South Asian leader slams AUKUS pact.
“It is a military alliance moved against one country – China.”
The US-led initiative was created to antagonize Beijing, Sri Lanka’s president has said.
https://www.rt.com/news/583182-sri-lanka-slam-aukus-pact/ 20 Sept 23
Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has condemned the AUKUS pact as an alliance designed to target China, calling it a “strategic misstep,” and insisting it will only divide Asia into rival camps and destabilize the region.
Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Monday, Wickremesing he took aim at AUKUS, which was formed by the US, UK, and Australia in 2021. “I don’t think it was needed,” he said.
“I think it’s a strategic misstep. I think they made a mistake,” the president stated. “It is a military alliance moved against one country – China.”
Wickremesinghe went on to say that Sri Lanka wants no part in the growing tensions between Washington and Beijing, adding that his country would like to maintain good relations with both powers and does not wish to see Asia divided into competing blocs.
“The next round of rivalry is going on. And that’s taking place in Asia. It’s the question of China versus the US, on how they are going to divide their region of influence in Asia,” he said. “Why are we getting pulled into it? It’s difficult for us to understand.”
The president also expressed concern about the stepped-up US military presence in the region in recent years – often labeled ‘freedom of navigation’ missions by American officials. “As far as the Indian Ocean is concerned, we don’t want any military activity,” he continued, saying most neighboring countries “will not want NATO anywhere close by.”
AUKUS was established in 2021 between Washington, Canberra, and London in part to facilitate the transfer of military technology among the three allies. Though officials from each country have maintained that the bloc is not a formal military alliance and is solely focused on technology sharing, Beijing has condemned the project, claiming it will only help to spread nuclear weapons around the globe and kick off an arms race in Asia.
“The three countries have gone further down the wrong and dangerous path for their own geopolitical self-interest, completely ignoring the concerns of the international community,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said earlier this year, adding that the AUKUS pact is based on a “Cold War mentality which will only motivate an arms race, damage the international nuclear nonproliferation regime, and harm regional stability and peace.”
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have steadily escalated in recent years, with former US President Donald Trump kicking off a low-level trade war with China which persists under his successor, Joe Biden.
The Biden administration has also deployed navy warships to waters near China on a near-monthly basis, including the disputed Taiwan Strait, drawing repeated condemnation from Chinese officials
Maintaining the USA nuclear arsenal, at $750 billion over the next decade
2 This is what it’s like to maintain the US nuclear arsenal
By Tara Copp, Associated Press, Sep 21, 23 C ISR NET
The U.S. will spend more than $750 billion over the next decade to revamp nearly every part of its aging nuclear defenses. Officials say they simply can’t wait any longer — some systems and parts are more than 50 years old.
For now, it’s up to young military troops and government technicians across the U.S. to maintain the existing bombs and related components. The jobs are exacting and often require a deft touch. That’s because many of the maintenance tasks must be performed by hand……………………………………
Because the U.S. no longer conducts explosive nuclear tests, scientists are not exactly sure how aging warhead plutonium cores affect detonation. For more common parts, like the plastics and metals and wiring inside each detonator, there are also questions about how the years spent in warheads might affect their integrity.
So, workers at the nation’s nuclear labs and production sites spend a lot of time stressing and testing parts to make sure they’re safe. . At the Energy Department’s Kansas City National Security Campus, where warheads are made and maintained, technicians put components through endless tests. They heat weapons parts to extreme temperatures, drop them at speeds simulating a plane crash, shoot them at high velocity out of testing guns and rattle and shake them for hours on end. The tests are meant to simulate real world scenarios — from hurtling toward a target to being carted in an Air Force truck over a long, rutty road.
Technicians at the Los Alamos National Lab conduct similar evaluations, putting plutonium under extreme stress, heat and pressure to ensure it is stable enough to blow up as intended. Just like the technicians in Kansas City, the ones in Los Alamos closely examine the tested parts and radioactive material to see if they caused any damage…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Workers younger than the warheads
It’s not unusual to see a 50-year-old warhead guarded or maintained by someone just out of high school, and ultimate custody of a nuclear weapon can fall on the shoulders of a service member who’s just 23.
……………………………….. At the Kansas City campus, for example, just about 6% of the workforce has been there 30 years or more — and over 60% has been at the facility for five years or less.
That change has meant more women have joined the workforce, too. In the cavernous hallways between Kansas City’s secured warhead workrooms are green and white nursing pods with a greeting: “Welcome mothers.”
At Los Alamos, workers’ uniform allowance now covers sports bras. Why? Because underwire bras were not compatible with the secured facilities’ many layers of metal detection and radiation monitoring. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2023/09/20/this-is-what-its-like-to-maintain-the-us-nuclear-arsenal/
Elephant In The Climate Room: Rocket Launches
Proliferation of rocket launches and their environmental damage are almost never mentioned in reporting on space
LISA SAVAGE, SEP 20, 2023, Substack
… I’ve spent years collecting research and reporting on the climate harms of militarism. When I began this was an obscure perspective shared by few; it is now mainstream in climate movements (as long as they are not controlled by the Democratic Party, that is).
So it is gratifying to see this fact of modern life represented at last weekend’s big climate march in New York City.
Other points of view also trend in that direction.
If capitalism is the root cause of rapidly warming oceans and extreme weather events, then the wars that are necessary to sustain capitalism are implicated.
