel Clery in Science.

…………………… the reactors themselves will have to be lined with a lot of lithium, itself an expensive chemical element at $71 a kilogram (copper, by contrast, is around $9.44 a kilogram), to allow the process to work correctly.

Then there’s also a commonly repeated misstatement that fusion doesn’t create significant radioactive waste, a haunting reality for the world’s current fleet of nuclear plants. True, plutonium, which can be used as fuel in atomic weapons, isn’t a natural byproduct of fusion, but tritium is the radioactive form of hydrogen. Its little isotopes are great at permeating metals and finding ways to escape tight enclosures. Obviously, this will pose a significant problem for those who want to continuously breed tritium in a fusion reactor. It also presents a concern for people worried about radioactivity making its way out of such facilities and into the environment.

“Cancer is the main risk from humans ingesting tritium. When tritium decays it spits out a low-energy electron (roughly 18,000 electron volts) that escapes and slams into DNA, a ribosome, or some other biologically important molecule,” David Biello explains in Scientific American. “And, unlike other radionuclides, tritium is usually part of water, so it ends up in all parts of the body and therefore can, in theory, promote any kind of cancer. But that also helps reduce the risk: any tritiated water is typically excreted in less than a month.”

If that sounds problematic, that’s because it is. This country’s above-ground atomic bomb testing in the 1950s and 1960s was responsible for most of the man-made tritium that’s lingering in the environment. And it will be at least 2046, 84 years after the last American atmospheric nuclear detonation in Nevada, before tritium there will no longer pose a problem for the area.

Of course, tritium also escapes from our existing nuclear reactors and is routinely found near such facilities where it occurs “naturally” during the fission process. In fact, after Illinois farmers discovered their wells had been contaminated by the nearby Braidwood nuclear plant, they successfully sued the site’s operator Exelon, which, in 2005, was caught discharging 6.2 million gallons of tritium-laden water into the soil.

In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) allows the industry to monitor for tritium releases at nuclear sites; the industry is politely asked to alert the NRC in a “timely manner” if tritium is either intentionally or accidentally released. But a June 2011 report issued by the Government Accountability Office cast doubt on the NRC’s archaic system for assessing tritium discharges, suggesting that it’s anything but effective. (“Absent such an assessment, we continue to believe that NRC has no assurance that the Groundwater Protection Initiative will lead to prompt detection of underground piping system leaks as nuclear power plants age.”)

Consider all of this a way of saying that, if the NRC isn’t doing an adequate job of monitoring tritium leaks already occurring with regularity at the country’s nuclear plants, how the heck will it do a better job of tracking the stuff at fusion plants in the future? And as I suggest in my new book, Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, the NRC is plain awful at just about everything it does.

Instruments of Death

All of that got me wondering: if tritium, vital for the fusion process, is radioactive, and if they aren’t going to be operating those lasers in time to put the brakes on climate change, what’s really going on here?

Maybe some clues lie (as is so often the case) in history. The initial idea for a fusion reaction was proposed by English physicist Arthur Eddington in 1920. More than 30 years later, on November 1, 1952, the first full-scale U.S. test of a thermonuclear device, “Operation Ivy,” took place in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It yielded a mushroom-cloud explosion from a fusion reaction equivalent in its power to 10.4 Megatons of TNT. That was 450 times more powerful than the atomic bomb the U.S. had dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki only seven years earlier to end World War II. It created an underwater crater 6,240 feet wide and 164 feet deep…………….

Nicknamed “Ivy Mike,” the bomb was a Teller-Ulam thermonuclear device, named after its creators Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam. It was also the United States’ first full-scale hydrogen bomb, an altogether different beast than the two awful nukes dropped on Japan in August 1945. Those bombs utilized fission in their cores to create massive explosions. But Ivy Mike gave a little insight into what was still possible for future weapons of annihilation.

The details of how the Teller-Ulam device works are still classified, but historian of science Alex Wellerstein explained the concept well in the New Yorker:

“The basic idea is, as far as we know, as follows. Take a fission weapon — call it the primary. Take a capsule of fusionable material, cover it with depleted uranium, and call it the secondary. Take both the primary and the secondary and put them inside a radiation case — a box made of very heavy materials. When the primary detonates, radiation flows out of it, filling the case with X rays. This process, which is known as radiation implosion, will, through one mechanism or another… compress the secondary to very high densities, inaugurating fusion reactions on a large scale. These fusion reactions will, in turn, let off neutrons of such a high energy that they can make the normally inert depleted uranium of the secondary’s casing undergo fission.”

Got it? Ivy Mike was, in fact, a fission explosion that initiated a fusion reaction. But ultimately, the science of how those instruments of death work isn’t all that important. The takeaway here is that, since first tried out in that monstrous Marshall Islands explosion, fusion has been intended as a tool of war. And sadly, so it remains, despite all the publicity about its possible use some distant day in relation to climate change. In truth, any fusion breakthroughs are potentially of critical importance not as a remedy for our warming climate but for a future apocalyptic world of war.

Despite all the fantastic media publicity, that’s how the U.S. government has always seen it and that’s why the latest fusion test to create “energy” was executed in the utmost secrecy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. One thing should be taken for granted: the American government is interested not in using fusion technology to power the energy grid, but in using it to further strengthen this country’s already massive arsenal of atomic weapons.

