Antinuclear

Marles devises AUKUS alternative — The Bug Online

DEFENCE:                The Albanese Government has swiftly initiated a fallback plan in the event reported political unrest in the United States results in the collapse of the AUKUS pact signed by the Morrison Government to purchase a fleet of nuclear submarines. The new strategic alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the USA followed the scrapping […]

Marles devises AUKUS alternative — The Bug Online

January 8, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Delay to small nuclear reactors as ministers battle over costs

Sunday January 08 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times Harry Yorke

A funding deal for the first fleet of mini nuclear reactors is not expected to materialise for at least another 12 months, amid a row in government over the cost of Britain’s wider nuclear ambitions.

Last year, in order to triple domestic nuclear capacity to 24 gigawatts by 2050 — a quarter of the UK’s projected electricity demand — Boris Johnson set out plans for eight new large reactors alongside the development of small modular reactors (SMRs).

The government also announced the formation of Great British Nuclear (GBN), a body responsible for helping to deliver the next generation of reactors and SMRs by identifying potential sites, developers and investors.

 At present only one plant, Hinkley Point C, is under construction, with the financing and final investment decisions on Sizewell C still pending. However, even though all but one of the UK’s existing plants are set to be shut down by the end of the decade, the government’s nuclear strategy now appears at risk of stalling amid internal disagreements.

In particular, Whitehall sources have revealed that there remains significant uncertainty over the scale of state investment in SMRs. Rolls-Royce, which has created designs for a 470 megawatt SMR and wants to
begin building factories, has called for ministers to enter funding talks and start placing orders. Rolls is understood to be seeking a commitment for four initial SMRs at a cost of about £2 billion each, which it
believes would unlock orders from interested foreign buyers.

But a senior government source said the Treasury would not sign off on any orders or significant funding until the technology had approval from the Office for Nuclear Regulation, which is not expected until 2024.

While the government has already invested £210 million in Rolls’s technology, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is also still assessing whether its competitors, including GE Hitachi, may offer “more viable” alternatives.

Insiders have signalled that the government may opt to launch yet another competition to gather further evidence before any firm deals are struck. More broadly, Treasury ministers harbour big concerns over the
costs associated with GBN, which officials have warned is billions over budget. While officials expect GBN to be announced early this year, after months of delays, the internal wrangling could lead to changes to both the body’s scope and funding.

 Times 8th Jan 2023

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/delay-to-small-nuclear-reactors-as-ministers-battle-over-costs-cggmmwpqz

January 8, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A Secret War in the Making: Americans Should Not Die to Defend Taiwan

American Institute for Economic Research Doug Bandow January 2, 2023

The United States might be a democracy in form, but most policies are developed without even a semblance of public participation. For instance, policymakers overwhelmingly believe that the US should go to war with the People’s Republic of China if it attacks Taiwan. President Biden has five times declared that he would back Taiwan militarily. Yet Congress has not voted.

Those predicting conflict believe the hour is late, but some imagine that a tough stance would preclude war. America’s president merely needs to wave his pinky finger, or state his demands, and Chinese Communist Party officials would run screaming back to the leadership compound of Zhongnanhai, never to be heard from again. General Secretary Xi Jinping is, however, made of sterner stuff, buttressed by the People’s Liberation Army, which is rapidly expanding to prevent Washington from treating the Asia-Pacific as coastal American waters.

Even so, many Blob members assume that if Beijing were foolish enough to fight, it would (of course) be defeated. Not so. Any war over Taiwan would be won on the seas, and the PRC is much closer and can more easily reinforce its forces. Breaking a naval blockade would be difficult and would invite full-scale conflict. Beijing now possesses a larger (based on numbers, not tonnage) navy than America. And China is able to concentrate its forces in the Asia-Pacific. Reported the Congressional Research Service: “China’s navy is a formidable military force within China’s near-seas region, and it is conducting a growing number of operations in the broader waters of the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and waters around Europe.”

Geography is a major problem: Taiwan is barely 100 miles off China’s shore, roughly the same distance as Cuba from America. The PRC could rely on two score mainland military bases and enjoy air superiority over the island. Beijing’s strategy would be anti-access/area denial, using submarines and missiles, especially, to keep the US Navy afar.

