August 27 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “This Center In Dubai Is Growing ‘Future-Proof’ Food In The Desert” • In the Dubai desert, farmers must contend with intense heat, limited freshwater and sandy soil. Here, the International Center of Biosaline Agriculture is transplanting and growing salt-loving superfoods in an effort to expand food diversity in the region. [CNN] […]
August 27 Energy News — geoharvey
Murdoch’s THE AUSTRALIAN grudgingly admits that nuclear power has no future in Australia
Uncharted waters leave little room for nuclear option, THE AUSTRALIAN, GRAHAM LLOYD AUGUST 25, 2021 The proposals being put forward are not necessarily geared to supporting any one option. ………..
Generation is not the only problem raised by the lower-emissions transition. The ESB makes it clear that massive investments are still needed in grid infrastructure to accommodate an electricity system more dependent on intermittent sources of power…..
It favours the creation of renewable energy zones to give the benefit of economies of scale to the infrastructure investment.
Individual states will also be given greater powers to make decisions to safeguard their own interests within the national market.
The ESB is probably correct that community concerns about the impact of fossil fuel generation on carbon emissions, together with the declining financial viability of thermal coal generation, leaves little interest or commercial appetite for future investment in thermal coal generation.
Supporters of the nuclear option have little to cheer about in this transition road map.
The big focus on renewables backed up by batteries from electric cars and sophisticated management systems and minimal gas leaves little room for a return on investment for a [nuclear] technology…..
Stock Journal poll found that the overwhelming majority wanted more consultation on the government’s plan for Kimba nuclear waste dump
Is more nuclear consultation needed? | POLL
20 Aug 2021,
YES 74.8%
NO no 25.2%
Weaponising space -the high road to World War 3, but profitable for weapons and space companies
Insane U.S. Plan to Spend Billions on Weaponizing Space Makes Defense Contractors Jump for Joy—But Rest of World Cowers in Horror at Prospect of New Arms Race Leading to World War IIICovertAction Magazine By Karl Grossman – August 25, 2021 Imagine this scenario from the year 2045: The U.S. and China, after years of belligerence, go to war over control of the Taiwan straits; most of the battles are fought through cyber-attacks and space-based weapons systems that had been perfected over the previous decades.
In a desperate maneuver, the U.S. activates its “rods from God”—a scheme developed in Project Thor involving telephone-pole-sized tungsten rods being dropped from orbit reaching a speed ten times the speed of sound [7,500 miles per hour] hitting with the force of nuclear weapons—and Beijing’s military command centers and other significant targets are destroyed.
The above scenario looks increasingly plausible given a) the growing prospect of war between the U.S. and China; and b) the growing militarization of space by the U.S.—in violation of the landmark Outer Space Treaty of 1967 that sets aside space “for peaceful purposes.”
U.S. Space Force and the Evisceration of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty
Donald Trump declared at a meeting of the National Space Council of the U.S. in 2018 that “it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space…. I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces … It is going to be something.”
Indeed, the U.S. Space Force, established in December 2019, is something—and can, if not will, destroy the visionary Outer Space Treaty of keeping space for peace.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 was put together by the U.S., Great Britain and the former Soviet Union and has wide support from nations around the world. 111 countries are parties to the treaty, while another 23 have signed the treaty but have not completed ratification.
As Craig Eisendrath, who as a young U.S. State Department officer was involved in the treaty’s creation, told me—and I quote him in my book Weapons in Space—“we sought to de-weaponize space before it got weaponized … to keep war out of space.”
“This foundational treaty has allowed for half a century of ever expanding peaceful activity in space, free from man-made threats,” writes Paul Meyer, in his chapter “Arms Control in Outer Space: A Diplomatic Alternative to Star Wars” in the book Security in the Global Commons and Beyond.[1]
The Outer Space Treaty bars placement “in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction or from installing such weapons on celestial bodies.”
Biden Signs Off on Space Force
Republican Trump’s successor as U.S. president, Democrat Joe Biden, has not pulled back on the U.S. Space Force. As Defense News headlined in 2021: “With Biden’s ‘full support,’ the Space Force is officially here to stay.”
Its article opened: “U.S. President Joe Biden will not seek to eliminate the Space Force and roll military space functions back into the Air Force, the White House confirmed.” It continued: “White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters during a Feb. 3 briefing that the new service has the ‘full support’ of the Biden administration.” And it went on: “‘We’re not revisiting the decision,’ she said.”
Most Democrats in the U.S. Congress voted for the legislation providing for formation of the U.S. Space Force as pushed by Trump. All Republicans in the U.S. Congress voted for it.
False Pretext
For decades there has been an effort to extend the Outer Space Treaty and enact the Prevention of an Arms Race, the PAROS treaty, which would bar any weapons in space.
China, Russia (and U.S. neighbor Canada) have been leaders in seeking passage of the PAROS treaty. But the U.S.—through administration after administration, Republican and Democrat—has opposed the PAROS treaty and effectively vetoed it at the United Nations.
Although the PAROS treaty has broad backing from nations around the world, it must move through the UN’s Conference on Disarmament which functions on a consensual basis.
A rationale for the U.S. Space Force now being claimed is that it is necessary to counter moves by China and Russia in space, particularly development of anti-satellite weapons.
That is what a CNN report in August 2021, titled “An Exclusive Look into How Space Force Is Defending America,” centrally asserted. There was no mention in the six-minute-plus CNN piece of how China and Russia (and Canada) have led for decades in the push for PAROS, and how China and Russia in recent times have reiterated their calls for space to be weapons-free.
“We are calling on the international community to start negotiations and reach agreement on arms control in order to ensure space safety as soon as possible,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, in April 2021. “China has always been in favor of preventing an arms race in space; it has been actively promoting negotiations on a legally binding agreement on space arms control jointly with Russia.”
A day earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for talks to create an “international legally binding instrument” to ban the deployment of “any types of weapons” in space. Lavrov said: “We consistently believe that only a guaranteed prevention of an arms race in space will make it possible to use it for creative purposes, for the benefit of the entire mankind. We call for negotiations on the development of an international legally binding instrument that would prohibit the deployment of any types of weapons there, as well as the use of force or the threat of force.”
Onward and Upward!
Meanwhile, the U.S. Space Force drives ahead.
It has requested a budget of $17.4 billion for 2020 to “grow the service,” reports Air Force Magazine. “Space Force 2022 Budget Adds Satellites, Warfighting Center, More Guardians,” was the headline of its article. And in the first paragraph, it adds “and fund more than $800 million in new classified programs.” (“Guardians” is the name adopted by the U.S. Space Force in 2021 for its members.)
A recruitment drive is under way.
The U.S. Space Force “received its first offensive weapon … satellite jammers,” reported American Military News in 2020. “The weapon does not destroy enemy satellites, but can be used to interrupt enemy satellite communications and hinder enemy early warning systems meant to detect a U.S. attack,” it stated…………
“US Space Command—dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into war-fighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict,” trumpeted Vision for 2020……….
I displayed the comments of U.S. Space Command Commander-in-Chief Joseph W. Ashy in Aviation Week and Space Technology in 1996: “It’s politically sensitive, but it’s going to happen,” said the general.
Some people don’t want to hear this … but—absolutely—we’re going to fight in space. We’re going to fight from space and we’re going to fight into space…. We will engage terrestrial targets someday—ships, airplanes, land targets—from space.” U.S. Space Command Commander-in-Chief General Joseph W. Ashy……………
Political bribes beat the planet as gas fracking gets public hand-outs
Beetaloo Boondoggle: political bribes beat the planet as gas fracking gets public hand-outs, Michael West Media, Michael West| August 26, 2021
As a block, the two major parties voted to give our money, public money, to corporations to drill for coal seam gas in the Northern Territory, to open up a gigantic new territory, the Beetaloo Basin, for fracking.
The latest capitulation to corporate profits came yesterday morning as both the Coalition and Labor opposed a disallowance motion in Parliament to prevent $50m in public grants going to gas explorers in the Northern Territory. It was yet another political capitulation for corporate bribery, gas company donations.
And so it was that they voted to wreck the planet for their own financial gain. They even voted for money over common sense; because Australia is the world’s biggest gas exporter already. We don’t need more gas, that’s a myth peddled by Australia’s most powerful lobby groups such as APPEA, in turn controlled by foreign fossil fuel corporations such as Shell and Exxon.
They voted to make a US billionaire richer. For, among the prospective winners from this act of political betrayal, is Tamboran Resources, a speculative explorer backed by a US shale-oil billionaire.1
That company, incredibly, is threatening to sue Michael West Media and gas analyst Bruce Robertson from IEEFA, for defamation. So, effectively, Parliament has voted to give money to a US billionaire threatening to sue a small independent journalism business in Australia for exercising free speech, threatening to soak up the time in the Australian courts attempting to muzzle journalists with the menace of making them bankrupt.
Another winner from the escapade is senior Liberal Party figure Paul Espie, whose Empire Energy is slated to get half of the $50m in funding from his Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling grant program.
This is not just a case of our politicians being bought off yet again by corporations, bribed to push through a policy which wrecks the planet, it is a case of them using our money, public funds to pay foreign interests to poison the water tables of the world’s driest continent, to contaminate our most precious resource.
Meanwhile, 2700 kilometres south-east at Narrabri in NSW, Santos has won its long battle against farmers and the local community to frack for gas.
Santos is a large political donor to both major parties……….. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/beetaloo-boondoggle-political-bribes-beat-the-planet-as-gas-fracking-gets-public-hand-outs/
Star Wars and America’s Nazis
German Major General Walter Dornberger, who had been in charge of the entire Nazi rocket program, and how he “in 1947 as a consultant to the U.S Air Force and adviser to the Department of Defense … wrote a planning paper for his new employers.
He proposed a system of hundreds of nuclear-armed satellites all orbiting at different altitudes and angles, each capable of re-entering the atmosphere on command from Earth to proceed to its target. The Air Force began early work on Dornberger’s idea under the acronym NABS (Nuclear Armed Bombardment Satellites).”
Insane U.S. Plan to Spend Billions on Weaponizing Space Makes Defense Contractors Jump for Joy—But Rest of World Cowers in Horror at Prospect of New Arms Race Leading to World War III CovertAction Magazine By Karl Grossman – August 25, 2021 ” ……………………………………..Star Wars and America’s Nazis
U.S. interest in militarizing and weaponizing space goes back well before the Vision for 2020 and other bellicose U.S. plans for space in the 1990s, or Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative dubbed “Star Wars,” in the 1980s. Its roots are with the former Nazi rocket scientists and engineers brought to the U.S. from Germany after World War II under the U.S.’s Operation Paperclip, where more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959.
They ended up at the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama—to use “their technological expertise to help create the U.S. space and weapons program,” writes Jack Manno, a State University of New York professor, in his 1984 book Arming the Heavens: The Hidden Military Agenda for Space, 1945-1995 (1984).
“Many of the early space war schemes were dreamt up by scientists working for the German military, scientists who brought their rockets and their ideas to America after the war,” he writes. Many of these scientists and engineers “later rose to positions of power in the U.S. military, NASA, and the aerospace industry.”
Among them were “Wernher von Braun and his V-2 colleagues,” who began “working on rockets for the U.S. Army” and, at the Redstone Arsenal, “were given the task of producing an intermediate range ballistic missile to carry battlefield atomic weapons up to 200 miles. The Germans produced a modified V-2 renamed the Redstone…. Huntsville became a major center of U.S. space military activities.”
Manno tells the story of former German Major General Walter Dornberger, who had been in charge of the entire Nazi rocket program, and how he “in 1947 as a consultant to the U.S Air Force and adviser to the Department of Defense … wrote a planning paper for his new employers.
He proposed a system of hundreds of nuclear-armed satellites all orbiting at different altitudes and angles, each capable of re-entering the atmosphere on command from Earth to proceed to its target. The Air Force began early work on Dornberger’s idea under the acronym NABS (Nuclear Armed Bombardment Satellites).”
In my subsequent Weapons in Space, Manno tells me that “control over the Earth” was what those who have wanted to weaponize space seek. He said the Nazi scientists are an important “historical and technical link, and also an ideological link…. The aim is to … have the capacity to carry out global warfare, including weapons systems that reside in space.”
Dornberger’s nuclear link continues in various forms throughout the U.S. military space program. The Strategic Defense Initiative scheme of Reagan—although this was barely disclosed at the time—was predicated on orbiting battle platforms with on-board hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons. They were to be energized by on-board nuclear reactors.
As General James Abrahamson, SDI director, said at a Symposium on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion, “without reactors in orbit [there is] going to be a long, long light [extension] cord that goes down to the surface of the Earth” to bring up power to energize space weaponry………………….[2] https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/08/25/insane-u-s-plan-to-spend-billions-on-weaponizing-space-makes-defense-contractors-jump-for-joy-but-rest-of-world-cowers-in-horror-at-prospect-of-new-arms-race-leading-to-world-war-iii/
Nuclear and Climate Clash – Russia’s nuclear weapons centre threatened by wildfires.
The fires have reached the closed city of Sarov, which has been a center for nuclear research since the Soviet era and was the site of the first Soviet atomic bomb’s development.
Today, the research center makes nuclear warheads and is believed to be developing Russia’s strategic missiles, including its highly touted hypersonic arsenal.
Wildfires Near Russia’s Nuclear Research Center Spark State of Emergency https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/08/24/wildfires-near-russias-nuclear-research-center-spark-state-of-emergency-a74878 Aug. 24, 2021 Russian authorities have declared an interregional state of emergency as tough-to-contain forest fires threaten the country’s top-secret nuclear weapons research center, Interfax reported Tuesday, citing the emergencies ministry.
Wildfires have raged in the Nizhny Novgorod region and the neighboring republic of Mordovia, both roughly 500 kilometers east of Moscow, since early August.
The fires have reached the closed city of Sarov, which has been a center for nuclear research since the Soviet era and was the site of the first Soviet atomic bomb’s development.
Today, the research center makes nuclear warheads and is believed to be developing Russia’s strategic missiles, including its highly touted hypersonic arsenal.
Firefighters have struggled to contain the fires due to hard-to-reach terrain, dead wood that remained after the 2010 wildfires and poor weather conditions.
Several aircraft from the Emergency Situations Ministry and Defense Ministry have been deployed to fight the fires.
The emergencies ministry told Interfax that two helicopters and a Be-200ES aircraft will be deployed to the site of the fires on Wednesday.
Russia has been hit hard by an unprecedented wildfire season fueled by historic heatwaves and drought conditions exacerbated by climate change, particularly in Siberia.
Canberra Extinction Rebellion members convicted by ACT Magistrates Court for crimes during protests
Canberra Extinction Rebellion members convicted by ACT Magistrates Court for crimes during protests
Climate activists who admitted to offending during various protests earlier this month said they did so after exhausting legal avenues to avert the “already looming” threat of climate change that if not addressed would “kill the future of our children”.
Tasmania: Liberals vote down Greens climate emergency motion with Premier claiming it ‘frightens’ children
Tasmania
Liberals vote down Greens climate emergency motion with Premier claiming it ‘frightens’ children
Premier Peter Gutwein has accused the Greens of “frightening” children after the party attempted to move a motion declaring a climate emergency based on the findings of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.–
Captive Mood: how Big Tech manipulates your emotions to serve advertiser
Captive Mood: how Big Tech manipulates your emotions to serve advertisers Michael West Media
By Manal al-Sharif By Manal al-Sharif| August 25, 2021
The digital advertising platforms don’t just want our data. They also want us to spend our lives online, an “addiction” created for the primary purpose of serving advertisers. Manal al-Sharif reports on the pitfalls of “digital dictatorship” in this latest of her Tech4Evil series.
According to a 2016 study, we touch our phones around 2617 times a day, while another showed that 79 percent of phone owners check their device within 15 minutes of waking up. Our attention has been hijacked so much that one out of every four car accidents in the United States is believed to be caused by texting and driving.
As a result, we have shorter attention spans, take our phones everywhere, and become anxious when it’s out of sight.
According to the Oxford Journal of Consumer Research, targeted ads don’t just make us more likely to buy — they can change how we think about ourselves.
Former Google employee, Tristan Harris compared the persuasive techniques of Big Tech apps to giving us doses of dopamine, like a slot machine in our pockets. It’s all designed to keep us hooked and coming for more
…………. Governments want to avoid obstructing innovation and technological advancement and end up giving the big tech companies the luxury of operating unregulated. Governments – such as in Australia – are also not keeping up with the speed of the tech world…….
you can’t fully protect yourself unless you go back to your 1997 Nokia or don’t use the internet. Once you go online, nothing is private. Apart from minimising the harm by making informed clicks and try your best to understand what you give informed consent to for the sites you visit. An almost impossible task, especially if you are not a lawyer specialising in privacy.
But there are some other simple steps you can take to avoid online tracking:
Use Search engines that won’t save every search you make, like DuckDuckGo.- Remove invasive privacy apps from your phone like Facebook, Tik Tok and the like (Apple Store offers Privacy Report on popular apps before downloading).
- Use private browsers like Tor, Brave and Safari.
- Reject all non-essential cookies when visiting websites.
- Create an online persona to sign up for services and mailing lists.
- Use ad-blocker and Privacy Badger while browsing.
Still, none of these ways will evade the fingerprinting technique mentioned in our previous article…………. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/captive-mood-how-big-tech-manipulates-your-emotions-to-serve-advertisers/
August 25 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Why I Think The New BYD Dolphin Will Convince Millions To Go Electric” • The reason I think this car matters is that it could be a car that is a “game changer” like the VW Beetle was last century and the Tesla Model 3 and Y are today. Part of the reason […]
August 25 Energy News — geoharvey
Australia’s nuclear waste is best managed in interim storage at Lucas Heights, with an independent review on permanent disposal.
Australian Conservation Foundation overview comments on ANSTO Iintermediate Level Waste transport, 24 Aug 21,
The movement of long lived intermediate level waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel via multiple (rail-ship-road) transport platforms and across half the world is a significant logistical exercise with environmental and security risks and the proponent accepts (2.10) that the planned activity is a nuclear action under the EPBC Act.
This is a matter of high public interest and elevated scrutiny is important given that ANSTO is the proponent and not a disinterested party.
ANSTO’s assurances of ‘negligible impact’, a ‘very unlikely’ impact probability and ‘high levels’ of certainty and reliability need to be assessed, not merely accepted.
The proponents commitment to public consultation (1.13) is not consistent with the clear security limitations (1.2) and further places information control with the proponent, without a wider transparency mechanism.
The 2015 shipment of waste saw controversy and allegations of deficiencies in the transport ship (see attachment). ANSTO’s assertion that this will be ‘conducted by an experienced nuclear transport logistics provider’ (1.2) requires further scrutiny and verification. A June 2021 report (see attachment) iby the UK based NFLA (Nuclear Free Local Authorities) found that: The International Maritime Organisation should consider improved regulation on shipping that is transporting nuclear materials as part of other mixed shipments. The level of accidents in this area is alarming, and the NFLA is really concerned a major accident could cause significant and dangerous implications for communities…
ANSTO is not accurate in stating that the proposed action is not part of a staged development or a component of a larger project (1.15). The Australian Radioactive Waste Management Framework (April, 2018) confirms that the Commonwealth is the only jurisdiction in which spent fuel is managed. Clearly this ILW is a key component of the federal government’s current, and contested, National Radioactive Waste Management Project and should be seen in this wider framework.
This is a complex operation with multiple variables and exposure/risk pathways that requires enhanced attention
- ANSTO is the proponent and its assumptions need to be tested
- The 2015 shipment was dogged with controversy around the credibility and adequacy of the transport ship and this area needs further attention
- The planned activity is part of a wider project – the National Radioactive Waste Management Project
- The high level of public interest and concern is best addressed through increased scrutiny and transparency
- If this ILW transfer occurs this material should remain secured at ANSTO until a credible future management approach is agreed
The best environmental outcomes would be facilitated through enhanced assessment consistent with the environmental protection intent of the EPBC Act. ACF strongly supports an open, wholistic and independent review of Australia’s radioactive waste strategy.
ACF maintains that Australia’s ILW is best managed through extended interim storage at ANSTO, coupled with a dedicated options review into future management options. In the absence of a clear future management pathway there is no radiological or public health rationale for moving this ILW from a facility with high institutional control assets to a less resourced regional facility.
The status of two current federal processes related to radioactive waste and the Kimba plan
(i) In the latest federal budget around $60 million was allocated to ANSTO explicitly to upgrade their storage capacity for ILW. This approach fully aligns with the civil society call for ILW waste to be kept in extended interim storage at Lucas Heights prior to a final decision on future management options. This allocation is the focus of a current review by parliament’s Public Works Committee (see: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Public_Works/ANSTOLucasHeights/Submissions ). There is no fixed reporting date but the direction to the Committee is to report “as expeditiously as possible”. The Committee is likely to hold at least one public hearing and to approve the planned expenditure and works will advance.
The Australian Consewrvation Foundation will be calling for this – and any future government – to use the breathing space provided by this extra capacity as the game changing circuit breaker in the waste debate.
(ii) ANSTO have recently made an EPBC Act referral around its plan to bring reprocessed spent nuclear fuel waste back from the UK to Lucas Heights: Referral: EPBC 2021/8998 – Return of Australian Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste from the UK, NSW
This ILW waste would travel by road, rail and ship from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria in a purpose built 7m long, 3m high transport and storage container. The shipment would take place between December 2021 and July 2022. ACF’s view is that this material should be stored at ANSTO pending a final management option – it should not be double-handled and moved to Kimba in the absence of an agreed further plan.
Kimba nuclear waste dump consultation? WHAT CONSULTATION?
Kazzi Jai Fight to stop a nuclear waste dump in South Australia, 24 Aug 21,
Consultation? What consultation? Right from the very start the whole dump process has been a SHAM! It has been nothing but a PR exercise laced with bribe money singling out South Australia as the dump site for all of ANSTO’s Lucas Heights NSW nuclear waste over 1700 kms away!
This is nuclear waste from industrial production of nuclear isotopes the bulk of which is exported overseas!! – It has nothing to do with loved ones in hospital actually using diagnostic isotopes for which that waste is held on site at the hospital and then officially released into normal waste streams – on a “retain and decay” basis as they are licenced by ARPANSA. This practice will not change with or without a dump!
This current proposal is nothing but a cheapskate attempt by the Feds to shaft nuclear waste onto South Australia so that it solely becomes South Australia’s responsibility, liability and problem! And the proposal is for the PERMANENT DISPOSAL of LOW LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE in a TOTALLY ALL ABOVE GROUND DUMP!
This is NOT STORAGE. This means the waste is there FOREVER! Should there be leakage or contamination from the waste – too bad – since it’s for PERMANENT DISPOSAL site ANYWAY!The “temporary” tag-a-long Intermediate Level Nuclear Waste will be stored as dry storage – as “temporary” designates “dry storage”.
The “temporary” tag on it certainly has nothing to do with any commitment by the Feds to deal with it anytime going into the future! It will become STRANDED waste which again, will remain solely South Australia’s responsibility, liability and problem!
And this is slap bang in the middle of wheat fields! A place which has NO past or present history with the nuclear industry!
And to add insult to injury, ANSTO relinquishes all responsibility of the waste once it hits SA’s soil! It’s off their books and they effectively wash their hands of it – it is no longer their problem!
Now Jeff Baldock may be foolish and naive, but given he has put up THREE pieces of land for this dump, seems more to be chasing the money coming from sale of his land!
This has NOT been an “open and transparent” process by any means!
The OBVIOUS LACK OF CONSULTATION is but one part of this very FLAWED proposal- a proposal which has not changed in FORTY YEARS mind you – and needs to be scrapped and take back to the drawing board – dealing with the Intermediate Level Nuclear Waste first and the Low Level Nuclear Waste can follow that – NO DOUBLE HANDLING! https://www.facebook.com/groups/344452605899556
White Man’s Media: Rupert Murdoch and the US Imperium- Australia is its tool
White Man’s Media: Rupert Murdoch and the US Imperium,
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/white-mans-media-rupert-murdoch-and-the-us-imperium/ By John Menadue|August 24, 2021, Western media, a tool of the political, military and business establishment, have played a part in the killing of millions in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, writes John Menadue. In turn, Australia’s media is a tool of this “US Imperium”. This is the first in White Man’s Media, a series to be published in Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations.
Australia’s media does not just have a problem being dominated by legacy US and UK media. We have a particular problem. Its name is Rupert Murdoch, an American citizen who owns two-thirds of Australia’s metropolitan dailies, a monopoly Pay TV licence in Foxtel, and more.
News Corp was a key supporter of the unmitigated disaster which was the Iraq War. Of the 173 Murdoch papers worldwide only one, the Hobart Mercury, opposed that war, a war sometimes described as ‘the Murdoch War’.
Murdoch told us in 2003, “I think (George W) Bush acted very morally, very correctly. US troops will soon be welcomed as liberators”.
His Foreign Editor on The Australian Greg Sheridan could not contain himself. “The bold eagle of American power is aloft, high above the humble earth. For as it soars and sweeps it sees victory, power and opportunity”.
Sheridan is still in his job. Murdoch prefers loyalty to competence in all those around him, including his family.
Warmongers and profiteers
In wars, Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation see “victory, power and opportunity” too. Rupert Murdoch himself is still in his job.
Even some of the legacy media apologised for their support of the illegal war in Iraq. But never Rupert Murdoch or, for that matter, former Australian prime minister John Howard.
News Corp in Australia, for well over a decade, has also led the campaign of denial on climate change. This company has become a key part of a US military/business/security complex which has exercised destructive power for generations, and is now demonising China.
As Alex Lo wrote in August, “It has long been known that the Department of Defense in the US and other governments such as the CIA, not only support film and cable production in Hollywood but also actively intervene and manipulate their content”.
And in June, Lo described how a long list of former US security chiefs such as John Brennan and James Clapper joined US media – NBC, MSNBC and CNN.
Australian security heads have been leading the demonisation of China with help from the Five Eyes. But we get a double-whammy when our derivative media draws heavily on US legacy media that in turn is heavily influenced by former US security chiefs with their ‘expert opinions’.
This legacy media frames our view of the world, a view which we accept as almost god-given, a colonial Western media mindset with racist undertones.
We need to break free of that mindset if we are to build a secure future in our region and avoid being drawn into one folly after another by the US Imperium.
This legacy media frames our view of the world, a view which we accept as almost god-given, a colonial Western media mindset with racist undertones.
We need to break free of that mindset if we are to build a secure future in our region and avoid being drawn into one folly after another by the US Imperium.
John was once the top executive for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in Sydney. He has also served as Ambassador to Japan, chief executive of Qantas and the top political adviser to both Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam.
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 