Consider it an irony, under the circumstances, but in its announcement about the success at Livermore — though this obviously wasn’t what made the headlines — the Department of Energy didn’t skirt around the issue of gains for future atomic weaponry. Jill Hruby, the department’s undersecretary for nuclear security, admitted that, in achieving a fusion ignition, researchers had “opened a new chapter in NNSA’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program.” (NNSA stands for the National Nuclear Security Administration.) That “chapter” Hruby was bragging about has a lot more to do with “modernizing” the country’s nuclear weapons capabilities than with using laser fusion to end our reliance on fossil fuels.

“Had we not pursued the hydrogen bomb,” Edward Teller once said, “there is a very real threat that we would now all be speaking Russian. I have no regrets.” Some attitudes die hard.

Buried deep in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s website, the government comes clean about what these fusion experiments at the $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility (NIF) are really all about:

NIF’s high energy density and inertial confinement fusion experiments, coupled with the increasingly sophisticated simulations available from some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, increase our understanding of weapon physics, including the properties and survivability of weapons-relevant materials… The high rigor and multidisciplinary nature of NIF experiments play a key role in attracting, training, testing, and retaining new generations of skilled stockpile stewards who will continue the mission to protect America into the future.”

Yes, despite all the media attention to climate change, this is a rare yet intentional admission, surely meant to frighten officials in China and Russia. It leaves little doubt about what this fusion breakthrough means. It’s not about creating future clean energy and never has been. It’s about “protecting” the world’s greatest capitalist superpower. Competitors beware.

Sadly, fusion won’t save the Arctic from melting, but if we don’t put a stop to it, that breakthrough technology could someday melt us all.  https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-01-26/nuclear-fusion-wont-save-the-climate-but-it-might-blow-up-the-world/

November 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Japan’s Fukushima plant completes third water release

Canberra Times By Mari Yamaguchi, November 20 2023 – Australian Associated Press

The release of a third batch of treated radioactive wastewater from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean ended safely as planned, its operator says, as the country’s seafood producers continue to suffer from a Chinese import ban imposed after the discharges began.

Large amounts of radioactive wastewater have accumulated at the nuclear plant since it was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

It began discharging treated and diluted wastewater into the ocean on August 24 and finished releasing the third 7800-ton batch on Monday.

The process is expected to take decades.

The discharges have been strongly opposed by fishing groups and neighbouring countries including China, which banned all imports of Japanese seafood, badly hurting Japanese producers and exporters of scallops and other seafood……………………………………………………

Japan’s government has set up a relief fund to help find new markets for Japanese seafood, and the central and local governments have led campaigns to encourage Japanese consumers to eat more fish and support Fukushima seafood producers.

TEPCO is also providing compensation to the fisheries industry for “reputational damage” to its products caused by the wastewater release and said it has mailed application forms to 580 possible compensation seekers…………………………..

TEPCO and the government say the process is safe, but some scientists say the continuing release of water containing radionuclides from damaged reactors is unprecedented and should be monitored closely.

Monday’s completion of the release of the third batch of wastewater brings the total to 23,400 tons.

TEPCO plans a fourth release by the end of March 2024.

That would only empty about 10 of the approximately 1000 storage tanks at the Fukushima plant because of its continued production of wastewater, although officials say the pace of the discharges will pick up later.

The tanks currently hold more than 1.3 million tons of wastewater, most of which needs to be retreated to meet safety standards before release.

TEPCO and the government say discharging the water into the sea is unavoidable because the tanks need to be removed from the grounds of the plant so that it can be decommissioned.  https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8430646/japans-fukushima-plant-completes-third-water-release/

November 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Mainstream Narrative On Ukraine-Russia War CRUMBLING, Conflict Is Unwinnable

November 20, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘This Is Not a War, but a Mass Murder Tragedy,’ Says Former US Assistant Secretary of Defense, Charles Freeman

November 18, 2023

Chas Freeman chairs Projects International, Inc.

For more than four decades, Projects International has helped its partner enterprises and clients to create business ventures across borders. It facilitates their establishment of new businesses through the design, negotiation, capitalization, and implementation of greenfield investments, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, franchises, one-off transactions, sales and agencies in other countries. The firm operates on five continents.

Ambassador Freeman is a career diplomat (retired) who was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-94, earning the highest public service awards of the Department of Defense for his roles in designing a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system and in reestablishing defense and military relations with China. He served as U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm). He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the historic U.S. mediation of Namibian independence from South Africa and Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola. Ambassador Freeman worked as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires in the American embassies at both Bangkok (1984-1986) and Beijing (1981-1984). He was Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981. He was the principal American interpreter during the late President Nixon’s path-breaking visit to China in 1972. In addition to his Middle Eastern, African, East Asian and European diplomatic experience, he had a tour of duty in India.

November 20, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Is the world warming faster than expected?

Is the world warming faster than expected? There have been historically
high sea temperatures, worrying lows in Antarctic sea-ice, and extreme
weather events hitting every continent – the latest being an “unbearable”
heatwave in Brazil. It’s now “virtually certain” that 2023 will be the
hottest year on record. That’s something that no major climate science body
expected at the start of the year.

