IAEA Director General Grossi discusses nuclear safety with Russia’s Director of Rosatom, at Zaporizhzhia, in new consultations

MOSCOW, June 23 https://english.news.cn/20230624/19c5c0119ce24b04a7ab10e6a08f9a0b/c.html — General Director of Russia’s Rosatom State Corporation Alexey Likhachev discussed the current nuclear safety situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi in Russia’s Kaliningrad on Friday.

During the discussion, both delegations addressed issues raised by Grossi at the UN Security Council briefing on May 30, in which the official discussed the security situation at the nuclear facility, Rosatom said in a statement.

Likhachev emphasized that the Russian side “expects the IAEA Secretariat to take specific steps to prevent strikes by the Ukrainian armed forces both on the ZNPP and on the adjacent territory,” it added.

He informed Grossi about the specific measures currently being taken by the Russian side to ensure the nuclear facility’s safe operation, particularly its water supply “after the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam was destroyed by the Ukrainian armed forces,” Rosatom said.

Both sides further discussed the outcomes of Grossi’s visit to the plant on June 15. During his visit, Grossi was able to personally verify whether the plant could continue operating safely, and confirm among other things that the water supply in the cooling pond was sufficient for the safe operation of the facility

June 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Russia asks IAEA to ensure Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant security

Reuters, June 23, 2023 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-asks-iaea-ensure-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-security-2023-06-23/

June 23 (Reuters) – Russia urged the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday to ensure Ukraine does not shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, saying it was otherwise operating safely.

Alexei Likhachev, chief executive of the Russian state nuclear energy firm Rosatom, made the comments at a meeting with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in the Russian city of Kaliningrad, Rosatom said in a statement, after Grossi visited the plant last week.

“We expect concrete steps from the IAEA aimed at preventing strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, both on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and on adjacent territory and critical infrastructure facilities,” Rosatom quoted its chief as saying in a statement.

The IAEA said this week that the power plant was “grappling with … water-related challenges” after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam emptied the vast reservoir on whose southern bank the plant sits.

It also said the military situation in the area had become increasingly tense as Kyiv began a counteroffensive against the Russian forces that have seized control of swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.

Moscow and Kyiv have regularly accused each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power station, with its six offline reactors. International efforts to establish a demilitarised zone around it have so far failed.

Ukraine this week accused Russia of planning a “terrorist” attack at the plant involving the release of radiation, while Moscow on Friday detained five people who it said were planning to smuggle radioactive caesium-137 at the request of a Ukrainian buyer in order to stage a nuclear incident.

Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey

June 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A $31 Billion Missile Program! US Looks To Reintroduce Nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile Costing Equal To 10 Virginia-Class Subs

By Parth Satam, June 23, 2023, https://eurasiantimes.com/a-31-billion-missile-program-us-looks-to-reintroduce-nuclear-sea-launched-cruise-missile-costing-equal-to-10-virginia-class-subs/

A section of US Congressmen are voting for reintroducing a costly and redundant nuclear program. Republican lawmakers in the House are adopting a measure to institutionalize the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile-Nuclear (SLC)The SLCM was denied funding in last year’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget and concluded to have no battlefield use in the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

The Cold War-era concept envisages a cruise missile with a low-yield tactical nuclear warhead that can be fired from submarines, warships, or naval aircraft on a trajectory that makes it hard to track by radar.

According to a report in Defense News, the House Armed Services Committee “voted along party lines to amend the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with a provision that would create a program of record (PoR) for SLCM-N.”

A PoR is a listed ‘line item record’ in current and future defense acquisition plans that make them eligible for continued funding over the years.

Obscene Cost for a Useless Weapon

If the full HASC advances the Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) and passes the full floor vote in July, it would receive nearly $196 million as research and development funds.

However, political leaders and military experts advise against the astronomical costs and a futile capability, which they say can be invested elsewhere and be performed by other weapons systems.

Representative Courtney, a Democratic Congressman from Connecticut, who chairs the sea power subcommittee, cited May testimony from Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday stating that the warheads needed to make an SLCM-N program would cost at least $31 billion.

“The Navy can do a lot of other things with $31 billion. You can build 15 DDG destroyers with $31 billion, 10 Virginia-class submarines with $31 billion. You put nuclear warheads on these vessels, then you are changing the mission,” Courtney said.

Another Democratic Congressman, Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, argued that the US already has ballistic submarines in its fleet as well as lower-yield nuclear options from the air.

“It’s walking us down a path of spending enormous money on a capability that we don’t really need that will undermine our ability to build capabilities that we do (need) going forward,” said Smith.

Why Doesn’t the US Need the SLCM-N

Citing the need for flexibility and regional presence, the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) called for re-establishing a sea-launched cruise missile-nuclear capability.

President Biden’s FY 2022 budget continued funding SLCM-N, aiming to deploy it by the late 2020s. However, with the 2022 NPR identifying SLCM-N as “no longer necessary,” Biden’s 2023 budget request did not include SLCM-N funding.

The missile basically saddles important weapons platforms like submarines and warships with a mission set that can be undertaken by US Air Force (USAF) strategic bombers. It takes away the flexibility of employing diverse firepower options with a varied range of platforms.

“Should a geographic combatant commander intend to seek permission to use a nuclear weapon for tactical purposes, selecting bombers would offer more flexibility between mission sets and avoid committing to a weapons load-out decision as far in advance as would be necessary if SLCM-N were chosen” retired US Navy officer, Captain John Moulton writes in a paper.

In other words, an SLCM-N armed naval submarine or warship meets a very “narrow” mission set of destroying hardened enemy ground targets while sacrificing equally important tactical and strategic roles like hunting enemy submarines, destroying surface warships, mine laying or providing Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance (ISR).

Other currently nuclear weapons capable platforms like the B-2 Spirit, B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Lancer, and the upcoming B-21 Raider envisaged for the same mission could also reach the warzone quickly.

The cost of revealing its position while firing an SLCM-N would also far outweigh the gains from hitting enemy ground targets with low-yield nuclear missiles, Moulton further explains. Moulton is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks’ Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons.

The conditions that would justify using a tactical nuclear-tipped cruise missile would be very rare and would prevent a submarine or a naval vessel from performing optimally in a fluid battlefield situation.

In the Western Pacific, becoming part of a “joint force” in a mutually supporting pushback against a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) fleet inside China’s dangerous Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) zone is a new evolving orientation guiding the US Navy’s submarine arm, explained in a previous EurAsian Times analysis.

Lastly, the risks of unintended nuclear escalation are exponentially higher when an SLCM-N is fired since the country sustaining the attack – China or North Korea – might legitimately retaliate with a nuclear strike, triggering a devastating atomic exchange.

Experts have long pointed out how such exchanges cannot be “controlled” given the tensions and the miscalculation involved.

A US asset firing an SLCM-N also counts as a nuclear first strike, which shifts the diplomatic narrative in the Russian, Chinese, or North Korean favor. None of these countries have ever indicated they plan to use nuclear weapons as a warfighting tool. While China has a clear No-First Use (NFU) policy, Moscow and Pyongyang have maintained they will use nukes only when the physical security of their country faces an existential threat. The author can be reached at satamp@gmail.com

June 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A nuclear site is on tribes’ ancestral lands. Their voices are being left out on key cleanup talks

KNKX Public Radio | By The Associated Press, June 23, 2023

Three federally recognized tribes have devoted decades to restoring the condition of their ancestral lands in southeastern Washington state to what they were before those lands became the most radioactively contaminated site in the nation’s nuclear weapons complex, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

But the Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and Nez Perce Tribe have been left out of negotiations on a major decision affecting the future cleanup of millions of gallons of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks on the Hanford site near Richland.

In May, federal and state agencies reached an agreement that hasn’t been released publicly but will likely involve milestone and deadline changes in the cleanup, according to a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Ecology, a regulator for the site. As they privately draft their proposed changes, the tribes are bracing for a decision that could threaten their fundamental vision for the site.

“As original stewards of that area, we’ve always been taught to leave it better than you found it,” said Laurene Contreras, program administrator for the Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration/Waste Management program, which is responsible for the tribe’s Hanford work. “And so that’s what we’re asking for.”

From World War II through the Cold War, Hanford produced more than two-thirds of the United States’ plutonium for nuclear weapons, including the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. Production ceased in 1989, and the site’s mission shifted to cleaning up the chemical and radioactive waste left behind.

For these tribes, which have served as vital watchdogs in the cleanup process, the area’s history dates back long before Hanford, to pre-colonization. It was a place where some fished, hunted, gathered and lived. It’s home to culturally significant sites. And in 1855 treaties with the U.S. government in which the tribes ceded millions of acres of land, they were assured continued access.

The U.S. Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology have held confidential negotiations since 2020 on revising plans for the approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford. The discerning eyes of the tribal experts have been kept out, though EPA and Ecology have said there will eventually be opportunities for the tribes to meet with them about this.

The revisions are expected to affect an agreement among the three agencies that outlines the Hanford cleanup. Mason Murphy, program manager for the Confederated Tribes’ Energy and Environmental Sciences program, points out that the tribes also weren’t consulted in that original 1989 agreement.

“It’s an old scabbed-over wound,” Murphy said…………………………………………………….. https://www.knkx.org/government/2023-06-23/a-nuclear-site-is-on-tribes-ancestral-lands-their-voices-are-being-left-out-on-key-cleanup-talks
—

June 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Labor Party Victorian state conference and AUKUS

By Greg Bailey , Jun 21, 2023, https://johnmenadue.com/the-alp-victorian-state-conference-and-aukus/

An attempt by certain Labor affiliated left-wing unions to put a motion critical of AUKUS at the recent ALP Victorian State Conference was deferred by factional bosses even before it was put. That it was deferred tells us as much about the hierarchy ignoring the rank and file of the party as it does about the massive folly that is AUKUS.

On the weekend of 17-18 of June the Victorian branch of the ALP held its state conference attended by over six hundred delegates, the first one since 2019. Previous conferences had been postponed because of COVID, but also because of federal intervention as a response to branch stacking. Tension had already been built up because some left-wing unions had announced they would ask for a vote against AUKUS, being just the latest of other prominent ALP members and past ministers who have come out strongly against it.

The Age, the AFR and the Guardian began reporting on this four days before the conference began, speculating on who would control the factions and what would happen to the AUKUS motion which had the potential to embarrass the Prime Minister. Even before the conference began Mr Albanese had declared that AUKUS would go ahead, rendering any debate pointless given that there is much support for AUKUS in the federal parliamentary ALP. And rank and file members can be ignored–at least in the short term.

Phillip Coorey had already reported on June 14 that two weeks earlier the Queensland branch of the ALP, at its state conference, had “refused to support a motion congratulating the Albanese government “for investing in the AUKUS agreement”.”

Given that there has been considerable disquiet expressed about the AUKUS decision as a threat to Australian sovereignty and a departure from traditional Labor policy to seek rapprochement as opposed to aggression, it is hardly surprising that some elements of the rank and file expressed their anger about the decision to go with AUKUS. And this especially when it had been essentially imposed upon the party from above, and when prominent former ALP luminaries led by Paul Keating and Bob Carr had decisively spoken out against it.

As Phillip Coorey wrote in the AFR on 18/6, “The motion expressed disappointment with, or criticised, all aspects of the AUKUS deal between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, including its quick embrace by Labor in opposition when Scott Morrison announced it. The motion demanded “federal Labor caucus to be more politically diverse and avoid being swept along by the interests and priorities of America’s corporate, political, and military elites”.

Indeed, as Royce Millar and Broede Carmody reported in the Age three days (15/6) before the conference, “AMWU Victorian secretary Tony Mavromatis said he expected his motion would win strong support from the conference floor.” “We will push ahead with our motion, no matter who is at the conference, including prime ministers,” he said. “The AUKUS deal is a terrible arrangement for Australia. It lets down Australian workers, apprentices and trainees and Australian manufacturing. We should not be getting into nuclear.”

In other words, he was expressing the criticisms that have already been made in so many other forums, yet only mutely in most of the main stream media.

Yet in Melbourne the factional leaders got together and voted to defer this motion until the forthcoming Labor National Conference in Brisbane. No doubt there will be sufficient support for the Prime Minister to defeat any such motion going forth, and even if it did go forth would this be enough for the government to withdraw from AUKUS?

If the internal pressure continues building against what is such an obvious foreign affairs folly, one which has so much negative impact on internal spending by the government on social housing, climate change mitigation, education and so forth, will the decision to go with it be reversed? I fear this is unlikely as Mr. Albanese seems to be adopting the practice of his LNP predecessors, never to back down because it will make him look weak in the eyes of the public. Implicitly, this will also be justified by the party hierarchy’s belief that this is what the Australian population wants, irrespective of how little the opposite arguments have been advanced to them.

June 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Victoria | Leave a comment

European Parliamentary Assembly rapporteurs warn against extradition to the United States of Julian Assange

20/06/2023Legal Affairs and Human Rights, https://pace.coe.int/en/news/9145/pace-rapporteurs-warn-against-extradition-to-the-united-states-of-julian-assange?fbclid=IwAR17jfNw-hOFAyBnLaAdYy-4ZurMA8qGK9TdNyYSAILwoezU1K4EmqukTv4

The General Rapporteurs on Human Rights Defenders and Whistleblowers, and on Political Prisoners, of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Emanuelis Zingeris (Lithuania, EPP/CD) and Sunna Ævarsdóttir (Iceland, SOC), have warned against the extradition to the United States of Julian Assange.

“The harsh treatment of Julian Assange to date, and the lengthy prison term which he faces in the US if extradited, have a chilling effect on freedom of information, freedom of speech and whistleblowing in general. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the ‘Pentagon Papers’, is rightly celebrated as a hero for his contribution to bringing the Vietnam war to an end. Julian Assange, who published accurate information on egregious human rights violations by state agents in Iraq and elsewhere, also deserves recognition, not punishment,” said Mr Zingeris.

“Julian Assange has made powerful enemies in the United States. If extradited, he would risk serious human rights violations, including ill-treatment in detention, and a disproportionate prison sentence. It is therefore with great concern that we learned of the decision issued on 6 June by the High Court in London, denying Julian Assange permission to appeal the decisions authorising his extradition,” said Ms Ævarsdóttir.