But what about war in space, which is already well underway even if few realize it? The proliferation of rocket launches in recent years and the accompanying environmental damage are almost never mentioned in reporting on either space topics or military topics.
This coming weekend I’ll attend Maine’s biggest annual green lifestyle event, the Common Ground Fair. It draws thousands from all over the region for a “celebration of country living” sponsored by the Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association.
On Sunday morning in the political and social action tent a group of us will update fairgoers on plans to build a rocket launch site on the coast of Maine. Steuben is within sight of Acadia National Park, and the floating launch pad proposed would sit amid lobster fishing and seaweed harvesting activities already generating jobs and providing sustenance for the last several decades.
All rocket site construction involves toxic substances, including the PFAS foam used for fire fighting and stored in vast quantities on site until it may be needed. And when rockets and satellites fall from the sky, they disintegrate into a chemical soup that then falls to Earth. Mass deaths of birds and other animals have been observed at rocket launch sites in other states.
Maine was once considered Vacationland because of its deep forests, clean water, beautiful shoreline, and abundance of foods like lobsters, trout, and clams.
Although organized lobster fishermen in Jonesport blocked the construction of the toxic launch site in their fishing grounds, Steuben has not been so lucky. Resident Larch Hanson is ready to sue blueShift’s CEO for trampling on the democratic process and putting his seaweed harvesting business at risk. The town government of Steuben has squelched discussion of the rocket launch site plan and silenced critics, according to Hanson.
It’s worth noting that a bill rushed through supposedly as “emergency” legislation and passed under the gavel (i.e. without a roll call vote) established a private-public partnership called the Maine Space Corporation to support just this kind of project. So undemocratic methods are a signature of bringing rocket launches to Vacationland.
But isn’t space cool? you may ask. And educational?
All space programs are inherently military in nature, no matter what NASA or the University of Maine tell you. Every rocket launch site built on other pristine coasts such as Kodiak, Alaska or Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand was sold to local residents as non-military but once built has been used extensively and repeatedly to launch military satellites. (More details on that here.)
As a retired educator, I know STEM fans will enthuse about how much science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education will be advanced by projects such as this one. STEM educators in Australia are currently excited about how middle school students will be involved in projects connected to nuclear submarines the U.S. is forcing on them despite considerable pushback from the public.
STEM can be a force for good, but not when it’s used as a cover up for militarizing education and other public resources.
I have been astonished at the lack of interest among environmentalists who I might have expected would oppose building a rocket launch site on the Maine coast. No doubt it’s partly attributable to the slavish reprinting of bluShift press releases as “news” in corporate media. https://went2thebridge.substack.com/p/elephant-in-the-climate-room-rocket?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1580975&post_id=137220260&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=c9zhh&utm_medium=email
Cooling system at Zaporizhzhya stabilised – but military action in the area continues
In its Update 183 on the Ukraine situation International Atomic
Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi announced that Zaporizhzhya
Nuclear Power Plant has been drilling more wells at the site as part of
efforts to find new sources of cooling water following the destruction of
the downstream Kakhovka dam more than three months ago.
ZNPP has built
another two groundwater wells to supply the sprinkler ponds that cool the
six reactors and spent fuel, bringing the total of new wells to nine.
Together they pump around 200 cubic metres of water per hour into the
sprinkler ponds, representing most of the cooling needs of the six shutdown
reactors.
The remainder of the water comes from the drainage system and
clean water that is periodically discharged from the plant’s chemical
water treatment facility. The IAEA has been informed that the water supply
situation will be assessed after a tenth well has been constructed to see
if more will be needed.
TODAY. Wonderful nuclear submarines!! Let’s not spoil the joy by thinking about their WASTES
Well, nobody knows what to do with them, you see. So the supposedly brilliant men who run the world have us convinced that we need nuclear submarines – to defend ourselves. But how are we going to defend ourselves from the thousands’ year toxicity of their ionising radiation?
The picture above gives a hint of the problem of nuclear submarine wastes on Russia’s Kola Peninsula. For 35 years, highly radioactive fuel assemblies have been stored in these rusty, partly destroyed steel pipes. Some 22,000 spent fuel assemblies are stored in the tanks, coming from 90-100 reactor cores powering the Soviet Navy’s Cold War submarines – about two times the amount of fissile material inside the exploded Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine.
Well – that’s the naughty Russians, isn’t it? So international countries, led by Norway, had to pay $billions to try to clean up their mess, which endangers Europe.
But surely the West is fine in their submarine waste management?
Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States built more than 400 nuclear submarines. Nuclear wastes from US submarines are also currently held in temporary storage, after 30 years and $7 billion, without arriving at a permanent storage solution. Britain has a number of dead nuclear submarines – but nowhere to put their wastes.
And that’s not counting the sunken nuclear submarines that continue to pollute the oceans with radiation
But let’s not worry , because the brilliant men are enthusing us about NEW nuclear submarines. And, after all, these heroes will probably be dead and gone when the radioactive shit hits the fan, whether by accident, or by the slow poisoning of future generations.
And anyway, Rafael Grossi has us convinced that releasing radioactive water into the seas is just fine.