Scientists have long known that
temperatures will continue to rise as humans keep releasing record amounts
of planet-heating greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, mainly through
burning fossil fuels. This is the main cause of global warming. While they
are struggling to fully explain 2023’s “gobsmacking” surge in temperatures,
here are four additional reasons that could be behind the increases. A
‘weird’ El Niño; Cutting aerosols; A large volcanic eruption; An Antarctic
‘radiator’?

BBC 18th Nov 2023

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67360929

November 20, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear news- week to 20th November

  Some bits of good news.   Dominica Creates World’s First Sperm Whale Reserve–for the 200 That Call the Island Home .       Wave-Powered Desalination System Produces 13,000 Gallons of Drinking Water a Day From Each Buoy.    China’s CO2 emissions are forecast to start shrinking next year, with fossil fuel use predicted to head into an era of structural decline, along with surging investment in solar in the country.

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TOP STORIES. *‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 37: Al-Shifa Hospital No Longer Functioning as Israeli Ground Troops Surround the Hospital. 

*Zelensky Headed For DISASTER, Ukraine’s FAILED Counteroffensive COVERED UP: David Sacks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaJCUDOE6UA. 

*Who Would Take the Brunt of an Attack on U.S. Nuclear Missile Silos? 

*US, UK to Push Pledge to Triple Nuclear Power by 2050 at COP28. 

*The End of DOE’s Flagship Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (SMR) — A Cautionary Tale.

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Climate. 1.5C Limit ‘Only Option’ For Saving Earth’s Ice And Snow. Is the world warming faster than expected?.

Christina notes. The onslaught formally begins. The ruthless, morally bankrupt nuclear lobby moves to take over the COP 28 climate summit. Nuclear lobby targets young women, in the leadup to their propaganda blitz at COP 28.

AUSTRALIA. Whistleblower David McBride – his Trial Tests Australian Justice. A Duty to Obey: David McBride, Whistleblowing and Following Orders. The Militarised University: Where Secrecy Goes to Thrive. 

AUKUS Submarine Revelations Compel a Rethink. $31m fines, 25 years jail for nuclear submarine safety breaches. 

Barngarla traditional owners win national conservation award for successful radioactive waste campaign news on radioactive waste.

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ART and CULTURE. Art Exhibition inspired by concerns over Sizewell C nuclear plan.

CLIMATE. Frozen fallout: radioactive dust from accidents and weapons testing accumulates on glaciers.

CIVIL LIBERTIES. UK gov’t departments compiling ‘secret files’ on its critics to prevent them speaking at official events.

ECONOMICS.   

• Small nuclear reactors in Canada: at what cost?      America’s first Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (SMR) fizzles out as uranium continues to ride high. THE COLLAPSE OF THE UAMPS small nuclear reactor DEAL RAISES THE PROSPECT OF BANKRUPTCY FOR NUSCALE. U.S. Bets on Small Nuclear Reactors – But major obstacles loom. Consortium green lights European NuScale style (!) small nuclear reactors. 
• EDF won’t make ‘massive fortune’ from Hinkley, says director. 
• The U.S. Is Paying Billions to Russia’s Nuclear Agency. 
• French government, EDF agree on €70 MWh for nuclear power.
• World Nuclear Industry Status Report due on 6 December.

EDUCATION. Over 1,200 ‘Educators for Palestine’ Sign Open Letter Demanding Ceasefire. UK nuclear lobby brainwashing young students, especially women.

EMPLOYMENT. Are staff shortages at Sellafield nuclear power plant affecting safety at the site?

ENERGY. Chernobyl, site of world’s worst nuclear disaster, could soon be home to an exciting new project: ‘Tolerable exposure levels for limited periods of time’.

ENVIRONMENT. Frozen fallout: radioactive dust from accidents and weapons testing accumulates on glaciers.         Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant starts 3rd round of wastewater release, potentially impacting seafood quality in U.S.

ETHICS and RELIGION. Wars end in defeat for everyone: A reflection on Gaza. What a Catholic peace studies expert thinks is the way out of war in Gaza.    Birthplace of Jesus dismantling all Christmas decorations ‘in solidarity with our people in Gaza’.     ‘Burn Gaza now’ – top Israeli MP.

HEALTH. Exposure to CT Radiation and Risk of Blood Cancers in Young Patients.

HISTORY. The U.S. Army tried to build a secret military nuclear city under Greenland’s ice.

LEGAL. CND mounts legal challenge against US nuclear weapons storage at RAF Lakenheath.

MEDIA. Israelis Keep Hurting Their Own Public Relations Interests By Talking. How a hasbara group’s sham investigation put Gaza journalists in the firing line. Smearing Photojournalists as Hamas Collaborators – Gets Them Added to a Hit List.

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. UK small #nuclear competition: Rolls Royce in, Bill Gates snubbed. U.S. military quietly revokes planned contract for small nuclear plant at Alaska Air Force base.        Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission queried on proposal for untested small nuclear reactors in Ontario. Why the Godfather of A.I.  Fears What He’s Built.             Finland’s OL3 nuclear reactor suffers unexpected outage.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Council urged to review plans that could lead to UK hosting US nuclear bombs.

POLITICS. 

