Ransom Notes: pay us to keep our old power plants running or else, say fossil fuel majors
Ransom Notes: pay us to keep our old power plants running or else, say fossil fuel majors
Michael West and Callum Foote
Prepare to subsidise fossil fuel plants indefinitely. That is the message this morning as, in the wake of Coalition dithering, the new government grooms Australian energy customers for more of the same energy policy. It’s the Richard Wilkins solution.
West’s Ukraine fantasy will spell doom for the Ukrainian nation
There is a price to be paid for the fanciful delusions of the West, and those in Ukraine who believe them, and that price may be the very existence of a Ukrainian state.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/06/17/684090/West-Ukraine-War-Fantasy-Death-Ukrainian-Nation
18 June 2022 By Scott Ritter
In the words of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Europe is undergoing one of the greatest struggles in the name of freedom since the American Revolution.
“The Ukrainians are fighting for their country; they’re fighting for their future; they’re fighting for their freedom,” Blinken said recently.
“I am convinced and confident that, at the end of the day, Ukraine’s independence, Ukraine’s sovereignty will prevail and will be there long after Vladimir Putin has left the scene.”
What was left unsaid was the reality that Russian President Vladimir Putin has survived four US presidential administrations and is well on his way to outlasting a fifth — the Biden administration that Blinken serves.
Blinken’s comments come on the heels of continued calls from Ukraine’s embattled President, Volodymyr Zelensky, for additional deliveries of heavy weapons needed for his country’s ongoing fight against invading Russian forces.
While acknowledging that Ukrainian forces were suffering “painful losses” on the front lines, Zelensky believes that Ukrainian forces would be able to hold on to the contested Donbas region, and eventually launch a counterattack that would throw Russian troops from the totality of sovereign Ukrainian territory—including both Crimea and the Donbas.
While many military analysts have come to assess that the war in Ukraine has tilted in Russia’s favor, US defense officials believe that the opposite is in fact true — Ukraine is emerging from the current struggle with “an advantage” brought on by the provision of billions of dollars of military assistance by the US and the West to the Ukrainian armed forces.
The US stance has apparently emboldened Ukraine’s European allies, with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis all travelling to Kiev to pledge their ongoing support for Ukraine, both in terms of continuing to provide advanced weaponry to fend off the Russians, but also to support Ukraine’s efforts to join the European Union.
Not to be outdone, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his own solo jaunt to Kiev on Friday, armed with a plan for Great Britain to provide training for 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers every 120 days.
The problem facing the European leaders is the harsh reality of military math. The driving force behind Ukraine’s desperate need for heavy weapons is the fact that in the 100-plus days Ukraine has been fighting Russia, the Russian military has destroyed the vast majority of Ukraine’s pre-conflict arsenal.
This fact is played out with violence daily — in a conflict that has taken on the characteristic of a massive artillery duel, the Ukrainians are able to fire some 5-6,000 rounds of artillery per day toward the Russian forces. Russia, on the other hand, replies with 60,000 rounds — per day (by way of comparison, US forces fired a total of 60,000 artillery rounds during the entirety of Operation Desert Storm, in 1991.)
The hard truth is that Russia will destroy whatever weaponry the West provides well before Ukraine would be able to assemble the mythical “offensive capability” of American imagination.
Moreover, with Ukrainian officials themselves admitting casualty rates of 200-plus killed and 500-plus wounded per day, there is no way Johnson’s offer of training could reverse the inevitable tide of Ukraine’s looming strategic military defeat — with Ukraine losing 10,000 troops every two weeks, the British offer to replace them every four months rings hollow.
The President of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, in a statement made during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, indicated that Ukraine’s decision to receive heavy weapons from the West leaves the Russian forces no choice but to continue military operations even after the liberation of the Donbas.
All cities in Ukraine where there is a large Russian population, such as Kharkov and Odessa, will be captured, and the Ukrainian armed forces destroyed.
Pushilin believed that when the so-called special military operation was over, which he believed would be before the year ended, that Ukraine would no longer exist as a nation.
It is hard to imagine that Pushilin would make such a statement on Russian soil, at a conference organized by the Russian Presidency, without first clearing it with his Russian hosts.
There is a price to be paid for the fanciful delusions of the West, and those in Ukraine who believe them, and that price may be the very existence of a Ukrainian state.
After lying for months, the media are preparing the public for Ukraine’s military collapse.
THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DOUGLAS MACGREGOR JUNE 17, 2022
Diogenes, one of the ancient world’s illustrious philosophers, believed that lies were the currency of politics, and those lies were the ones he sought to expose and debase. To make his point, Diogenes occasionally carried a lit lantern through the streets of Athens in the daylight. If asked why, Diogenes would say he was searching for an honest man.
Finding an honest man today in Washington, D.C., is equally challenging. Diogenes would need a Xenon Searchlight in each hand.
Russian errors were exaggerated out of all proportion to their significance. Russian losses and the true extent of Ukraine’s own losses were distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored. But conditions on the battlefield changed little over time. Once Ukrainian forces immobilized themselves in static defensive positions inside urban areas and the central Donbas, the Ukrainian position was hopeless. But this development was portrayed as failure by the Russians to gain “their objectives.
Ground-combat forces that immobilize soldiers in prepared defenses will be identified, targeted, and destroyed from a distance. When persistent overhead intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, whether manned or unmanned, are linked to precision guided-strike weapons or modern artillery systems informed by accurate targeting data, “holding ground” is fatal to any ground force. This is all the more true in Ukraine, because it was apparent from the first action that Moscow focused on the destruction of Ukrainian forces, not on the occupation of cities or the capture of Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper River.
The result has been the piecemeal annihilation of Ukrainian forces. Only the episodic infusion of U.S. and allied weapons kept Kiev’s battered legions in the field; legions that are now dying in great numbers thanks to Washington’s proxy war.
Kiev’s war with Moscow is lost. Ukrainian forces are being bled white. Trained replacements do not exist in sufficient numbers to influence the battle, and the situation grows more desperate by the hour. No amount of U.S. and allied military aid or assistance short of direct military intervention by U.S. and NATO ground forces can change this harsh reality.
The problem today is not ceding territory and population to Moscow in Eastern Ukraine that Moscow already controls. The future of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions along with the Donbas is decided. Moscow is also likely to secure Kharkov and Odessa, two cities that are historically Russian and Russian-speaking, as well as the territory that adjoins them. These operations will extend the conflict through the summer. The problem now is how to stop the fighting…………….
Kean goes deep green with budget that links climate action with future prosperity — RenewEconomy
With his first state budget, NSW treasurer Matt Kean shows green energy technologies and future prosperity will go hand-in-hand. The post Kean goes deep green with budget that links climate action with future prosperity appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Kean goes deep green with budget that links climate action with future prosperity — RenewEconomy
Australia has a once in a lifetime chance to break stranglehold fossil fuels have on politics — RenewEconomy
To foster climate politics based on integrity, first we need an honest conversation about the extent to which the fossil fuel industry has captured Australian politics. The post Australia has a once in a lifetime chance to break stranglehold fossil fuels have on politics appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Australia has a once in a lifetime chance to break stranglehold fossil fuels have on politics — RenewEconomy
Huge NSW wind project locks in offtake deal with Snowy Hydro — RenewEconomy
Construction of a 414MW wind farm in central western NSW to go ahead later this year after signing a PPA with gen-tailer Snowy Hydro. The post Huge NSW wind project locks in offtake deal with Snowy Hydro appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Huge NSW wind project locks in offtake deal with Snowy Hydro — RenewEconomy
Bowen handballs capacity mechanism fossil fuel choice to states — RenewEconomy
Bowen says individual states will decide which technologies are in or out of a proposed capacity mechanism, but they must help deliver emissions targets. The post Bowen handballs capacity mechanism fossil fuel choice to states appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Bowen handballs capacity mechanism fossil fuel choice to states — RenewEconomy
Why isn’t the ESB designing a policy to bring on bulk renewable energy? — RenewEconomy
Introducing new market designs – like those put forward by the ESB – without an explicit statement of the carbon implications is beyond the pale. The post Why isn’t the ESB designing a policy to bring on bulk renewable energy? appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Why isn’t the ESB designing a policy to bring on bulk renewable energy? — RenewEconomy
June 20 Energy News — geoharvey
World: ¶ “Germany To Fire Up Coal Stations As Russia Squeezes Gas Supply” • Germany must reduce natural gas consumption and increase the burning of coal in order to help fill gas storage facilities for next winter, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced as the country moves away from reduced Russian gas supplies. [CNN] German […]
June 20 Energy News — geoharvey
Reactivating Nuclear Power Plant Near Volcano a Bad Idea, Geologists Say
. NewsWeek, BY JESSICA THOMSON ON 6/20/22 Plans to reactivate a nuclear power plant near the capital city of the Philippines have been criticized by scientists over its proximity to a potentially active volcano.
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) is located in the foothills of Mount Natib, only five miles from the caldera, and was built in the 1980s. It was never activated due to anti-nuclear sentiment in the aftermath of the Chernobyl power plant disaster in 1986, with protests expressing concerns that the BNPP was in an earthquake zone thanks to the volcano’s Lubao fault, which runs through the volcano and the power plant…………………………………. https://www.newsweek.com/philippines-volcano-nuclear-power-plant-1717406
Nuclear news – Australia and more
A bit of good news – this week Vienna, Austria, is hosting the First Meeting of States Parties, UN member states that have agreed to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Over 100 governments will participate. The great majority of the world’s representatives — 122 countries — voted their approval of the TPNW in 2017, and 62 have since ratified it. The treaty has entered into force, and only the tiny minority of nuclear-armed governments and their military allies continue to reject it. In the midst of all the doom and gloom news, we need to remember that thousands of people in many nations are working for a better world.
Otherwise – the week has been a perfect storm of awful news. The coronavirus pandemic has not gone away – far from it! Global heating is striking – the poles are melting at a fast rate, floods in India and Bangladesh, extreme heat in Europe, wildfires in Germany, Greece, Spain and New Jersey. USA. USA and UK determined to punish Julian Assange forever – let that be a warning to any journalist who exposes USA military atrocities !
AUSTRALIA.
Can Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese save Julian Assange? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ_9WoWVm-g&t=12s If Albanese asks for Assange’s freedom, Biden has every reason to agree: Bob Carr. Julian Assange and family suffer as unjust detention continues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs0cKFeRko0&t=12s Federal government lobbying behind the scenes for Assange’s freedom.
Australia yet to sign up to treaty banning nuclear weapons but will attend UN meeting as observer. ICAN Australia welcomes government decision to attend the first Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as an observer.
Why nuclear energy won’t work in Australia. D’oh! David Littleproud’s nuclear comments insult our intelligence.
No decision yet on choosing USA or UK nuclear submarines, but a USA Bill to train Australian submariners! – writer. Australia’s Opposition Leader Dutton Says US Can Provide Two Nuclear Subs by 2030.
Albanese locks in Australia’s higher 2030 emissions reduction target . “Australia is under new management”: Bowen tells clean energy investors.
BP takes 40% stake in vast $30bn Australian renewables project. “The problem is not renewables:” Bowen puts Uhlmann back in his coal box. More than 1GW of battery storage to replace coal in world’s biggest isolated grid.
INTERNATIONAL
Assange Is Doing His Most Important Work Yet. The UK’s Decision to Extradite Assange Shows Why The US/UK’s Freedom Lectures Are a Farce.
The deteriorating nuclear order. The Nuclear Weapons Treaty Ban in the Footsteps of 1982’s Million-Person March.
Nuclear-armed nations spent $82.4bn on weapons in 2021. From all continents: mercenaries from 55 nations serving in Ukrainian army.
Pope Francis again says that the West provoked or failed to prevent Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Rosatom Exemption: How Russia’s State-Run Nuclear Giant Has Escaped Sanctions.
Bank group accused of exploiting loopholes and ‘greenwashing’ in climate pledge.
UKRAINE. The US-led bloc is unwilling to fight Russia directly and treats Ukraine as a proxy, Dutch PM admits. Ukraine vows to reclaim Crimea with US weapons. Ukraine killing civilians in ‘unprecedented’ shelling on Donetsk ignored by Western media and politicians. Profit in a time of war? The madness of more reactors (from Westinghouse) in Ukraine.
ANTARCTICA. Antarctic “doomsday glacier” melting at faster rate than in past 5,500 years.
ICAN Australia welcomes government decision to attend the first Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as an observer
Gem Romuld, ICAN Australia, 20 June 22,
We are delighted to share the news that Australia will attend the first Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as an observer. We welcome the government’s decision to engage with this critical meeting as a step towards signature and ratification.
The federal member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman MP, will head up Australia’s delegation. Templeman stated to ICAN in 2022, “I’ve been personally committed to this for as long as I can remember”. We look forward to Australia playing a positive and productive role at this historic first meeting for the TPNW.
This morning we are excited to publicly release an open letter to Prime Minister Albanese calling on him to join the TPNW, signed by 55 former Australian Ambassadors and High Commissioners.
It says “we warmly welcome your pre-election commitment to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which we regard as essential for bringing the current nuclear arms race to an end and for establishing the kind of truly representative multilateral framework that might be expected to usher in and support a new era of genuine disarmament.”
The letter’s signatories include former diplomatic representatives to the US, United Kingdom, China, Indonesia, Japan and the United Nations. Several are experts in the field of disarmament.
They expressed hope that under Mr Albanese’s leadership the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world would be reinstated as “an Australian foreign policy priority” and Labor’s commitment to the TPNW would be “swiftly realised”.
Last night we hosted a special community meeting in Port Augusta before Mia Haseldine, Aunty Sue Coleman-Haseldine and Karina Lester (pictured below) crossed live to the Nuclear Ban Forum in Vienna. They shared their personal stories of the impacts of nuclear weapons testing in Australia and their perspectives on the TPNW and what it can do to assist survivors. It was a profound conversation, with a very clear call for Australia to join the treaty as a key step on the path to nuclear justice. The recording is coming soon, if you missed it.
Tonight the second Nuclear Ban Hub kicks off in Fremantle and online, all the registration details are here. For written analysis of each day this week, keep your eye on the Vienna Blog “Sacher-Torte: a slice of the nuclear ban action in Vienna” here!
If Albanese asks for Assange’s freedom, Biden has every reason to agree: Bob Carr
The Age, 20 June 22, “…………………….. It was the Trump administration – probably at the insistence of then-CIA chief Mike Pompeo – that pursued Assange’s extradition. The Morrison government declined even the faintest whinny of protest. It was as if we were not a sovereign government but some category of US territory like Puerto Rico and an Australian passport holder didn’t rate protection from the vengeful anger of one corner of the American security apparatus. A France or Germany – a New Zealand – would not have been as craven.
Here lies Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s most potent argument as he proceeds to winkle out of the Biden administration a decision to quietly drop its pursuit of Assange, even after Britain announced on Friday that it had approved his extradition to the US. Albanese can say that, to Australian public opinion, it looks like one rule for Americans, another for citizens of its ally.
Albanese can gently remind Washington that President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning. That is, he lifted her sentence for gifting to Assange the material that he published on Wikileaks in 2010. This was the collateral murder video that showed soldiers in a US Apache helicopter mowing down civilians with their automatic weapons in Iraq in 2007. The video exposed America’s lack of rules of engagement but, more than that, tore away the justification for the neocon high adventure of the Iraq war.
Manning, the American who slipped the material to Assange, goes free while the Australian who published it faces extradition, trial in Virginia and the rest of his life in cruel confinement in a high-security prison, likely on the plains of Oklahoma.
Albanese doesn’t have to state – because the Americans know it – that we are a darn good partner. A request on Assange is small change in such an alliance relationship. We host vital US communication facilities that likely make Australia a nuclear target. We host ship visits, planes and marines, about which the same baleful point could be made. And, as the capstone, we are spending about $150 billion purchasing US nuclear submarines……………..
In the context of Australia’s role as an ally – the heft we deliver for the US empire – a decision to let Assange walk free rates about five minutes of President Biden’s Oval Office attention. ………………….
The military in the US and Australia have had to admit no lives were lost because of Assange. But we wouldn’t have heard of serious war crimes in a counterproductive war were it not for the haggard prisoner in Belmarsh.
Our new prime minister can say: “We’re not fans of the guy either, Mr President, but it’s gone on long enough. We’re good allies. Let this one drop.“
And if Albanese asks, my guess is America will agree. https://www.theage.com.au/national/if-albanese-asks-for-assange-s-freedom-biden-has-every-reason-to-agree-bob-carr-20220619-p5autd.html
The UK’s Decision to Extradite Assange Shows Why The US/UK’s Freedom Lectures Are a Farce
Glenn Greenwald, 18 June 22, The Assange persecution is the greatest threat to Western press freedoms in years. It is also a shining monument to the fraud of American and British self-depictions.
The eleven-year persecution of Julian Assange was extended and escalated on Friday morning. The British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, approved the U.S.’s extradition request to send Julian Assange to Virginia to stand trial on eighteen felony charges under the 1917 Espionage Act and other statutes in connection with the 2010 publication by WikiLeaks of thousands of documents showing widespread corruption, deceit, and war crimes by American and British authorities along with their close dictatorial allies in the Middle East.
This decision is unsurprising — it has been obvious for years that the U.S. and UK are determined to destroy Assange as punishment for his journalism exposing their crimes — yet it nonetheless further highlights the utter sham of American and British sermons about freedom, democracy and a free press.
Having reported on the Assange case for years, on countless occasions I’ve laid out the detailed background that led Assange and the U.S. to this point. There is thus no need to recount all of that again; those interested can read the granular trajectory of this persecution here or here.
Suffice to say, Assange — without having been convicted of any crime other than bail jumping, for which he long ago served out his fifty-week sentence — has been in effective imprisonment for more than a decade…………………….
The Home Secretary’s decision this morning — characteristically subservient and obedient of the British when it comes to the demands of the U.S. — does not mean that Assange’s presence on U.S. soil is imminent. Under British law, Assange has the right to pursue a series of appeals contesting the Home Secretary’s decision, and will likely do so. Given that the British judiciary has more or less announced in advance their determination to follow the orders of their American masters, it is difficult to see how these further proceedings will have any effect other than to delay the inevitable………………….
What makes this law so insidious is that, by design, it is almost impossible for the government to lose. As I detailed in a Washington Post op-ed when the indictment was first revealed — arguing why it poses the greatest threat to press freedoms in the West in years — this 1917 law is written as a “strict liability” statute, meaning that the defendant is not only guilty as soon as there is proof that they disclosed classified information without authorization, but they are also barred from raising a “justification” defense — meaning they cannot argue to the jury of their peers that it was not only permissible but morally necessary to disclose that information because of the serious wrongdoing and criminality it revealed on the part of the nation’s most powerful political officials. That 1917 law, in other words, is written to offer only show trials but not fair trials.
………………. “free press” guarantees in the U.S. and UK exist only on a piece of parchment and in theory. Citizens are free to do “journalism” as long as it does not disturb or anger or impede real power centers. Employees of The Washington Post and CNN are “free” to say what they want as long as what they are saying is approved and directed by the CIA or the content of their “reporting” advances the interests of the Pentagon’s sprawling war machine…………… https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-uks-decision-to-extradite-assange
1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 