“We also call on the international community to take any action likely to put an end to Julian Assange’s extradition proceedings in order to prevent human rights violations, which appear more imminent now than ever before,” the rapporteurs said. Both rapporteurs note that the Assembly has already supported the release of Julian Assange and recall statements by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights calling on the UK to end the arbitrary detention of Julian Assange and to prevent his extradition.

June 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear Fusion: A Clean Energy Revolution Or A Radioactive Nightmare?

By Kurt Cobb – Jun 20, 2023, Oil Price

Fusion reactors, while producing energy, also produce neutron streams that can cause radiation damage, produce radioactive waste, necessitate biological shielding, and even create the potential for weapons-grade plutonium production.

Apart from the aforementioned problems, fusion reactors face issues such as tritium release, intensive coolant demands, and high operating costs, which would require the power plant to have at least a one-gigawatt capacity to balance costs.

Given the time and resources required for fusion power plant construction, the technology might not be feasible for timely carbon emission reduction, and the prospect of fusion energy might be distracting society from immediate solutions to energy scarcity and climate change.

……………………

The reality of fusion power, however, is one of huge scale and vast obstacles according to Daniel Jassby, a former research physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (All of what follows assumes that the remaining obstacles to producing net energy from fusion will be overcome. Addressing that issue would require a seperate and lengthy essay.)

Perhaps the most unexpected revelation Jassby offers runs entirely contrary to the clean image that fusion energy has in the public mind. It turns out that the most feasible designs for fusion reactors will generate large amounts of radioactivity and radioactive waste.

[here much detail on the operation of nuclear fusion]………………………………………………………………………..

To power the enormously energy-intensive process of fusion, a fusion plant will use a lot of energy just to run itself. That means scale will matter. In order to accommodate this so-called parasitic power drain AND produce enough excess electricity to sell to pay for the costs of constructing the plant and for its ongoing operation, fusion plants will have to have a capacity of at least one gigawatt (one billion watts). One gigawatt can supply electricity to 300,000 to 750,000 homes depending on how the calculation is done. And, even much larger capacity per plant will be desirable because it will decrease the percentage of power production devoted to sustaining the fusion reaction and servicing the plant infrastructure. In short, making fusion plants big will be the only way to make them economical. So much for my friend’s fantasy of handheld fusion power units!

In a second article, Jassby addresses the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) located in France. The project is a cooperative research venture designed to study and perfect fusion. It will not produce any electricity itself, but rather set the stage for so-called demonstration plants which could be built in the second half of this century.

……………………..

just to operate its experiments, ITER will require 600 megawatts of power, a window into the parasitic power requirements of fusion reactors.

The fantasy of cheap, unlimited fusion power arriving soon with no serious side-effects prevents us as a society from grappling with near-term energy depletion and our ongoing dependence on fossil fuels in the accelerated manner required to prevent a major energy crisis. Hope that fusion energy will somehow solve our energy and climate problems is not a real plan. It is just another illusory and far-in-the-future technical fix offered to convince us that we don’t need to alter our way of life in any substantial way to address the serious problems we face. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Nuclear-Fusion-A-Clean-Energy-Revolution-Or-A-Radioactive-Nightmare.html

June 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Eyewitness Donbas: Why the Majority Reject Ukraine’s Counter-Offensive

June 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Khren Im – To the USA and Biden ….if this continues, it is lights out for humanity

Khren Im.

Sullivan (above) made it clear to his audience [at the “Arms Control Association,” sic] that the nuclear strategy that the Biden administration approved in October 2022 would remain intact through 2026, when the last remaining U.S.-Russian arms control agreement, the 2010 New START treaty, was set to expire.

Once the New START treaty expires, and barring any agreement replacing it with a new agreement, Sullivan said that, given the state of play between the U.S. and Russia when it came to arms control, the U.S. would have no choice but to develop and deploy newer, more dangerous nuclear weapons [to be made for the foreseeable future using plutonium cores (“pits”) produced by Los Alamos National Laboratory].

Sullivan then laid out the Biden administration’s case against Russia, starting with the Russian suspension of the New START treaty itself. Left unsaid was Russia’s stated reason for this suspension, namely the impossibility from the Russian point of view of engaging in strategic nuclear arms reductions at a time when the United States was pursuing a policy in Ukraine of waging a proxy conflict designed to cause the strategic defeat of Russia.

From the Russian perspective, pursuing the cooperative reduction with the U.S. of the very strategic capability which is, by design, intended to prevent Russia’s strategic defeat at a time when the U.S. was pursuing the strategic defeat of Russia was a non-starter.

If this insanity is allowed to continue unabated, it is lights out for all of humanity.

Chew on that the next time you cheer on the Ukrainian counteroffensive or applaud the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund the Ukrainian military.