• Zelensky may be ousted – ex-presidential aide. Ukraine war a ‘good investment’ for US – Trump rival . 
• White House, Senate, House all out of sync with electorate on Gaza. Internal State Dept. memo blasts Biden, U.S. policy on Israel-Hamas war. Over 400 of Biden’s Own Administration Officials Demand Ceasefire in Gaza. Jill Stein’s Ominous Warning on Growing Threat of Nuclear War. 
• USA’s Energy Department’s nuclear commercialization ‘small nuclear‘ adventures are burning holes in the taxpayers’ pockets. A small modular reactor’s demise calls for big change in Energy Department policy. 
• Something fishy: Welsh Councils excluded from latest Hinkley Point C Consultation.  UK MPs say that Wylfa big nuclear power project should go ahead, locals not so sure The Sir John Armitt interview: ‘I’m not sure the government is really serious about nuclear’. 
• A four-decade-old Pacific treaty was meant to preserve the ‘peaceful region’. Now experts say it’s being exploited.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. 

• Biden and Xi will sign a deal to keep AI out of control systems for nuclear weapons: report. The US and China re-engage on arms control. What may come next. 
• How the United States and its NATO allies sabotaged a peace between Russia and Ukraine. Washington raises stakes on ‘losing hand’ in Ukraine. EU media names member states against Ukrainian membership. 
• Time’s Up for Netanyahu and Biden. Patrick Lawrence: ‘The Hinge of History’- Palestine and the New World Order. Herzog: Israel will maintain ‘very strong force’ in Gaza, Translation: We’re not leaving. Ever. First Ladies make joint call on the world about Palestine. 

PUBLIC OPINION. Poll: Majority of Americans Support a Ceasefire in Gaza.

SAFETY.

• The Uzbek nuclear endeavour: Boon or bane for Central Asia? 
• Russia Shuts Down Nuclear Plant Reactor Unit After Malfunction. 
• Greenpeace installs radiation sensors in Ukraine and calls for EU sanctions against Rosatom.
• Simon Daigle lists the public concerns that must be addressed in planned development of BWRX-300 small nuclear reactors – Submission to Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. 
• Incident: Major malfunction on Royal navy nuclear submarine plunges warship into ‘danger zone’

SECRETS and LIES. Deadly alliance: Why has the CIA decided to allow US media to confirm its involvement in Ukraine’s brutal assassination campaign?               Don’t be fooled. Biden is fully signed up to genocide in Gaza. Biden and Israel Refuse to Provide Proof of Hamas Base at Gaza Hospital. Biden Admin Justifies Israel’s Assault on Gaza Hospitals With Recycled Israeli ‘Intelligence’. Lies Surrounding Al-Shifa Hospital Recall Those Preceding the Iraq Invasion.

WASTES. Decommissioning. Uncharted waters: Navy navigating first-ever dismantling of nuclear-powered carrier. UK Has £10 Billion Per Nuclear Reactor Decommissioning Bottomless Pit.

WAR and CONFLICT. Israel demolishes Gaza parliament (VIDEO). Netanyahu Says Israel ‘Not Successful’ in Minimizing Civilian Casualties in Gaza. Amnesty International Calls Israel’s War on Gaza a ‘Graveyard of Children’. ‘This Is Not a War, but a Mass Murder Tragedy,’ Says Charles Freeman, Former US Assistant Secretary of Defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRb4QhZi2MA&t=860s Mainstream 

Narrative On Ukraine-Russia War CRUMBLING, Conflict Is Unwinnable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S8Kaq0POOs .        Zelensky comments on ‘frozen conflict’ prospects.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. The U.S.’s Plans to Modernize Nuclear Weapons Are Dangerous and Unnecessary. The Latest Nuclear Boondoggle? The Missiles on Our Land: New Research Reveals Growing Risks of America’s Land-Based Nuclear Missiles. Behind the Scenes at a U.S. Factory Building New Nuclear Bombs. 

Nuclear weapons sharing, 2023. Armed With B61-12 Nuclear Bombs, Dutch F-35A Fighters Get Close To Nuke Strike Mission.         Israel’s Nuclear Weapons in the Spotlight. US Is Quietly Sending Israel More Ammunition, Missiles. EU’s Ukraine weapons goal ‘unattainable’ – Germany .

November 20, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

THE COLLAPSE OF THE UAMPS small nuclear reactor DEAL RAISES THE PROSPECT OF BANKRUPTCY FOR NUSCALE

Crypto miners typically require the lowest-cost energy sources such as hydropower. Why then would Standard Power be interested in a Small Modular Reactor solution? It is way more expensive as the UAMPS fallout has demonstrated. This incongruity is already a red flag.

November 16, 2023 · by Iceberg Research 

On 19 October 2023, we showed that NuScale’s key business contract with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (“UAMPS”) was at significant risk of termination. NuScale dismissed our report, labelling it as ‘riddled with speculative statements with no basis in fact’. Just a few days later, the company announced the termination of the UAMPS contract. Bloomberg characterised the cancellation as ‘abrupt’ but our report had already pointed out multiple signs that suggested its impending demise. 

In its rebuttal, NuScale wrote that “…the CFPP being developed by Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems has its own project challenges not attributable to NuScale’s SMR technology”. The fact is UAMPS members abandoned ship because of escalating costs, which occurred even before any construction had begun. This structural problem is likely to repeat itself in future commercial relationships. 

