SCI-FI-TEK

Japanese experimental nuclear fusion reactor inaugurated

Agence France-Presse
December 1, 2023

The world's biggest experimental nuclear fusion reactor in operation was inaugurated in Japan on Friday, a technology in its infancy but billed by some as the answer to humanity's future energy needs (Handout)

The world's biggest experimental nuclear fusion reactor in operation was inaugurated in Japan on Friday, a technology in its infancy but billed by some as the answer to humanity's future energy needs.

Fusion differs from fission, the technique currently used in nuclear power plants, by fusing two atomic nuclei instead of splitting one.

The goal of the JT-60SA reactor is to investigate the feasibility of fusion as a safe, large-scale and carbon-free source of net energy -- with more energy generated than is put into producing it.

The six-storey-high machine, in a hangar in Naka north of Tokyo, comprises a donut-shaped "tokamak" vessel set to contain swirling plasma heated up 200 million degrees Celsius (360 million degrees Fahrenheit).

It is a joint project between the European Union and Japan, and is the forerunner for its big brother in France, the under-construction International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

The ultimate aim of both projects is to coax hydrogen nuclei inside to fuse into one heavier element, helium, releasing energy in the form of light and heat, and mimicking the process that takes place inside the Sun.

Researchers at ITER, which is over budget, behind schedule and facing major technical problems, hope to achieve nuclear fusion technology's holy grail, net energy.

Sam Davis, deputy project leader for the JT-60SA, said the device will "bring us closer to fusion energy".

"It's the result of a collaboration between more than 500 scientists and engineers and more than 70 companies throughout Europe and Japan," Davis said at Friday's inauguration.

EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said the JT-60SA was "the most advanced tokamak in the world", calling the start of operations "a milestone for fusion history".


"Fusion has the potential to become a key component for energy mix in the second half of this century," Simson added.

The feat of "net energy gain" was managed last December at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States, home to the world's largest laser.

The US facility uses a different method to ITER and the JT-60SA known as inertial confinement fusion, in which high-energy lasers are directed simultaneously into a thimble-sized cylinder containing hydrogen.


The US government called the result a "landmark achievement" in the quest for a source of unlimited, clean power and an end to reliance on carbon-emitting fossil fuels that cause climate change as well as geopolitical upheaval.

Unlike fission, fusion carries no risk of catastrophic nuclear accidents -- like that seen in Fukushima in Japan in 2011 -- and produces far less radioactive waste than current power plants, its exponents say.

‘Real estate’ for corals: Swiss organization builds artificial reefs with art, tech
Agence France-Presse
December 1, 2023 

Rrreefs cofounder Marie Griesmar is seen diving next to the organisation’s prototype installed off the coast of the island of San Andrés, Colombia, in September 2021.

© Leila Tazi

In the depths of Lake Geneva, near Switzerland’s second-largest city, a team of divers began work on an underwater castle – a marine palace fit for corals.

Rrreefs, a Zurich-based organization founded in October 2020 that designs artificial coral reefs in clay using a 3D printer is an ecological project that combines art, science and new technologies.

Stacked on a platform, the clay sculptures looked like dungeons waiting to be sent to the bottom of the sea. Ochre in hue with ribbed surfaces, they were soft to the touch and weighed 7 kilograms. They have been carefully designed to collect coral larvae carried by ocean currents. When encrusted, these tiny animals can develop the hard skeletons that eventually form a natural reef.

Although coral reefs make up just a modest portion of the seabed, 25 percent of underwater life depends on these fragile structures. Their benefits are manifold: Reefs serve as a refuge, a breeding ground and a source of food for fish, and protect coastlines from erosion.

Clay bricks, designed by Rrreefs, that are intended to form artifical coral reefs. The organisation tested its new-generation bricks in Lake Geneva on September 10, 2023.

© Pauline Grand d'Esnon

Maintaining corals’ resistance to global warming

Mountains of coral – jewels of the natural world – are disintegrating due to overfishing, water pollution and marine heatwaves. Half of them have died over the past 40 years

"When stressed, corals expel the symbiotic algae that feeds them and starve to death," explained Rrrefs co-founder Marie Griesmar, sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with a fish.

She stretched out a hand to her co-founder Hanna Kuhfuss, hampered by her wetsuit, to lift her out of the water.

Rrreefs does not claim to stop the coral disintegrating but it is on a mission to offer shelter to surviving larvae and give coral reefs a second chance to grow and take in other living organisms.

"I'm an estate agent for special animals," Griesmar said with a smile.

“What I like about our project is that it uses a passive restoration method,” explained Kuhfuss, a marine biologist by training. “Other coral preservation systems use cloning, but if one of the organisms is sick, it affects them all. Our technique lets nature take its course, encouraging the development of the offspring of corals best adapted to global warming. By relying on natural reproduction, we can maintain their resistance.”

Four complementary talents

Rrreefs draws on the talents of four different people. The idea for the project was first sparked at Swiss technology institute ETH Zurich, where Griesmar, an art student, was thinking about how she could connect her passions for art and diving. She crossed paths with Ulrike Pfreundt, a scientist specialising in the preservation of tropical ecosystems, who was doing her final-year project on the effects of currents on artificial structures.

They began to talk about their plans/dreams for ocean preservation. They were then joined by Josephine Graf, who helped Pfreundt to develop the organisation and find customers. Marine biologist Kuhfuss was the fourth person to join the group. Rrreefs was founded in late 2020.

Rrreefs’ first attempts were encouragingly successful. Their first trial, launched in the Maldives with 100 clay bricks of various shapes, began to prosper. "These larvae settle in, and the moment they do, this system attracts a whole community: spores, fish," said Kuhfuss. "And a balanced ecosystem develops, where the sea urchins eat the algae, and so on. In three months, we had almost as many fish as a natural reef!"

The prototype designed by Rrreefs, here photographed after its installation in October 2022, is already occupied by corals and marine life. 

© Aldahir Cervantes

With crowdfunding, Rrreefs then launched its first complete prototype, made up of 228 bricks, in partnership with local scientists in Colombia. "The teams on site call it El Castillo! (the castle)" said Griesmar proudly.

The goal of Sunday’s operation near Geneva was not to attract corals, which live quite far from Swiss lakes. Rather, it was to test their new products in real-life conditions: new-generation bricks that are larger and heavier, with a view to a new installation in the Philippines that just received the green light.

Nothing was left to chance in the bricks’ design: their porousness, shape and colour are the result of three years of testing. "We chose a natural colour that resembles red-violet algae. It’s the visual indicator of a healthy substrate," explained Griesmar. The bricks fit together thanks to a protrusion on each side, similar to a small chimney. Like a children’s game, all you have to do is put them together.
‘To make an impact, you need money’

In the lake, things were heating up. Part of the team planted anchors at the bottom to install platforms that will house the reefs. On the surface, volunteers lowered brick after brick into the water by rope. At a depth of just a few meters, a diver picked them up, placed them on a platform and took them to the reef assembly site.

However, real-life testing has its share of surprises. "We can't see anything down there, we got lost! It took us twenty minutes to find the others," said Mauro Bischoff, the latest addition to the permanent Rrreefs team, as he removes his diving mask.

The activity in the lake – divers hammering the bottom to install the anchors, and bathers higher up – clouded visibility underwater. It’s time for Plan B: the team unrolls a long red cord from the platform to the marker buoy, so that divers can spot each other from the bottom. "There are always things we don't plan," jokes Griesmar. "We have to be creative!"

The team, whose average age is barely 30, is comprised mostly of Swiss nationals who converse in English, German or French. Leaning over a black waterproof notebook with sketches that accompany them underwater, Griesmar and Bischoff examine a miniature version of their marine castle.

Bischoff, who has a tribal neck tattoo under his mullet and a twinkle in his eye, is also an art student. He met Griesmar at ETH Zurich, and devoted his final-year project to designing an improved version of the Rrreefs structures. Around them, a handful of volunteers supported the small team, transporting bricks, filming the work and solving problems.

Busy with full-scale tests, appeals for donations, winning prizes and recruiting customers, Rrreefs is at a crossroads and preparing to become a company. It is the only way, according to its founders, to generate the money needed for its expansive ambitions.

"We're going to retain the organisation to do research, but to have an impact, you need money," said Griesmar. The co-founders, who make collegial decisions about all the developments of their projects, envisage partnerships with hotel chains. "It would be great to raise awareness among tourists (and) show them this project," she explained.

A Belgian couple stopped to admire the miniature reef. Griesmar paused her preparations to talk about Rrreefs once more. "This project isn't just about doing a good deed. It comes from the heart," she said.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

Traffic exhaust could increase blood pressure, study finds
2023/11/30

Research has already established that exposure to car fumes can lead to increased risk of stroke or heart attack. 

- Welcomia/Dreamstime/TNS

SEATTLE — Even brief exposure to highway pollution could cause significant increases in blood pressure, a new study from the University of Washington has found, adding to a growing body of work correlating vehicle exhaust with negative health outcomes.

The effects are near immediate: Two hours in Seattle’s rush hour was enough to increase blood pressure by nearly 5 millimeters of mercury, a jump that would push someone with normal levels to elevated or from elevated levels to stage 1 hypertension.

The peer-reviewed study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was conducted by a team at the UW, led by Dr. Joel Kaufman, a university physician and professor of environmental and occupational health sciences. The increase, he said, was about what you’d expect to see in someone who switched from a low-salt to high-salt diet.

“It’s a real interesting, important number that if you think of millions of people having this exposure every day, that’s moving a lot of people from the normal to the high blood pressure range,” Kaufman said. “That has a lot of impact on the risk of heart attacks and strokes.”

At a micro level, the study suggests a need for improved filtration in vehicles; absent a HEPA filter, most cars fail to catch possibly harmful particles piped in from the outside.

On a broader level, it’s another data point in a larger conversation around how the country’s highway system harms those whose daily lives are shrouded in tailpipe fumes. Low-income and working-class communities, often with large populations of people of color, are disproportionately likely to live near major highways. When the highway system was built to begin with, it was often through well-established Black or Latino neighborhoods.

“The big issue here is not just about being in the car,” said Kaufman. “The big issue is that lots of people breathe traffic-related air pollution. That could be walking or biking or living, and historically these major roadways were cut right through low-income areas.”

Research has already established that exposure to car fumes can lead to increased risk of stroke or heart attack. And some lab-based work has suggested blood pressure spikes may be a factor.

The UW team took the question further. To start, they tested participants in a closed setting — piping small amounts of diesel fumes into a room and measuring blood pressure. They saw a bump in blood pressure among the roughly 40 participants.

But that setting, the team concluded, was more likely to test occupational exposure to exhaust, rather than more typical ambient highway pollution.

So the team moved the experiment to the streets. Using a Dodge Caravan equipped with advance filtration and monitors, a driver carted each participant — screened to exclude most confounding factors — through Seattle’s rush hour traffic for two hours on three different occasions. On two of the drives, the air was unfiltered; on one, it was filtered. The participants did not know which was which.

Researchers found that, during the unfiltered drives, the blood pressure increases were similar to those seen in the lab, of just under 5 millimeters of mercury.

This was a surprise even to the research team because the number of particles measuring 2.5 micrometers in diameter or less — which are measured to gauge air quality and are high during wildfire season — was less than in the lab setting.

However, the number of ultrafine particles measuring 0.1 micrometers or less — which do not show up on air quality reports — was roughly the same. That suggests the tiniest particles may be closely tied to blood pressure increases.

The study, funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Institutes of Health, was small, a limitation noted by the Annals of Internal Medicine. Just 13 participants returned usable data. However, Kaufman said he’s confident in the statistical significance because the study is comparing people to themselves.

As for what’s happening in the body, Kaufman speculated it was a mini fight-or-flight reaction — that when the small particles entered someone’s lungs or bloodstream, the body would perceive them as a threat.

What the blood pressure jump means long term, if anything, is unclear. However, after 24 hours, participants still had elevated levels.

Environmental inequities, often the result of highway placement, have received increased attention in recent years. As part of its massive infrastructure bill, the Biden administration set aside $1 billion for communities that were upended by highway construction and whose residents still breathe the toxic results. It’s a pittance when compared to the issue, but an acknowledgment that the issue is in fact real.

_____

© The Seattle Times

On World AIDS Day, DOJ says Tennessee law discriminates against those with HIV

Matt Keeley, The New Civil Rights Movement
December 2, 2023 

AIDS Ribbon on Gate AFP

The DOJ released a report Friday that the state's aggravated prostitution law violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. A person arrested under the aggravated prostitution law is normally changed with a misdemeanor, and faces up to six months in prison and a $500 fine. However, if the person arrested has HIV, the crime becomes a felony, and if they're convicted, they would face between three and 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

“Tennessee’s aggravated prostitution law is outdated, has no basis in science, discourages testing and further marginalizes people living with HIV,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “People living with HIV should not be treated as violent sex offenders for the rest of their lives solely because of their HIV status. The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that people with disabilities are protected from discrimination.”

READ MORE: Activists Arrested After AIDS Funding Protest in Kevin McCarthy’s Office

The law was originally passed in 1991. It classifies HIV-positive sex workers as violent sex offenders, according to WKRN-TV. This means that in addition to the sentence, those convicted are put on the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry, usually for the rest of their lives.

The DOJ advised the state—and particularly, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, which enforces the statute most frequently, the department says—to stop enforcing the law. It also calls on the state to repeal the law and remove anyone from the registry when aggravated prostitution is the only offense. If this doesn't happen, Tennessee could face a lawsuit.

Tennessee isn't the only state to have laws applying to only those living with HIV. In 1988, Michigan passed a law requiring those with HIV to disclose their status before sex, according to WLNS-TV. The law is still on the books, but was updated in 2019 to lift the requirement if the HIV-positive person has an undetectable viral load. The law now also requires proof that the person set out to transmit HIV

Laws like these can work against public health efforts, according to the National Institutes of Health. The NIH says these types of laws can make people less likely to be tested for HIV, as people cannot be punished if they didn't know their status. In addition, critics say, the laws can be used to further discriminate. A Canadian study found a disproportionate number of Black men had been charged under HIV exposure laws.

World AIDS Day was first launched in 1988 by the World Health Organization and the United Nations to highlight awareness of the then-relatively new disease. The theme of the 2023 World AIDS Day is "Let Communities Lead," calling on community leaders to end the AIDS epidemic.

WAR CRIMINAL ESCAPES JUSTICE

'My blood boils': Kissinger's bitter legacy in Southeast Asia

Bangkok (AFP) – As global tributes to late US diplomat Henry Kissinger poured in, his death stirred fury across Southeast Asia.

Issued on: 02/12/2023

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger at a ceremony honoring his diplomatic career in 2016 at the Pentagon 

© Brendan Smialowski / AFP


Homage has been paid to Kissinger's realpolitik and intellectual heft as secretary of state to US presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

But in Southeast Asia, millions have remembered when the United States bombed swathes of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War, an onslaught ordered by Kissinger and Nixon.

"Every single time I hear Kissinger's name, my blood boils," Sera Koulabdara, who fled Laos with her family at age six, told AFP.

The bombing was a failed attempt to disrupt rebel movements and strengthen Washington's hand as it pulled out of Vietnam.

Koulabdara said her father remembered the bombing.

"He described it as a roaring rain, but instead of water, it was flames."

Laos became the world's most-bombed country per capita from 1964 to 1973 as the United States dropped more than two million tonnes of ordnance, equal to a plane load of bombs every eight minutes.

Since then, unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the impoverished country has killed or wounded at least 20,000 Laotians.

"The life-threatening problem that exists in Laos is a direct result of the US's barbaric decisions and one of the main architects, Kissinger," said Koulabdara, who heads advocacy group Legacies of War.

Demining work continues.

"Laos is still the country most polluted by cluster munitions in the world," said Reinier Carabain of Handicap International –- Humanity & Inclusion, an organisation that has destroyed nearly 47,000 pieces of UXO since 2006.

"Every day, civilians in a quarter of the villages in Laos run the risk of being killed or injured by explosive remnants".

'I am hopeless'

In neighbouring Cambodia, the bombing campaign helped fuel the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime, which killed about two million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979 in acts later ruled as genocide by the kingdom's UN-backed court.

Former leader Hun Sen had long called for Kissinger to be charged with war crimes.

UXO still litter the countryside, killing an estimated 20,000 Cambodians in the past four decades.

Heng Ratana, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, told AFP the decision to bomb "our beautiful country and peaceful people by destroying everything" was Kissinger's true legacy.

Henry Kissinger laughs during a press conference after the final communique on the Vietnam Peace Accords, signed by Kissinger and Le Duc Tho 

© - / AFP

"I am hopeless," said 60-year-old Cambodian Sam En, who was blinded and lost the use of both arms after he tried to remove a cluster bomb at his Kratie province home in 2014.

Sam En, who relies on his daughter for care, said he felt differently about Kissinger after his death.

"Before I felt angry. But now he has died, so as a Buddhist follower, I forgive him."
'Suffering'

In Vietnam, where some see Kissinger's rapprochement with China as paving Beijing's rise to dominance in the region, he leaves a complex legacy.

Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiations to end the Vietnam War, even though the conflict did not immediately finish and his North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, declined to accept the prize.

Pham Ngac, a former Vietnamese diplomat and interpreter for North Vietnam's delegation during the Paris Peace Accords © Nhac NGUYEN / AFP

Pham Ngac, an interpreter for North Vietnam during the Paris Peace Accords negotiation, called Kissinger an "outstanding" diplomat.

"He was the most... persuasive diplomat, to the benefit of the US," the 88-year-old former diplomat told AFP.

Neither the Vietnamese nor Cambodian governments responded to AFP requests for comment on Kissinger's death.

"He was the one that helped cause a lot of suffering for Vietnamese people," Tran Quy Tuyen, a soldier in Hanoi's air defence division between 1965 and 1973, told AFP.

"I guess many Vietnamese would say that he should have died years ago," the 78-year-old said.

© 2023 AFP

Chile, where Kissinger backed coup, remembers his 'moral wretchedness'
Agence France-Presse
December 1, 2023 


Henry Kissinger warmlArchivo General Histórico del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores

While leaders around the world remember Henry Kissinger fondly and praise him as a brilliant, hard-driving US statesman, the silence from Latin America is deafening.

"A man has died whose historical brilliance never managed to conceal his moral wretchedness," Chile's ambassador to the United States, Juan Gabriel Valdes, wrote on X, the former Twitter.

The envoy posted his acerbic remark after the death Wednesday of Kissinger, who greenlighted the 1973 coup that brought down Chile's elected socialist president and installed the rightwing dictatorship of general Augusto Pinochet.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric quietly reposted that X message, and the foreign minister said nothing at all about the man who dominated post-World War II US foreign policy and is often associated with "realpolitik" -- diplomacy driven by raw power and a country's self-interest.

Kissinger, first as national security adviser and then secretary of state under Richard Nixon (1969-1974) and Gerald Ford (1974-1977), was instrumental in the establishment of ties between the United States and China and in expanding the war in Vietnam to Cambodia and Laos.

But he also approved the putsch in which Pinochet overthrew president Salvador Allende, and was key in backing other authoritarian regimes in Latin America, such as in Brazil and Nicaragua.

"For Kissinger, Latin America was a piece on the global geostrategic chessboard. His only priority was the war against communism. All other considerations were of little importance," said Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank, and a professor at Georgetown University.

"In that context, Kissinger was indifferent to human rights violations under military governments in the region," he added.

Kissinger played a prominent role in destabilizing the Allende government, bringing it down and then supporting the Pinochet dictatorship, which ran from 1973 to 1990.

In 1970, before Allende was elected, Kissinger said: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

He said this to the 40 Committee, a multi-agency US government body that approved covert operations.

- Fear of contagion -

Declassified CIA documents show that after Allende was elected in 1970, Kissinger oversaw disruptive operations designed to keep him from taking power, such as the attempted kidnapping of the army commander in chief, General Rene Schneider.


Schneider resisted, opening fire to defend himself, and was shot dead.

"Kissinger's obsession with Chile stemmed from the path that Allende had chosen to move toward his socialist utopia project," said Fernando Reyes Matta, a Chilean diplomat and former official of the Allende government.

This path involved democratic elections bringing socialists to power, the diplomat said.

"If this experiment succeeded to some extent, it could spread to countries in Italy such as Italy, France or Greece," said Reyes Matta.

After the US effort to keep Allende from taking power failed, and Allende actually assumed office, Kissinger rejected any notion of working with the new Chilean government.

And, rejecting advice from those around him, he pressed on with clandestine operations and tried to undermine the Chilean economy.

"Unfortunately Kissinger did not pay attention to the recommendation of his own team, such as Peter Vaky, his national security adviser, who stated clearly that Allende did not represent a mortal threat to the United States. So Kissinger's strategy was immoral and went against democratic values," said Shifter.

After Allende was overthrown on September 11, 1973 Kissinger -- who that same year shared the Nobel peace prize for leading the US side in talks to end the Vietnam war -- was a firm supporter of the brutal Pinochet regime.

"My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going communist," Kissinger told Pinochet in 1976.

Kissinger said this even though he was under pressure to call Pinochet out over human rights violations under his regime, which left some 3,200 people dead or missing.

Henry Kissinger: War criminal

Robert Reich
November 30, 2023 

Henry Kissinger has died, at the age of 100.

When a former high government official as well known as Kissinger passes, the conventional response is to say nice things about what they accomplished.

I’m sorry but I cannot. In my humble opinion, Kissinger should have been considered a war criminal.

One telling illustration was Kissinger’s role in overthrowing the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile, and encouraging the mass murder of hundreds of innocent Chileans.


On September 12, 1970, eight days after Allende’s election, Kissinger initiated a discussion on the telephone with CIA Director Richard Helms about a preemptive coup in Chile.

“We will not let Chile go down the drain,” Kissinger declared.

“I am with you,” Helms responded.

Three days later, Nixon, in a 15-minute meeting that included Kissinger, ordered the CIA to “make the [Chilean] economy scream,” and named Kissinger as the supervisor of the covert efforts to prevent Allende from being inaugurated.

Kissinger ignored a recommendation from his top deputy on the NSC, Viron Vaky, who strongly advised against covert action to undermine Allende.

On September 14, 1970, Vaky wrote a memo to Kissinger arguing that coup plotting would lead to “widespread violence and even insurrection.” He also argued that such a policy was immoral: “What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets .… If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us, e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S.? It is hard to argue this.”


After U.S. covert operations, which led to the assassination of Chilean Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces General Rene Schneider, failed to stop Allende’s inauguration on November 4, 1970, Kissinger lobbied Nixon to reject the State Department’s recommendation that the U.S. seek a modus vivendi with Allende.

While Schneider was dying in the Military Hospital in Santiago on October 22, 1970, Kissinger told Nixon that the Chilean military turned out to be “a pretty incompetent bunch.” Nixon replied: “They are out of practice,” according to documents released in August by the U.S. National Security Archive.

In an eight-page secret briefing paper that provided Kissinger’s clearest rationale for regime change in Chile, he emphasized to Nixon that “the election of Allende as president of Chile poses for us one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere” and “your decision as to what to do about it may be the most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you will make this year.”

Not only were a billion dollars of U.S. investments at stake, Kissinger reported, but so was what he called “the insidious model effect” of his democratic election.

There was no way for the U.S. to deny Allende’s legitimacy, Kissinger noted, and if he succeeded in peacefully reallocating resources in Chile in a socialist direction, other countries might follow suit.

“The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on — and even precedent value for — other parts of the world, especially in Italy; the imitative spread of similar phenomena elsewhere would in turn significantly affect the world balance and our own position in it.”

The next day Nixon made it clear to the entire National Security Council that the policy would be to bring Allende down. “Our main concern,” he stated, “is the prospect that he can consolidate himself and the picture projected to the world will be his success.”

In the days following the September 11, 1973, coup, Kissinger ignored the concerns of his top State Department aides about the massive repression by the new military regime. He sent secret instructions to his ambassador to convey to Pinochet “our strongest desires to cooperate closely and establish firm basis for cordial and most constructive relationship.”

When Kissinger’s assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs asked him what to tell Congress about the reports of hundreds of people being killed in the days following the coup, Kissinger issued these instructions: “I think we should understand our policy-that however unpleasant they act, this government is better for us than Allende was.”

The United States assisted the Pinochet regime in consolidating, through economic and military aid, diplomatic support and CIA assistance in creating Chile’s infamous secret police agency, DINA.

When Nixon complained about the “liberal crap” in the media about Allende’s overthrow, Kissinger advised him: “In the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes.”

At the height of Pinochet’s repression in 1975, Kissinger met with the Chilean foreign minister, Admiral Patricio Carvajal.

Rather than press the military regime to improve its human rights record, Kissinger opened the meeting by disparaging his own staff for putting the issue of human rights on the agenda.

“I read the briefing paper for this meeting and it was nothing but Human Rights,” Kissinger told Carvajal. “The State Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the ministry. Because there are not enough churches for them, they went into the Department of State.”

When Kissinger prepared to meet Pinochet in Santiago in June 1976, his top deputy for Latin America, William D. Rogers, advised him make human rights central to U.S.-Chilean relations and to press the dictator to “improve human rights practices.”

Instead, a declassified transcript of their conversation reveals, Kissinger told Pinochet that his regime was a victim of leftist propaganda on human rights. “In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here,” Kissinger told Pinochet. “We want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.”

The Chilean government has formally requested that the Biden administration publish documentation from 1973 and 1974 on what was said in the Oval Office before and after the coup led by Pinochet.

“We still don’t know what President Nixon saw on his desk the morning of the military coup,” Chile’s ambassador to the United States, Juan Gabriel Valdés, says. “There are details that remain of interest to [Chileans], that are important for us to reconstruct our own history.”

An appropriate response to Kissinger’s death would be for the U.S. to own up to the ] entirety of what Nixon and Kissinger wrought.

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/11/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-beloved-by.html

 

2024 Could be “Even More Brutal” for Container Carriers Warns Xeneta

Outlook for container carriers looks weak as rates remain low going into the 2024 contract renewals (file photo)

PUBLISHED NOV 30, 2023 7:28 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

 

The handwriting has been on the wall for some time with analysts warning that the container shipping segment was facing a prolonged period of hard times brought on by falling volumes, oversupply, and declining rates. Widely followed indicators such as the Drewry World Container Index have continued to fall and now Xeneta, the freight rate benchmarking and market analytics platform, warns that it sees an “ominous sign for carriers,” as long-term contracted rates continue to slide.

“The warning signs were already there, but the latest data from Xeneta suggests 2024 could be even more brutal than expected for carriers in the ocean freight shipping market,” the company writes in its latest market analysis. The Xeneta Shipping Index, which tracks developments in global long-term contracted rates, they reported fell by a further 4.7 percent in October and it is now 62.3 percent lower than in November 2022.

Xeneta Market Analyst Emily Stausbøll highlights however that this could be an even more ominous sign for carriers. She points out that older contracts are likely propping up the average, commitments that were signed in 2022 when rates were much higher. Stausbøll warns however the situation will get even worse as we enter 2024.

“Those older contracts will largely be replaced in the early part of next year and carriers will be left exposed to the current weak market,” says Stausbøll. She notes even at current levels four major carriers posted big financial losses in the third quarter of 2023. All the companies reported significant declines universally highlighting rates more than volumes as the key contributor.

Maersk, which has long been seen as a bellwether for the industry, warned in its third-quarter report that the industry needed rates to begin rebounding. The industry’s second-largest carrier, a large portion of Maersk’s business (68 percent) is on long-term contracts. Speaking to investors Vincent Clerc, CEO of Maersk highlighted the upcoming contract negotiations with shippers warning that if spot rates did not improve it could lead to “a pretty dire situation in 2024.”

Drewry in its most recent index report issued today, November 30, highlights that while the composite index remained stable at $1,382 this week, it has dropped by 40 percent when compared with the same week last year. They noted it stands down three percent compared to the pre-pandemic average in 2019 and year-to-date is nearly $1,000 lower than the 10-year average.

“We always knew there was a storm coming in Q1 2024 when the older contracts expired, but it seems as though it has arrived earlier than expected,” says Xeneta. “We can be absolutely certain the new contracts will be signed at much lower rates than those signed at this time last year, so if carriers are already reporting losses, what are they going to be next year? We could be talking about extremely big numbers.”

Xeneta sees some positive signs noting that long-term rates remain up by 39.5 percent compared to November 2020. With limited prospects for a strong rebound in rates, they believe carriers will have to get more aggressive in capacity management to avoid the potential of catastrophic financial losses in 2024.

 

India Moves Ahead With Plans for Mega-Port in Nicobar Islands

A forest reserve on Great Nicobar (Prasun Goswami / CC BY SA 4.0)

PUBLISHED NOV 26, 2023 10:32 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

India’s government has announced progress in the construction of the proposed International Container Transshipment Port (ICTP) at Galathea Bay, on Great Nicobar Island. This follows a visit last week by the Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Shri Sarbananda Sonowal, who held a review meeting on the construction timeline of the project.

At an estimated cost of over $5 billion, ICTP is envisaged as a key project under India’s newly launched Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 - a strategic blueprint by the Indian government to spur maritime development in the country. The development of ICTP is anchored primarily on its strategic location, 40 nautical miles from the lucrative Colombo-Singapore route via Malacca Strait. Further, the terminal will have a natural water depth of over 20 meters, suitable to handle the largest container ships.

“This project will be a major landmark in developing India to become a self-reliant nation and will support economic development of the country,” said Shri Sonowal.

In November 2022, the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued an environmental clearance for the project. A forest clearance for the project site has also been obtained.

Recently, the Ministry of Finance granted “In-Principle” approval for the ICTP development. With this, it is expected that the tenders for the construction of the first phase of the project will be announced early next year, according to a statement by the Ministry of Ports and Waterways (MoPSW). The terminal is expected to be developed in four phases until 2058 and will have a capacity to handle 16 million TEUs per year at full buildout.

For years, India’s maritime sector has been hobbled by poor port infrastructure. Nearly 75 percent of India’s transshipped cargo is handled outside the country at Colombo, Singapore and Port Klang.

To reverse this situation, MoPSW established the Sagarmala Program, identifying 574 projects across the areas of port modernization and new port development. This includes creation of three megaports from the country’s existing port clusters and two new major ports with a capacity for over 500 million tons per year. ICTP is one of these major new port projects.

In October, Adani Ports inaugurated Vizhinjam, hailed as India’s first deep-water port. The port is designed to position the country as a global transshipment hub.

Meanwhile, development of ICTP is not without controversy, as some are concerned with the scale of the project in a rather pristine island. The Great Nicobar Island is an ecological paradise hosting a unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems, which are also designated as UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. Further, the project site - Galathea Bay - is a nesting ground for the leatherback turtle. In this regard, environmentalists and scientists have raised questions over whether the damage to the biological and cultural heritage of the area can be mitigated by the project contractor.

 

Unions Schedule Strike Vote for Royal Navy’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary

UK unions have schedueld a strike vote for the civilian employees of the Royal Navy's RFA (file photo)

PUBLISHED NOV 30, 2023 6:24 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

 

The UK has experienced several very high-profile labor disputes hitting everything from railways to ports and the postal service, as it like the rest of the world emerges from the pandemic and feels the impact of high inflation. However, if the powerful trade union group Nautilus and the UK’s National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) follow through on the plans, the next strike would be the most high-profile of them all, the Royal Navy’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary, the civilian supply arm of the Navy.

Nautilus International, the union representing officers at the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), confirmed in an announcement today its intention to conduct a ballot for an industrial action. They plan to launch the ballot on December 6 seeking authorization to proceed with a strike against the RFA. The RMT, which says it represents about 500 RFA members, had in mid-October announced that it was planning to launch a strike authorization vote.

Nautilus says that alongside the RMT union, the two organizations began arbitration with the RFA using the UK’s advisory, conciliation, and arbitration service (ACAS) to resolve a pay dispute in the new contract. Because they have not reached what they call “a suitable resolution” and no improved offer has been made, Nautilus believes it has no option but to ballot for an industrial action. 

“Industrial action at the RFA will cause significant disruption and severely limit the UK’s naval capacity,” predicts Nautilus head of recruitment and membership Derek Byrne. “Nautilus members have clearly indicated their frustration at the latest offer of 4.5 percent concluding it does nothing to repair the damage done since 2010. Over a decade of pay restraint leading to significant real-term pay cuts has led to systemic barriers for the RFA to retain and recruit maritime professionals. This has, in turn, led to widespread poor morale across the workforce.”

The RFA is the civilian arm of the Royal Navy. The mariners are trained by the Royal Navy and the civilian-crewed ships, which include support and supply vessels and tankers, provide vital logistic and operational support to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. According to the Royal Navy, the RFA is the largest British employer of British non-military merchant navy sailors and personnel who have all the benefits that come from being Ministry of Defence-employed civil servants.

Nautilus reports that the latest offer was a 4.5 percent pay offer that falls far below the rate of inflation. Justifying their actions, they highlight that since 2010, RFA employees have faced what the unions say is a pay cut in real terms of over 30 percent. Nautilus contends the situation had led to significant challenges in recruitment and retention and low morale across the workforce.  

The union organizations are calling for “a pay increase reflective of the real terms pay cut since 2010 and the current high levels of inflation.” They contend that RFA members have consistently seen their pay fall below other services, such as the armed forces, police, fire, and ambulance.

 

UK Deploys One of its Most Advanced Vessels to the Middle East

HMS Diamond, one of the Royal Navy's most advanced vessels, is being deployed to the Middle East (Royal Navy)

PUBLISHED DEC 1, 2023 8:54 AM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

 

One of the Royal Navy’s most advanced vessels, the HMS Diamond, one of the six-member Type 45 destroyers launched a decade ago, is underway to the Middle East. The vessel departed Portsmouth a week ago the Royal Navy reports with a mission to strengthen patrols aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation, reassuring merchant vessels, and ensuring the safe flow of trade.

“Recent events have proven how critical the Middle East remains to global security and stability,” said UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps revealing the deployment on November 29. “From joint efforts to deter escalation, following the onset of the renewed conflict in Israel and Gaza, to now the unlawful and brazen seizure of MV Galaxy Leader by the Houthis in the Red Sea – it is critical that the UK bolsters our presence in the region, to keep Britain and our interests safe from a more volatile and contested world.”

The UK has already stepped up its presence in the region after Iranian vessels harassed merchant ships earlier this year. Shapps highlights the importance of the region noting that each day around 115 major merchant ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz and around 50 large merchant ships pass through the Bab-el-Mandeb connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. While the UK did not reveal the exact departure date, it appears to have come before the most recent incidents and the warning issued to shipping by the UK on Wednesday. 

The Diamond will be joining the HMS Lancaster, an older frigate (built in 1992) that has been deployed to the region since 2022. In addition, three mine hunting vessels, HMS Bangor, HMS Chiddingfold, and HMS Middleton, and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ship, RFA Cardigan Bay, are also deployed as part of the operation, helping to keep the vital trade routes of the Middle East open for business.

 

The Royal Navy said HMS Diamond departed last week (Royal Navy photo)

 

The Royal Navy highlights that the Diamond was dispatched on short notice. She had just completed three months of operations in Northern Europe with the UK’s Carrier Strike Group. She was providing air defense for the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.

The destroyer, which is 152 meters (498 feet) in length and displaces 7,350 tonnes, has a top speed of 30 knots. Commissioned in 2011, she carried a normal complement of more than 200 and has a range of 7,000 nautical miles.

The Royal Naval highlights the class was built for anti-aircraft and anti-missile warfare, equipped with some of the most sophisticated long-range and missile detection radar. The SAMPSON system lets the Diamond track threats from over 250 miles away as well as guide friendly missiles. The Sea Viper missile system can launch eight missiles in under 10 seconds and guide up to 16 missiles simultaneously. 

The Diamond is also carrying a Wildcat helicopter with Marlet air-to-surface missiles. The destroyer is armed with a 4.5-inch main gun as well as its sophisticated electronics. She expands the air coverage as the Lancaster is also equipped with a Wildcat helicopter which has been central to her activities since arriving in the region last year. According to the BBC, Lancaster is scheduled to remain on station in the Gulf region until at least 2025. 

 

Freighters Collide in Kerch Strait

Courtesy Shot / Telegram

PUBLISHED NOV 30, 2023 4:55 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Last week, Russian maritime safety authorities closed the Kerch Strait to navigation through November 30 due to severe stormy weather. On Wednesday, three merchant ships collided in a pileup in the strait - exactly the outcome that the closure was intended to avert. 

Video of the collision has circulated on social media. According to the Ukrainian Navy, the accident was caused by a "violation of water safety requirements."

"The Russian occupiers constantly neglect security requirements. They turn off, for example, the system of identification of ships in the area so that it is impossible to see how they violate international maritime law," said Ukrainian Navy spokesman Capt. Dmytro Pletenchuk in a radio interview (transcribed and translated by Ukrinform). 

Pletenchuk noted that the Kerch Strait Bridge's pylons create an artificially narrow passage through the strait, restricting transits between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. The construction makes it easier for Russia to control marine traffic, as its border service has previously done by maneuvering a freighter lengthways across the opening (in fair weather). 

A video of the collision shows two freighters stopped in close proximity to each other and rolling heavily. The bows of the two vessels make contact from the rolling at low speed. The extent of damage was not reported.

Ukrainian Telegram channel Shot identified the ships as the Matros Shevchenko and Matros Pozynich. The outlet said that after the collision, the two vessels drifted into an anchored ship, the Kavkaz-5. 

Russia's ferry operations across Kerch Strait have also been suspended because of the storm. The severe winter weather has caused multiple casualties and navigation closures around the region, affecting the ports and waterways from Russia to Turkey to Greece.