It is high time for the American public to recognize that our only hope for a survivable future is one where arms control and nuclear disarmament once again serve as the cornerstone of a U.S.-Russian relationship, and that the shortest possible path toward achieving that objective is for Russia to win its war against Ukraine [which would occur at any time the U.S. said it would not support the war further, thus also saving tens of thousands of lives]

And for those politicians in the U.S. and Europe who have invested their political futures on the suicidal mission of feeding Ukraine’s anti-Russian fantasies? Khren Im.

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/06/21/scott-ritter-on-horse-radishes-nuclear-war/SCOTT RITTER: On Horseradish & Nuclear War. June 21, 2023

When Vladimir Putin was recently asked about the potential use of nuclear weapons in the context of Ukraine, an understanding of back-alley Russian slang was needed to understand his response.

……………………………….During the June 16 discussion period of the plenary session of the 2023 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Russian leader was asked about his views on the potential use of nuclear weapons in the context of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict.“This use of nuclear weapons is certainly theoretically possible,” Putin bluntly answered.

Putin paused, before shrugging and, with a half-smile, saying “Khren Im”.Khren Im is a Russian slang term derived from the word “horseradish” (khren), thus a literal translation of the phrase used by Putin would be “horseradish them.” But khren closely resembles a more salty term …….. khren Im is understood to mean “F*ck them.”“F*ck them, you know?” Putin said, to the obvious mirth of the audience……………….

The “them” in the horseradish reference made by the Russian president is the United States. Two weeks prior to Putin’s man-in-the-street reaction, on June 2, U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, addressed a conference hosted by the Arms Control Association, in Washington, D.C. The topic, not surprisingly, was the administration’s approach to U.S.-Russian arms control.

Biden’s Nuclear Strategy ……………………………………………………….

Likewise left unspoken was Russia’s contention that the U.S. was in violation of the New START Treaty by keeping some 101 strategic delivery systems from being inspected, despite being required to do so by the provisions of the New START Treaty.Khren Im.

Sullivan called out Russia’s decision to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, without elaborating on either the threats made to Belarus by several NATO members, including Poland and the Baltic states. Nor did he acknowledge that the Russian action parallels a similar U.S. policy in stationing some 100 nuclear B-61 gravity bombs on the territories of five NATO nations. Khren Im.

Sullivan strongly criticized Russia for its total disregard for international law, including arms control treaties such as the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) from which Russia recently withdrew, without putting the Russian decision in proper historical perspective. This perspective involves the ongoing disregard by the U.S. and NATO of deliberate inequities in the CFE structure that were brought on by the ongoing expansion of NATO.

Nor did the U.S. national security adviser acknowledge that it was the U.S., not Russia, which had withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate Forces Treaty, both of which are considered foundational for all arms control treaties going forward.[Related: U.S. Establishment: Nixing Arms Control]Khren Im.

Sullivan’s presentation ignored such salient matters as the purpose behind NATO’s certification of the F-35 fighter as a nuclear-capable delivery system, and what the deployment of nuclear-capable F-35s to NATO nations not included in the existing shared nuclear defense scheme meant to the scope and scale of the NATO nuclear deterrence model considering the continued NATO Baltic Air Policing and South European Air Policing operations.

Sullivan also failed to address the current “launch-on-warning” posture employed by the Biden administration, which positions the U.S. to carry out a first nuclear strike against Russia, and the role that the continued patrols in Europe and Asia by American nuclear-capable B-52H strategic bombers, including aggressive flight profiles appearing to simulate the launch of nuclear-armed cruise missiles against Saint Petersburg.

Sullivan also ignored the impact of the Biden administration’s ongoing plans to bring back medium- and intermediate-range nuclear-capable missiles to the European theater will be on the overall nuclear balance of power between the U.S.-NATO and Russia.Khren Im.

A day before Putin addressed the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov spoke to the media about the “opposing, irreconcilable positions” of Russia and the U.S. concerning the resumption of discussions regarding the New START treaty. “[T]he suspension of New START remains in effect,” Ryabkov said, “and this decision may be revoked or reconsidered only if the U.S. demonstrates a willingness to abandon its fundamentally hostile policy toward the Russian Federation.”Khren Im……………………………………………………………………

While people are right to be concerned about the policy recommendations made by prominent Russians such as Karaganov, they must also address the root cause of such pronouncements, namely the policies of the Biden administration to achieve the strategic defeat of Russia in Ukraine, seemingly at whatever cost (especially when the cost is paid in the blood of Ukrainian soldiers)

Russia will not use nuclear weapons to fulfil the tasks set forth in its Special Military Operation. It will use nuclear weapons to preserve Russian territorial integrity. The reality today is that the irresponsible policies of the U.S. and its NATO allies have sought the expansion of NATO up to the Russian borders . As they abandoned every opportunity to prevent a conflict with Russia over Ukraine, there is a war between Russia and Ukraine that has resulted in Ukraine irrevocably losing 20 percent of its territory (the oblasts of Kherson, Zaparizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk, along with the Crimea).

All of that territory has been absorbed into the Russian Federation and makes any effort to strip them away from Russia by definition an existential conflict where, if Russia were to lose, would necessarily trigger the use of nuclear weapons.

And yet Biden and his NATO allies continue to feed a Ukrainian fantasy where the reacquisition of these territories by Ukraine is a desirable outcome.

Has either Biden, his advisers, or the American public considered the potential consequences of this action? Are they willing to trade Boston for Poznan, or sacrifice humanity for the sake of appeasing Ukrainian sensibilities? The answer appears to be “no.”

As for Russia, one is guided by the words of Vladimir Putin: “Khren Im”F*ck them. But in reality, F*ck us. All of us. If this insanity is allowed to continue unabated, it is lights out for all of humanity.

June 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear indoctrination for Australian school-children – normalising nuclear submarines.

I wonder if they will design a deep geological repository for high level waste too.

2023

Defence has launched a Nuclear-Powered Submarine Propulsion Challenge in Australian high schools, providing a new generation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students the chance to win a trip to HMAS Stirling in Western Australia to see first-hand how submarines work. The introductory-level, nationwide program will provide teachers with learning resources to help students design their own engineering plans for submarine nuclear propulsion……..

Rear Admiral Jonathon Earley, Deputy Chief of Navy said: “The Nuclear-Powered Submarine Propulsion Challenge presents an opportunity for students across Australia to gain a greater appreciation of the STEM principles behind one of the most significant national projects ever undertaken in Australia, as we prepare to deliver nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy……

These students and others like them will be our future submariners, engineers and technicians. The winners will experience a visit to HMAS Stirling in Western Australia, tour a Collins-class submarine, dine with submariners and virtually drive a submarine through Sydney Harbour in the submarine bridge training simulator.” https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/defence-takes-nuclear-propulsion-challenge-to-schools/

June 22, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Education | Leave a comment

TODAY. Sleeping our way to doom, through the media lies about the Ukraine war

Right now, there’s the Ukraine so-called “counter-offensive” (an interesting new term coined and designed to imply something a lot more substantial than the more familiar term “counter-attack”)

Well according to the Western corporate media, this “counter-offensive” IS something substantial. Indeed, it means that Ukraine is winning, will win, this war. Crimea and the Donbass will be returned to Ukraine, the Russian army will be routed, and the Russian economy crippled. And Ukraine will join NATO. Sure, it’ll take a while, but with more weapons from the West, it will be a success, and the West will fund the post-war repairs and restoration of Ukraine.

The other story, from Russia, is that even if it does take a while, the defeat of Ukraine is assured. And indeed, the Ukrainian “counter-offensive” will probably be over in a few weeks.

Somewhere in the middle, a few brave souls strive for the truth. Being myself a Westerner, I know little about independent thinkers and writers in Russia. But I suspect that any who criticise Putin and the Russian military authorities get punished.

As for Western writers who criticise Zelensky, or cast doubt on the Ukraine success story – well, politicians, academics, and the corporate media have no trouble in discrediting them, branding them as ‘Putin’s puppets’

The tragedy of it all is that we are now on the road to nuclear Armageddon, – and the public cannot trust “respected” media reports – as ill-advised “patriotism” trumps truth, and we just do not get the facts.

June 22, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Judge Who Ruled Against Assange Built Career as Barrister Defending UK Government

“absurd that a single judge can issue a three-page decision that could land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life and permanently impact the climate for journalism around the world.”

Jonathan Swift, the High Court judge who has just rejected Julian Assange’s attempt to halt his extradition to the US, is the government’s former top lawyer and previously defended the Defence and Home Secretaries.

SCHEERPOST, By Mark Curtis / Declassified UK, 19 June 23

Swift was entrusted to act for the Defence and Home Secretaries in at least nine legal cases
His “favourite clients were the security and intelligence agencies” while representing the government

onathan Swift, the High Court judge who has rejected Julian Assange’s appeal against extradition to the US, has a long history of working for the government departments that are now persecuting the WikiLeaks founder.

Swift, who ruled against Assange on 6 June, was formerly the government’s favourite barrister.

He worked as ‘First Treasury Counsel’ – the government’s top lawyer – from 2006 to 2014, a position in which he advised and represented the government in major litigation.

Swift acted for the Defence and Home Secretaries in at least nine cases, Declassified has found.

…………………….. It was reported in 2013 that Swift had been paid nearly a million pounds – £975,075 – over the previous three years for representing the government.

Swift now presides over Assange’s extradition case being fought by the Home Office for whom he previously worked.

As with previous judges who have ruled against Assange, the case raises serious concerns about institutional conflicts of interests at the heart of the UK legal system…………………………………………

Ruling

In his rejection of the appeal by Assange’s lawyers, Swift curtly dismissed all eight grounds to their arguments as “no more than an attempt to re-run the extensive arguments made to and rejected by the District Judge”, who previously ruled on the case.

Media freedom group Reporters Sans Frontieres said Swift’s ruling brought Assange “dangerously close to extradition”.

It added it was “absurd that a single judge can issue a three-page decision that could land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life and permanently impact the climate for journalism around the world.”

The US government seeks to extradite Assange in order to try him in connection with WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked classified documents that informed public interest reporting around the world.

Assange faces a possible 175 years in prison and would be the first publisher prosecuted under the US Espionage Act. https://scheerpost.com/2023/06/19/judge-who-ruled-against-assange-built-career-as-barrister-defending-uk-government/

June 22, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Silent Slaughter of the Flower of Ukraine’s Youth

Now that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is underway, it is clear that the government and its Western allies are maintaining silence to conceal the brutal cost Ukraine’s brave young people are paying.

By Medea Benjamin | Nicolas J.S. Davies / Common Dreams. June 21, 2023
https://scheerpost.com/2023/06/21/the-silent-slaughter-of-the-flower-of-ukraines-youth/

As Ukraine prepared to launch its much heralded but long delayed counteroffensive, the media published a photograph of a Ukrainian soldier with his finger on his lips, symbolizing the need for secrecy to retain some element of surprise for this widely telegraphed operation.

Now that the offensive has been under way for two weeks, it is clear that the Ukrainian government and its Western allies are maintaining silence for quite a different reason: to conceal the brutal cost Ukraine’s brave young people are paying to recover small scraps of territory from Russian occupation forces, in what some are already calling a suicide mission.

Western pundits at first described these first two weeks of fighting as “probing operations” to find weak spots in Russia’s defenses, which Russia has been fortifying since 2022 with multiple layers of minefields, “dragon’s teeth,” tank-traps, pre-positioned artillery, and attack helicopters, unopposed in the air, that can fire 12 anti-tank missiles apiece.

On the advice of British military advisers in Kyiv, Ukraine flung Western tanks and armored vehicles manned by NATO-trained troops into these killing fields without air support or demining operations. The results have been predictably disastrous, and it is now clear that these are not just “probing” operations as the propaganda at first claimed, but the long-awaited main offensive.

A Western official with intelligence access told The Associated Press on June 14, “Intense fighting is now ongoing in nearly all sectors of the front… This is much more than probing. These are full-scale movements of armor and heavy equipment into the Russian security zone.”

Other glimpses are emerging of the reality behind the propaganda. At a press conference after a summit at NATO Headquarters, U.S. General Mark Milley warned that the offensive will be long, violent, and costly in Ukrainian lives.

“This is a very difficult fight. It’s a very violent fight, and it will likely take a considerable amount of time and at high cost,” Milley said.

Russian videos show dozens of Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles lying smashed in minefields, and NATO military advisers in Ukraine have confirmed that it lost 38 tanks in one night on June 8, including newly delivered German-built Leopard IIs.

Rob Lee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute explained to TheNew York Times that the Russians are trying to inflict as many casualties and destroy as many vehicles as possible in the areas in front of their main defensive lines, turning those areas into lethal kill zones. If this strategy works, any Ukrainian forces that reach the main Russian defense lines will be too weakened and depleted to break through and achieve their goal of severing Russia’s land bridge between Donbas and Crimea.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense reported that Ukraine’s forces suffered 7,500 casualties in the first 10 days of the offensive. If Ukraine’s real losses are a fraction of that, the long, violent bloodbath that General Milley anticipates will destroy the new armored brigades that NATO has armed and trained, and serve only to escalate the gory war of attrition that has destroyed Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, and Bakhmut, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians and Russians.

A senior European military officer in Ukraine provided more details of the carnage to Asia Times, calling Ukraine’s operations on June 8 and 9 a “suicide mission” that violated the basic rules of military tactics.

“We tried to tell them to stop these piecemeal tactics, define a main thrust with infantry support and do what they can,” he said. “They were trained by the British, and they’re playing Light Brigade,” he added, comparing the offensive to a suicidal charge into massive Russian cannon fire that wiped out Britain’s Light Cavalry Brigade in Crimea in 1854.

If Ukraine’s “Spring Offensive” plunges on to the bitter end, it could be more like the British and French Somme Offensive, fought near the French River Somme in 1916. After 19,240 British troops were killed on the first day (including Nicolas’s 20-year-old great-uncle, Robert Masterman), the battle raged on for more than four months of pointless, wanton slaughter, with over a million British, French, and German casualties. It was finally called off after advancing only six miles and failing to capture either of the two small French towns that were its initial objectives.

The current offensive was delayed for months as Ukraine and its allies grappled with the likelihood of the outcome we are now witnessing. The fact that it went ahead regardless reflects the moral bankruptcy of U.S. and NATO political leaders, who are sacrificing the flower of Ukraine’s youth in a proxy war they will not send their own children or grandchildren to fight.

As Ukraine launches its offensive, NATO is conducting Air Defender, the largest military exercise in its history, from June 12 to 23, with 250 warplanes, including nuclear-capable F-35s, flying from German bases to simulate combat operations in and over Germany, Lithuania, Romania, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea. The exercise has led to at least 15 incidents between NATO and Russian aircraft in the skies near Lithuania.

It seems that nobody in NATO’s foreboding fortress in Brussels has stumbled on the concept of a “security dilemma,” in which supposedly defensive actions by one party are perceived as offensive threats by another and lead to a spiral of mutual escalation, as has been the case between NATO and Russia since the 1990s. Professor of Russian history Richard Sakwa has written, “NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence.”

These risks will be evident in the upcoming NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 11-12, where Ukraine and its eastern allies will be pushing for Ukraine membership, while the U.S. and western Europe insist that membership cannot be offered while the war rages on and will instead offer “upgraded” status and a shorter route to membership once the war ends.

The continued insistence that Ukraine will one day be a NATO member only means a prolongation of the conflict, as this is a red line that Russia insists cannot be crossed. That’s why negotiations that lead to a neutral Ukraine are key to ending the war.

But the United States will not agree to that as long as President Joe Biden keeps U.S. Ukraine policy firmly under the thumbs of hawkish neoconservative desk warriors like Antony Blinken and Victoria Nuland at the State Department and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House. Pressure to keep escalating U.S. involvement in the war is also coming from Congress, where Republicans accuse Biden of “hemming and hawing” instead of “going all in” to help Ukraine.

Paradoxically, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies are more realistic than their civilian colleagues about the lack of any military solution. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, has called for diplomacy to bring peace to Ukraine, and U.S. intelligence sources have challenged dominant false narratives of the war in leaks to Newsweek and Seymour Hersh, telling Hersh that the neocons are ignoring genuine intelligence and inventing their own, just as they did to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

With the retirement of Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the State Department is losing the voice of a professional diplomat who was President Barack Obama’s chief negotiator for the JCPOA with Iran and urged Biden to rejoin the agreement, and who has taken steps to moderate U.S. brinkmanship toward China. While publicly silent on Ukraine, Sherman was a quiet voice for diplomacy in a war-mad administration.

Many fear that Sherman’s job will now go to Nuland, the leading architect of the ever-mounting catastrophe in Ukraine for the past decade, who already holds the #3 or #4 job at State as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

Other departures from the senior ranks at State and the Pentagon are likely to cede more ground to the neocons. Colin Kahl, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, who worked with Sherman on the JCPOA, opposed sending F-16s to Ukraine, and has maintained that China will not invade Taiwan in the near future. Kahl is leaving the Pentagon to return to his position as a professor at Stanford, just as China hawk General C.Q. Brown will replace General Milley as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs when Milley retires in September.

Meanwhile, other world leaders continue to push for peace talks. A delegation of African heads of state led by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, and President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on June 17, to discuss the African peace plan for Ukraine.

President Putin showed the African leaders the 18-point Istanbul Agreement that a Ukrainian representative had signed back in March 2022, and told them that Ukraine had thrown it in the “dustbin of history,” after the now disgraced Boris Johnson told Zelenskyy the “collective West” would only support Ukraine to fight, not to negotiate with Russia.

The catastrophic results of the first two weeks of Ukraine’s offensive should focus the world’s attention on the urgent need for a ceasefire to halt the daily slaughter and dismemberment of hundreds of brave young Ukrainians, who are being forced to drive through minefields and kill zones in Western gifts that are proving to be no more than U.S.- and NATO-built death-traps

June 22, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

SCOTT RITTER: On Horseradish & Nuclear War

Consortium News, June 21, 2023

When Vladimir Putin was recently asked about the potential use of nuclear weapons in the context of Ukraine, an understanding of back-alley Russian slang was needed to understand his response.

“……………………………….During the June 16 discussion period of the plenary session of the 2023 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Russian leader was asked about his views on the potential use of nuclear weapons in the context of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict.

“This use of nuclear weapons is certainly theoretically possible,” Putin bluntly answered.

“For Russia, this is possible if a threat is created to our territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty, the existence of the Russian state. Nuclear weapons are created in order to ensure our security in the broadest sense of the word and the existence of the Russian state.”

Putin’s answer reflected long-standing Russian nuclear doctrine, which postulates the use of nuclear weapons in the case of an existential threat, nuclear or otherwise, to the survival of Russia.

Putin then sought to put the audience at ease. “But we, firstly, do not have such a need,” Putin noted, “and secondly, the very factor of reasoning on this topic already lowers the possibility of lowering the threshold for the use of weapons. This is the first part.”

What came next was classic Putin. “The second is that we have more such weapons [i.e., tactical nuclear weapons] than the NATO countries. They know about it and all the time they persuade us to start talks on reductions.”

Putin paused, before shrugging and, with a half-smile, saying “Khren Im”.