In its rebuttal, NuScale wrote that “…the CFPP being developed by Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems has its own project challenges not attributable to NuScale’s SMR technology”. The fact is UAMPS members abandoned ship because of escalating costs, which occurred even before any construction had begun. This structural problem is likely to repeat itself in future commercial relationships. 

Once you are on a dead horse, you dismount quickly and move on to others,” said NuScale CEO John Hopkins when referring to the UAMPS contract on the 3Q23 earnings call. That poor horse was the cornerstone of NuScale’s business case and we are now left with the other major contract: Standard Power. 

We reiterate that this contract is a pipe dream that was designed to divert attention from the loss of UAMPS. People familiar with project finance along with performance and credit risk (we are) would shake their heads. To recap, Standard Power is a small crypto dataserver company — with minimum internet footprint — to whom NuScale expects to deliver 24 units of 77 MWe modules, totalling 1,848 MWe in capacity. We estimated this contract was worth ~$37bn. NuScale questioned this number saying the company did not provide “any forecast for the expected value of the agreement with Standard Power…”. To get our number, we simply used the UAMPS price adjusted for the number of reactors. So it’s undoubtedly a massive contract. 

Crypto miners typically require the lowest-cost energy sources such as hydropower. Why then would Standard Power be interested in a Small Modular Reactor solution? It is way more expensive as the UAMPS fallout has demonstrated. This incongruity is already a red flag. We also wonder: why did Standard Power not participate in the UAMPS project, since NuScale was actively seeking more subscriptions to reach the 80% target?

Still, Standard Power is touted by NuScale as a credible partner because its investors comprise “Ultra high net worth family offices and financial institutions” that have “access to capital in excess of $10bn”. Even if this is true (which we doubt because of Standard Power’s size and the lack of identification around its investors), who cares? 

1. Have these financiers directly committed to the project? No. 
2. Will these family offices invest all of their $10bn capital in a $37bn contract? This makes no sense. 
3. Is it realistic to expect banks to finance crypto-related projects when the banking industry has cracked down on crypto financial flows? Good luck. It’s unlikely to even pass the compliance department.

During the 3Q23 conference call, TD Cowen analyst Marc Bianchi questioned Standard Power’s credibility as a counterparty. All he got from CFO Robert Ramsey Hamady was a smoke screen (see below on original)……………………………………………..

Management confidently states that NuScale has a “solid balance sheet” with $197m of cash at the end of September, and no debt. This perspective overlooks NuScale’s rapid cash burn of $153.9m over the last 12 months and ignores the impact of the UAMPS contract termination, which adds ~$63.3m in liabilities. On this basis, we estimate that NuScale has an 11-19 month cash runway depending on whether they draw on the ATM, which will dilute existing stockholders…………………………………….

As detailed in our first report, the DOE committed substantial funding towards the project, contingent on matching private money. However, the termination of the UAMPS contract implies any further support will be re-evaluated. 

The company’s trajectory bears striking similarities to the B&W mPower project, a joint venture formed in 2010 between Babcock & Wilcox and Bechtel. Like NuScale, mPower was developing a small modular reactor and enjoyed DOE backing. Babcock & Wilcox, mPower’s 90%-shareholder, attempted but failed to sell a majority stake in the project. In a similar vein, NuScale’s largest shareholder Fluor is actively trying to sell around 30% of its equity interest in NuScale. There was eventually a significant reduction in funding for mPower. In March 2017, Bechtel withdrew from the joint venture, pointing to the challenges of securing a site and an investor for the first reactor. This led to the termination of the mPower project and Babcock & Wilcox paid Bechtel $30m as settlement.

NuScale is now staring at the likelihood of bankruptcy. It will not see any significant cash inflows with the UAMPS commercial setback. The company’s only way to stay alive, albeit for a short time, is to massively dilute its shareholders. 

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Wars end in defeat for everyone: A reflection on Gaza

The selection of images is at the heart of the implacable demand from both sides for uncritical solidarity, for support for the right to self-defense and legitimation of the means used against the other. In this battle for public opinion, many stand with Israel and many others with the Palestinians.

The portrayal of the other side as demonic justifies the means used to fight it. The enemy is dehumanized, commonly likened to savage animals that have lost any shadow of humanity, morality or logic, killing machines that can only be stopped by brutal and merciless war.

Violence and victory

Fed by what seems like an unquenchable thirst for revenge, both sides to the conflict propose that violence will bring victory. The belief that victory is attainable by defeating the enemy in pitiless warfare is at the heart of the rhetoric of war. This is perhaps the most venomous myth in any conflict.

America, the Jesuit Review David Neuhaus, November 16, 2023

In the early morning of Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, for Jews not only Sabbath but also Simchat Torah, a holy day celebrating the reading of the Torah, hundreds of armed Palestinian militants from Hamas broke through the barriers between the Gaza Strip and Israel or floated above them, pouring into Israel. They were accompanied by a barrage of missiles fired into Israel. They sowed terror and wreaked havoc, killing about 1,200, wounding thousands more and kidnapping over 240 Israeli soldiers and civilians.

The planning, implementation and ferocity of the attack took Israel by surprise—not only because Israeli intelligence had not uncovered the plot beforehand but also because the army took such a long time to neutralize the threat. Israelis were left shocked and horrified, while many Palestinians watched with a certain sense of vindication and some even rejoiced. Israel immediately responded with an intensive bombardment of Gaza, calling up its military reserves and massing its troops on the border with Gaza. The pounding intensity of the Israeli response was not only a reaction to the horrors that had been committed but also an attempt to restore some sense of security in military superiority after the shameful negligence that had allowed the attacks to take place.