Modelling shows estimated cost of Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plan
Each reactor’s estimated capital cost is $18,167/kW in 2030 compared with large-scale solar at $1058/kW and onshore wind at $1989/kW. When broken down, the modelling suggests each individual taxpayer would be burdened with a “whopping $25,000 cost impost” for such a transition
.Australian taxpayers would be slugged with a $387bn bill if Peter Dutton’s current plan to transition to nuclear was actioned.
Ellen Ransley, news.com.au, 18 Sept 23
Replacing Australia’s retiring coal-fired power stations with the Coalition’s suggested nuclear energy model would cost taxpayers up to $387bn, new modelling suggests.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, backed particularly by junior Coalition partners the Nationals, has previously suggested that Australia could “convert or repurpose coal-fired plants and use the transmission connections which already exist on those sites”.
Mr Dutton has also said nuclear is the “lowest cost form” of low carbon electricity, but has not explicitly outlined how much such a transition would cost.
New analysis done by the energy department shows the projected cost, which assumes replacing all of the output from closing coal-fired plants with small modular reactors, would be costly.
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said Mr Dutton and the opposition “need to explain why” Australians would be slugged with a $387bn burden for their nuclear energy plan that “flies in the face of economics and reason”.
But the Greens have called on the government to stop the distraction and explain to Australians why they are forging ahead with new coal and gas projects when the country is in the grips of a “climate crisis”.
“Australia is forecast to have its worst summer since the Black Summer, and yet Labor is approving more coal and gas. Peter Dutton’s nuclear push is a distraction from Labor’s continual approval of new coal and gas projects,” party leader Adam Bandt said.
“We should not allow ourselves to be distracted by Peter Dutton’s push for nuclear when Labor keeps opening new coal and gas projects in the middle of a climate crisis.”
A minimum of 71 small modular reactors – providing 300MW each – would be needed if the policy were to fully replace the 21.3GW output of the country’s retiring coal fleet.
Each reactor’s estimated capital cost is $18,167/kW in 2030 compared with large-scale solar at $1058/kW and onshore wind at $1989/kW. When broken down, the modelling suggests each individual taxpayer would be burdened with a “whopping $25,000 cost impost” for such a transition.
The opposition want to trump the benefits of non-commercial SMR technology, without owning up to the cost and how they intend to pay for it,” Mr Bowen said.
“After nine years of energy policy chaos, rather than finally embracing a clean, cheap, safe and secure renewable future, all the Coalition can promise is a multi-billion dollar nuclear flavoured energy policy.”
In total, the $387bn plan costs about 20 times what the Albanese government’s Rewiring the Nation fund is projected to cost.
The government says that fund will help achieve 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, by unlocking over 26GW of new renewable generation capacity, and over 30GW of transmission capacity.
When Mr Dutton made his pitch for a nuclear transition in July, he suggested the Liddell Power Station could be a possible site for a small nuclear reactor…………………………………..more https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/mining/modelling-shows-estimated-cost-of-peter-duttons-nuclear-energy-plan/news-story/39f543faf65d77c53f33ec8d10175d02
Bowen demolishes case expensive for nuclear power
AuManufacturing 19 September 2023
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has rubbished opposition calls for Australia to embrace nuclear poower in the form of small modular reactors.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has injected his idea of a nuclear renaissance into the energy debate, suggesting he might change the Coalition’s official opposition to nuclear power, saying Labor was putting ‘party interests ahead of the national interest’.
According to the former head of the Australian Nuclear Scientific and Technology Organisation Dr Ziggy Switkowski who chaired a federal review of nuclear powe that ‘on paper, they (SMRs) look terrific’, but that we won’t know their costs ‘until the SMRs are deployed in quantity’.
Bowen told a Canberra press conference: “Since the last election, the party which spent ten years telling us we didn’t need to worry about climate change says they’ve found a solution for climate change and it’s nuclear.
“They didn’t bother for their ten years in office to promote a nuclear agenda, but as they desperately search around for an alibi for their hatred of renewable energy, they settled on this since the last election.”
Dutton made a nuclear plan the centrepiece of his Budget reply, but Bowen said there was actually no policy and nothing costed.
“Peter Dutton said at a speech earlier this year that it’s easy, you just plug and play nuclear in to replace coal. Well if it’s so easy, Mr Dutton, where is your plan?”
Bowen released cost estimates of $387 billion to replace Australia’s 21.3 gigawatts of coal-fired power with nuclear.
This would involve the construction of 71 nuclear reactors spread across Australia.
Given the public pushback on even low level waste disposal sites, any plan to build 71 nuclear power plants would likely be political suicide for any government……………………………………………more https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/bowen-demolishes-case-expensive-for-nuclear-power
Andreyeva Bay cleanup slows to a snail’s pace since invasion of Ukraine
https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2023-09-andreyeva-bay-cleanup-slows-to-a-snails-pace-since-invasion-of-ukraine 18 Sept 23 Charles Digges
In 2017, Russia began a landmark project ridding one of its most dangerous Cold War relics of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. The effort to clean up Andreyeva Bay — a submarine base near Murmansk uniquely positioned to contaminate the Barents Sea — was the culmination of a years-long and often strained cooperative effort between Moscow and numerous European nations, chief among them Norway and the United Kingdom.
The outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022 disrupted that progress and drained the project of millions in international funding as European nations suspended their contributions in protest of Moscow’s invasion.
In the early days of the war, officials with Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, insisted they would continue Andreyeva Bay’s cleanup without international assistance, though it was unclear on what funding that would be done.