Washington would have to rely on allied bases, most notably Japan (Okinawa), the Philippines, and South Korea. However, none of America’s friends want to end up as targets of Chinese missiles. The Republic of Korea, confronting a dangerous North Korea, is least-likely to back the US in a war against the PRC. The Philippines is a semi-failed state; a former defense secretary once opined that his nation had “a navy that can’t go out to sea and an air force that cannot fly.”

Which leaves Japan. North Korea’s nuclear turn and China’s rise have caused Tokyo to plan a major increase in defense outlays. That government now notes its strategic interest in Taiwan, but has insisted that nothing said so far commits Japan to go to war with China over the issue. Entry into any war would turn the entire country into a potential target, and reaffirm Tokyo’s status as an enemy of the PRC.

Alas, the US usually loses wargames involving a Taiwan conflict. ………

Equally important, China cares much more about Taiwan than does the US  For the Chinese, the issue is nationalism at its most raw: the island was seized by Japan as war booty more than a century ago. Regaining Taiwan would complete recovery from the so-called “century of humiliation,” during which outside imperialistic powers, including America, effectively humbled and dismantled the moribund Chinese empire.

Taiwan also has obvious military significance. No great power would accept an enemy base so close to its territory. In the event of defeat, China could expect the island to fill with US bases and forces. Washington faced such a possibility with Cuba in 1962 and almost fought a nuclear war with the Soviet Union over the issue.

No surprise, then, that the PRC is serious about forcing reunification. In his talk at the twentieth Chinese Communist Party congress in October, Xi Jinping insisted that “The complete unification of the motherland must be realized, and it will be realized.” Several Chinese diplomats strongly expressed similar views to me after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ill-considered August visit to Taiwan.

In contrast, in terms of security, Taiwan doesn’t matter one whit to the US.At most, Washington would gain by denying Taiwan to China, inhibiting the latter’s naval activities in the region. But that is no justification for war. Beijing will always be willing to spend and risk more in any fight over the island.

Moreover, a conflict between the US and China might not remain conventional. Never before have two nuclear-armed powers fought a major conventional war. Escalation would be a constant danger. The US could not easily ignore military targets on the Chinese mainland. Attacking China proper, however, would force Beijing to respond by, for instance, hitting American possessions like Guam, at least. The PRC would face even-greater pressure to escalate if it was losing, since Taiwan is an existential interest………………..

The US needs to have a serious debate over Taiwan. Now.

……………… Finally, the US should seek tripartite negotiations to find a modus vivendi to keep the peace in the Taiwan Strait. We might begin with Taiwan downplaying its efforts to assert a separate international identity, the US pledging to forgo a military relationship with Taipei and minimizing efforts to highlight ties with Taiwan, and Beijing reducing military forces targeting the island and agreeing to eschew military action as long as the other parties keep their promises.

Most members of the Washington foreign policy elite have never met a war they didn’t want other Americans to fight. Policymakers managed to blunder through Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya without wrecking the US. A war against China over Taiwan could have far more destructive consequences. It is vital for the American people to participate in the decision-making process over policy toward Taiwan. For their future, and that of their kids and grandkids, the right answer is no to war.  https://www.aier.org/article/a-secret-war-in-the-making-americans-should-not-die-to-defend-taiwan/

January 8, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

From the fossil fuel frying pan into the fission fire

“Coal to Nuclear” plan is old thinking at its worst

From the fossil fuel frying pan into the fission fire — Beyond Nuclear International

Another smokescreen that obscures real climate solutions

By Linda Pentz Gunter

They’ve given it a snappy little acronym, one that is perhaps supposed to masquerade as a sort of scientific-sounding calculus — C2N. After the failure of the much-trumpeted “nuclear renaissance” that never was, the nuclear lobby and its federal lackeys have come up with another PR clunker — Coal 2 Nuclear (hence, C2N). In reality, this is less C2N than CPR for an ailing nuclear power industry.

Unfortunately, to arrive at this dangerously out-of-touch scheme, our tax dollars had to be wasted on yet another U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report. Its conclusion was that, “hundreds of U.S. coal power plant sites could convert to nuclear power plant sites, adding new jobs, increasing economic benefit, and significantly improving environmental conditions.”

Notice the word “could” though. Not “will”. Because it’s more of the same aspirational irrationality that is driving the small modular reactor fantasy in the first place, the version of nuclear power that would supposedly dot the defunct coal plant landscapes.

The DOE study was conducted by Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Their self-interested conclusions then, come as no surprise.

C2N is enough to make you despair — or confirm your pre-existing suspicions — that our leadership is blind and deaf to the reality of the climate emergency we are facing. They are truly mired in the mud of outdated thinking, clinging to failed and foolish energy plans that have long been supplanted by demonstrably better, faster, cheaper, safer and more workable options, ergo renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation.

More than 3 million of the 7.8 million jobs in the US energy sector are in areas aligned to America’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2050”, reported the World Economic Forum in July 2022. “This means renewable energy jobs in 2021 accounted for around 40% of total energy jobs.”

But no, the DOE would rather spend decades dangling before depressed coal communities the false promise of “new jobs” and “economic benefits” in a phantom new nuclear sector. It’s a con and the worst form of betrayal and guess whose fingerprints are all over this?

With C2N, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia (Democrat in name only and with his pockets full of coal money), is throwing his most deprived constituents under a petroleum-powered bus. He is leading those who need work today down a long and winding road to C2N that will deliver little if anything and nothing anytime soon.

All of this is in line with a collective madness that appears to have taken over significant swaths of human society. In November, UN General Secretary, António Guterres, desperate to steer us away from our final precipice, issued his most strident and urgent warning yet:

“We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing … And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible,” Guterres said. “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”

He was speaking at the opening of the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt, or the “COP-out” as some cynics prefer to call it, given the abject failure of these annual meetings to ensure enforcement of the pledges made, albeit most are still woefully inadequate.

The US DOE meanwhile, prefers to dwell in the dark ages of denial. “A coal to nuclear transition could significantly improve air quality,” the department alleged in its report. But this ignores the fact that nuclear power plants and the nuclear fuel chain routinely release radioactivity, especially dangerous to children. Among more than 60 epidemiological studies worldwide, most found increases in rates of leukemia among children under five living near nuclear power plants. The rates increased the closer children lived to the plant.

And it ignores the fact that air quality could be improved faster and more significantly by shifting from coal to renewables rather than to nuclear, thereby also avoiding the cancer-causing emissions delivered by nuclear power.

Of course, “air quality” would be rendered meaningless if/when one of the C2N plants suffers a serious accident. Such an event would release large amounts of fast-traveling radioactive iodine-131 gas, followed by clouds of heavier radioactive fallout such as cesium and strontium. A major disaster, such as those at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011, even released “hot” particles such plutonium into the environment.

This outcome is made even more likely by virtue of the reactor choices for these C2N sites, which include small modular reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors and very high temperature reactors, all designs vulnerable to fires, leaks, explosions and other major failures.

Needless to say, a C2R program (Coal to Renewables), the most obvious choice staring our federal government in the face, just wasn’t even on the cards. That would have meant relinquishing the stranglehold —and renouncing the pocket-lining dollars — of the big fossil fuel and nuclear corporations. 

As M.V. Ramana and Cassandra Jeffery noted with such precision on these pages, the powers that be are “far more devoted to maintaining the current system for as long as it is feasible,” rather than exploring genuine climate solutions.

C2N preserves that status quo, operating inside a spectacularly failed system that, nevertheless, continues to enrich the already wealthy and preserve the monopoly enjoyed by large, inflexible and already obsolete forms of energy production such as nuclear power.

An argument made by these entrenched establishment forces is that moving from coal to nuclear allows for a continued electricity supply system that is “always on”, reinforcing the myth that base load energy is somehow beneficial.

Nuclear reactors “run uninterrupted,” Maria Korsnick, head of the industry lobbying group, Nuclear Energy Institute, told an audience of Purdue University students in October when stumping for C2N. “Every hour of every day, rain or shine.”

But, as George Harvey explained in CleanTechnica: “Base load power may supply the electricity in the middle of the night in many cases, but power from other sources could be used instead.” Clinging to base load is related to cost, not demand and efficiency.

Already back in 2017, the Brattle Group conducted an analysis for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee — Advancing Past “Baseload” to a Flexible Grid, in which the group concluded that the base load concept was outdated. Base load, it said, has now been left behind by the economics of a changing electricity landscape that have rendered it “no longer very relevant”.

Much more efficient, said the report, is an electricity demand and supply met with high renewable generation. In their graph illustrating this, nuclear power is nowhere to be seen.

And of course, nuclear power invariably doesn’t “run uninterrupted.” It must power down or off during violent storms, droughts or heatwaves, or due to offsite grid instability, and shut down for extended periods during refueling and maintenance. And, as exemplified most recently by France, it can simply break down altogether for extended periods.

If the C2N reactors ever do happen, it will be decades in the future. By then, those who needed the work in the 2020s, falsely promised by C2N, will be retired or deceased. Our coastlines may well be underwater. If we did enough in time to save ourselves, we will be on smart grids using distributed generation. 

“Nuclear energy is going to create incredible new career opportunities all over the country,” Korsnick told the Purdue students. According to the dictionary definition, “incredible” means “not credible; hard to believe”. That about sums it up. 

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.

January 8, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

SMRs – an oversold hype?

 https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2023/01/smrs-oversold-hype.html 8 Jan 23 Writing in the venerable US journal Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Markku Lehtonen takes at look at Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), warning that they may be being oversold.  He says  ‘Despite the boost from the Ukraine crisis, it is uncertain whether SMR advocates can muster the political will and societal acceptance needed to turn SMRs into a commercial success. The economic viability of the SMR promise will crucially depend on how much further down the road towards  deglobalization, authoritarianism in its various guises, and further tweaking of the energy markets the Western societies are willing to go. Moreover, the reliance of the SMR business case on complex global supply chains as well as on massive deployment and geographical dispersion of nuclear facilities creates its own geopolitical vulnerabilities and security problems’.

A key issue for the selling of  SMRs is ease of deployment . Well it may not be as easy as some hope, although the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recently moved to allow ‘advanced  nuclear plants’ to be built in thickly populated areas. The NRC decision entitled ‘Population-Related Siting Considerations for Advanced Reactors,’ was passed subject to one vote against from Commissioner Jeffery Baran, who said ‘multiple, independent layers of protection against potential radiological exposure are necessary because we do not have perfect knowledge of new reactor technologies and their unique potential accident scenarios… Unlike light-water reactors, new advanced reactor designs do not have decades of operating experience; in many cases, the new designs have never been built or operated before.’  

There may be other ways for NRC to smooth the path ahead .  NIRS/WISE Nuclear Monitor 904, reports on the views of  Dr Ed Lyman, from the US Union of Concerned Scientists, who says SMRs and Advanced Modular Reactors are likely to be expensive and he lists some other possible ways to ‘cut corners on safety & security to cut costs’, that the industry would like NRC to consider. Here are some of them:  

• Allow nuclear power plants to have a ‘small containment-or no physical containment at all’. 

• No offsite emergency planning requirements. 

• Fewer or even zero operators. 

• Letting the plants have ‘fewer NRC inspections and weaker enforcement.’ 

• ‘Reduced equipment reliability reporting.’ 

• ‘Fewer back-up safety systems.’ 

• ‘Regulatory requirements should be few in number and vague.’ 

• ‘Zero’ armed security personnel to try to protect an advanced nuclear plant from terrorists.

We are almost talking about a ‘wild west’  free for all!  Hopefully some sense will prevail. And a more balanced view of possibilities, risks and benefits will be taken, in the US, and also in the UK, where there are plans for developing 20-30 PWR-type SMRs as part of the UK plan to triple UK nuclear capacity by 2050. 

Will it really happen?  There certainly are  a lot of very different ideas being mooted,  beyond just mini-versions of Pressurised Water-cooled Reactors, including sodium cooled fast neutron reactors, molten flouride salt reactors, and high temperature helium cooled reactors. But as I explored in my recent book, looking back how these ideas emerged and were then abandoned in the early days of nuclear experimentation, I’m not convinced that any of the new nuclear, variants large or small, has much of a future. Renewables are arguably a far better bet. And I’m not alone in thinking that SMRs are not the way ahead.

January 8, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

January 8 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion: ¶ “What Does It Mean That (Once Rare) Atmospheric Rivers And Bomb Cyclones Are Becoming More Frequent?” • Atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones are ever more frequent and intense parts of the North American meteorological landscape. That fact is perfectly compatible with projections of climate change driven by our warming our planet. [The Hill] […]

January 8 Energy News — geoharvey

January 8, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Under Musk, Twitter Continues to Promote US Propaganda Networks

But Musk’s hot take on the Ukraine war should not be taken as proof of Musk’s anti establishment bona fides.

Far from being an establishment outsider, Elon Musk himself is a major figure in the military industrial complex, and represents the long tradition of Silicon Valley giants being thoroughly enmeshed in the military and intelligence wars.

BRYCE GREENE FAIR, 6 Jan 23

Twitter’s “state-affiliated media” policy has an unwritten exemption for US government-funded and -controlled news media accounts. Twitter even boosts these accounts as “authoritative” sources for news during the Russian/Ukrainian war.

Elon Musk’s controlled release of the documents known as the “Twitter Files” has given us some insight into the inner workings of the social media platform. The batch of docs released on December 20 is arguably the most explosive, detailing Twitter’s deliberate shielding of US propaganda operations. After getting limited access to Twitter‘s internal systems, Lee Fang of the Intercept (12/20/22) detailed how Twitter staff “whitelisted” accounts run by US Central Command (CENTCOM), the unit of the US military that oversees the Middle East, as part of covert propaganda campaigns. In other words, Twitter protected accounts engaged in US psychological warfare operations, even though they clearly violated the platform’s terms of service.

But this is far from the whole story of Twitter’s assistance with US influence operations. A FAIR investigation reveals that dozens of large accounts that are part of US overt propaganda networks are given special treatment from the company, in blatant violation of Twitter’s own policies.

Through a lopsided “state-affiliated” media policy application, Twitter has actually gone against its own mission to provide “context” to users. More acutely, in Ukraine, Twitter actively promoted US funded media organizations as part of the “Topics” feature which ostensibly aggregated “authoritative” sources. The prominence of these outlets on the platform has strengthened their influence on the national media ecosystem, and has helped shape public perceptions of the entire war.

…………………………………………………………………………………………… Twitter rigorously enforces the rules for states the US considers to be hostile. Accounts for major state agencies in Russia, China and Iran are generally labeled as state entities. Media outlets from those countries are also targeted: PressTV from Iran, RT and Sputnik from Russia, and China Daily, Global Times, CGTN and China Xinhua News from China are all labeled “state-affiliated media.”

Twitter has taken extra measures against Russia after the invasion, adding explicit warnings on any post linking to “a Russian state-affiliated media website”:

…………….. Artificial exceptions

Twitter’s policy defines “state-affiliated media” as newsrooms where the state has “control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.” But there are several major media accounts that seem to fit this description that have no such warning labels.

None of the major public media outlets in the US, Britain and Canada have received the label. In 2017, NPR received 4% of its funding from the US government. The BBC receives a large portion of its funding from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The CBC receives $1.2 billion in funding from the Canadian government. Yet Twitter accounts for the BBC, CBC and NPR are all unlabeled on the platform……………………………..

National Endowment for Democracy

A look at the US’s soft power initiatives shows far more outlets that ought to fall under the “state affiliated” label. One such conduit for funding is the National Endowment for Democracy. The NED, created during the Reagan administration, pours $170 million a year into organizations dedicated to defending or installing regimes friendly to US policies.

ProPublica (11/24/10) described the NED as being “established by Congress, in effect, to take over the CIA’s covert propaganda efforts.” David Ignatius of the Washington Post (9/22/91) reported on the organization as a vehicle for “spyless coups,” as it was “doing in public what the CIA used to do in private.” The first NED president, Carl Gershman (MintPress, 9/9/19), admitted that the switch was largely a PR move to shroud the organization’s intentions: “It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA.”

NED operations in Ukraine deserve especially close scrutiny, given the organization’s role in the 2014 Maidan coup and the information war surrounding the Russian invasion. In 2013, Gershman described Ukraine as the “biggest prize” in the East/West rivalry (Washington Post, 9/26/13). Later that year, the NED united with other Western-backed influence networks to support the protest movements that later led to the removal of the president.

The history of the board is a who’s who of regime change advocates and imperial hawks. The current board includes Anne Applebaum, a popular anti-Russian staff writer at the Atlantic and frequent cable news commentator whose work epitomizes the New Cold War mentality, and Elliott Abrams, a major player in the Iran/Contra scandal who later played a key role in the Trump administration’s campaign to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Victoria Nuland, formerly the foreign policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, is a key player in US foreign policy, and was even one of the US officials who was caught meddling behind the scenes to reshape the Ukrainian government in 2014. She served on the NED board in between her time in the State Department for the Obama and Biden administrations. Other former board members include Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, Zbigniew Brzezinski and current CIA director William Burns.

After the war started, the NED removed all of its Ukraine projects from its website, though they are still available through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. A look at 2021 projects shows extensive work funding media organizations throughout Ukraine with the ostensible goal of “promot[ing] government accountability” or “foster[ing] independent media.” Despite their overt funding from a well-documented US propaganda organ, none of these organizations’ Twitter accounts contain a “state-affiliated media” label. Even the NED’s own Twitter account does not reference its relationship to the US government.

This is highly relevant to the current war in Ukraine. CHESNO, ZN.UA, ZMiST and Ukrainian Toronto Television, Vox Ukraine are all part of the NED’s media network in Ukraine, yet their Twitter accounts have no state-affiliated label. Furthermore, some of the newsrooms in this network boast extensive ties to other US government organizations. European Pravda, the Ukraine Crisis Media Center and Hromadske—all founded during or shortly after the US-backed Maidan coup in 2014—boast explicit partnerships with NATO. Hromadske and the UCMC also tout partnerships with the US State Department, the US Embassy in Kyiv and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

USAID plays a similar role to the NED. Under the protective cover of humanitarian aid and development projects, the agency serves as a conduit for US regime change operations and soft power influence peddling. Among other things, the organization has been a cover for “promoting democracy” in Nicaragua, and provided half a billion dollars to advance the coup attempt against Venezuela’s elected government.

Kyiv Post and Independent

The most popular recipient of NED funds has been the Kyiv Independent, a reconstitution of another NED-funded newsroom, the Kyiv Post. Though it claims to receive the majority of its funding through advertising and subscriptions, the Post website lists the NED as “donors who sponsored content produced by the Kyiv Post journalists.”

When the Post was temporarily shuttered in a staff dispute in November 2021, many of the journalists formed the Kyiv Independent. They did this with a $200,000 grant from the Canadian government, as well as an emergency grant from the European Endowment for Democracy, an organization headquartered in Brussels that is both modeled after and funded by the NED.

After the outbreak of war, the Independent gained over 2 million Twitter followers and attracted millions of dollars in donations. Staff from the Independent have flooded the US media ecosystem: Its reporters have had op-eds in top US newspapers like the New York Times (3/5/22) and the Washington Post (2/28/22). They often appear on US TV channels like CNN (3/21/22), CBS (12/21/22), Fox News (3/31/22) and MSNBC (4/10/22)…………………………………………..

Boosting US propaganda

Twitter’s policy effectively amounts to providing cover and reach for US propaganda organs. But this policy effect is far from the whole story. Through various mechanisms, Twitter actually boosts US-funded newsrooms and promotes them as trusted sources.

One such mechanism is the curated “Topics” feature. As part of its effort to “elevate reliable information,” Twitter recommends following its own curated feed for the Ukraine War. As of September 2022, Twitter said that this war feed for the Ukraine War had over 38.6 billion “impressions.” Scrolling through the feed shows many examples of the platform boosting US state-affiliated media, with few or no instances of coverage critical of the war effort. Despite their extensive ties to the US government, the Kyiv Independent and Kyiv Post are frequently offered as favored sources for information on the war.

The account has generated a list based on what they claim to be reliable sources on the conflict. The list currently has 55 members. Of these, at least 22 are either US-funded newsrooms, their affiliated journalists. Given the complexity of the funding channels, and the lack of information on some of these newsrooms’ websites, this number is likely an undercount:

New Voice of Ukraine (NED, State Department)

Euan MacDonald

Kyiv Post (NED)

Natalie Vikhrov

Kyiv Independent (NED)

Anastasiia Lapatina, Oleksiy Sorokin, Anna Myroniuk, Illia Ponomarenko

Zaborona (NED)…………………………….

Worldwide propaganda network

The US government currently funds other media organizations that function more blatantly as arms of the state, yet none have the “state-affiliated media” label on their Twitter accounts. These outlets are part of the media apparatus set up to promote the US point of view around the world during the Cold War. The New York Times (12/26/77) once described them as being part of a “worldwide propaganda network built by the CIA.”

The network, known as the “Propaganda Assets Inventory” within the agency, once encompassed around 500 individuals and organizations, ranging from operatives in major media like CBS, Associated Press and Reuters to smaller outlets under the “complete” “editorial control” of the CIA. Radio Free Asia, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were at the vanguard of this propaganda operation. The Times reported in 1977 that the network resulted in a stream of US media stories that were “purposely misleading or downright false.”

The US government continues to directly operate several of these organizations. These outlets now fall under the auspices of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), a federal agency that received $810 million in 2022. That number marks a 27% increase from its 2021 budget, and is more than twice the amount RT received from Russia for its global operations in 2021 (RFE/RL, 8/25/21)…………………………………………………………………

Twitter, like other SiliconValley behemoths, has numerous links to the national security state. An investigation by Middle East Eye (9/30/19) revealed that one of Twitter’s top executives was also a member of one of the British military’s psychological warfare units, the 77th Brigade. Gordon MacMillan, who holds the top editorial position for the Middle East and North Africa at Twitter, joined the UK’s “information warfare” unit in 2015 while he was at Twitter. One UK general told MEE that the unit specialized in developing “the capability to compete in the war of narratives at the tactical level.” The story was met with near total silence in US and UK press (FAIR.org, 10/24/19), and MacMillan still works for Twitter.

Twitter also partners with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a hawkish think tank funded by the military industry and the US government, for its content moderation policies. In 2020, Twitter worked closely with the ASPI to remove over 170,000 low-follower accounts they alleged to be favorable to the Communist Party of China. More recently, Twitter and ASPI have announced a partnership ostensibly aimed at fighting disinformation and misinformation.

Twitter’s Strategic Response Team, in charge of making decisions about which content should be suppressed, was headed by Jeff Carlton, who previously worked for both the CIA and FBI. In fact, MintPress News (6/21/22) reported on the dozens of former FBI agents that have joined Twitter’s ranks over the years. Elon Musk’s controlled leak of internal communications, known as the “Twitter Files,” has renewed attention to the close relationship between the agency and the platform.

Though Twitter has previously denied directly “coordinat[ing] with other entities when making content moderation decisions,” recent reporting has revealed a deep level of integration between federal intelligence agencies, and Twitter’s content moderation policies. In part 6 of the “Twitter Files,” Matt Taibbi reported that the FBI has over 80 agents dedicated to flagging content on the platform and interfacing directly with Twitter leadership. Last year, emails leaked to the Intercept (10/31/22) showed how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Twitter had an established process for content takedown requests from the agency related to election security.

The platform is clearly an important hub for pro-Ukrainian sentiment online, though not all of the activity is organic. In fact, one study (Declassified Australia, 11/3/22) released last year found a deluge of pro Ukrainian bots. Australian researchers studied a sample of over 5 million tweets about the war, and found that 90% of the total were pro-Ukrainian (identified using the #IStandWithUkraine hashtag or variations), and estimated that up to 80% of them were bots. Though researchers did not determine the precise origin of these accounts, it was obvious that they were sponsored by “pro-Ukrainian authorities.” The sheer volume of tweets undoubtedly helped shape online sentiment about the war.

It appears that Washington understands the importance of Twitter in shaping public sentiments. When Musk originally set his sights on buying the platform, the White House even considered opening a national security review of Musk’s business ventures, citing Musk’s “increasingly Russia-friendly stance.” These concerns were prompted by Musk’s plan to bar SpaceX’s StarLink system from being used in Ukraine, after a spat between Musk and a Ukrainian official. The concerns also came after Musk (10/3/22) tweeted out the outlines to a potential peace proposal between Russia and Ukraine. This proposal was met with scorn and shock among American elite circles, where escalation rather than peace is the dominant position (FAIR.org, 3/22/22).

Musk and the national security state

But Musk’s hot take on the Ukraine war should not be taken as proof of Musk’s anti establishment bona fides. Far from being an establishment outsider, Elon Musk himself is a major figure in the military industrial complex, and represents the long tradition of Silicon Valley giants being thoroughly enmeshed in the military and intelligence wars.

Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, is a major military contractor, earning billions of dollars from the US national security state. It has received contracts to launch GPS technology into orbit to assist with the US drone war. The Pentagon has also contracted the company to build missile defense satellites. SpaceX has further won contracts from the Air Force, Space Defense Agency and National Reconnaissance Organization, and has launched spy satellites to be used by the CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies (MintPress, 5/31/22).

In fact, SpaceX’s existence is largely owed to military and intelligence ties. One of its earliest backers of the company was the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the same military research agency that gave us much of the technology that defines the modern internet age………………….

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk made headlines by offering to donate his Starlink technology to the Ukrainian government to keep the country online. Starlink, a satellite-based internet provider, was essential to Ukraine’s war effort after the Russian attack disabled much of its traditional military communications. It has enabled Ukrainians to quickly share battlefield intelligence, and connect with US support troops to perform “telemaintenance.”

Musk’s offer to “donate” the technology earned him a lot of positive press, but it was quietly revealed later that the US government had been paying SpaceX millions of dollars for the technology—despite what SpaceX officials had told the public. According to the Washington Post (4/8/22), the money was funneled through USAID, an organization that has long been a tool of US regime change efforts, and a front for covert intelligence operations………………………………………

The relationship between Musk and the security state is so strong that one official even told Bloomberg (10/20/22) that “the US government would also use Starlink in the event of telecommunications outage,” hinting at links to high-level national contingency planning.

Continuity of governance?

The conversation surrounding Twitter has centered around whether or not Elon Musk is a free-speech advocate, though little has focused on the implications of a military contractor having complete control over such an important platform. Though Musk may (or may not) be stepping down as CEO, the platform will remain his domain.

Many things have changed under Musk’s Twitter, but Twitter’s role as a megaphone for US government–funded media has not. It would take a large research study to understand precisely how much impact Twitter’s misapplication of its own policies has on the propagation. But even without this data, it is clear that the platform’s design serves to nudge users away from most media funded by Washington-unfriendly governments, and, in the case of the Ukraine War, push users toward media funded by the US government. Musk’s status as a military contractor only underscores that challenging US foreign policy objectives is unlikely to be a priority for the company. https://fair.org/home/under-musk-twitter-continues-to-promote-us-propaganda-networks/

January 6, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

CODEPINK calls on Zelensky, Biden and Congress to seize this chance for peace in Ukraine

On the heels of Russian President Putin ordering troops to observe a ceasefire in Ukraine over Orthodox Christmas, CODEPINK calls on Ukrainian President Zelensky, President Biden and the U.S. Congress to also support a ceasefire that could pave the way for a diplomatic settlement. CODEPINK urges Zelensky to reconsider his rejection of Putin’s truce order, which Zelensky described as a “cynical trap.”

Putin’s support for a Christmas truce followed the Russian Orthodox Church’s plea for a ceasefire, as well as a statement, signed by over a 1,000 US faith-based organizations, in support of a Christmas truce, similar to one that arose spontaneously in the trenches of World War I when in 1914 German and British soldiers along the Western Front put down their arms to jointly celebrate Christmas.

CODEPINK Co-founder Medea Benjamin said, “This Christmas truce from Russia’s side is a tiny ray of light in a horrific war. Ukraine should seize the moment and join the truce, and from there all sides need to move to the negotiating table without preconditions. The entire world is crying out for an end to this war. This could be the beginning of a true dialogue.”

CODEPINK’s Marcy Winograd, who coordinates the Peace in Ukraine Coalition, said, “A truce would set the stage for a negotiated peace to end a US-Russia proxy war that threatens nuclear catastrophe. It is incumbent upon Congress and the White House to acknowledge there is no military solution and appeal to Zelensky to support this truce.”
In December, CODEPINK, Fellowship of Reconciliation and National Council of Elders sent the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships the truce statement signed by ministers, priests, rabbis and imams in hopes of ending the fighting that has taken thousands of lives, displaced millions, further degraded the climate and worsened global hunger.

January 6, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment