Wind and solar output set landmark new milestone in Australia’s rapidly changing grid — RenewEconomy
Renewables output breaks above 20GW in Australia’s main grid for first time, while output of wind and solar jumps 900MW to new record. The post Wind and solar output set landmark new milestone in Australia’s rapidly changing grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Wind and solar output set landmark new milestone in Australia’s rapidly changing grid — RenewEconomy
The latest warning — Continuing with Akkuyu nuclear plant in seismic Turkey would be reckless
Devastating Turkey earthquake should end nuclear plant plans
The station is being built like all major projects in Turkey through non-transparent procedures with direct commissioning and guarantees from the government, just like the apartment buildings we saw crumble into rubble during the recent earthquake.
For those wondering why Erdogan supports unsafe, expensive and dirty nuclear power, the answer lies in his statement in 2019, at an AKP conference, that “Turkey’s intention is to acquire a nuclear arsenal”.
The latest warning — Beyond Nuclear International
Continuing with Akkuyu nuclear plant in seismic Turkey would be reckless
By Maria Arvanitis Sotiropoulou
The devastating earthquakes of February 7, with a magnitude of 7.8 in Turkey, brought to the fore the issue of the danger of the nuclear plant under construction there in Akkuyu.
The Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, consisting of four 1,200 MWe VVER1200 units, is being built under an intergovernmental agreement between the Turkish and Russian governments. In May 2010, Russia and Turkey signed an agreement that Rosatom would build, own and operate the 4.8 GW nuclear power plant at Akkuyu. The agreement was ratified by the Parliament of Turkey in July 2010. Construction began in 2011 and was expected to be commissioned in 2023 in celebration of the 100 years of the Turkish Republic.
The station is being built like all major projects in Turkey through non-transparent procedures with direct commissioning and guarantees from the government, just like the apartment buildings we saw crumble into rubble during the recent earthquake.
From the beginning of the construction, many technical issues were revealed: ground subsidence, serious deficiencies in the geotechnical and environmental studies, even a case of a forged design signature in 2015. Then, in January 2021, two explosions occurred at the construction site, causing interventions in the European Union where MEP George Georgiou submitted a pertinent question to the European Commission, while the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Dendias also took similar actions without a response.
Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the Classification Vote (on including nuclear power in the green taxonomy) in the European Parliament, the nuclear lobby prevails in the EU today, despite the justifiable alarm among European citizens caused by the war in Ukraine, due to the presence of the Chornobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear plants in the war zone.
On January 10, 2021, Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP, Mahir Basasir, tweeted that seawater was seeping through the concrete floor of the Akkuyu station. But even if the nuclear plant were structurally safe, such strong earthquakes can cause damage to the piping, so a Fukushima-style disaster is to be expected.
In Fukushima, we saw radioactive contaminated water pouring into the Pacific ocean and pollution has now been measured in the Atlantic as well. The Mediterranean is a closed basin and a similar disaster would turn it into a Dead Sea.
Additional risks arise with radioactive waste because Turkey is not a party to the IAEA (1997) treaty on the safe management of nuclear waste, and, in the Agreement with Rosatom, Russia retains the right to return the irradiated highly radioactive waste fuel to Turkey, after five to 10 years, for dry storage.
The recent earthquakes are an opportunity to stop this madness again. After all, this is not the first time that citizens have managed to reason with their leaders on this matter.
The nuclear era in Turkey began in 1969 when Demirel decided to build a 3,000MW nuclear plant. Ecevit approved a bid from the Swedish ASEA — Atom Metex — but the agreement ended due to problems within the company. Because the nuclear lobby has always been powerful, three companies, from Switzerland, France and Germany, immediately bid and in 1975 the Akkuyu site, 25 km from an active seismic area, was chosen.
In 1985, an agreement was signed with the Canadian AECL for a capacity of 7,000 MW, causing many negative reactions both in Turkey and in the Mediterranean, Europe and Canada, especially after the deadly 6.3 earthquake of June 27, 1998 in Adana, whose epicenter was 136 km east of Akkuyu .
This, along with the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, prompted a rapid mobilization of citizens, including in Greece, where a press conference was held in Athens on September 28, 1998 with the Greek-Canadian MP and scientific director of the “Nuclear Awareness Project”, David Martin, as the speaker.
Further concerns were raised after the even larger earthquake of August 17, 1999 in the Kocaeli Province of Turkey, with a catastrophic magnitude of 7.6. It caused enormous damage and led to more than 18,000 deaths.
Thanks to the reactions of citizen activists and due to the enormous financial costs, the construction of Akkuyu was canceled in 2000. However, President Erdogan, who does not hide his nuclear ambitions, decided in 2010 to revive it using Russian financing and know-how. Ground was broken for the first of the four reactors in April 2018. Groundbreaking for the fourth reactor took place in July 2022.
Although the nuclear lobby argues that it provides cheap and sustainable energy production, Akkuyu refutes this.
With an estimated cost of $20 billion, the Akkuyu nuclear power plant is one of the most expensive for an estimated lifetime of 60 years. Its construction and operation for the first 20 years is under the exclusive control of Rosatom. Although control of the power station will pass to Turkey after that, 51% of the shares will remain with Rosatom.
The claim that Akkuyu will provide cheap energy is also not true. With the Akkuyu deal, Turkey has guaranteed to buy electricity at a weighted average price of 12.35 to 15.33 US cents/kWh for at least 15 years, while Turkey’s average power purchase price is 4.4 cents/kW currently.
For those wondering why Erdogan supports unsafe, expensive and dirty nuclear power, the answer lies in his statement in 2019, at an AKP conference, that “Turkey’s intention is to acquire a nuclear arsenal”.
Although after the experience of India and Pakistan, who went from nuclear reactors to nuclear everything, the process has become more difficult, Erdogan apparently hopes that the three planned nuclear plants (Akkuyu, Sinop, Iconium, all in seismic areas of military interest) will allow Turkish scientists to be trained in the relevant fields.
As happened after the deadly earthquakes of 1998 and 1999, we hope today that the politics of peace will prevail, that the disastrous nuclear course for the Mediterranean will stop and that the nuclear plant in Akkuyu will remain on the drawing board.
This article is a translation from the Greek of Maria Arvanitis Sotiropoulou’s blog. A retired doctor, she is the President of the Greek affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
Headline photo of February 2023 earthquake damage in Turkey by Voice of America/Wikimedia Commons.
US defense official flags ‘no objections’ to Kiev attacking Crimea
any attack on Crimea would be interpreted as an attack on the country itself. Kiev must understand that such moves would be “met with inevitable retaliation using weapons of any kind.”
the administration of US President Joe Biden was warming to the prospect of helping Ukraine to target Crimea, “even if such a move increases the risk of escalation.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/571323-us-no-objections-crimea-attack/ 12 Feb 23,
Washington will not limit Ukrainian strikes on territory it claims as its own, Celeste Wallander said.
The US would have no objections to Ukrainian forces striking targets inside Crimea with American-supplied weapons, a senior defense official said on Friday.
Dr Celeste Wallander, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, was asked whether Washington supports Kiev in seizing Crimea, or at least in striking Russian targets there. The peninsula overwhelmingly voted to become part of Russia in 2014 following a Western-backed coup in Kiev.
Speaking at the Center for a New American Security, Wallander reiterated that the US “supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over its internationally recognized borders, and that includes Crimea.” With this in mind, the official argued that Kiev “has the right to defend every inch of its territory.”
As long as Ukraine “identifies operational value in targeting Russian forces on Ukrainian territory… we don’t have objections and do not seek to limit Ukrainian military operations to achieve their objectives.”
She also commented on remarks made by Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, who warned in January that it would be “very difficult” for Ukraine “to militarily eject the Russian forces” from all the territories they currently control.
“I am not going to contradict general Milley, and I think he was giving a hard-headed assessment of the scale of the challenge,” she said.
In January, The New York Times reported, citing sources, that the administration of US President Joe Biden was warming to the prospect of helping Ukraine to target Crimea, “even if such a move increases the risk of escalation.”
On February 3, the US announced a new $2.17 billion security package for Ukraine which included ground-launched, small-diameter bombs (GLSDB) with a range of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles). While the Pentagon said that this long-range capability would enable Ukrainians “to take back their sovereign territory,” it declined to speculate about Kiev’s future potential operations.
Last week, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as Deputy Chair of the nation’s Security Council, warned that any attack on Crimea would be interpreted as an attack on the country itself. Kiev, he said, must understand that such moves would be “met with inevitable retaliation using weapons of any kind.”
We’ve Never Been Closer to Nuclear Catastrophe—Who Gains by Ignoring It?
Antiwar and environmental activist Dr. Helen Caldicott warns that policymakers who understate the danger of nuclear weapons don’t have the public’s best interest at heart.
By Steve Taylor. 12.02.23 – Independent Media Institute https://www.pressenza.com/2023/02/weve-never-been-closer-to-nuclear-catastrophe-who-gains-by-ignoring-it/
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length. A video of the description of nuclear war from the interview can be viewed on Vimeo. Listen to the entire interview, available for streaming on Breaking Green’s website or wherever you get your podcasts. Breaking Green is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.
This interview took place on January 25, 2023, one day after the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds before midnight—in large part due to developments in Ukraine. Dr. Helen Caldicott, an Australian peace activist and environmentalist, discussed the extreme and imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust due to a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia in Ukraine. She also addressed the announcement by the U.S. Department of Energy of a controlled nuclear reaction and outlines the relationship between the nuclear power industry and nuclear weapons.
Caldicott is the author of numerous books and is a recipient of at least 12 honorary doctorates. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize by physicist Linus Pauling and named by the Smithsonian as one of the most influential women of the 20th century. Her public talks describing the horrors of nuclear war from a medical perspective raised the consciousness of a generation.
Caldicott believes that the reality of destroying all of life on the planet has receded from public consciousness, making doomsday more likely. As the title of her recent book states, we are “sleepwalking to Armageddon.”
Steve Taylor: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently set the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight. What is the Doomsday Clock, and why is it now set to 90 seconds to midnight?
Helen Caldicott: For the last year, it’s been at 100 seconds to midnight, which is the closest it’s ever been. Each year they reset the clock according to international problems, nuclear problems. Ninety seconds to midnight—I don’t think that is close enough; it’s closer than that. I would put it at 20 seconds to midnight. I think we’re in an extremely invidious position where nuclear war could occur tonight, by accident or by design. It’s very clear to me, actually, that the United States is going to war with Russia. And that means, almost certainly, nuclear war—and that means the end of almost all life on Earth.
ST: Do you see similarities with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis?
HC: Yes. I got to know John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, later in his life. He was in the Oval Office at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. He once told me, “Helen, we came so close to nuclear war—three minutes.” Three minutes. We’re in a similar situation now.
ST: So back then, though, famously, the world held its breath during the missile crisis.
HC: Oh, we were terrified. Terrified, absolutely terrified.
ST: That doesn’t seem to be the case today.
HC: Today, the public and policymakers are not being informed adequately about what this really means—that the consequences would be so bizarre and so horrifying. It’s very funny; New York Cityput out a video as a hypothetical PSA in July 2022 showing a woman in the street, and it says the bombs are coming, and it’s going to be a nuclear war. It says that what you do is go inside, you don’t stand by the windows, you stand in the center of the room, and you’ll be alright. I mean, it’s absolutely absurd.
ST: That is what you were fighting against back in the ’70s and ’80s—this notion that a nuclear war is survivable.
HC: Yes. There was a U.S. defense official called T.K. Jones who reportedly said, don’t worry; “if there are enough shovels to go around,” we’ll make it. And his plan was if the bombs are coming and they take half an hour to come, you get out the trusty shovel. You dig a hole. You get in the hole. Someone puts two doors on top and then piles on dirt. I mean, they had plans. But the thing about it is that evolution will be destroyed. We may be the only life in the universe. And if you’ve ever looked at the structure of a single cell, or the beauty of the birds or a rose, I mean, what responsibility do we have?
ST: During the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. did not want missiles pointed at it from Cuba, and the Soviet Union did not want missiles pointed at it from Turkey. Do you see any similarities with the conflict in Ukraine?
HC: Oh, sure. The United States has nuclear weapons in European countries, all ready to go and land on Russia. How do you think Russia feels—a little bit paranoid? Imagine if the Warsaw Pact moved into Canada, all along the northern border of the U.S., and put missiles all along the northern border. What would the U.S. do? She’d probably blow up the planet as she nearly did with the Cuban missile crisis. I mean, it’s so extraordinarily unilateral in the thinking, not putting ourselves in the minds of the Russian people.
ST: Do you feel we’re more at risk of nuclear war now than we were during the Cold War?
HC: Yes. We’re closer to nuclear war than we’ve ever been. And that’s what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists indicated by moving the clock to 90 seconds to midnight.
ST: Does it seem like political leaders are more cavalier about nuclear exchange now?
HC: Yes, because they haven’t taken in what nuclear war would really mean. And the Pentagon is run by these cavalier folks who are making millions out of selling weapons. Almost the whole of the U.S. budget goes to killing and murder, rather than to health care and education and the children in Yemen, who are millions of them starving. I mean, we’ve got the money to fix everything on Earth, and also to power the world with renewable energy. The money is there. It’s going into killing and murder instead of life.
ST: You mentioned energy. The Department of Energy has announced a so-called fusion breakthrough. What do you think about the claims that fusion may be our energy future?
HC: The technology wasn’t part of an energy experiment. It was part of a nuclear weapons experiment called the Stockpile Stewardship Program. It is inappropriate; it produced an enormous amount of radioactive waste and very little energy. It will never be used to fuel global energy needs for humankind.
ST: Could you tell us a little bit about the history of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where scientists developed this fusion technology?
HC: The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory was where the first hydrogen bombs were developed. It was set up in 1952, by Edward Teller, a wicked man.
ST: There is this promotion of nuclear energy as a green alternative. Is the nuclear energy industry tied to nuclear weapons?
HC: Of course. In the ’60s, when people were scared stiff of nuclear weapons, there was a Pentagon psychologist who said, look, if we have peaceful nuclear energy, that will alleviate the people’s fear.
ST: At the end of your 1992 book If You Love This Planet, you wrote, “Hope for the Earth lies not with leaders, but in your own heart and soul. If you decide to save the Earth, it will be saved. Each person can be as powerful as the most powerful person who ever lived—and that is you, if you love this planet.” Do you stand by that?
HC: If we acknowledge the horrifying reality that there is an extreme and imminent threat of nuclear war, it’s like being told that as a planet, we have a terminal disease. If we’re scared enough, every one of us can save the planet. But we have to be very powerful and determined.
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Radioactive releases from the nuclear power sector and implications for child health
Notes here provided by:
Simon J Daigle, B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Sc(A)
Industrial / Occupational Hygienist, Climatologist,
Environmental Sciences Expert (Air Quality tropospheric Ozone),
Epidemiologist, Citizen scientist
Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
This BMJ article articulated extremely well the challenges of women’s health, pregnancy and radioactive exposures and includes nuclear power and related industries (nuclear waste). The facts below were known for decades and true to this very day and I quote:
“exposure standards in the USA remain based on a Reference Man—a model that does not fully account for sex and age differences.”
“Early in the nuclear weapons era, a ‘permissible dose’ was more aptly recognised as an ‘acceptable injury limit,’ but that language has since been sanitised. Permissible does not mean safe.”
“As noted by the EPA, this gives radiation a ‘privileged pollutant’ status”
The facts above are not only astonishing, in which the general public may either be oblivious or uninformed, but in 2023, these facts remain true and yet the nuclear industry remain “willfully blind” and disingenuous about the real radiation risks, especially to the most vulnerable groups in our population.
British Medical Journal – Paediatrics (Open Access).
A reputable journal! A recent article in the British Medical Journal – Paediatrics (Oct 2022).
Open access to all. A reputable journal!
Radioactive releases from the nuclear power sector and implications for child health (October 2022).
Link: https://bmjpaedsopen.bmj.com/content/6/1/e001326
Selected excerpts:
“Children, women and particularly pregnant women living near nuclear production facilities appear to be at disproportionately higher risk of harm from exposure to these releases. Children in poorer often Non-White and Indigenous communities with fewer resources and reduced access to healthcare are even more vulnerable—an impact compounded by discrimination, socioeconomic and cultural factors.”
“Nevertheless, pregnancy, children and women are under protected by current regulatory standards that are based on ‘allowable’ or ‘permissible’ doses for a ‘Reference Man’.”
“Early in the nuclear weapons era, a ‘permissible dose’ was more aptly recognised as an ‘acceptable injury limit,’ but that language has since been sanitised. Permissible does not mean safe. Reference Man is defined as ‘…a nuclear industry worker 20–30 years of age, [who] weighs 70kg (154 pounds), is 170cm (67 inches) tall…is a Caucasian and is a Western European or North American in habitat and custom’.”
“However, many studies are unable to link these adverse outcomes to radioactivity because the studies’ authors tend to use several faulty assumptions:
- ‘doses will be too low to create an effect’—a beginning assumption ensuring poor hypothesis formation and study design. Therefore, when an effect is found, radioactivity has been predetermined not to have an association with the effect. This exclusion often leads to an inability to find an alternate associated disease agent;
‘small negative findings matter’—In fact, what matters are positive findings or very large negative findings;- ‘statistical non-significance means a lack of association between radiation exposure and disease’ — a usage a number of scientists in various disciplines now call ‘ludicrous’;
- ‘potential bias or confounding factors are reasons to dismiss low dose studies’—In fact, when assessing low dose impacts, researchers should take care not to dismiss studies with these issues and researchers should minimise use of quality score ranking.
“Consequently, we examine and reference studies even if they contain such faulty assumptions because they still indicate increases in certain diseases, such as some leukaemias, known to be caused by radiation exposure. Additionally, few alternative explanations were offered in the conclusions of these studies, meaning radiation exposure might still have been the cause.”
“Current U.S. regulations allow a radiation dose to the public (100 mrem per year) which poses a lifetime cancer risk to the Reference Man model of 1 person in 143. This is despite the EPA’s acceptable risk range for lifetime cancer risk from toxics being 1 person in 1million to 1 person in 10000. As noted by the EPA, this gives radiation a ‘privileged pollutant’ status. Additionally, biokinetic models for radioisotopes are not sex-specific. A male model is still used for females. The models are also not fully age-dependent. Radiation damage models also fail to account for a whole host of childhood and pregnancy damage.”
Highlights (Conclusion)
- Despite the numerous observations globally, linking radiation exposures to increased risks for children, pregnant and non-pregnant women and the well-demonstrated sensitivity to other toxicants during these life stages, exposure standards in the USA remain based on a Reference Man—a model that does not fully account for sex and age differences.
- In addition, faulty research assumptions, unique exposure pathways, systemic inequities and legacy exposures to both heavy metals and radioactivity from mining wastes add to the risks for women and children, especially those in underserved communities.
- Socioeconomic factors that drive higher deprivation of services in non-homogenous low-income communities of colour also put non-White children at higher risk of negative health outcomes when exposed to radioactive releases, than their White counterparts.
- A first and essential step is to acknowledge the connection between radiation, heavy metal and chemical exposures from industries and the negative health impacts observed among children, so that early diagnosis and treatment can be provided.
- Measures should then be taken to protect communities from further exposures, including a prompt phaseout of nuclear power and its supporting industries.
Studies are also urgently needed where there are none, and the findings of independent doctors, scientists and laboratories should be given equal attention and credence as those conducted by industry or government-controlled bodies, whose vested and policy interests could compromise both their methodologies and conclusions.- Finally, in the face of uncertainty, particularly at lower and chronic radiation doses, precaution is paramount.
Notes:
Funding: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests: None declared.
Patient consent for publication: Not applicable.
Ethics approval: Not applicable.
Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed
Another sign of madness? – thermonuclear propulsion technology to power a rocket to Mars.
Decisions on nuclear future are guided by myths
By Linda Pentz Gunter 12 Feb 23
“…………………………………………………………. a sign of some kind of madness?
A few weeks later, that same presentiment [about the UK government] was re-evoked on reading a headline in the print edition of the Washington Post: US works on nuclear-powered rocket.
This is not an entirely new story, but an update on the plan to use thermonuclear propulsion technology to power a rocket to Mars.
There are so many things wrong with this. The premise is that not using a nuclear reactor to power the rocket will mean it will just be too tediously slow for human passengers to endure — a journey of seven months. With the reactor on board speeding the rocket on its way, the journey to Mars could be cut to what? A mere three and a half months. Not tedious at all!
Never mind that rockets have a nasty habit of sometimes exploding on the launch pad. And never mind that do we REALLY need to spend billions of dollars right now trying to get maybe three astronauts to Mars when we have a planet called Earth that desperately needs every dime and dollar available to save it?
The announcement was replete with the usual illogicalities. Sending astronauts on that seven-month journey to Mars in a traditional rocket was “dangerous” as “the radiation levels on a Mars mission could expose astronauts to radiation levels more than 100 times greater than on Earth.” Much better to send them there on a rocket powered by a nuclear reactor!
There is another agenda afoot here, of course, and it’s a military one and the sinister battle for who controls space.
If you thought shooting down the Chinese spy balloon was exciting, that was child’s play compared to what is planned for NASA’s nuclear reactors in space.
This includes being able to power satellites to become more agile in maneuvering away from “enemy” satellites. Using nuclear propulsion will achieve that, but what other consequences might result from a host of nuclear powered satellites buzzing around in space? It’s no surprise that the Space Force, created for war-fighting in space, is involved in all this.
And of course, apparently taking its cue from the mess we have already created on Earth, NASA wants to place nuclear reactors on the Moon as a power source. But for who or what exactly? Will we plant the US flag there while we are at it and claim a new military and strategic frontier? The signs are ominous.
And what about all the radioactive waste? Will we be boring deep holes in the Moon to bury it, or will we simply jettison it further into deep space? It’s bad enough that the oceans are already our dustbin. Now Space is to be our new nuclear waste frontier.
While all this was going on, evidence from yet more research poured in about how completely unnecessary it is to use nuclear power for anything, now or in the future.
Looking at every kind of power demand including energy consumption, electric vehicles, and commercial transport, then applying solar, wind, nuclear, heat pumps, storage and other technology, nuclear power was repeatedly eliminated from the mix for increasing costs without increasing reliability.
And yet, governments here and in far too many other parts of the world press on inexorably with plans to continue the use of nuclear power or develop new nuclear programs.
Despite all the evidence that this is — to understate it — a Very Bad Idea. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/02/12/signs-of-madness/
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.
February 12 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Michigan Scores The $3.5 Billion Ford Battery Factory Virginia Didn’t Want” • Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin didn’t want CATL, a godless communist Chinese company, to run a plant in his state. The 3,500 jobs that Virginia would have got as the result of Ford building a battery factory in Old Dominion will now […]
February 12 Energy News — geoharvey
Australia safest country to survive nuclear apocalypse – except for it being a military target
However, they also said that Australia does have one major factor working against it – its relatively close military ties with the United Kingdom and the United States make it more likely to become a target in a nuclear war.
In this area, New Zealand displayed some advantages because of its longstanding nuclear-free status, the researchers wrote
Scientists Reveal Safest Countries To Survive Nuclear Apocalypse, NDTV, Bhavya Sukheja February 10, 2023
Scientists have recently revealed that Australia and New Zealand are best placed to survive a nuclear apocalypse and help reboot collapsed human civilisation.
The study, published in the journal Risk Analysis, has found that there are just a few island nations that could continue to produce enough food to feed their population after an “abrupt sunlight-reducing catastrophe” such as a nuclear war, super volcano or asteroid strike. These countries include not just Australia and New Zealand, but also Iceland, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
There would “likely be pockets of survivors around the planet in even the most severe” scenario, the researchers wrote in the study. They compared 38 island countries on 13 factors which they said would predict which ones stood the best chance of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.
The authors of the study found that Australia and New Zealand – both robust agricultural producers and tucked away from the likely sites of northern hemisphere nuclear fallout – topped the tables, with Australia performing best overall………..
However, they also said that Australia does have one major factor working against it – its relatively close military ties with the United Kingdom and the United States make it more likely to become a target in a nuclear war. In this area, New Zealand displayed some advantages because of its longstanding nuclear-free status, the researchers wrote. …………………………….
The study also predicted that in an event of a nuclear apocalypse, China, Russia and the US could see food production fall up to 97 percent under nuclear winter models and would be forced to rely on new food production technologies. https://www.ndtv.com/feature/australia-new-zealand-among-best-placed-to-survive-nuclear-apocalypse-study-finds-3771867
Australia’s Taiwan nightmare
As one stands back from all of this, it become very clear that Canberra has completely ignored Malcolm Fraser’s vital warning that, “Giving America the power to say when Australia goes to war is the most dangerous position that Australia can bear”.
Any shooting war with China will very likely be a war that has ultimately been provoked by Washington to serve US interests. It is equally likely that the US will deafen us all with a propaganda onslaught
By Richard Cullen, Feb 6, 2023 https://johnmenadue.com/how-australia-created-the-taiwan-nightmare-for-itself/?fbclid=IwAR30kyoG_TGvb9CXqA4TW5uUl-Rhskpz9OIXbeAxc66AqzW7nirLr6v6IWo
Australia has been persuaded, enticed and strongarmed into taking gravely dangerous decisions. But Australia is a sovereign state and its fingerprints are, ultimately, all over the formation of its terrible abdication of national independence.
We need to pay particular attention to a definitive insight advanced by Paul Keating: Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest. In fact, it is an entity that could help unravel decades of remarkable, positive development in Australia, if we allow this to happen.
We know that the US is now a deeply disturbed super-power. Last year, the respected American commentator, Tom Plate, writing in the South China Morning Post, emphasised the “unseemly primal lust” with which the US jumped into the Ukraine war converting a “regional crisis into an increasingly global one”. Plate added that only the US had been able to parlay “its exceptional brand of American exceptionalism into a preposterous permanent innocence”.
The profound dangers arising from Australia’s far too close association with Washington’s global-control agenda have been stressed for over 50 years, first by Gough Whitlam, as he became Prime Minister in 1972, and even more emphatically by his once arch-rival, (former Prime Minister) Malcolm Fraser, who published a lengthy book in 2014 arguing that, “[G]iving America the power to say when Australia goes to war is the most dangerous position that Australia can bear.” He added that, “If America [unilaterally] uses forces deployed out of Australia, how can an Australian Prime Minister say we are not involved?”
Sensing the rising risk of grave danger, former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, around two years ago, argued with customary clarity that: “Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest. We have no alliance with Taipei”.
The former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell said, in 2004, that: “Taiwan is not independent. It does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation”. Almost 20 years later, Taipei enjoys dwindling recognition, now in the low-teens, from a handful of smaller states. Beijing is recognised as the sole, ultimate sovereign of China (including Taiwan) by the vast majority of nation-states, some 170 of whom recently reaffirmed their commitment to this centrally important One China principle.
Keating stressed that Australia should not be drawn into a military engagement over Taiwan, “US-sponsored or otherwise”, and said Taiwan was “fundamentally a civil matter” for China. These comments, predictably, were not well received in Taipei. If anything, the distressed nature of this response implicitly confirmed the position Keating outlined. Taiwan has been an intrinsic part of China for over 300 years, at least, since well before the French Revolution and the creation of the US and long before Australia was first settled by Europeans.
As for Japan’s leaders, Keating calls them the Bourbons of the Pacific – they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, we’re still trying to find our security from Asia rather than in Asia. Furthermore, Professor Ravina, from the University of Texas, reminded us last year that, “Japan looks a lot like a one-party state” adding that, “the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has governed Japan almost exclusively since the end of World War II”. Declassified CIA documents, Ravina says, have confirmed that the LDP was covertly supported by the US “with millions of dollars” after it was established.
Japan is now avidly re-militarising at great expense, with a malevolent eye fixed on China yet again. Canberra has recklessly adopted Japan as a new primary military ally, despite the active veneration of Japan’s military history – which embodies an almost unparalleled record of military barbarism – by certain influential elite-factions.
Meanwhile, the current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leadership in Taiwan refuses to endorse the One China principle (unlike the main opposition Kuomintang Party (KMT)) and it keeps testing how far it can push a pro-independence stance short of moving audaciously in that direction. This is combined with much mutual cross-strait political glaring – even as the economic coupling continues to deliver outstanding reciprocal benefits, year after year. Within the DPP, the more extreme faction is anxious to keep pushing the independence project. Any sort of candid negotiations with Beijing over this fraught relationship are simply off the agenda for the DPP. There is at least an even-chance that the DPP will retain power, at the expense of the KMT, at the next Presidential Election in January, 2024.
Although the US ritually claims it still supports the One China principle it does so within the context of persistent, Taiwan-separatist dog-whistling. This was highlighted in a recent Common Dreams article by the prominent peace activist, Joseph Gerson, who insisted that the US should “cease encouraging Taiwanese independence”.
Malcolm Fraser told the ABC, in 2014, that he saw no difference between the Abbott Coalition Government in Australia and the Labor Governments led by Rudd and Gillard in their misguided, excessively pro-Washington policy setting, when he criticised the way Gillard had put American troops into Darwin. Fraser also forcefully highlighted the acute danger posed to Australia by the presence of US spy-bases in Australia in his book – especially Pine Gap.
In 2018, Prime Minster Turnbull, flicked the switch to serious China-thumping over Huawei (without any “smoking gun” evidence, in Turnbull’s later, own words). Since then, we have witnessed the desperately ill-conceived, uncertain and hugely expensive AUKUS nuclear submarine decision and the latest agreement to station nuclear-capable US bombers near Darwin. Very recently, the new Labor Government in Canberra has eagerly announced a plan to acquire an expensive set of the latest mobile missiles from the US.
Arguably worst of all, is the shocking Force Posture Agreement (FPA), signed with the US in 2014 by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, which provides the legal basis for, as Bevan Ramsden recently revealed, “the comprehensive US militarisation of Australia, especially the Northern Territory, thus setting up Australia as a US forward base from which to launch its next war”.
Meanwhile, Australia and its mainstream media outlets have happily played host to diplomatically disgraceful, ongoing levels of China-threat war-drumming from the Japanese Ambassador in Canberra. John Menadue recently told us that, “The Japanese Embassy in Canberra is leading the anti-China campaign in Australia.” While Allan Behm wonders if this particular Ambassador, who describes himself a former spymaster, aspires “to be a legend in his own lunchtime”. One can be forgiven for wondering if this Canberra-based, Japanese campaign may be part of a wider US-shaped project to guard against any back-sliding on China-glaring, following the change of government last year in Australia.
Then there is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which maintains a constant focus on advancing the grand China Threat narrative. John Queripel recently argued persuasively that, when you follow the money you discover that ASPI is a “front for US propaganda”.
As one stands back from all of this, it become very clear that Canberra has completely ignored Malcolm Fraser’s vital warning that, “Giving America the power to say when Australia goes to war is the most dangerous position that Australia can bear”. And, in the course of doing so, they have made the severe geopolitical risk faced by Australia far worse. Canberra has now placed the essence of the decision on when Australia may go to war against China into the hands of the three least trustworthy, triggering-parties one can imagine: Washington, Tokyo and Taipei. In all three places, reckless Anti-Beijing elements enjoy inordinate influence.
What a catalogue of cringe-making, very expensive, immature belligerence Australia has racked-up. And let’s not forget that all of this, piled-on, antagonistic military activity and expenditure is primarily directed at Australia’s leading current and best-ever, long-term trading partner. It takes one’s breath away.
Any shooting war with China will very likely be a war that has ultimately been provoked by Washington to serve US interests. It is equally likely that the US will deafen us all with a propaganda onslaught claiming that any Beijing military action responding to provocations was unprovoked – and don’t dare think otherwise. Any such war will almost certainly visit extreme harm on the global economy and surely prove to be catastrophic for the Australian political-economy and devastating for Taiwan, just for starters. US arms suppliers can be expected to power onwards and upwards, however.
Australia has certainly been persuaded, enticed and strongarmed into taking the gravely dangerous decisions outlined above. But Australia is a sovereign state. It has agency. Australia’s fingerprints are, ultimately, all over the formation of this terrible abdication of national independence.
If matters are ever to be put right, we first must not forget that America is, as Professor Adam Tooze argues, addicted to greatness and haunted by its loss and it has crafted “an extraordinarily aggressive techno-military objective” to champion its superiority over China.
Next, we have to remember how, once-upon-a-time, 50 years ago, we began growing up as a sovereign state within Asia. We must recollect what we have been told so clearly by Whitlam and Fraser and avow that Australia’s national interest is our paramount concern. We can be entirely sure that Washington, Tokyo and Taipei are never going to tell us this: they will each work to advance their own dangerously tilted agendas.
Finally, we have to pay particular attention to the conclusive insight provided by Paul Keating: Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest. In fact, it is an entity that could very much help unravel decades of remarkable, positive development in Australia, if we allow this to happen.
Growing signs Australia’s new nuclear submarine will be British design
Breaking Defense , (Sponsored by Northrop Grumman) By COLIN CLARK and TIM MARTIN February 10, 2023
SYDNEY and BELFAST — With the formal announcement of Australia’s path to obtain nuclear attack submarines expected to happen in Washington next month, speculation about the likely solution AUKUS is beginning to leak out.
The most intriguing hints center on a British boat — but not the Astute-class — based in part on rare public comments by Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and his British counterpart, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace……………………………………
From the first announcement of the AUKUS effort, Australia has said it intends to build boats at home. However, developing the nuclear expertise from a tiny pool of a few dozen individuals to potentially thousands of people will take time, as will development of the highly skilled welders and other technical experts needed to build and maintain nuclear powered boats. Developing a new design and building a new shipyard to produce it seems unrealistic, given the lack of domestic expertise — especially if the goal is to deploy nuclear attack submarines before the conventionally powered Collins-class attack subs are retired.
That has prompted talk of America supplying Australia with refitted Los Angeles-class boats or providing Virginia-class boats that would be crewed by Australians, but both options pose many obstacles. America doesn’t seem able to build nuclear attack boats quickly enough to meet its stated requirement of 66, which prompted two top defense lawmakers in the Senate to caution President Joe Biden against committing the US to supplying Australia with nuclear boats.
Given the concerns about personnel and Marles’ comments, there is reason to think Britain’s next-generation sub, which will require a much smaller crew than do any of the American boats are in play……………….
“Among the ‘straws in the wind’ are the UK’s ambitions to rebuild its own submarine fleet. The Royal Navy would like to see a rise from the planned seven Astute-class attack submarines to perhaps 12 boats in the long term.
In a speech in December 2022, the UK chief of the defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, said of AUKUS that ‘if we have the courage to do this properly’ it could help grow the UK’s own submarine numbers in the decades to come, clearly assisted in part by potential economies of scale under AUKUS.”
Jonathan Mead
Back in November 2021, the man who led the day-today work on the AUKUS boats in Australia, Vice Adm. Jonathan Mead, told an Australian Senate committee that his country intended to select a “mature design” for its nuclear submarine. “It is our intention,” Mead said then, “that when we start the build program, the design will be mature and there will be a production run already in existence.” That would appear to make the British offering a candidate…………………
Sidharth Kaushal, a sea power expert at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told Breaking Defense:
“The point of friction that introduces with the UK [revolves around] the Australians operating with the US Navy primarily in the Indo-Pacific and their preference for things like prompt strike capabilities, including cruise missiles and potentially hypersonic missiles. The [US Navy] Virginia-class payload module can host those weapons but the [Royal Navy’s] Astute-class can torpedo launch cruise missiles but doesn’t necessarily offer prompt strike capabilities.”
All seven Astute-class submarines are due to be in service with the Royal Navy by 2026, each with a life cycle of 25 years. …………….
“There’s much more work to be done when you look at areas of joint production…but for the initial project of delivering a new Australian submarine there’s going to be some compromises,” Kaushal said. “For the US, this works out quite nicely but their big challenge of course remains, that their production lines are struggling to meet US Navy requirements.”
Should the Virginia-class be selected for the Australian requirement, the US would also benefit from new basing facilities for the future submarines, he added.
“It would effectively give the US an additional SSN base separate to Guam, which is of course an inherently vulnerable location and will be more so going forward,” Kaushal explained.
Operationally, how the future Australian submarines operate in the Indo-Pacific looks to be particularly difficult to assess in light of China formidable ASW capabilities, like Type 56 Corvettes and Y-8 maritime patrol aircraft, combined with the often shallow waters of the South China Sea which can make nuclear submarine missions more difficult.
“China is investing in a pretty substantial sensor network in the South China Sea that includes under sea hydrophones, large unmanned underwater vehicles all linked up to artificial islands they have built,” Kaushal said. ………………………………. https://breakingdefense.com/2023/02/growing-signs-australias-new-nuclear-sub-will-be-british-design/
Firefighters called to Newcastle golf club after stolen car set alight
Firefighters were called to a popular golf course after a stolen car was set on fire, sparking concern over a potential radiation leak.
Aisling Brennan news.com.au 8 Feb 23,
Firefighters have successfully prevented a radiation leak coming from a stolen car set on fire in the middle of a Newcastle golf course.
Specialist hazardous materials firefighters from Fire and Rescue NSW were called to Merewether Golf Club in Adamstown, following reports of a possible radiation leak about 9.45am on Wednesday.
The car, which was allegedly stolen, had been driven onto the green in the early hours of the morning, where the driver reportedly did several burnouts on the golf club greens.
The car was then set on fire and abandoned about 2am.
Crews were called when the owner of the stolen vehicle notified authorities there was a moisture gauge on board which has a radiation source attached and could be damaged because of the blaze.
“Firefighters, wearing protective clothing and carrying radiation detectors, then entered the scene and conducted an initial assessment,” FRNSW said in a statement.
“The equipment was located and was emitting low levels of radiation.
“Additional specialist radiation detection equipment and radiation experts responded to conduct a comprehensive assessment.”…………………………………………….. https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/crime/firefighters-called-to-newcastle-golf-club-after-stolen-car-set-alight/news-story/7098926a530ba2cb7ea146192966f8d0
RAAF finds Chinese balloon — The Bug Online
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: The Chinese Government has admitted responsibility for sending a large surveillance balloon (main picture) over Australian air space. The admission followed the detection of the balloon by the RAAF earlier today high in the sky over Central Queensland. Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Richard Marles, said he believed the balloon may have […]
RAAF finds Chinese balloon — The Bug Online
Media ‘Spy Balloon’ Obsession a Gift to China Hawks
The Pentagon says it believes this spy balloon doesn’t significantly improve China’s ability to gather intelligence with its satellites.
Minimizing US provocation
The unstated premise of much of this coverage was that the US was minding its own business when China encroached upon it–an attitude hard to square with the US’s own history of spying.
JULIANNE TVETEN 10 Feb 23 https://fair.org/home/media-spy-balloon-obsession-a-gift-to-china-hawks/
For over a week, US corporate media have been captivated by a so-called “Chinese spy balloon,” raising the specter of espionage.
NBC News (2/2/23), the Washington Post (2/2/23) and CNN (2/3/23), among countless others, breathlessly cautioned readers that a high-altitude device hovering over the US may have been launched by China in order to collect “sensitive information.” Local news stations (e.g., WDBO, 2/2/23) marveled at its supposed dimensions: “the size of three school buses”! Reuters (2/3/23) waxed fantastical, telling readers that a witness in Montana thought the balloon “might have been a star or UFO.”
While comically sinister, the term “Chinese spy balloon”—which corporate media of all stripes swiftly embraced—is partially accurate, at least regarding the device’s provenance; Chinese officials promptly confirmed that the balloon did, indeed, come from China.
What’s less certain is the balloon’s purpose. A Pentagon official, without evidence, stated in a press briefing (2/2/23) that “clearly the intent of this balloon is for surveillance,” but hedged the claim with the following:
We assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective. But we are taking steps, nevertheless, to protect against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information.
Soon after, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website (2/3/23) stated that the balloon “is of a civilian nature, used for scientific research such as meteorology,” according to a Google translation. “The airship,” the ministry continued, “seriously deviated from the scheduled route.”
Parroting Pentagon
Despite this uncertainty, US media overwhelmingly interpreted the Pentagon’s conjecture as fact. The New York Times (2/2/23) reported that “the United States has detected what it says is a Chinese surveillance balloon,” only to call the device “the spy balloon”—without attributive language—within the same article. Similar evolution happened at CNBC, where the description shifted from “suspected Chinese spy balloon” (2/6/23) to simply “Chinese spy balloon” (2/6/23). The Guardian once bothered to place “spy balloon” in quotation marks (2/5/23), but soon abandoned that punctuation (2/6/23).
Given that media had no proof of either explanation, it might stand to reason that outlets would give each possibility—spy balloon vs. weather balloon—equal attention. Yet media were far more interested in lending credence to the US’s official narrative than to that of China.
n coverage following the initial reports, media devoted much more time to speculating on the possibility of espionage than of scientific research. The New York Times (2/3/23), for instance, educated readers about the centuries-long wartime uses of surveillance balloons. Similar pieces ran at The Hill (2/3/23), Reuters (2/2/23) and the Guardian (2/3/23). Curiously, none of these outlets sought to provide an equivalent exploration of the history of weather balloons after the Chinese Foreign Affairs statement, despite the common and well-established use of balloons for meteorological purposes.
Even information that could discredit the “spy balloon” theory was used to bolster it. Citing the Pentagon, outlets almost universally acknowledged that any surveillance capacity of the balloon would be limited. This fact apparently didn’t merit reconsideration of the “spy balloon” theory; instead, it was treated as evidence that China was an espionage amateur. As NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel (2/3/23) stated:
The Pentagon says it believes this spy balloon doesn’t significantly improve China’s ability to gather intelligence with its satellites.
One of Brumfiel’s guests, a US professor of international studies, called the balloon a “floating intelligence failure,” adding that China would only learn, in Brumfiel’s words, at most “a little bit” from the balloon. That this might make it less likely to be a spy balloon and more likely, as China said, a weather balloon did not seem to occur to NPR.
Reuters (2/4/23), meanwhile, called the use of the balloon “a bold but clumsy espionage tactic.” Among its uncritically quoted “security expert” sources: former White House national security adviser and inveterate hawk John Bolton, who scoffed at the balloon for its ostensibly low-tech capabilities.
Minimizing US provocation
The unstated premise of much of this coverage was that the US was minding its own business when China encroached upon it–an attitude hard to square with the US’s own history of spying. Perhaps it’s for this reason that media opted not to pay that history much heed.
In one example, CNN (2/4/23) published a retrospective headlined “A Look at China’s History of Spying in the US.” The piece conceded that the US had spied on China, but, in line with the headline’s framing, wasn’t too interested in the specifics. Despite CNN‘s lack of curiosity, plenty of documentation of US spying on China and elsewhere exists. Starting in 2010, according to the New York Times (5/20/17), China dismantled CIA espionage operations within the country.
And as FAIR contributor Ari Paul wrote for Counterpunch (2/7/23):
The US sent a naval destroyer past Chinese controlled islands last year (AP, 7/13/22) and the Chinese military confronted a similar US vessel in the same location a year before (AP, 7/12/21). The AP (3/21/22) even embedded two reporters aboard a US “Navy reconnaissance aircraft that flew near Chinese-held outposts in the South China Sea’s Spratly archipelago,” dramatically reporting on Chinese military build up in the area as well as multiple warnings “by Chinese callers” that the Navy plan had “illegally entered what they said was China’s territory and ordered the plane to move away.”
The US military has also invested in its own spy balloon technology. In 2019, the Pentagon was testing “mass surveillance balloons across the US,” as the Guardian (8/2/19) put it. The tests were commissioned by SOUTHCOM, a US military organ that conducts surveillance of Central and South American countries, ostensibly for intercepting drug-trafficking operations. Three years later, Politico (7/5/22) reported that “the Pentagon has spent about $3.8 million on balloon projects, and plans to spend $27.1 million in fiscal year 2023,” adding that the balloons “may help track and deter hypersonic weapons being developed by China and Russia.”
In this climate, it came as no surprise when the US deployed an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down the balloon off the Atlantic coast (Reuters, 2/4/23). Soon after, media were abuzz with news of China’s “threat[ening]” and “confrontational” reaction (AP, 2/5/23; Bloomberg, 2/5/23), casting China as the chief aggressor.
Perpetuating Cold War hostilities
Since news of the balloon broke, US animus toward China, already at historic highs, has climbed even further.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a trip to China. President Biden made a thinly veiled reference to the balloon as a national security breach in his February 7 State of the Union address, declaring, “If China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democratic ranking member of the newly formed House Select Committee on China, asserted that “the threat is real from the Chinese Communist Party.”
Rather than questioning this saber-rattling, US media have dispensed panicked spin-offs of the original story (Politico, 2/5/23; Washington Post, 2/7/23; New York Times, 2/8/23), ensuring that the balloon saga, no matter how much diplomatic decay ensues, lasts as long as possible.
Health status of the population living in the zone of influence of radioactive waste repositories
Health status of the population living in the zone of influence of radioactive waste repositories. (2019)
D. J. Janavayev1 , Ye. T. Kashkinbayev1 , K. B. Ilbekova1 , Ye. A. Saifulina1 , M. M. Bakhtin1 , M. K. Sharipov1 , P. K. Kazymbet. (2016). Electron J Gen Med 2019;16(6):em176.
Some brief extracts:
“The results of the study indicate an almost complete absence of healthy individuals living in the area.”
- Currently, the study of the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation on biological objects continues to be a complex problem in the field of radiation biology.
- The urgency of this problem is due to the increase in the number of people exposed to man-made radiation in small doses, this category of the population includes people living near the storage of radioactive waste of uranium production
- The risk of environmental problems and living conditions is high for public health.
- Radioactive contamination of the territories behind the sanitary protection zone, tailings of radioactive waste is one of the serious problems of the Republic of Kazakhstan
- As a result of earlier clinical and epidemiological studies found that the population living in a tense environmental situation, had a high medical and social risk of chronic somatic and cancer.
Results:
- Analyzing the research results, we note a clear pattern of the distribution of the incidence of the pathology among the population, depending on the length of stay in the territory longer duration of residence in the territory of the tailings, the greater the prevalence of diseases observed in the population.
- In the population of the control group, the prevalence of diseases, depending on the period of residence in the Akkol settlement of Akmola region, tended to increase, but did not change significantly. This may indicate that the influence of technogenic factors of radiation nature on the overall morbidity of the population living near the tailings dump for a long time is not excluded.
- A significant increase in the prevalence of diseases, depending on the length of residence in ecologically unfavorable areas, was detected for diseases of the eye, cardiovascular system, digestive and genitourinary systems.
Summary:
- Thus, living conditions in the zone of influence of radioactive waste repositories determine the wide prevalence among the population of the main group living in the settlements of Zavodskaya and Aksu.
- The results of the study indicate an almost complete absence of healthy individuals living in the area.
Length of living near radioactive waste storage affect the formation and character of General somatic morbidity: increase the duration of life in the areas adjacent to the tailings, leading to increased incidence of chronic diseases.- It should be noted that in order to fully assess the health of the population of the settlements of Zavodskaya and Aksu under prolonged exposure to radioactive waste storage factors, data are required, which will be obtained in the course of further research.
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
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 