It wasn’t until Rosatom’s annual conference convened in Murmansk this past July that any news of how these projects were progressing saw the light of day. But even then, the audience a was select one. Bellona — which had attended the annual Rosatom meeting in prewar times — has only viewed the conference presentations in written form.
In fact, none of Rosatom’s former international partners whose funding has driven the Andreyeva Bay project — nations like Norway, France, the United Kingdom and others from Europe— were invited. Instead, the international delegation consisted primarily of countries like Belarus, Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan and others from the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States.
“Most of these countries don’t know anything about the Arctic,” said Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin, who is a former member of Rosatom’s Public Council, which was disbanded when the invasion began. “They were invited so the organizers could call the event ‘international.’”
As it turns out, Rosatom hasn’t made any significant progress on the cleanup since the war estranged it from its primary international partners. The problems that remained at the Andreyeva Bay site before war broke out are the same problems Rosatom is addressing now. And where the cleanup was forecast to be completed by 2028 before the Ukraine invasion, current projections by Rosatom officials put the completion date much later.
The disruption to Andreyeva Bay and other cleanup projects threatens to turn back the clock on more than two decades of environmental progress in Northwest Russia.
History
Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States built more than 400 nuclear submarines, assuring each superpower the ability to fire nuclear missiles from sea even after their land-based silos had been decimated by a first strike. The fjords and coastlines around Murmansk adjacent to Norway became the hub of the Soviet Northern Fleet, and a dumping ground for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
After the Iron Curtain was drawn back, the disturbing scale of this legacy came to light. It was revealed that a storage building at Andreyeva Bay — the now notorious Building No 5 — had leaked some 600,000 metric tons of irradiated water into the Barents Sea from a nuclear fuel storage pool in 1982. The site contained 22,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies pulled from more than 100 subs, many kept in rusted containers stored in the open air.
This slow-motion nuclear disaster continued to unfold in near secrecy until Bellona brought it to international attention in 1996, when it published a groundbreaking report on Northwest Russia’s nuclear woes.
Fearing contamination, Norway spearheaded a sweeping cleanup effort with other Western nations. Combined they spent more than $1 billion to dismantle 197 decommissioned Soviet nuclear subs that rusted dockside, still loaded with spent nuclear fuel. One thousand Arctic navigation beacons powered by strontium batteries were replaced, many with solar powered units provided by the Norwegians.
Then, six years ago, the first batches of spent nuclear fuel began their journey away from Andreyeva Bay to safer storage — a process meant to continue for another decade thereafter. By 2021, more than half of the spent fuel assemblies had been removed. Later that year, damaged spent fuel fragments lying at the bottom of Building No 5’s storage pools had also been extracted. Real progress was being made.
Progress since the beginning of the war
Since the beginning of the war, however, the tempo of removing spent fuel assemblies has nearly ground to a halt. If 2017, the first year of the removal, saw 18 batches of spent fuel transported away from the site, then in 2022, according to various reports, only two batches left Andreyeva Bay.
The disposition of solid radioactive waste at the site, which includes solid waste inside the storage buildings, also remains unclear and appears to have slowed considerably as a result of the war. As of 2022, some 9,500 cubic meters of it — or roughly 51 percent of the entire legacy waste at the site — remained in place. This waste was scheduled to depart for other storage bases, such as the Gremikha site, by 2026. Now, that’s schedule may be unrealistic.
About half of Andreyeva Bay’s infrastructure— structures like Building No 5 and Building No 3-A, to which spent fuel in Building No 5 was rushed after the 1982 leak — remains irradiated and in need of safe rehabilitation or dismantlement. But since the schedule for removing solid waste from these structures has been pushed back from 2026 to sometime in the 2030s, dates for the completion of the dismantlement are likewise unclear.
Should that ever get done, what’s left of Building No 5 will present other problems. On the whole, the building itself represents some 15,300 tons of low- to medium level radioactive waste. The two options for dealing with this are to demolish the building and bury the debris in a radioactive waste storage facility, or encasing it in a sarcophagus, not unlike the one used at Chernobyl. As with the other issues at Andreyeva Bay, no real prospective conclusion date for disposing of Building No 5 has been discussed since the outbreak of war.
This is the first in a series of articles examining the state of nuclear cleanup in Russia since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. charles@bellona.no
The risk that nuclear weapons could be used is tremendous – Finnish President on war in Ukraine
He also spoke in favour of cautious policy of such states as the US and Germany concerning supplying Ukraine with some kinds of armament, mainly for the attacks on Russia-occupied Crimea.
Yahoo News Ukrainska Pravda, Mon, September 18, 2023
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö warns Europe to be cautious concerning the risk of escalation of the full-scale Russian war against Ukraine.
Source: Niinistö expressed this opinion in an interview for The New York Times, as reported by European Pravda
Niinistö thinks that the war against Ukraine will last a long time and even though Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a “wake-up call” for Europe and NATO, now this fact is being gradually forgotten.
“We’re in a very sensitive situation. Even small things can change matters a great deal and unfortunately for the worse. That is the risk of such large-scale warfare. The risk that nuclear weapons could be used is tremendous,” Niinistö said.
He also spoke in favour of cautious policy of such states as the US and Germany concerning supplying Ukraine with some kinds of armament, mainly for the attacks on Russia-occupied Crimea………………………….. more https://news.yahoo.com/risk-nuclear-weapons-could-used-144000584.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAExkFb73zWCbee9AK_vuFm2BTmp0kiQDmDUXiBzV6qklzWqYIFsX_LXu9LAxNrBCYBq1jiKFYYNtTql41UYxMkGOceFZGslm7ZB2DP56ACiY6zTGQry2jsKbYix7589Hu54kZpAcm6jfdeJQDJs1JEs77sAiMK0vhn8GH6AyXa6s
Nuclear too costly, too slow, too risky for Australia
The federal government’s preliminary cost estimates for small modular reactors highlight one of the many reasons why this nuclear technology – which isn’t being commercially deployed anywhere in the world – is not a viable option for Australia.
Australian Conservation Foundation nuclear policy analyst Dave Sweeney said the nuclear option would dramatically increase household electricity bills, slow the transition to clean energy, introduce the possibility of catastrophic accidents and create multi-generational risks associated with the management of high-level nuclear waste.
“The government’s initial cost estimates show the unacceptably high financial costs of technology that does not even exist on a commercial scale,” Dave Sweeney said.
“Aside from financial costs, Australians don’t need or want to take on the massive risks that accompany nuclear energy – catastrophic meltdowns like Chernobyl and Fukushima, plus the intergenerational danger of storing high-level radioactive waste for centuries.
“We cannot afford to squander more time in moving our economy away from its reliance on climate-damaging coal and gas. Nuclear is a dangerous distraction to effective climate action.
“Australia is blessed with amazing clean energy resources. Our energy future is renewable, not radioactive.” For interviews contact: Dave Sweeney 0408 317 812, or Josh Meadows 0439 342 992
Chris Hedges: Craig Murray on the ‘Slow Motion Execution’ of Assange
And I saw, 100% for certain, that the judge came into court with her ruling already typed out before she heard the arguments, and she sat there almost pretending to listen to what the defense was saying for now and what the prosecution was saying for now. Then she simply read out the ruling.
Chris Hedges: She’s like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland giving the verdict before she hears the sentence.
SCHEERPOST, September 17, 2023
Julian Assange continues to fight extradition to the United States to face prosecution under the Espionage Act, a growing chorus of voices is rising to demand an end to his persecution. Hounded by US law enforcement and its allies for more than a decade, Assange has been stripped of all personal and civil liberties for the crime of exposing the extent of US atrocities during the War on Terror. In the intervening years, it’s become nakedly apparent that the intent of the US government is not only to silence Assange in particular, but to send a message to whistleblowers and journalists everywhere on the consequences of speaking truth to power. Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who was fired for exposing the CIA’s use of torture in the country, joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss what Julian Assange’s fight means for all of us.
TRANSCRIPT
Chris Hedges: Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, was removed from his post after he made public the widespread use of torture by the Uzbek government and the CIA. He has since become one of Britain’s most important human rights campaigners and a fierce advocate for Julian Assange as well as a supporter of Scottish independence. His coverage of the trial of former Scottish first minister Alex Salman, who was acquitted of sexual assault charges, saw him charged with contempt of court and sentenced to eight months in prison. The very dubious sentence, half of which Craig served, upended most legal norms. He was sentenced, supporters argued, to prevent him from testifying as a witness in the Spanish criminal case against UC global director, David Morales, being prosecuted for installing a surveillance system in the Ecuador embassy when Julian Assange found refuge that was used to record the privileged communications between Julian and his lawyers.
Morales is alleged to have carried out this surveillance on behalf of the CIA. Murray has published some of the most prescient and eloquent reports from Julian’s extradition hearings and was one of a half dozen guests, including myself, invited to Julian and Stella’s wedding in Belmarsh Prison in March 2022. Prison authorities denied entry to Craig, based on what the UK Ministry of Justice said were security concerns, as well as myself from attending the ceremony.
Joining me to discuss what is happening to Julian Assange and the rapid erosion of our most basic democratic rights is Craig Murray.
And to begin, Craig, I read all of your reports from the trial which are at once eloquent and brilliant. It’s the best coverage that we’ve had of the hearings. But I want you to bring us up to date with where we are with the case at this moment.
Craig Murray: Yeah. The legal procedures have been extraordinarily convoluted after the first hearings for the magistrate ruled that Julian couldn’t be extradited, on essentially, health grounds. Due to the conditions in American prisons, the US then appealed against that verdict. The high court accepted the US appeal on extraordinarily dubious grounds based on a diplomatic note giving certain assurances which were conditional and based on Julian’s future behavior. And of course, the US government has a record of breaking such assurances, and also, those assurances could have been given at the time of the initial hearing and weren’t.
Chris Hedges: I don’t think those assurances have any… It was a diplomatic note. It has no legal validity.
Craig Murray: It has no legal validity. It’s not binding in any sense. And as I say, it is in itself conditional. It states that they may change this in the future. It actually says that –
Chris Hedges: Well, based on his behavior.
Craig Murray: – Based on his behavior, which they will be the sole judges of.
Chris Hedges: Of course.
Craig Murray: And which won’t involve any further legal process. They will decide he’s going into a supermax because they don’t like the way he looks at guards or something. It’s utterly meaningless. And so the US, having won that appeal so Julian could be extradited, it was then Julian’s turn to appeal on all the points he had lost at the original extradition. Those include the First Amendment, they include freedom of speech, obviously, and they include the fact that the very extradition treaty under which he’s being extradited states that there shall be no political extradition and this is plainly a very political case and several other important grounds. That appeal was lodged. Nothing then happened for a year. And that appeal is an extraordinary document. You can actually find it on my website, CraigMurray.org.uk.
I’ve published the entire appeal document and it is an amazing document. It’s an incredible piece of legal argument. And some of the things it sets out like the fact that the US key witness for the charges was an Icelandic guy who they paid for his evidence. They paid him for his evidence and he is a convicted pedophile and convicted fraudster. And since he has said he lied in his evidence and he just did it for the money. That’s one example of the things you find. The documentation is not dry legal documentation at all. It’s well worth going and looking through Julian’s appeal. That appeal ran to 150 pages plus supporting documents.
For a year, nothing happened. Then two or three months ago it was dismissed in three pages of double-spaced A4, in which the judge, Judge Swift, said that there were no legal arguments, no coherent legal arguments in this 150 pages and it followed no known form of pleading and it was dismissed completely. And the thing is that the appeal was written by some of the greatest lawyers in the world. It’s supervised and written by Gareth Pierce, who I would say is the greatest living human rights lawyer. Those people have seen the film In the Name of the Father, starring Daniel Day-Lewis…………………………………….
She’s won numerous high-profile cases. She has enormous respect all around the world and this judge, who is nobody, is saying that there’s no validity to her pleadings which follow no known form of pleading. This is quite extraordinary.
Chris Hedges: Am I correct in that he was a barrister, essentially, for the defense ministry? He was served the interests of the UK government and that’s essentially got him his position. Is that correct?
Craig Murray: Exactly. He was the lead barrister for the security services. Well, he was a banister who specialized in working for the security services.
……………………………………………………And I saw, 100% for certain, that the judge came into court with her ruling already typed out before she heard the arguments, and she sat there almost pretending to listen to what the defense was saying for now and what the prosecution was saying for now. Then she simply read out the ruling.
Chris Hedges: She’s like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland giving the verdict before she hears the sentence.
……………………………..On the most basic level, the evisceration of attorney-client privilege because UC Global recorded the meetings between Julian and his lawyers, that in a UK court, as in a US court alone, should get the trial invalidated
Craig Murray: In any democracy in the world, if your intelligence services have been recording the client’s attorney consultations, that would get the case thrown out. ………………………….
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….at times it seemed as though they were deliberately doing things as slowly as possible.
Chris Hedges: Well, this is what Neils Melzer, the special repertoire on torture for the UN, said that he called it, a slow motion execution, were his words.
………………………………..Craig Murray: It was because of my advocacy for and friendship with Julian. That’s why they put me in jail. I was in the cell, my cell was 12 feet by eight feet which is slightly larger than Julian’s cell, and I was kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, sometimes 23.5 hours a day for four months. And that’s extremely difficult. It’s extremely difficult. But I knew when I was leaving, I had an end date. To be in those conditions as Julian has been for years and years and no idea if it will ever stop, no idea if you’ll ever be let out alive, let alone not having an end date, I can’t imagine how psychologically crushing that would be……………………………………………………………………………….
Craig Murray: The immediate thing that will happen is that Julian’s lawyers will try to go to the European Court in Strasbourg –
Chris Hedges: To the European Court of Human Rights.
Craig Murray: – The European Court of Human Rights to submit an appeal and get the extradition stopped, pending an appeal. The worry is that Julian would instantly be extradited and that the government wouldn’t wait to hear from a European Court.
Chris Hedges: Explain to Americans what it is and what jurisdiction it has in the UK, the European Court.
Craig Murray: Yeah, the European Court of Human Rights is not a European Union body. It’s a body of the Council of Europe. It has jurisdiction over the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees basic human rights and therefore it has legally binding jurisdiction over human rights violations in any member state of the treaty. So it does have a legally binding jurisdiction and is acknowledged as such, normally, by the UK government. They’re very powerful voices within the current conservative government in the UK which wants to exit the convention on human rights. But at present, that’s not the case. The UK is still part of this system. And so the European Court of Human Rights has legally binding authority over the government of the United Kingdom purely on matters that contravene human rights.
Chris Hedges: And if they do extradite him, they’ve essentially nullified that process, the fear is that, of course, the security services would know about the ruling in advance. He’d be on the tarmac and shuttled in, sedated, and put in a diaper and hooded or something and put on a CIA flight to Washington. I want to talk about if that happens. It’s certainly very possible. What we need to do here, and I know part of the reason you’re in the US, is to prepare for that should it take place. You will try and cover the hearings and trial here as you did in the UK but let’s talk about where we go if that event occurs.
Craig Murray: Yeah. The first thing to say is that if that happens, on the day it happens, it will be the biggest news story in the world; It would be a massive news story. So we have to be prepared. We have to know who, from the Assange movement or who from his defense team, who’s going to be the spokesman, who are going to be the spokespeople, who are going to be offered up to all the major news agencies? We have to affect the story on day one. Because if you get behind the story – And we know what their line will be. They’ll put out all these lies about people being killed because of WikiLeaks, about the American insecurity being endangered, we know all the propaganda that they will try to flood the airwaves with – So we need to be ready and ahead of the game to know who our people are, who are going to be offered up to interview, who are going to proactively get onto the media, and not just the alternative media like this media, but onto the so-called mainstream as well, and get out the story…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Chris Hedges. ………………….my reading of it is that they don’t care how they look. And part of it is to send a message. It doesn’t matter what nationality you are, it doesn’t matter where you are. WikiLeaks is not a US-based publication, it doesn’t matter where you are. If you expose the information that Julian and WikiLeaks exposed, we’re going to come for you. Isn’t that the message?
Craig Murray: That’s absolutely right. And this, again, it’s amazing they don’t see the dangers in this claim of universal jurisdiction. …………………….
This claim of universal jurisdiction is extraordinary. And what’s even more extraordinary is they’re claiming universal jurisdiction but Julian is under their jurisdiction because he published American Secrets even though he’s not an American and he wasn’t in America. And at the same time, while they claim jurisdiction over him, they’re claiming he has no First Amendment rights because he’s an Australian.
The combination of we have jurisdiction over you, you have all the liabilities that come with that but you have none of the rights that come with that because you’re not one of our citizens, that’s pernicious. It’s so illogical and so vicious. …………………………………………
Chris Hedges: I want to close because there’s been noise out of Australia. The ambassador, Carolyn Kennedy, said that they might consider a plea deal. I have put no credence in it. It’s all smoke but I wondered what you thought.
Craig Murray: Yeah. It’s an attempt to placate Australian public opinion. Public opinion in Australia is extremely strong. Over 80% of Australians want Julian released and allowed to go home to Australia. Blinken came there and made some very hostile and un-diplomatic remarks at a time when Australia was allowing the US to base nuclear weapons on its side. Caroline Kennedy came out… It’s a lie, frankly. There has been no approach from a justice department or from the State Department to doing any plea deal. It’s purely smoke and mirrors to try to distract the Australian public. Caroline Kennedy was lying to the Australian public. That’s pure and simple.…………..
Build renewables, not nuclear’: energy execs reject reactors.
Australia must focus on developing a huge pipeline of renewable energy as it can’t afford to wait for small modular nuclear reactors to become cost-competitive.
THE AUSTRALIAN Colin Packham Energy reporter
Australia must concentrate on developing a massive pipeline of renewable energy as it can’t afford to wait for small modular nuclear reactors to mature and become cost-competitive, energy executives have urged.
“The economics are clear: we need to act now to build wind, solar and batteries, not wait for a more expensive solution that won’t be available for more than a decade, at the earliest,” said Jason Willoughby, the chief executive of Andrew Forrest-owned renewables developer Squadron Energy.
“Renewables are the cheapest form of new-build electricity, including with the investment required in transmission infrastructure.
“The consequences and costs are too great not to act.
“Australia simply can’t afford to wait.”
Australia is struggling to meet its ambitious plans to replace its ageing coal power stations with renewable energy, and the federal opposition has proposed converting coal-fired power sites into small modular nuclear reactors to ease the transition.
Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen recently released modelling showing that 71 small modular reactors would cost $387bn.
He said each megawatt of nuclear-generated electricity would have a capital cost of $18.1m – about $5.4bn per reactor – much higher than $1m for large-scale solar and $2m for onshore wind.
Energy experts said estimates for developing nuclear in Australia matched recent modelling internationally, although some expect costs to fall.
Robin Batterham, chair of the Net Zero Australia Steering Committee and emeritus professor at the University of Melbourne, said that if costs fell nuclear power could become a viable and cost-effective alternative………………………………………………………… ‘Build renewables, not nuclear’: energy execs reject reactors
Replacing Australia’s retiring coal power stations with small nuclear reactors could cost $387bn, analysis suggests
The figure adds fuel to the growing political dispute over the pace and form of Australia’s energy transition
Daniel Hurst https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/18/replacing-australias-retiring-coal-power-stations-with-small-nuclear-reactors-could-cost-387bn-analysis-suggests
The federal government says it would cost as much as $387bn to replace Australia’s retiring coal-fired power stations with the form of nuclear power proposed by the Coalition.
The figure, produced by the energy department, is the projected cost of replacing all of the output from closing coal-fired plants with small modular reactors.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has previously suggested that Australia “could convert or repurpose coal-fired plants and use the transmission connections which already exist on those sites”.
However, he has not been explicit about how much of the coal-fired electricity output would be replaced with nuclear-sourced energy – an uncertainty that makes projecting the cost difficult.
The figure adds fuel to the growing political dispute over the pace and form of Australia’s energy transition.
The government said the new analysis showed a minimum of 71 small modular reactors – providing 300MW each – would be needed if the policy were to fully replace the 21.3GW output of Australia’s retiring coal fleet.
“According to the 2022-23 GenCost report modelling under the current policies scenario, this could cost $387bn,” a government summary said.
“This is due to the estimated capital cost of $18,167/kW for [small modular reactors] in 2030, compared to large scale solar at just $1,058/kW, and onshore wind at $1,989/kW.”
The government said this would represent “a whopping $25,000 cost impost on each Australian taxpayer”.
The minister for climate change and energy, Chris Bowen, said the opposition wanted to promote the benefits of “non-commercial” small modular reactor technology “without owning up to the cost and how they intend to pay for it”.
“Peter Dutton and the opposition need to explain why Australians will be slugged with a $387bn cost burden for a nuclear energy plan that flies in the face of economics and reason,” Bowen said.
“After nine years of energy policy chaos, rather than finally embracing a clean, cheap, safe and secure renewable future, all the Coalition can promise is a multi-bullion-dollar nuclear-flavoured energy policy.”
Dutton identified Liddell as a possible site for a small modular reactor when he gave a pro-nuclear speech in July.
At the time, Dutton said he saw nuclear “not as a competitor to renewables but as a companion” and he wanted “an Australia where we can decarbonise and, at the same time, deliver cheaper, more reliable and lower emission electricity”.
He called on the government to consider removing legislative prohibitions on new nuclear technologies – a step the former Coalition government didn’t attempt during its nine years in power – “so we do not position Australia as a nuclear energy pariah”.
Dutton further accused Bowen of burrowing “so deeply down the renewable rabbit hole that he refuses to consider these new nuclear technologies”.
“The new nuclear technology train is pulling out of the station. It’s a train Australia needs to jump aboard.”
The estimates released by the government on Monday are partly based on the costs for small modular reactors outlined in the CSIRO’s GenCost report.
That report notes that global commercial deployment of small modular reactors is “limited to a small number of projects and the Australian industry does not expect any deployment here before 2030”.
The report notes some uncertainty around the projections.
“Nuclear SMR current costs are not reported since there is no prospect of a plant being deployed in Australia before 2030,” said the CSIRO report, released in July.
“However, some improved data on nuclear SMR may be available in future reports and projected capital costs for SMR have been included from 2030 onward.”
The federal government has set a goal of 82% of electricity coming from renewable energy by 2030, up from about 35% today.
To achieve this, the federal government has committed $20bn in low-cost finance for “rewiring the nation” – updating transmission lines – but is facing pushbacks from rural communities.
Protesters call on Labor to protest Fukushima nuclear waste dumping
Jim McIlroy, Gadi/Sydney, September 18, 2023 https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/protesters-call-labor-protest-fukushima-nuclear-waste-dumping
Protesters took a stand against the dumping of Fukushima’s nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean on September 16. The action was organised by the Sydney Candlelight Action (SCA), based in the Korean community, and was part of a global day of action.
Speakers from the Korean community and other groups condemned the Japanese government and called for international pressure to stop further dangerous radioactive contamination.
Vivian Pak from the Candleight Alliance called on the Prime Minister and environment minister to oppose Japan’s decision.
She also condemned the South Korean government for “not only assisting Japan over the dumping of the nuclear contaminated water but also actively encouraging the ultra right-wing government of Japan to increase its military presence in the region”.
Peter Boyle from Socialist Alliance condemned Labor for endorsing the dumping of the Fukushima nuclear waste as “safe”.
The Australian Embassy in Tokyo even staged a “Fukushima fish and chips” dinner as a public relations stunt in support of the nuclear wastewater release.
Boyle said the Australian government was a “bad Pacific neighbour” because it is undermining a nuclear-free Pacific by supporting the dumping of nuclear waste, dumping nuclear waste on Aboriginal land and entering the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.
Katti Jisuk Seo, a Korean-German who now lives here, said while enjoying her first scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef the news about the toxic waste came through.
“Japan is sending its radioactive waste on a trip around the world,” she said.
“Japan plans to release 1.3 million tons of radioactive contaminated wastewater into the ocean over the next decades: that’s enough to fill at least 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
“From the Pacific it will reach beaches and seas globally, entering fish, marine plants, other sea creatures and mammals throughout the marine food chain. Via evaporation, through rainfall, it will find its way back onto the lands across our planet.”
David Rho, the rally MC, called on the Japanese government to “accept an independent assessment of the Fukushima wastewater, and to release the true test result”. He said AUKUS represented further nuclear escalation in the region and must be opposed.
Risk assessment and the nuclear cultists
Damian Meagher From Facebook page Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch 17 Sept 23
Risk assessment is a complex subject, but nuclear cultist would have you believe it is a simple straightforward matter. There are at least two aspects of risk that they always ignore.
The first is the issue of risk consent.
Some risks in life are ones that consenting adults decide to take. For example, they might go rock climbing or skydiving, or some other adventure sport. Or they might smoke, drink to excess or have an unhealthy diet.
These are examples of risks that they have decided to take.
There is another type of risk though. Risks that are imposed on a person.
Your neighbour might bring home an ill trained guard dog and allow it to roam the streets without supervision. A food manufacturer may include dangerous ingredients in their product and not disclose this fact. A person might drink and drive and cause an injury to another person.
These are examples of risks that exist, but that are imposed on a person who has NOT consented to that risk.
All risks can be analysed both as to the probability of the risk as well as what consequences the risk poses. The risk of being involved in a minor car accident at some point in your life is rather high, but the likely consequences are minimal.
Proper risk management assesses BOTH the likelihood of a risk AND the potential consequences.Poor nuclear cultists don’t use this method, as it immediately highlights a significant problem that nuclear faces.While the likelihood of an accident is low, the consequences can be catastrophic. The victims of such an accident did not consent to this risk. It is imposed on them.
Chernobyl (an accident that cultists like Goronwy Price prefer to ignore) had impacts both health and economic, right across the northern hemisphere. The victims had the risk imposed upon them. This is fundamentally unjust. N-Cultists are happy to put other people at risk regardless.
1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
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/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 