The next day, Sunday, Oct. 8, Pope Francis addressed the world in his Angelus address:

I am following apprehensively and sorrowfully what is happening in Israel where violence has exploded yet more ferociously, causing hundreds of deaths and injured. I express my closeness to the families of the victims. I am praying for them and for all who are living hours of terror and anguish. May the attacks and weapons stop. Please! And may it be understood that terrorism and war do not lead to any resolutions, but only to the death and suffering of many innocent people. War is a defeat! Every war is a defeat. Let us pray that there be peace in Israel and in Palestine.

The Israeli Embassy to the Holy See reacted to this statement and those that followed with unease, claiming that the Holy Father and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s secretary of state, were using a discourse that manifested “linguistic ambiguities and terms that allude to a false symmetry.” In insisting that Israel had a legitimate right to self-defense but should not indiscriminately bomb Gaza, the Holy See, the Israeli Embassy argued, was “suggesting parallelisms where they do not exist.”

The issue raised is a serious one. What language should one use to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? This is especially urgent at this time when the conflict takes on dimensions of violence that are unprecedented and emotions run high. How does one try to formulate a discourse that can encourage moderation, support dialogue and promote reconciliation even in the midst of battle? The issues involved are complex, but one must first recognize the morally problematic discourse that is being used by both sides in the conflict in order to dominate the narrative and garner uncritical support.

Whose side are you on?

The two sides to the decades-long conflict, Israelis and Palestinians, not only oppose each other with military arsenals but also attempt to mobilize public opinion at home and abroad in order to justify their actions. The military battle is parallel to the battle to control the images, sounds and words that are broadcast from the battlefield.

On the one hand, terrifying images of armed and masked Hamas militants pouring into Israel and wreaking destruction, killing, raping and maiming in a drunken orgy of vengeance began to appear in the media. These images capture the massacres of the Israeli men, women and children who were mowed down in the area bordering the Gaza Strip, among them hundreds of young people killed while at a music festival and dozens slaughtered, including babies in their cribs, in the taking of the small village of Kfar Aza. The scenes show bodies strewn in public places and in homes, with countless body bags displayed for all to see the enormity of the carnage. Photographs and short videos document the elderly women and young children taken hostage by Hamas, dragged back into the Gaza Strip together with dozens of others, provoking profound terror and searing rage.

On the other hand, Israel’s pummeling of the Gaza Strip with its sophisticated armory of precision weapons has provided a parallel and very different canon of images. Neighborhoods have been erased and high-rise buildings reduced to rubble in seconds, with thousands of Gazan men, women and children buried in the ruins. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans fleeing their homes provide more images of panic and desperation. On Oct. 13, the Israeli army ordered Gazans to evacuate the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip. Images of the flow of people carrying a few precious belongings added to the collection of heart-rending scenes.

The military battle is parallel to the battle to control the images, sounds and words that are broadcast from the battlefield.

This roll of images shows daily the extraction of an unending stream of bodies of men, women and children from their bombed homes, the writhing agony of the wounded carried off to overcrowded, underdeveloped and grossly overloaded hospitals, the non-stop shrieks of parents or children of the dead, their relatives and friends, gathered around the corpses of their loved ones.

The selection of images is at the heart of the implacable demand from both sides for uncritical solidarity, for support for the right to self-defense and legitimation of the means used against the other. In this battle for public opinion, many stand with Israel and many others with the Palestinians.

In the aftermath of the initial Hamas attack, President Biden declared that his country’s support for Israel was “rock solid and unwavering.” Leaders from major Western European countries followed suit. Israeli suffering was showcased to explain these unilateral manifestations of support. Israeli victims have names, faces, families and voices that cry out their pain in the media. Massive demonstrations have supported Israel, screaming out their condemnation of Hamas, some using expressions redolent of racism, anti-Arab sentiment and Islamophobia.

Palestinian suffering, although seemingly passed over by those who support Israel, is showcased in Arab, Muslim and many other countries, again galvanizing the sense that the world is unjust, that the powerful side with the powerful and the poor continue to be mercilessly exploited. Massive demonstrations of supporters of the Palestinians screamed out their condemnation of Israel, some using expressions redolent of antisemitism, and manifested a fury at what was termed the hypocrisy of mourning Jewish victims and ignoring Palestinian ones.

Who started it?

Israelis and Palestinians produce very different narratives concerning who is to blame for what is happening. In times of war, it is comforting to know who are the good and who are the bad; that way, the aggressor and the aggressed can be clearly separated from one another, one cheered on and the other excoriated.

On Oct. 7, Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, proclaimed: “We will take mighty vengeance,” as Israel launched its military campaign, named “Operation Swords of Iron.” For those supporting Israel, it is clear that the narrative begins on that black Saturday morning. Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated the following in his meeting with the press on October 12 : “There was no reason at all for this flaring up which ended in the worst tragedy that was ever inflicted in the history of Israel, and the highest number of Jews killed since the Holocaust, including Holocaust survivors

………………………………………………………… . The proportions of what happened on Oct. 7, however, not only raised a very acute question about the invincibility of Israel’s military and intelligence network but also raised the terrifying question about whether the state of Israel is after all a safe haven for Jews fleeing violence in a world in which they were a marginal and often persecuted minority.

Muhammad Dayf, the supreme commander of Hamas’s military wing, named this stage of the ongoing conflict “Al-Aqsa Storm” and declared: “Enough is enough!” Hamas declared that this incursion into Israel was itself a response to an ongoing occupation and repression that have been going on for decades. More precisely, Palestinians pointed to increasing Israeli attacks and repressive policies directed against Palestinians throughout the territories Israel had occupied since the Netanyahu rightwing coalition came to power, as well as the intensifying activity of Jewish extremists in the area of Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif (what Jews often call the Temple Mount). For those supporting the Palestinians, the success of Hamas’s attack surprised them as much as it did Israel. Well planned, well executed and devastatingly successful in its initial aims, the attack is not seen as a beginning but as a response to a long series of Israeli acts of violence.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said a few days before the present events that the Gaza Strip was “an open-air prison.”

The attack is justified by Hamas supporters as a reaction to the regime that has kept them enclosed in an overpopulated strip of land, mostly filled with sprawling refugee camps; Israel, they argue, has kept the Gaza Strip under a stranglehold siege. Refugees in Gaza constitute about 70 percent of the population, people driven out of the territories of the new state of Israel in 1948 and their descendants. The dire living conditions since then, worsened by periodic periods of confrontation with Israel since Hamas came to power in 2006, have left it battered and bruised, its population bleeding and its infrastructure regularly devastated. Furthermore, since 2006, the strip has been under a siege that deprives its residents of minimal conditions for life, prosperity and development. The newly-instituted Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, whose diocese includes Gaza, said a few days before the present events that the Gaza Strip was “an open-air prison.”

……………………………………………………………………………… The two sides are eager to show the other as demonic.

The Israeli point of view

In the media battle, supporters of Israel portray Hamas as Nazis, as ISIS, as servants of the evil empire of Islamic Iran. The use of images of some Palestinians rejoicing in the horrors visited upon Israelis solidifies the sense of horror and the contempt. Supporters of Israel point out that the people of Gaza elected Hamas and so argue that they are responsible for their own misfortune. Pointing to the long history of antisemitism and contempt for Jews in so many parts of the world, supporters of Israel present Israelis as the victims of unprovoked violence at the hands of bloodthirsty Palestinian terrorists, continuity in the suffering of the Jews throughout history.

……………………………………………………………………………………………. In the light of the fight against evil, the divisions that marked Israeli society in the past months have evaporated. Furthermore, the marked reservations that the Biden administration expressed with regard to Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition have also vanished, as Mr. Biden not only regularly calls in to express his support for Israel but also sends a steady stream of officials to manifest that support concretely, bringing assurances of diplomatic, military and economic assistance.

The Palestinian point of view

However, in the Arab and Muslim worlds and in many countries that have known colonialism, racism and exclusion, the Palestinians have succeeded in linking their struggle to a worldwide liberation struggle against colonialism, imperialism and white supremacy. Israelis are presented as colonial supremacists engaged in decades of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. Hamas justifies the cruelty of its militants by portraying Israelis as colonial settlers whose only interest is the oppression and eventual extinction of Palestinians. Hamas has explained that it does not target civilians, chillingly adding that the elderly, babies, children and youth are all part of the colonial Zionist project to deprive Palestinians of their rights and banish them from the stage of history.

The portrayal of the other side as demonic justifies the means used to fight it. The enemy is dehumanized, commonly likened to savage animals that have lost any shadow of humanity, morality or logic, killing machines that can only be stopped by brutal and merciless war.

Violence and victory

Fed by what seems like an unquenchable thirst for revenge, both sides to the conflict propose that violence will bring victory. The belief that victory is attainable by defeating the enemy in pitiless warfare is at the heart of the rhetoric of war. This is perhaps the most venomous myth in any conflict.

……………………………………………… . Might the intensity of the present conflict and the terrible losses on both sides take us beyond the horizon of endless war with a growing recognition that victory is illusive and continued violence is ultimately suicidal?

The word of the church

The international community seems to have given up on trying to play a moderating role in the conflict, and those peace plans that were proposed by various international parties have gone nowhere…………………………………………………………..

In this context, the presence of the Catholic Church is particularly needed. Free of the constraints of political interests and avoiding as much as possible the games of international diplomacy, the church can be prophetic in reminding all that every human being—yes, even a Hamas militant or a Zionist settler—is created in the image and likeness of God. 

………………………………………….. In a dramatic response to a question from a journalist, Cardinal Pizzaballa offered himself in exchange for the Israeli children held hostage by Hamas. In solidarity with the suffering, he would no doubt also offer himself in exchange for the Palestinian children buried under the bombs dropped in Gaza. In a letter he addressed to the faithful on Oct. 24, 2023, Cardinal Pizzaballa expressed his anguish:……………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/11/16/gaza-israel-palestine-war-narratives-246530?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2928&pnespid=vag3FzocbKcfiuORqCylQp_J5RnxT4Jqd.rsx7th9gNmlvjlt_Lr8Z_7o_sm2symfUDQ03iQFg

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

What a Catholic peace studies expert thinks is the way out of war in Gaza

America, the Jesuit Review Kevin Clarke, November 17, 2023

“So how do you draw people off, to stop thinking that their only possibilities are to become martyrs, [that] it doesn’t matter if they die or they take everyone in Gaza with them? Some of their supporters have to get through to them.”

The patrons of the combatants—the United States and Germany for Israel, and Iran and Qatar for Hamas, must pressure their clients to accept a cease-fire, she said. The agony at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, where 36 infants cling to life after the hospital lost power to run their incubators, could prove a pivotal moment when maximum leverage can be brought to bear, according to Dr. O’Connell.

Kevin Clarke, November 17, 2023

As tensions mount across the Middle East because of the continuing bloodshed in Gaza, the remnant forces of the United States in Syria and Iraq have come under fire from militant groups in sympathy with Hamas. More than 50 U.S. service members have suffered what have been described as minor injuries in the rocket attacks. On Nov. 11, U.S. aircraft conducted the third in a recent series of raids on Iran-backed militants in retaliation—this latest U.S. strike on a training facility and a safe house was perhaps the most devastating, and likely produced casualties.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and of international peace studies at the university’s Kroc Institute, believes this tit-for-tat strategy is precisely the wrong response if regional de-escalation is indeed the desire of the Biden administration. “The airstrikes in Syria and Iraq by the United States need to stop immediately,” she said, describing them as “blatant violations of international law.”

If regional containment of the conflict remains a primary objective, she said, U.S. forces should refrain from military strikes outside acknowledged armed conflict zones. And, she said, the United States needs to be clear with Israel that U.S. assistance “is premised on Israel complying with international law across the board.”

An air strike on targets in Syria is precisely the wrong response if regional de-escalation is indeed the desire of the Biden administration.

But how to restore peace in Israel and Gaza after this historic outbreak of violence and mutual suffering? Dr. O’Connell said that it will take outside pressure on both parties. Israeli leadership seems determined—at least for now—to ignore a worldwide outcry over the human suffering it is creating in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. And for its part, Hamas appears to be “in suicide mode.”

“So how do you draw people off, to stop thinking that their only possibilities are to become martyrs, [that] it doesn’t matter if they die or they take everyone in Gaza with them? Some of their supporters have to get through to them.”

The patrons of the combatants—the United States and Germany for Israel, and Iran and Qatar for Hamas, must pressure their clients to accept a cease-fire, she said. The agony at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, where 36 infants cling to life after the hospital lost power to run their incubators, could prove a pivotal moment when maximum leverage can be brought to bear, according to Dr. O’Connell.

Patients and staff have endured for days without electricity and basic medical necessities as fighting raged around the hospital compound. The spectacle provoked a surge of negotiations in Riyadh, Doha and Cairo aimed at conflict pauses and hostage exchanges. On Nov. 15, I.D.F. soldiers seized control of Al-Shifa, searching for evidence of a Hamas presence inside and beneath the facility.

What in the end puts a stop to conflict is “always a negotiation,” Dr. O’Connell said. “It’s always trusted partners who come in.”

Over the long term, however, in Gaza and other hotspots in the Middle East like northern Iraq and Syria, peace will be the outcome of processes that require time and patience. Dr. O’Connell called “good governance” the real solution to the problem of terrorism because it “builds an economy where young people have a job, [where they] have a chance for a future.”

She lays partial blame for the violations of international norms evident in the Hamas assault on southern Israel and Israeli tolerance for high numbers of noncombatant casualties in its Gaza campaign on the example set by the United States. During its prosecution of the so-called war on terror and in follow-up campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that effort set in motion, violations of international law in “targeted killing of all kinds” by U.S. forces became routine, she charged.

The United States has created a template for such military strikes, she said, deploying dubious appeals to international law to rationalize use of force. The strategy, she said, has been demonstrably counterproductive. “If we need to carry out this kind of warfare for 22 years, it’s obviously not effective,” Dr. O’Connell said.

Not only has the approach “not suppressed terrorism,” she said, it has “helped create a metastasizing new set of virulent organized armed groups across the north of Africa, into Somalia and other places,” including “the great catastrophe in Afghanistan.”

It has also significantly weakened esteem for the international rule of law related to human rights and war-making, according to Dr. O’Connell, connecting that decline to the utter disregard for norms demonstrated by the Russian Federation in Ukraine. “People don’t even understand anymore what the provisions of the U.N. Charter are, and they don’t take them seriously anymore because of these constant attempts at justifying [use of force] using looser and looser arguments under international law.”

The best sociological research on reversing the diminishing adherence to norms like the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, according to Dr. O’Connell, calls for “a leading sovereign state modeling norm compliance.” She hopes the United States may accept that role.

Specialists on peacemaking like Dr. O’Connell could be forgiven if they grow frustrated that their expertise is only sought when conflicts turn hot or when the persisting geopolitical insistence on a “realist” use of force fails yet again. But Dr. O’Connell said she remains undeterred……………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/11/17/hamas-israel-gaza-al-shifa-hospital-246524?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2928&pnespid=qrpnUCZIJrkL2.TZtDWsGJPRohi2WJ0tLvqmwrN0.kBmd2Cx.K9U3PLA_pRIgzMAF7MdqdfHEQ

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment