Newsletter XLIII 2023

22. to 28. October

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The PDF file "Nuclear Power Accidents" contains a number of other incidents from various areas of the nuclear industry. Some of the incidents were never published through official channels, so this information could only be made available to the public in a roundabout way. The list of incidents in the PDF file is therefore not 100 % identical with "INES and the disturbances in nuclear facilities", but represents an addition...

1 October 1981 (INES 3 | NAMS 1,3) Nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR

3 October 1986 (Broken Arrow) nuclear submarine K-219, USSR

3 October 1952 (1st British atomic bomb test) Trimouille Island, GBR

5 October 1966 (INES 4) NPP Enrico Fermi 1, USA

7 October 1957 (INES 5 | NAMS 4,6) Nuclear factory Windscale/Sellafield, GBR

9 October 2006 (1st North Korean atomic bomb test) Punggye-ri, PRK

12 October 1969 (INES 4) Nuclear factory Sellafield, GBR

15 October 1958 (INES 4) Boris Kidrič Institute, Vinca, YU

17 October 1969 (INES 4) NPP Saint Laurent, FRA

19 October 1989 (INES 3) NPP Vandellòs-1, ESP

30 October 1961 (Tsar Bomb AN602) Novaya Zemlya, USSR

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We are looking for current information. If you can help, please send a message to: nuclear-world@reaktorpleite.de

28. October

Jülich | Ahaus | Interim storage | Castor transports

Anti-nuclear initiatives announce further protests

The anti-nuclear initiatives have announced further protests against the planned Castor transports. Two more test runs between Jülich and Ahaus are scheduled to take place in November.

The initiatives “No nuclear waste in Ahaus”, “Stop Westcastor” and “Münsterland against nuclear plants” reacted with sharp criticism against two further test transports with empty Castor containers from Jülich to Ahaus. The initiatives point out that the former operators of the AVR reactor were “responsible until final storage” for the approximately 300.000 fuel balls in the 152 Jülich castors. The statement states, among other things: "Since the fuel balls have to be conditioned and repackaged before final storage, further transport and possibly return transport to Jülich are required for this process."

This is also because there are no so-called “hot cells” in the Ahaus interim storage facility and this work could only be carried out in the Jülich research center...

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Israel | Terror | Hamas | Self-defense | Palestine

Debate on Israel and Gaza: Against herd instinct and geopolitical platitudes

Hamas is not a liberation movement. Now an open letter shows courage for clarity among German intellectuals. How do you differentiate after a pogrom?

An open letter, signed by 150 German writers so far, criticizes the literary world for its "silence that cannot be surpassed in terms of brashness" and asks:

Or is it not brashness at all, but rather concentrated holding still so as not to make a mistake? Not to make yourself vulnerable? In any case, it cannot be a self-confident silence or one that in any way stands up to the rampant anti-Semitism.
Open letter

The silence could not be duller or louder, write the signatories, including two authors who have published on Telepolis.

Jews are threatened in this country, in Europe and worldwide. It is time to speak out with all due force. We've had enough of any kind of relativistic maneuvering.

We see the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population and demand humanitarian aid, but we oppose using the suffering of the people in the Gaza Strip to relativize Hamas' terror and delegitimize Israel's self-defense. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and, like every functioning state, has to protect its own population from terror.
Open letter

The debate over the war in Gaza has taken a turn for the worse...

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South Korea | Solar cells | Investments

The South Koreans are coming

From dream cells to floating systems: solar companies from South Korea show how they can compete with China. Now they also want to enter the German market.

[...] data from the International Energy Agency show that the South Korean solar industry is comparatively well represented at several levels of the value chain. Companies from South Korea currently account for four percent of global solar module production, and around ten percent of component sales. Exports increased by almost 2022 percent in 40 compared to the previous year.

But this is all set to become even more so. While Germany, once a technology leader in the solar business, has reduced its support for domestic companies over the past decade, investments continued in South Korea.

[...] The recent export orientation of the South Korean solar industry also has to do with the fact that a few difficulties have recently arisen at home. The right-wing conservative Yoon Suk Yeol has ruled the country since mid-2022. He has reduced support for the solar industry and is instead pushing for the nuclear phase-out.

In Germany, however, things are now on the opposite course again: In addition to a new funding program for private households, the public sector is also increasingly supporting companies' development activities. "We now notice very clearly that Germany wants to attract new investments in the solar sector," reports a representative of a German-based Korean company who did not want to be named.

“We were only recently invited to submit a concept for a tender.” The subsidies are not as generous as in the USA, where around half of the costs of a development project are borne by the state. "But it's still better than under the current Korean government." You will probably apply.

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Migration | Prehistory

Crop failures and political conflicts: migration has a history

Historical reasons why people left their country and looked for something better. Our author broadens our perspective on a debate that is becoming increasingly narrow.

Migration is often viewed as a new phenomenon that needs to be combated, but migratory movements are long-standing, traditional and situationally consistent reactions in the development of human settlement on earth.

The origin of humanity probably lies in Africa. Friedemann Schrenk from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main assumes that people's upright walking arose around seven million years ago...

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Israel | Netanyahu | radical right | unity

There is no right-left in Israel

A poster on Israel's streets abolishes the political division into right and left. What's it all about?

Israel's streets are currently filled with slogans aimed at boosting national morale. It is not always clear who initiates them – the government or civil society institutions critical of the government. Whoever the initiators may be, their primary concern is unity. In addition to slogans such as “Together we will win”, “Together we are strong” and the like, one poster particularly stands out. It was produced by the powerful Adler-Chomsky advertising company as part of a larger campaign in the early days of the war. His text reads: “There is no right-left. We will no longer be separated.”

The saying primarily refers to the activity of the protest movement, which demonstrated persistently and with remarkable vigor in the long months before the outbreak of war on October 7th against the “judicial reform” initiated by the right-wing extremist Netanyahu coalition (which amounted to a coup). . The poster, which shows photos of “representative” figures of Israeli society, is perfidious, but at the same time contains – unintentionally – an element of truth.

Perfidious because it conjures up a unity that has never existed in Israeli society, but has always arisen forcibly in emergency situations (i.e., in times of war), only to dissolve again soon after the current danger has been overcome. It is well known that external threats were always needed to create (temporary) internal unity. The sarcasm of Israeli political discourse is based on the thesis that when internal conflicts and divisions appear too precarious to those in power (in view of upcoming elections, for example), a “security problem” is quickly created...

27. October

Terror | Threats | Anonym

Internet trolls are apparently behind bomb threats

Threats of attacks against schools, media and foreign embassies have been alarming Germany for days. According to research by SPIEGEL and ARD-Kontraste, they probably come from criminal copycats.

A large number of anonymous bomb threats that have been received in recent days at schools, media companies and diplomatic missions in Germany, among others, are apparently the result of free riding from the cybercrime milieu. This was the result of joint research by SPIEGEL and the ARD political magazine “Kontraste”.

The authors' trail leads to a group of men who have already attracted attention through criminal activities on the Internet in the past. Among other things, they are said to have deliberately made false emergency calls in order to trigger police or fire brigade operations...

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Bavaria's Kini Jödler and his antisemitic horror clown

Aiwanger case: anti-Semitism as a bonus point

Leo Fischer on the special Bavarian way of coming to terms with history

Since the last state elections, there have been warnings everywhere about a coming government with AfD participation - if not an absolute majority is already threatened. It is de facto already at the helm, and in one of the western federal states that has long been fantasized as immune, Bavaria.

There, the disgusting anti-Semitic leaflet, the ridiculous, sometimes downright childish excuses of the Free Voters chairman Hubert Aiwanger and Markus Söder's understanding handling of all this, despite the sharp protests of Jewish organizations, in no way led to any obvious defensive gestures. On the contrary. The Free Voters emerged stronger from the elections; Söder also rewards the deputy, who operates between clowning, bumbling and right-wing radicalism, with a fourth ministry. Meanwhile, the public prosecutor's office is investigating - not against the author of the leaflet. But against the person who pointed out to the public in the first place that behind the already anti-human ideas of a deputy prime minister there might be even more threatening views. The whistleblower is accused of violating official secrets - an absurd process, because the leaflet was not distributed secretly, but intentionally, in public...

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Japan | Fukushima | Radioactivity

Two Fukushima workers hospitalized after exposure to radioactive fluid

When a drain hose came loose, four workers at the damaged nuclear power plant were sprayed with radiation material. Two of them had to be taken to a clinic for monitoring and decontamination.

The incident occurred during cleaning work: four workers in the Fukushima nuclear ruins were accidentally sprayed with a liquid containing radioactive material, said the operating company Tepco. Two men were taken to hospital.

The four workers were cleaning pipes on Wednesday when a drain hose suddenly came loose and sprayed them with the contaminated liquid waste...

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France | Repository | highly radioactive | Nuclear waste

Nuclear waste in France: Bure becomes a final storage facility

The French Constitutional Court will allow nuclear waste to be stored underground in the hamlet from 2035. This is happening despite many protests from local residents.

PARIS taz | A stone, or rather a concrete container, falls from the French government's heart. The French Constitutional Court, the Conseil constitutionnel, headed by former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, made a significant decision on Friday on the unresolved problem of the disposal of highly radioactive residues from French nuclear power plants. According to the nine constitutional judges, nothing stands in the way of the very controversial CIGEO project of the state authority ANDRA in Bure for legal reasons.

This means: Despite the local resistance of the population and despite all the protests from environmental protection organizations since the discussions about underground “final storage” began 30 years ago, the construction of an underground facility for storing the spent fuel rods at a depth of 500 meters will soon be allowed to begin in Bure . The hamlet is about 200 km from the German border in eastern France.

In its ruling, however, the court also expressly mentions the rights of future generations...

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Nuclear Test Ban Treaty | Russia | United States

Nuclear deterrence: inhibition against using the atomic bomb decreases

Russia's withdrawal from the nuclear test ban treaty should be a warning signal. In the past, the threat of Armageddon was taken more seriously. Rightly so. A guest post.

The weakening of nuclear weapons treaties, particularly in the context of the war in Ukraine, highlights a disturbing trend not seen in generations: Washington and Moscow are now one step away from direct conflict.

The Doomsday Clock "now stands at 90 seconds to midnight - closer to global catastrophe than ever before," according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The Russian Duma has pushed ahead with plans to withdraw ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), citing the need to restore parity with the US, which has not yet signed the decades-old treaty have ratified.

The decision to withdraw ratification is not as serious as the US unilateral withdrawal from the Ballistic Missile Prohibition Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2002 and 2019, respectively.

But it is another reminder of the need to focus attention on dealing with the growing nuclear threat, particularly in light of the war in Ukraine...

26. October

Climate Crisis | WHO | Emergency

Climate crisis is unhealthy

200 science magazines are calling on the WHO to declare a health emergency because of the climate crisis. Does it work like it once did with Corona?

More than 200 scientific journals worldwide have published a joint appeal calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a public health emergency due to climate change and species extinction.

“The general environmental crisis is now so serious that it represents a global health emergency,” says the call, which was written by renowned magazines such as The Lancet, Global Journal of Medicine and Public Health and the British Medical Journal, among others. German magazines did not co-author the call.

The world is currently responding to the climate and nature crises “as if they were separate challenges,” the call says. “This is a dangerous mistake.” Politicians must recognize the global health emergency “and take urgent action.” Only if climate and biodiversity are viewed as parts of the same complex problem could solutions be developed...

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Israel | Biden | Settlers

Biden condemns settler attacks on Palestinians

“This has to stop now”: The US President is concerned about attacks by “extremist settlers” in the West Bank. Joe Biden also commented on Israel's ground offensive.

The United States is taking a leading role in diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the Middle East. US President Joe Biden has now expressed concern about "extremist" settlers in the West Bank and condemned violence against Palestinians. "I continue to be concerned about attacks by extremist settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank," Biden said at a press conference on Wednesday. “This has to stop now.”

Such attacks are like pouring gasoline on a fire, Biden said. According to the UN human rights office, violence by armed Israeli settlers against Palestinians is increasing...

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Israel | Palestine | Fridays for Future | suppression

German section disagrees

Fridays for Future account certifies Israel as “genocide”

The international Instagram account of Fridays for Future takes a stand in the Middle East war. It is clear to them who is good and who is evil. The culprits include Israel and the media "founded by imperialist governments." The German section promptly made it clear: “We do not agree with the content.”

The climate protection movement Fridays for Future strongly criticizes Israel and the Western media on its international Instagram account. On Instagram there is talk of an “apartheid system” that the Israeli government allegedly set up against the Palestinians. "This is not a conflict. This is a genocide," it continues.

On the international account, the climate protection movement also denounces “settler colonialism” by Israel. Israel stole Palestinian land and carried out “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. The history of the “oppression of Palestine” is complex, but not “complicated.” Everything that has happened in the past 75 years proves one thing: "There are no two sides. One is the oppressor, the other is the oppressed."...

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West Africa | Burkina Faso | Russia

Big plans for nuclear power

The military junta in Burkina Faso has agreed with Russia to build a nuclear power plant, and the regime in Mali is aiming for something similar.

[...] Russia, with which the juntas maintain close contacts, should ensure the necessary technology transfer. Already in July, Ibrahim Traoré, the 35-year-old interim president of Burkina Faso, who had previously held the rank of captain, officially asked the government of the Russian Federation for help in building a nuclear power plant on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg. These plans were confirmed on October 13th with the signing of a memorandum of understanding at the sixth forum of the “Russian Energy Week” in Moscow.

The agreement with Burkina Faso includes the construction of a nuclear reactor there. On the same day, another memorandum was signed between Russia and Mali “on the civil use of nuclear energy,” which is vaguer in comparison. The Malian government says it is aiming to build two to four nuclear reactors. West African online media are currently talking about “55 megawatt reactors,” which would mean small units...

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Nuclear phase-out | Isar 2 | Prussia Elektra

The operator reports the final end of the system

A good six months after the Isar 2 nuclear power plant near Landshut was shut down, one thing is clear: the plant can no longer be started up.

A good six months after the Isar 2 nuclear power plant near Landshut was shut down, one thing is clear: the plant can no longer be started up. Guido Knott, managing director of the operator PreussenElektra, said this on Wednesday evening in Essenbach. "The preparations for the dismantling are in full swing and the colleagues we need to operate are simply no longer available to us. The topic of recommissioning is definitely off the table for us," says Knott...

25. October

Israel | Guterres | Hamas

After controversial Middle East statement

The federal government stands behind Guterres

UN Secretary General António Guterres drew a lot of criticism with his statement about the situation in the Middle East. He was “shocked” by the “misinterpretation” of his statements. He receives support from the federal government.

The federal government has expressed its confidence in UN Secretary General António Guterres after his controversial statements on the Middle East conflict. “The UN Secretary General naturally has the trust of the federal government,” said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin. The situation is very charged at the moment, Hebestreit added, but calls for resignation are not appropriate at the moment.

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz's spokesman said that he "basically does not evaluate at all" the statements made by a Secretary General of the United Nations. At the same time, he emphasized the federal government's solidarity with Israel: "We stand closely and unwaveringly at Israel's side."

At the UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Guterres once again strongly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel. But he also said that the attacks by the radical Islamic Palestinian organization “did not occur in a vacuum.” The Palestinians have been suffering from "suffocating occupation" for 56 years...

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Israel | UN Security Council | Hamas

After a scandal in the Security Council: How ChatGPT refutes the Israeli foreign minister

Chief diplomat attacked UN Secretary General Guterres: “No room for a balanced approach”. Telepolis checked Guterres' speech. The result is amazing.

The tone in the debate about the crisis in the Middle East is becoming increasingly shrill. The members of the UN Security Council also had to notice this on Tuesday. There, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen attacked Secretary-General António Guterres with harsh words. The reason: Guterres had previously appealed for an end to the violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

The UN Secretary General repeatedly condemned the massacre carried out by Islamist militias in Israel on October 7th and emphasized Israel's right to defense. But he also pointed to Israel's "suffocating occupation" of the Palestinians.

For this, Foreign Minister Cohen sharply attacked the head of the world organization. "Mr. Secretary General, what world do you live in?" he asked. "Tell me: What is your proportionate response to the killing of babies, the rape and burning of women, and the beheading of a child?" Cohen shouted into the room.

He later canceled a planned meeting with Guterres and published a remarkable statement on the short message service X:

I will not meet with the UN Secretary General. After the October 7 massacre, there is no room for a balanced approach. Hamas must be wiped from the face of the earth!

Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen

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Wind power | EU Commission | Wind energy expansion

EU Commission is boosting the European wind industry with immediate measures

Since the expansion of wind energy in the EU has so far lagged behind the targets, the Commission has presented a new package of measures. The European Wind Power Action Plan provides, among other things, for an acceleration of approval procedures and better access to financing options for companies.

The EU wants to increase the share of renewable energies in the electricity mix to at least 2030 percent by 42,5. This requires a massive expansion of renewable energies. In the wind energy sector, the installed capacity is expected to climb from around 204.000 MW (204 GW) in 2022 to over 500.000 MW (500 GW) in 2030. In order to achieve this goal, a significant acceleration of growth is required. The EU Commission wants to get wind energy expansion and the European wind industry on track with a new package of measures...

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Solar energy from the space

For space-based solar energy: New solar cell passes long-term test

Huge solar power plants in space could send baseload electricity to Earth in the future. A possible technology for solar cells has passed an important test.

A central building block for possible solar farms in space, which generate large amounts of green energy for the Earth, works under the harsh conditions in space. A British-Algerian research team has developed and tested a satellite in space for six years that uses innovative solar cells to generate electricity. This means larger areas can be covered, while the cells based on cadmium telluride are lighter than existing alternatives. At the same time, they would provide significantly more electricity and would be comparatively cheap to produce. Even though electricity production decreased over the period of the experiment, it was proven that this type of electricity generation could be economically attractive...

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Global Warming | Glacier | Apocalypse

Melting ice shelves inevitable: New York and Hamburg will sink into the sea

Apocalypse The West Antarctic ice shelf will melt even if global warming is limited to 1,5 degrees. This will cause the global oceans to rise by up to five meters. This means that not only New York would be doomed - but also Emden

The West Antarctic ice sheet is losing its protective belt: Even if the international community manages to limit global warming to 1,5 degrees Celsius, the ice shelf in the West Antarctic Amundsen Sea will still melt. And completely: This is the conclusion of a study by scientists from the British polar research program in Cambridge, which was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Ice shelves are ice sheets floating in the ocean that cling to the glaciers of the southern continent and hold them together like a belt. If these ice sheets thaw, the glaciers are unprotected against warmer ocean water and “pour” into the ocean, causing further sea level rise. The glaciers of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone will cause the global oceans to rise by up to five meters when they have completely melted. Emden is one meter high...

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Groundwater | Evaporation | Seawater Desalination

Without groundwater recharge, the region will dry out

In the past 20 years, the groundwater level in Brandenburg has fallen significantly. The researchers see no trend reversal. A pilot project is now investigating how the water balance can be stabilized and adapted to weather extremes.

At the beginning of the year, hydrogeologists from the TU Berlin installed level probes in several small rivers in the Lower Spree catchment area between the Spreewald and Berlin, which were intended to record the water level and flow speed. When Irina Engelhardt and her team travel to the measuring points to read out the collected data, they sometimes have to look for water. The measurements only showed zeros for months.

"The rivers actually all dried up between May and June. We can also see the heavy rain events here in the display. The waters didn't react to that at all," explains Irina Engelhardt when looking at the data from the past few months.

[...] Irina Engelhardt sees the possibility of a Baltic Sea pipeline as the last chance. Desalinated seawater would have the advantage that it could be used directly in the drinking water supply. Disadvantage: the higher energy requirement. However, this could easily be covered on the coast using renewable energy such as wind, solar and tidal energy. For many, this may sound far-fetched.

Irina Engelhardt sees it differently: "In the past, I have only worked abroad. Our major research projects were in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Israel. All of these countries would already be dying of thirst; they would not be able to grow a tomato if they did not have these technologies would use."

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Energy transition | Heat pump | heating costs

How heat pumps reduce heating costs by a third

Electricity and gas tariffs have become significantly cheaper in recent months. Heat pump operators benefit from this. However, there are enormous price ranges when it comes to acquisition costs.

The heating season has begun. This raises the question for many homeowners: Continue with the old gas heating system or switch to another technology? A current analysis by the comparison portal Verivox, which is available exclusively to the editorial network Germany, shows: With a modern, efficient heat pump, a household can reduce heating costs by around 30 percent.

The example calculation: As a new customer, a family in a single-family home with an annual consumption of 20.000 kilowatt hours currently pays around 1770 euros to generate heat using a natural gas burner. This corresponds to a price per kilowatt hour (kWh) of just under 8,9 cents, which represents the current average in this country. Consumers who have installed a modern heat pump with the so-called annual performance factor (JAZ) four also incur a nationwide average cost of 1240 euros as new customers with the same heating requirement - this is the difference of around 30 percent. An annual performance factor of four means that the unit generates 5000 kWh of heat from 20.000 kWh of electrical energy by using ambient heat.

[...] However, prices have just started to move significantly as a strong boom in demand has subsided. There is already talk in the industry of overcapacity in production and discounts of more than 20 percent. Experts expect further discounts, especially as providers from Japan and South Korea are pushing into the local market.

24. October

Ukraine | Russia

Ukraine's President Zelensky

World must not “get tired” of war

Already 618 days of war against Ukraine, now the Middle East conflict is added: President Zelensky is calling on the world to continue supporting Ukraine. Scholz assures us of that.

[...] When Volodymyr Zelenskyj spoke via video link at the German-Ukrainian business forum in Berlin this Tuesday, he called for solidarity with his country. Russia wants the war against Ukraine to disappear from public consciousness - but:

At the political level, we ensure that the world does not tire of this war.

[...] Support for Ukraine will not be affected in any way by the terrible events surrounding Hamas' attack on Israel. Scholz says:

Both countries - Israel and Ukraine - deserve our unwavering solidarity.

Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor

Germany's aid since the start of the war now amounts to 24 billion euros. Permanent financing for Ukraine should be achieved by the end of the year...

The writer and vehement opponent of the war Karl Kraus spoke in the magazine he published Die Fackel of May 1918 (No. 474) against the concept of “war weariness”:

"War-weary - that is the stupidest of all words that time has. Tired of war means tired of murder, tired of robbery, tired of lies, tired of stupidity, tired of hunger, tired of disease, tired of filth, tired of chaos. Was one ever fresh and chipper to all this? So war weariness would truly be a condition that deserves no salvation. One must always be war-weary, that is, not after, but before one has begun the war. Out of war weariness, war is not ended, but refrained from. States that are war weary in the fourth year of warfare deserve nothing better than - hold out!"

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Jülich | Ahaus | nuclear waste shipments

The process for transporting nuclear waste from Jülich is being rehearsed

In November, special trucks with empty Castor containers will drive from Jülich to the Ahaus interim storage facility. It's about rehearsing the processes.

Transporting highly radioactive material is a challenge. It is a first for the Jülich nuclear waste disposal company (JEN) ​​and the company for interim storage (BGZ) in Ahaus. You have to rehearse beforehand. The nuclear waste transports are scheduled to start next year.

Preparations will begin in Jülich on November 6th.

[...] The transport permit is expected this year, so that transports with the filled Castor containers could start in 2024. The city of Ahaus and a citizen are suing against the transports. In addition, anti-nuclear power initiatives have announced protests against the relocation.

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Israel | Criminal Court | Palestine

Tens of thousands demonstrate in EU countries for a “just” Palestine solution

What is largely ignored in Germany is that many people in other EU countries are calling for an “immediate end” to Israel's actions against Palestinians without supporting Hamas and its terror. The Spanish EU presidency is coming into conflict with Israel, which accuses members of the government of “aligning” with terrorists because it wants to see Netanyahu tried for war crimes at the International Criminal Court.

In Germany there is practically only one discourse on the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The fact that the bloody conflict is seen in a much more differentiated manner in other EU countries is usually ignored in the reporting in German-language media, as is the criticism that there is from various governments of Israel's actions, especially against Gaza. There is little or no reporting on large protests that, in view of the fact that around 5000 Palestinians have already been killed and ongoing bombings, are calling for an "immediate end" to the Israeli actions against the Palestinians and are also demanding that the Palestinians' right to self-determination be preserved...

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Israel | Arms industry | Safety | Terror

Israel: Military in the Middle East conflict - that's how powerful the arms industry is

The Middle East conflict has escalated and Israel has been hit hard. They are vastly superior to Hamas: the country has a powerful arms industry.

Frankfurt/Munich – Israel is a comparatively small country. However, given its historical development and geographical location, the Mediterranean state, which covers just over 22.000 square kilometers, has one of the most powerful military apparatuses in the world. The terrorist attack by Hamas confirmed that the country's security concerns in view of the Middle East conflict cannot be dismissed.

Aside from the Palestine issue, Israel's arms industry has become one of the largest exporters of weapons and military equipment over the years...

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Armaments | Rheinmetall | Turning point | ARD media library

ARD story on Tuesday October 24th, 2023 at 22:50 p.m

“No longer just the bogeymen”

Gone are the days when opponents of armaments demonstrated in front of the factory halls: With the war in Ukraine, Rheinmetall's image has also changed completely. Insights into a company at the turn of the times.

[...] Whether he follows the news of the war? "People are thinking more about it than before," he confirms, "when it was still said: 'You're just doing your thing for the Bundeswehr' and so on. Now what we do here has perhaps become a little more important. "

At the “heart” of the company

His superior Marius Meyering, responsible for “tactical vehicles,” calls the “Leopard” hall the “heart” of the company. Even if the news shows shot-up “Leos” at some point, that won’t worry him.

"The question then is whether the tank shot down five Russian T72s before the sixth one got it," he says clearly. "And my belief is that the crew's probability of survival in Western tanks is much higher."

[...] At the end, Meyering gives the most honest insight into the inner workings of a weapons manufacturer when, in front of the camera, he looks into the open hatch of a Marten tank that his people are currently preparing for front-line use. In Afghanistan he spent a lot of time in a tank. "To be honest," he admits, "it's really fun. That sounds stupid, I know, because it's about war. But at first it's like driving an excavator or something." You have a large tracked vehicle with which you can simply race over anything. "The seriousness of the story only begins when you actually enter the battle." 

IMHO

A completely normal company in the arms industry that does business with all other members of MiK worldwide. They talk openly about everything, but they don't say a word about the victims of their arms deals....

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Israel | Apartheid | Palästinians | Anti-Semitism

Why is Israel accused of apartheid against Palestinians?

It is said that the apartheid accusation is false and anti-Semitic. But what do human rights activists and experts say? A look behind a heated debate.

The accusation of apartheid in connection with Israel's policy towards the Palestinians often leads to violent defensive reactions. In the daily newspaper Die Welt on August 8th of this year, Felix Klein, the federal government's anti-Semitism commissioner, claimed that anyone who accused Israel of apartheid was delegitimizing the Jewish state. Because that is an anti-Semitic narrative.

Klein was referring to an analysis by the Science and Politics Foundation (SWP), an advisory body to the federal government, in which the SWP scientific expert Muriel Asseburg stated:

Prima facie, Israel is committing the crime of apartheid in the occupied territories, which is classified as a crime against humanity.

Amos Goldberg, professor of Holocaust history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and co-editor of the volume "The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History," responded to Klein's accusation of anti-Semitism in a guest article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

According to Goldberg, the Israeli government is fighting human rights, democracy and equality and is promoting the opposite: "authoritarianism, discrimination, racism and apartheid."

"Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic. It describes reality," he said. Like others, Klein doesn't even try to refute the accusation. He simply claims: "Israel cannot be accused of apartheid a priori, regardless of the facts, because Israel is a Jewish state," says the Holocaust researcher...

23. October

Coal | fossil | Electricity production

Global energy industry: From now on less coal will be burned

Think tank has found: Use of fossil fuels is declining. But this is not just due to the industrialized countries. Here are the findings of the study.

The burning of coal and other fossil fuels for energy will soon peak worldwide. This emerges from a study recently published by the international think tank Ember, which specializes in energy issues and energy transition. But what does that mean and whose politics is it due to?

According to Ember, at least 107 of the 205 economies surveyed peaked in fossil fuel use in their power plants five or more years ago. Since then, most people have increasingly met their electricity needs with renewable energies.

[...] In this country, the peak of coal use was at least 20 years ago, and the peak of natural gas use in power plants was only three years ago, as data from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems show.

Compared to 2003, German lignite and hard coal power plants delivered almost 40 percent less electricity last year. The decline took place mainly in the last ten years. Electricity production from domestic coal-fired power plants has also fallen significantly this year.

From May to September, their monthly electricity production was almost 40 to 46 percent below the corresponding values ​​for the same months last year...

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Climate Crisis | Disaster | Migration

Quaschning explains: Climate refugees

There are many causes for flight and migration. By far the biggest will soon be the climate crisis. Let's stop them so that unprecedented humanitarian disasters do not occur.

"Refugees, refugees, refugees – we have far too many refugees! Just set an upper limit!"

Will everything be okay then? No! How naive can you be?

We live in a world where 800 million people are hungry. One in ten people don't know what they should eat tomorrow. One of the causes is the climate crisis.

Megadroughts cause crops to fail and torrential rains wash away fertile soil. Droughts, fires, storms and flood disasters are forcing more and more people around the world to flee - 2022 million by 32.

If we don't stop fueling the climate crisis, average global temperatures in the second half of the century will be more than three degrees higher than before the start of industrialization...

22. October

Israel | Palestine | dissenters | Hamas

Open letter from Jewish intellectuals:

The freedom of those who think differently

Over 100 Jewish artists, writers and scientists based in Germany sign this open letter. They appeal for peace and freedom of expression.

We, the undersigned Jewish artists, writers and scientists living in Germany, condemn in this letter the disturbing actions against the democratic public following the terrible acts of violence in Israel and Palestine this month.

There is no justification for Hamas's deliberate attacks on civilians. We unreservedly condemn the terrorist attacks on civilians in Israel. Many of us have family and friends in Israel who are directly affected by this violence. We condemn with equal force the killing of civilians in Gaza.

In recent weeks, state and city governments across Germany have banned public gatherings with suspected pro-Palestinian sympathies. These repressions also punish demonstrations such as “Youth against Racism” and “Jewish Berliners against Violence in the Middle East”. In one particularly absurd case, a Jewish Israeli woman was arrested for holding a sign denouncing the war her country is waging...

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Slovenia | Westinghouse | Krško Nuclear Power Plant

Leak in the primary circuit of the Krško nuclear power plant: fuel rods end up in the waste tank

In order to repair the leak in the primary circuit of the Slovenian nuclear power plant, all fuel rods are being removed from the reactor building.

All 121 fuel rods from the Slovenian Krško nuclear power plant will be removed from the reactor vessel and will be temporarily stored in a decay tank. The leak in the primary circuit of the nuclear power plant should then be inspected, analyzed and repaired, according to a statement from the operator NEK.

In the first week of October, a leak was discovered in the primary circuit of Slovenia's only nuclear power plant, which was then shut down so that inspectors could locate the leak. A few days later the time had come and it was clear that the repair could take several weeks. The nuclear power plant original equipment manufacturer Westinghouse is supposed to replace parts of the line. The material required for this is expected to arrive at the nuclear power plant in the next few days; according to the NEK, around 100 workers need to be trained for its use.

[...] Since the system is currently cold and unpressurized, no more coolant escapes through the leak. In order to determine the damage, the pipeline is examined inside and out using ultrasound. Possible causes currently being discussed include a material defect, thermal fatigue of the material, stress corrosion cracking and mechanical stress.

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Media | Propaganda | Springer

The Intercept: Springer Group ordered news app to downplay dead Palestinians

The Springer app is said to have instructed editors to report pro-Israel. Upday has millions of users. What The Intercept discovered.

The investigative, award-winning US news magazine The Intercept reports that Europe's largest news aggregator (an app that collects and distributes news) is said to have instructed editors to downplay Palestinian deaths. This instruction is said to have come after internet access in the Gaza Strip was disrupted since last weekend due to the Israeli military's constant bombardment of the enclave.

This is Upday. This is an app operated by the German media group Axel Springer SE and has millions of users in 30 countries. Journalists were instructed to report on the war in Gaza with a pro-Israel bias...

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Africa | Emissions trading | CO2 certificates

CO2 certificates – the next raw material from Africa

A company in Dubai wants to take over large parts of African countries in order to harvest CO2 credits from the forests.

African forests absorb 600 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, more than any other forest region in the world. Potential that investors want to monetize in the form of carbon credits.

At the forefront is a company called Blue Carbon, which wants to harvest CO2 credits on a large scale in Africa. If Dubai-based owner Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum's plans come to fruition, his company will control a fifth of Zimbabwe, a tenth of Liberia and Zambia, and 8 percent of Tanzania's land area for the next few decades. Or rather about their forests.

[...] Liberia had already tried to hand over land to the British company Carbon Harvesting Corporation in 2009. The contract was found to be illegal and some high-ranking government officials were subsequently charged with bribery and corruption...

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Glyphosate | Chemical industry | Monsanto

Bayer loses in legal dispute over glyphosate

The company is expected to pay $1,25 million in the USA. A plaintiff claims that he got cancer from the weed killer Roundup - and wins in court.

Bayer AG has been ordered in the USA to pay $1,25 million to plaintiff John Durnell. Durnell accuses the agricultural and pharmaceutical company of contracting cancer through contact with the weed killer Roundup. The verdict was reached by a jury in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. "The client and plaintiff's attorneys are extremely pleased and grateful for the verdict after a hard-fought three-week trial," said Durnell's attorney, Wylie Blair.

The verdict ends a winning streak for the company, which has seen it win in the previous nine roundup trials. The trial was the first to prove that other chemicals besides the main ingredient glyphosate could cause cancer, Blair said. Bayer announced in a statement that it would appeal.

Bayer has been dogged by Roundup-related lawsuits since it acquired the brand as part of a $63 billion takeover of seed and herbicide maker Monsanto Co. in 2018. The German company claims that decades of studies have shown that Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate pose no danger to humans. Bayer settled most of the Roundup lawsuits against the company in 2020 for up to $10,9 billion, but still faces nearly 40 Roundup-related lawsuits.

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Energy transition | Communication | Agriculture

Leaps in development in the Global South:

Just skip mistakes

Western industrialized countries have not only screwed up a lot in terms of energy policy. What the Global South does better.

The Global North is now expanding solar and wind energy, but before that it dug out its coal mines. Countries in the Global South are partially skipping the fossil era. This phenomenon is called leapfrogging. It means that inefficient, polluting and costly developments are left out. Three examples of developmental leaps of this kind.

Energy transition: Renewable mini-networks instead of coal giants

Communication: Smart phones instead of long lines

Agriculture: More harvest without farm deaths

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Israel | Responsibility | Holocaust

Israel War: You Germans have betrayed your “responsibility arising from the Holocaust”.

Israeli journalist Amira Hass to Chancellor Scholz: “Your job is to stop the campaign of destruction.” Here is her complete message in German.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said a week ago: "The suffering and distress of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip will only increase. Hamas is also responsible for that."

But is there a limit to this increasing suffering, given that you and your colleagues in the West have fully supported Israel? Will you accept that 2.000 Palestinian children are killed? Do you consider 80.000 elderly people who might have died of dehydration if water supplies from Israel had not been restored a legitimate increase in suffering?

They also said: "Our own history, our responsibility arising from the Holocaust, makes it our constant task to stand up for the existence and security of the State of Israel. This responsibility guides us." But, Mr. Scholz, there is a contradiction between this sentence and the one quoted above.

“Suffering and distress will increase” is a blank check for a wounded, injured Israel that is allowed to annihilate, destroy and kill without restraint, risking us and risking embroiling us all in a regional war, if not a third World War, which would also endanger Israel's survival, its security and existence...

Current news+

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Climate change | Municipal utilities | Lobbying Association

Municipal utilities are leaving the Future Gas lobby association

Municipal utilities are committed to the common good. Nevertheless, dozens pay high contributions to the natural gas lobby association Zukunft Gas. Some have now canceled their membership. CORRECTIV had previously made their payments public.

A quarter of the almost 100 municipal utilities and regional energy suppliers that were members of the gas lobby association Zukunft Gas have left. Most recently, Stadtwerke am See in Friedrichshafen, Stadtwerke Eutin and Gelsenwasser Energienetze GmbH, which manages the gas networks of four dozen cities and municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia, announced their resignations. The transparency initiative Lobbycontrol announced this in a press release on Monday.

For months, Lobbycontrol, together with the environmental protection initiative 350.org, the Munich Environmental Institute and the WeiterSo! collective, has been campaigning against the membership of municipal utilities in the association. CORRECTIV reported in February that municipal utilities and regional energy suppliers made up a good half of the 128 members of Zukunft Gas. Only a few of the mostly municipal companies wanted to disclose how much money they had paid to the lobby association during their membership. According to CORRECTIV research, these are four to six-figure amounts – per year.

Municipal utilities paid millions to the gas lobby association

In total, over the years, millions of euros have flowed from Stadtwerke customers into campaigns and advertising in the interests of gas companies. The municipal utilities' lobbying commitment is one-sided: in the Federal Association of Renewable Energy, only two of the 52 members are municipal utilities.

Christina Deckwirth from Lobbycontrol demands that municipal utilities “stop allowing themselves to be harnessed to the lobbying cart of the gas companies.” The public welfare mandate must clearly take precedence over one-sided fossil lobby interests. Now 21 municipal utilities have confirmed their termination. Others have disappeared from the association's website. Lobby control speaks of a “wave of exits”.

Energy supplier Frankfurt am Main is sticking to its membership

In some cases, the municipal utilities supported the work of the influential lobby association for years. This represents one of the most climate-damaging energies: burning natural gas is a central cause of global warming. Dozens of municipal utilities and regional energy suppliers are still among the almost 120 members of Zukunft Gas.

Mainova AG in Frankfurt am Main, one of the largest regional energy suppliers in Germany, is also one of them. The environmental organization Klimaattac demanded this in a petition in the summer.

But the Frankfurt city administration rejects the request. She told the Frankfurter Rundschau that the exchange with energy associations “contributes to the success of important reform projects, such as the energy and heat transition.” “Ultimately, the city of Frankfurt and thus the people and the Frankfurt economy benefit on the way to more climate protection” from Mainova’s involvement in the Future Gas Association, among others.

She did not want to make it transparent how much money Mainova pays the lobby association.

Natural gas lobby fights for its market

Zukunft Gas is one of the most influential lobby associations in the gas and oil industry. In addition to the municipal utilities, companies such as Shell, GASAG and Wintershall are listed as members on the Zukunft Gas website. Gazprom also paid the association.

With campaigns and direct influence through personal meetings with politicians, the gas lobby has contributed to Germany relying on climate-damaging natural gas from Russia for decades and the installation of natural gas heaters remains possible in the new heating law - as long as they are "h2-ready" so they could be converted to process hydrogen. This option is considered unsafe by experts and can be seen as the latest success of the gas lobby.

Background knowledge

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The map of the nuclear world

Prices, profits and risks increase...

The internal search for

Climate change | Municipal utilities | Lobbying Association

brought the following results, among others:

September 16, 2023 - California sues world's largest oil companies over climate change

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July 28, 2023 - Exit now: How municipal utilities are rebelling against the powerful gas lobby

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February 22, 2023 - Natural gas: How municipal utilities finance the gas lobby

YouTube

Lobbying

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Lobbyismus
 

SimplySchool - July 10, 2020 - 4:13

Lobbying explained simply

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Terra X Lesch & Co - March 13, 2019 - 8:17

Harald Lesch on the limits of lobbying

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ARTE Info Plus - March 3, 2023 - 13:06 p.m

Europe: Should lobbies be banned?
 

Playlist - radioactivity worldwide ...

This playlist contains over 150 videos on the topic

The search engine Ecosia is planting trees!

Lobbying

https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=Lobbyismus
 

Federal Agency for Civic Education

Threat to democracy or pluralistic dynamics?

The opposite poles of assessment and conclusions on the subject of lobbying

A hotel entrepreneur donates millions in the state and federal election campaigns to two parties that soon form a coalition at the federal level. Shortly after the federal election, the new government decided to reduce the VAT rate for the major donor's business. That actually sounds more like “lobbyocracy” than rule by the people. A famous and momentous individual example from the recent history of the Federal Republic of Germany, because the process contributed to the fact that the FDP, later derisively referred to as the "Mövenpick Party", was no longer elected to parliament in the following Bundestag election. After all, this failure of the FDP at the five percent hurdle already speaks against the thesis of the carefree rule of certain lobbies. At least with a certain time lag and for some of the actors - the CSU was also responsible for tax relief for hoteliers, but, unlike the FDP, did not come into the limelight of public criticism - too much influence on politics can backfire.

The influence of interest groups in politics is regularly reported in the media. Most recently, in the dispute over the transatlantic free trade agreement TTIP between the United States and the EU, there was a debate about whether and to what extent industry-friendly elements such as the establishment of international private arbitration tribunals in this and similar agreements undermine democracy in Germany and the other EU member states, but also in the USA, undermine. The public reacted with outrage to reports about the limited opportunities for parliamentarians to find out about the status of the negotiations. Negotiations that were apparently conducted with strong consideration of the interests of affected companies and their associations...

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Wikipedia

Lobbying

Lobbying, lobbying or lobbying is a term taken from English (lobbying) for the representation of interests in politics and society, in which interest groups (“lobbies”) attempt to influence the executive or legislative branches, primarily by maintaining personal connections. Lobbying also influences public opinion through public relations work. This happens primarily through the mass media. Common terms for lobbying include public affairs, political communication and political consulting. Companies and organizations sometimes have an office or representative office in the capital, but also offices with the state governments.

Lobbying is an aspect of the public policy-making process in democracies and is not an inherently immoral practice. Bringing interests to decision-makers is an essential feature of parliamentary democracy and can be assigned to the intermediary area between citizens and the state. In order to be able to make decisions in the overall interest of society, politicians must inform themselves about highly complex issues and content. They rely on well-prepared information and arguments from various interest groups. Vice versa, interest groups enter into dialogue with politicians in order to influence political decision-making processes.

It is critically noted that lobbying only has a positive impact on the democratic quality of a state if it adheres to regulatory codes of conduct or is as transparent as possible. The ideal image of lobbying is clouded in particular by lobbying affairs (lobby affairs for short). In these cases, politicians in positions of power are usually bribed with money by companies in order to make policies in the interests of their donors. In such cases, lobbying is a form of corruption.

The term lobbying therefore often has a negative connotation, so that the respective interest representatives (lobbyists) rarely use this term, but instead use euphemistic terms such as consultant, public affairs manager or policy advisor...

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Newsletter XLII 2023 - October 15rd to 21th

Newspaper article 2023

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