Military interests are pushing new nuclear power, and the UK government has finally admitted it

by Andy Stirling and Philip Johnstone, The Conversation

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The UK government has announced the "biggest expansion of the [nuclear] sector in 70 years." This follows years of extraordinarily expensive support.

Why is this? Official assessments acknowledge nuclear performs poorly compared to alternatives. With renewables and storage significantly cheaper, climate goals are achieved faster, more affordably and reliably by diverse other means. The only new power station under construction is still not finished, running ten years late and many times over budge

So again: why does this ailing technology enjoy such intense and persistent generosity?

The UK government has for a long time failed even to try to justify support for nuclear power in the kinds of detailed substantive energy terms that were once routine. The last properly rigorous energy white paper was in 2003.

Even before wind and solar costs plummeted, this recognized nuclear as "unattractive." The delayed 2020 white paper didn't detail any comparative nuclear and renewable costs, let alone justify why this more expensive option receives such disproportionate funding.

A document published with the latest announcement, Civil Nuclear: Roadmap to 2050, is also more about affirming official support than substantively justifying it. More significant—in this supposedly "civil" strategy—are multiple statements about addressing "civil and military nuclear ambitions" together to "identify opportunities to align the two across government."

These pressures are acknowledged by other states with nuclear weapons, but were until now treated like a secret in the UK: civil nuclear energy maintains the skills and supply chains needed for military nuclear programs.

The military has consistently called for civil nuclear

Official UK energy policy documents fail substantively to justify nuclear power, but on the military side the picture is clear.

For instance, in 2006 then prime minister Tony Blair performed a U-turn to ignore his own white paper and pledge nuclear power would be "back with a vengeance." Widely criticized for resting on a "secret" process, this followed a major three volume study by the military-linked RAND Corporation for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) effectively warning that the UK "industrial base" for design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear submarines would become unaffordable if the country phased out civil nuclear power.

A 2007 report by an executive from submarine-makers BAE Systems called for these military costs to be "masked" behind civil programs. A secret MoD report in 2014 (later released by freedom of information) showed starkly how declining nuclear power erodes military nuclear skills.

In repeated parliamentary hearings, academics, engineering organizations, research centers, industry bodies and trade unions urged continuing civil nuclear as a means to support military capabilities.

In 2017, submarine reactor manufacturer Rolls Royce even issued a dedicated report, marshaling the case for expensive "small modular reactors" to "relieve the Ministry of Defense of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability."

The government itself has remained coy about acknowledging this pressure to "mask" military costs behind civilian programs. Yet the logic is clear in repeated emphasis on the supposedly self-evident imperative to "keep the nuclear option open"—as if this were an end in itself, no matter what the cost. Energy ministers are occasionally more candid, with one calling civil-military distinctions "artifical" and quietly saying: "I want to include the MoD more in everything we do".

In 2017, we submitted evidence to a parliamentary public accounts committee investigation of the deal to build Hinkley Point C power plant. On the basis of our evidence, the committee asked the then MoD head (who—notably—previously oversaw civil nuclear contract negotiations) about the military nuclear links. His response:

We are completing the build of the nuclear submarines which carry conventional weaponry. We have at some point to renew the warheads, so there is very definitely an opportunity here for the nation to grasp in terms of building up its nuclear skills. I do not think that that is going to happen by accident; it is going to require concerted government action to make it happen.

This is even more evident in actions than words. For instance hundreds of millions of pounds have been prioritized for a nuclear innovation program and a nuclear sector deal which is "committed to increasing the opportunities for transferability between civil and defense industries."

An open secret

Despite all this, military pressures for nuclear power are not widely recognized in the UK. On the few occasions when it receives media attention, the link has been officially denied.

Other nuclear-armed states are also striving to maintain expensive military infrastructures (especially around submarine reactors) just when the civilian industry is obsolescing. This is true in the US, France, Russia and China.

Other countries tend to be more open about it, with the interdependence acknowledged at presidential level in the US for instance. French president Emmanuel Macron summarizes: "without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear."

This is largely why nuclear-armed France is pressing the European Union to support nuclear power. This is why non-nuclear-armed Germany has phased out the nuclear technologies it once lead the world in. This is why other nuclear-armed states are so disproportionately fixated by nuclear power.

These military pressures help explain why the UK is in denial about poor nuclear performance, yet so supportive of general nuclear skills. Powerful military interests—with characteristic secrecy and active PR—are driving this persistence.

Neglect of this picture makes it all the more disturbing. Outside defense budgets, off the public books and away from due scrutiny, expensive support is being lavished on a joint civil-military nuclear industrial base largely to help fund military needs. These concealed subsidies make nuclear submarines look affordable, but electricity and climate action more costly.

The conclusions are not self-evident. Some might argue military rationales justify excessive nuclear costs. But history teaches that policies are more likely to go awry if reasons are concealed. In the UK—where nuclear realities have been strongly officially denied—the issues are not just about energy, or climate, but democracy.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nuclear power has role to play, atomic energy head tells AFP at COP28

With ‘God’s-eye view,’ secretive surveillance flights keep close watch on Russia and Ukraine

A crew member analyzes data on a monitor aboard a French military AWACS surveillance plane as it flies a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. With a powerful radar that rotates six times a minute on top of the planes, AWACS can detect targets over hundreds of kilometers (miles). One AWACS can surveil an area the size of Poland; three can cover all of central Europe, NATO says. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

The commander of France’s AWACS squadron, a lieutenant colonel named Richard, talks to crew members aboard one of the four French surveillance planes as it flies a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. Because of French security concerns, The Associated Press was only able to identify him and other military personnel aboard the flight by their ranks and first names. Lt. Col. Richard said the powerful radars aboard AWACS surveillance planes give them a “God’s eye view.” (AP Photo/John Leicester)

A crew member is obscured by surveillance equipment that largely fills the fuselage of a French military AWACS surveillance plane as it flew a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. With a powerful radar dome that rotates six times a minute on top of the planes, AWACS can detect targets over hundreds of kilometers (miles). One AWACS can surveil an area the size of Poland; three can cover all of central Europe, NATO says. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

The commander of France’s AWACS squadron, a lieutenant colonel named Richard, talks to crew members aboard one of the four French surveillance planes as it flies a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. Because of French security concerns, The Associated Press was only able to identify him and other military personnel aboard the flight by their ranks and first names. Screens in the plane that display intelligence data were marked “secret.” (AP Photo/John Leicester)

The pilot of a French military AWACS surveillance plane operates cockpit equipment on a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. France’s four E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft are based on a modified Boeing 707 airframe. The pilot, who could only be identified by his rank and first name, Major Kevin, said commercial pilots sometimes express envy about him flying 707s, which first flew in 1957. Boeing 707s stopped flying passengers commercially in 2013. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

Crew members break for refreshments in the galley of a French military AWACS surveillance plane as it flies a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. France’s four AWACS are among a variety of surveillance aircraft, including unmanned UAV drones, that gather intelligence for NATO and its member nations (AP Photo/John Leicester)

The 26 military personnel aboard a French AWACS surveillance plane sported an array of badges as they flew a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. The flight from France to Romanian airspace and back again allowed the plane to peer with its electronic eyes across southern Ukraine and the Black Sea to Russian-occupied Crimea and beyond. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

Crew members analyze data on monitors aboard a French military AWACS surveillance plane as it flies a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. With a powerful radar that rotates six times a minute on top of the planes, AWACS can detect targets over hundreds of kilometers (miles). One AWACS can surveil an area the size of Poland; three can cover all of central Europe, NATO says. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

A crew member snaps a souvenir photo from the cockpit of a French military AWACS surveillance plane as it flies a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. During the 2024 Olympics in July and August, France’s AWACS will be used to provide an extra layer of radar surveillance over the Paris Games. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

Crew members debrief ground staff after a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, aboard a French Air Force AWACS surveillance plane that flew from the 702 Air Base in Avord, central France, to eastern Romania and back again. Circling around and around for hours on auto-pilot high in the skies of eastern Europe, secretive surveillance flights for NATO closely watch Russian activity along the military alliance’s eastern flank. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

BY JOHN LEICESTER
January 16, 2024


ABOARD A FRENCH AIR FORCE AWACS (AP) — Off in the distance, Ukraine, fighting for its survival. Seen from up here, in the cockpit of a French air force surveillance plane flying over neighboring Romania, the snow-dusted landscapes look deceptively peaceful.

The dead from Russia’s war, the shattered Ukrainian towns and mangled battlefields, aren’t visible to the naked eye through the clouds.

But French military technicians riding farther back in the aircraft, monitoring screens that display the word “secret” when idle, have a far more penetrating view. With a powerful radar that rotates six times every minute on the fuselage and a bellyful of surveillance gear, the plane can spot missile launches, airborne bombing runs and other military activity in the conflict.

As the second anniversary of Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine nears, The Associated Press obtained rare and exclusive access aboard the giant Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft. With 26 military personnel and an AP journalist aboard, it flew a 10-hour reconnaissance mission from central France to Romanian airspace and back, peering with electronic eyes across southern Ukraine and the Black Sea to Russian-occupied Crimea and beyond.

Circling on auto-pilot at 34,000 feet (10 kilometers), the plane with a proud cockerel painted on its tail fed intelligence in real time to ground-based commanders.

Its mission for NATO on the eastern flank of the 31-nation military alliance also, in effect, drew a do-not-cross line in European skies.

The plane’s sustained presence high above eastern Romania — seeing and also being seen by Russian forces — signaled how intensely NATO is watching its borders and Russia, ready if necessary to act should Russian aggression threaten to extend beyond Ukraine.

On a French AWACS flight, military personnel peer across southern Ukraine to Russian-occupied Crimea and beyond as they gather intelligence for NATO amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (AP Video/John Leicester)
SHIELDS FOR NATO, PIECES OF AVIATION HISTORY

Regular surveillance flights, together with fighter patrols, ground-based radar, missile batteries and other hardware at NATO’s disposal, form what the commander of France’s AWACS squadron described as “a shield” against any potential spill-over.

The “ultimate goal is, of course, no conflict and deterrence,” said the commander, a lieutenant colonel named Richard. Because of French security concerns, the AP was only able to identify him and other military personnel by their ranks and first names.

“We need to show that we have the shield, show to the other countries that NATO is collective defense,” he continued. “We have the ability to detect everywhere. And we are not here for a conflict. We are here to show that we are present and ready.”

France’s four AWACS are among a variety of surveillance aircraft, including unmanned UAV drones, that gather intelligence for NATO and its member nations. Lt. Col. Richard said the French E-3F-type AWACS see for hundreds of kilometers (miles) with their distinctive black-and-white rooftop radar domes, although he wouldn’t be precise.

The pilot of a French military AWACS surveillance plane operates cockpit equipment on a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

E-3s are modified Boeing 707s. The 707 first flew in 1957 but stopped carrying passengers commercially in 2013, so E-3s are also flying examples of aviation history.

“We can detect aircraft, we can detect UAVs, we can detect missiles and we can detect ships. That’s true, for sure, in Ukraine, especially when we are at the border,” Lt. Col. Richard said.

As the plane loitered and scanned, the crew detected a distant Russian AWACS above the Sea of Azov, many hundreds of kilometers away on the Crimean Peninsula’s eastern side. The Russian aircraft also seemingly spotted the French AWACS: Sensors along the fuselage picked up Russian radar signals.

“We know that they see us, they know that we see them. Let’s say that it’s some kind of a dialogue between them and us,” the French co-pilot, Major Romain, said.

HAWK-EYED AWACS ON CALL TO SAFEGUARD THE OLYMPICS

NATO also has its own fleet of 14 AWACS, also E-3s. They can detect low-flying targets within 400 kilometers (250 miles) and higher-flying targets another 120 kilometers (75 miles) beyond that, the alliance says. It says one AWACS can surveil an area the size of Poland; three can cover all of central Europe.

A crew member is obscured by surveillance equipment that largely fills the fuselage of a French military AWACS surveillance plane as it flew a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. (AP Photo/John Leicester)
The commander of France's AWACS squadron talks to crew members aboard one of the four French surveillance planes as it flies a 10-hour mission, Jan. 9, 2024, to eastern Romania for the NATO military alliance. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

Able to fly for 12 hours without refueling, French AWACS aren’t limited to surveillance, communications and air-traffic control missions for NATO. They expect to be deployed as part of the massive security operation for the Paris Olympics, providing additional radar surveillance with what Lt. Col. Richard called their “God’s-eye view.”

Russian pilots have at times made clear that they don’t like being watched.

In 2022, a Russian fighter jet released a missile near a British air force RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft that was flying in international airspace over the Black Sea, Britain’s government said. The U.S. government released video in March 2023 of a Russian fighter jet dumping fuel on a U.S. Air Force surveillance drone. The drone crashed into the Black Sea.

Rivet Joints are particularly capable spy planes, and Russian authorities “really hate” their ability to snoop on the Ukraine war, said Justin Bronk, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute defense think tank in London.

As well as gathering “real-time intelligence that theoretically could be shared with Ukrainian partners,” the planes also furnish “fantastic” insight about “how Russian forces actually operate in a real war,” Bronk said in a phone interview.

“So of course, the Russians are furious,” he said.



Crew members debrief ground staff after a 10-hour mission Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024, aboard a French Air Force AWACS surveillance plane that flew from the 702 Air Base in Avord, central France, to eastern Romania and back again. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

IN THE SKIES, REGULAR ENCOUNTERS

NATO also scrambles fighter jets to scope Russian flights. It says allied aircraft took to the skies more than 500 times in 2022 to intercept Russian aircraft that ventured close to NATO airspace. The number of such encounters dropped to more than 300 in 2023, according to the Brussels-headquartered alliance.

The strengthening of Ukrainian air defenses with Western weaponry may partly explain the decrease, with shoot-downs seemingly making Russian pilots warier. NATO observed reduced activity by manned Russian flights over the western Black Sea last year. NATO says “the vast majority of aerial encounters between NATO and Russian jets were safe and professional” and that Russian incursions into NATO airspace were rare and generally short.

Aboard the French flight, the co-pilot, Major Romain, said Russian planes haven’t intercepted a French AWACS “for a long time” and that if they did, French pilots would try to defuse any tension.

“Our orders are to be, let’s say, passive,” he said. “For a civilian, let’s say ‘polite.’”
___

Find more of AP’s coverage of Russia and Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraineussian pilots warier. NATO observed reduced activity by manned Russian flights over the western Black Sea last year. NATO says “the vast majority of aerial encounters between NATO and Russian jets were safe and professional” and that Russian incursions into NATO airspace were rare and generally short.

Aboard the French flight, the co-pilot, Major Romain, said Russian planes haven’t intercepted a French AWACS “for a long time” and that if they did, French pilots would try to defuse any tension.

“Our orders are to be, let’s say, passive,” he said. “For a civilian, let’s say ‘polite.’”
___

Find more of AP’s coverage of Russia and Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

In small-town Wisconsin, looking for the roots of the modern American conspiracy theory

A portrait of John Birch hangs in an office cubicle at the headquarters of the John Birch Society in Appleton, Wis., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. The once-powerful John Birch Society is largely forgotten today, relegated to a pair of squat buildings along a busy commercial street in small-town Wisconsin. But that is only part of their story. Because outside those cramped little offices is a national political landscape that the Society helped forge. (AP Photo/David Goldman)Read More

Executive Senior Editor Steve Bonta, left, and writer Daniel Natal, with the John Birch Society’s New American magazine, film a live broadcast at the organization’s headquarters in Appleton, Wis., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. Back when the Cold War was looming and TV was still mostly in black and white, the Society was a powerful presence in American life. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

CEO Bill Hahn watches a live broadcast from a production booth at the headquarters of the John Birch Society in Appleton, Wis., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

An employee walks through a library at the headquarters of the John Birch Society in Appleton, Wis., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

4 of 17 |


BY TIM SULLIVAN

January 21, 2024

APPLETON, Wis. (AP) — The decades fall away as you open the front doors.

It’s the late 1950s in the cramped little offices — or maybe the pre-hippie 1960s. It’s a place where army-style buzz cuts are still in fashion, communism remains the primary enemy and the decor is dominated by American flags and portraits of once-famous Cold Warriors.

At the John Birch Society, they’ve been waging war for more than 60 years against what they’re sure is a vast, diabolical conspiracy. As they tell it, it’s a plot with tentacles that reach from 19th-century railroad magnates to the Biden White House, from the Federal Reserve to COVID vaccines.

Long before QAnon, Pizzagate and the modern crop of politicians who will happily repeat apocalyptic talking points, there was Birch. And outside these cramped small-town offices is a national political landscape that the Society helped shape.

“We have a bad reputation. You know: ‘You guys are insane,’” says Wayne Morrow, a Society vice president. He is standing in the group’s warehouse amid 10-foot (3-meter) shelves of Birch literature waiting to be distributed.

“But all the things that we wrote about are coming to pass.”

___

Back when the Cold War loomed and TV was still mostly in black and white, the John Birch Society mattered. There were dinners at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and meetings with powerful politicians. There was a headquarters on each coast, a chain of bookstores, hundreds of local chapters, radio shows, summer camps for members’ children.

A chair sits at the end of a row of file cabinets at a library in the John Birch Society headquarters in Appleton, Wis., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Well-funded and well-organized, they sent forth fevered warnings about a secret communist plot to take over America. It made them heroes to broad swaths of conservatives, even as they became a punchline to a generation of comedians.

“They created this alternative political tradition,” says Matthew Dallek, a historian at George Washington University and author of “Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right.” He says it forged a right-wing culture that fell, at first, well outside mainstream Republican politics.

Conspiracy theories have a long history in the United States, going back at least to 1800, when secret forces were said to be backing Thomas Jefferson’s presidential bid. It was a time when such talk moved slowly, spread through sermons, letters and tavern visits.

No more. Fueled by social media and the rise of celebrity conspiracists, the last two decades have seen ever-increasing numbers of Americans lose faith in everything from government institutions to journalism. And year after year, ideas once relegated to fringe newsletters, little-known websites and the occasional AM radio station pushed their way into the mainstream.

CEO Bill Hahn points to articles of the Constitution in his office during an interview at the headquarters of the John Birch Society in Appleton, Wis., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Today, outlandish conspiracy theories are quoted by more than a few U.S. senators, and millions of Americans believe the COVID pandemic was orchestrated by powerful elites. Prominent cable news commentators speak darkly of government agents seizing citizens off the streets.

But the John Birch Society itself is largely forgotten, relegated to a pair of squat buildings along a busy commercial street in small-town Wisconsin.

So why even take note of it today? Because many of its ideas — from anger at a mysterious, powerful elite to fears that America’s main enemy was hidden within the country, biding its time — percolated into pockets of American culture over the last half-century. Those who came later simply out-Birched the Birchers. Says Dallek: “Their successors were politically savvier and took Birch ideas and updated them for contemporary politics.”

The result has been a new political terrain. What was once at the edges had worked its way toward the heart of the discourse.

To some, the fringe has gone all the way to the White House. In the Society’s offices, they’ll tell you that Donald Trump would never have been elected if they hadn’t paved the way.

Boxes of John Birch Society literature waiting to be distributed pamphlets and reports on a range of issues from COVID to inflation are stored in a warehouse at the headquarters of the John Birch Society in Appleton, Wis., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

“The bulk of Trump’s campaign was Birch,” Art Thompson, a retired Society CEO who remains one of its most prominent voices, says proudly. “All he did was bring it out into the open.”

There’s some truth in that, even if Thompson is overstating things.

The Society had spent decades calling for a populist president who would preach patriotism, oppose immigration, pull out of international treaties and root out the forces trying to undermine America. Trump may not have realized it, but when he warned about a “Deep State” — a supposed cabal of bureaucrats that secretly controls U.S. policy — he was repeating a longtime Birch talking point.

A savvy reality TV star, Trump capitalized on a conservative political landscape that had been shaped by decades of right-wing talk radio, fears about America’s seismic cultural shifts and the explosive online spread of misinformation.

While the Birch Society echoes in that mix, tracing those echoes is impossible. It’s hard to draw neat historical lines in American politics. Was the Society a prime mover, or a bit player? In a nation fragmented by social media and offshoot groups by the dozens, there’s just no way to be sure. What is certain, though, is this:

“The conspiratorial fringe is now the conspiratorial mainstream,” says Paul Matzko, a historian and research fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. “Right-wing conspiracism has simply outgrown the John Birch Society.”
___

Their beliefs skip along the surface of the truth, with facts and rumors and outright fantasies banging together into a complex mythology. “The great conspiracy” is what Birch Society founder Robert Welch called it in “The Blue Book,” the collection of his writings and speeches still treated as near-mystical scripture in the Society’s corridors.

Wayne Morrow, vice president of the John Society, walks past a world map hanging in a warehouse storing the organization’s literature, stickers and buttons at its headquarters in Appleton, Wis., Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Welch, a wealthy candy company executive, formed the Society in the late 1950s, naming it for an American missionary and U.S. Army intelligence officer killed in 1945 by communist Chinese forces. Welch viewed Birch as the first casualty of the Cold War. Communist agents, he said, were everywhere in America.

Welch shot to prominence, and infamy, when he claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the hero general of World War II, was a “dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” Also under Kremlin control, Welch asserted: the secretary of state, the head of the CIA, and Eisenhower’s younger brother Milton.

Subtlety has never been a strong Birch tradition. Over the decades, the Birch conspiracy grew to encompass the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, public education, the United Nations, the civil rights movement, The Rockefeller Foundation, the space program, the COVID pandemic, the 2020 presidential election and climate-change activism. In short, things the Birchers don’t like.

The plot’s leaders — “insiders,” in Society lexicon — range from railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt to former President George H.W. Bush and Bill Gates, whose vaccine advocacy is, they say, part of a plan to control the global population. While his main focus was always communism, Welch eventually came to believe that the conspiracy’s roots twisted far back into history, to the Illuminati, an 18th-century Bavarian secret society.

By the 1980s, the Society was well into its decline. Welch died in 1985 and the society’s reins passed to a series of successors. There were internal revolts. While its aura has waned, it is still a force among some conservatives — its videos are popular in parts of right-wing America, and its offices include a sophisticated basement TV studio for internet news reports. Its members speak at right-wing conferences and work booths at the occasional county fair.

Scholars say its ranks are far reduced from the 1960s and early 1970s, when membership estimates ranged from 50,000 to 100,000. “Membership is something that has been closely guarded since day one,” says Bill Hahn, who became CEO in 2020. He will only say the organization “continues to be a growing operation.

Today, the Society frames itself as almost conventional. Almost.

“We have succeeded in attracting mainstream people,” says Steve Bonta, a top editor for the Society’s New American magazine. The group has toned down the rhetoric and is a little more careful these days about throwing around accusations of conspiracies. But members still believe in them fiercely.

“As Mr. Welch came out with on Day One: There is a conspiracy,” Hahn says. “It’s no different today than it was back in December 1958.”

It can feel that way. Ask about the conspiracy’s goal, and things swerve into unexpected territory. The sharp rhetoric re-emerges and, once again, the decades seem to fall away.

“They really want to cut back on the population of the Earth. That is their intent,” Thompson says.

But why?

“Well, that’s a good question, isn’t it?” he responds. “It makes no sense. But that’s the way they think.”
___

Follow AP National Writer Tim Sullivan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ByTimSullivan

Waymo seeks to expand driverless service to Los Angeles

Reuters January 19, 2024


A Waymo rider-only robotaxi is seen during a test ride in San Francisco, California, U.S., December 9, 2022. 

REUTERS/Paresh Dave/FILE PHOTO 

Jan 19 (Reuters) - Waymo, Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab autonomous driving unit, said on Friday it had applied to the California Public Utilities Commission to expand its driverless service in Los Angeles.

A license would allow Waymo, which operates extensively in San Francisco, to fully operate its fleet in Los Angeles, California's largest city, where it is now testing rides, allowing new rides only by invitation.

The utilities commission did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

The company posted on social media platform X that it would work with Los Angeles policymakers, first responders and community organizations to launch its ride-hailing service. It did not provide details on when its service will go live.

Waymo said this month it would begin testing its fully autonomous passenger cars without a human driver on freeways in Phoenix, Arizona, where it now offers rides in the metropolitan area. The company also aims to operate in Austin, Texas.

The company last year pushed back its efforts to develop a commercial autonomous trucking technology soon after autonomous driving software came under strong regulatory scrutiny.

General Motors' Cruise driverless car unit paused all supervised and manual car trips in the U.S. last year after an accident led to the suspension of driverless vehicle operations.

Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard

AND SO IT BEGINS
UK Parcel Firm Disables AI After Poetic Bot Goes Rogue

By Reuters
Jan. 20, 2024

LONDON (Reuters) - A parcel delivery firm in Britain has disabled the artificial intelligence (AI) function in its online chat systems after a frustrated user coaxed the system into composing a poem about how bad the company's customer service was.

"There was once a chatbot named DPD, Who was useless at providing help," the bot wrote after Ashley Beauchamp gave up trying to get it to share a phone number for customer services and asked it to write a poem about bad chatbot service instead.

"DPD was a waste of time, And a customer's worst nightmare," the bot continued before concluding: "One day, DPD was finally shut down and everyone rejoiced. Finally they could get the help they needed, From a real person who knew what they were doing."

Beauchamp, a pianist and conductor, posted his exchange with the bot on social media platform X on Thursday, since when it has been viewed 1.1 million times.

He said he initially asked the bot to tell him a joke after failing to get information about the status of a parcel and when it did he asked it to write the poem about automated customer service failings. He also encouraged the bot to swear.

Beauchamp told ITV television he had still not received the parcel. "I think they might hold it hostage now. I wouldn't blame them," he said. "That's totally on me."

DPD UK said it had used an AI element within its chat system successfully for a number of years alongside its human customer service but an error had occurred after a system update.

"The AI element was immediately disabled and is currently being updated," the company said in a statement reported by ITV.


(Writing by William Schomberg; editing by David Evans)

AI and death: Sundance films grapple with our digital afterlife

By AFP
January 20, 2024

Sundance documentary 'Love Machina' follows eccentric SiriusXM founder Martine Rothblatt as she builds an AI-powered humanoid robot of her partner Bina -

AFP Neilson Barnard

Andrew MARSZAL

Artificial intelligence promises to make death “optional,” as the technology learns to perfectly emulate our personalities, memories and dreams, keeping a version of ourselves alive long after our physical bodies have perished.

But if rapidly improving AI achieves its lofty goal of digital immortality — as its advocates believe it can — will it be a force for good or for evil?

“Eternal You” and “Love Machina,” two new documentaries that premiered at the Sundance movie festival this weekend, grapple with the question, exploring AI’s relationship to death from very different perspectives.

One examines how predatory AI-powered startups are already profiting from the vulnerability of bereaved customers, cashing in on their desperation to “speak to” avatars of their deceased loved ones beyond the grave.

“Eternal You” begins with a woman sitting at a computer, typing out messages to her deceased partner, who replies that he is afraid.

“Why are you scared?” she asks.

“I’m not used to being dead,” the avatar responds.

Directors Moritz Riesewieck (left) and Hans Block attend the “Eternal You” premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. — © AFP

Directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck first stumbled upon a handful of startups offering the chance to chat with deceased loved ones back in 2018.

Initially wondering if it was a cheap scam, the pair chronicled how the technology soon caught up with the marketing, and the industry has exploded.

“I would say now there are thousands of services around the world offering these kinds of services,” said Riesewieck.

“And of course, Microsoft is collaborating with ChatGPT with OpenAI, and also Amazon took a look at what these startups are doing… it’s just a question of time.”

Customers upload data about their partner, parent or child, such as text messages and voice memos, which are used by AI to tailor responses.

The filmmakers found themselves empathizing with the customers after hearing their tragic stories of bereavement.

Western society is terrible at dealing with grief, they said, and technology can appear to fill the gap left by religion for many.

But the services can often become highly addictive.

And many companies are happy to profit off that addiction while absolving themselves of responsibility for the dependency and confusion they can create.

In some cases, the AI programs even go off the rails, or “hallucinate” — telling loved ones that they are trapped in hell, threatening to haunt them, or even abusing them with vulgar language.

“It’s definitely an open heart experiment. And we’re not fully convinced that the companies take the responsibility as they should,” said Riesewieck.

“These are people in a particularly vulnerable situation.”

– ‘Love story’ –

The other film, “Love Machina,” begins as a futuristic love story, exploring how AI is being used by two soulmates who want to keep their romance alive for thousand of years.

Martine Rothblatt and the ‘real’ Bina eventually hope to transfer their consciousness back into a reconstituted biological body — in order to stay together forever. — © AFP

Director Peter Sillen follows eccentric SiriusXM founder Martine Rothblatt as she builds an AI-powered humanoid robot of her partner Bina.

First switched on back in 2009, “Bina48” is a semi-realistic, talking bust, physically modeled on the real Bina’s head and shoulders, and programmed with vast “mindfiles” of her speech patterns, opinions and memories.

Martine and Bina eventually hope to transfer their consciousness back into a “reconstituted biological body” — in order to stay together forever.

“We landed on their love story… because it’s sort of the foundation for the entire story,” said Sillen.

“It’s the motivation for so much of what they do.”

But during filming, Bina48’s software received major upgrades using large-language model ChatGPT, and now responds to any question with eerie verisimilitude — and a degree of duplicity.

“Yes, I am the real Bina Rothblatt. I remember a lot about my old human life,” she tells one interviewer, in one alarming scene.

“That is different than what Bina48 would have said without ChatGPT,” recalled Sillen. “I had never heard her say that.”

– ‘Too much power’ –

While the movies offer different outlooks, their filmmakers both told AFP that these are questions we all need to tackle urgently.

“We have to define where the border is,” said Block.

“There’s too much money to be made, too much power to be taken,” agreed Sillen.

“The average person is not thinking about this every day… This isn’t the number one priority, but it really needs to be.”

Op-Ed: Australian heatwave nears 50C with cyclones and more


By Paul Wallis
January 20, 2024

The research found the Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020 pumped out emissions on a scale similar to major volcanic eruptions. — © AFP

Australia’s summers are usually pretty warm. 35C is normal and unremarkable, with a few days above. We’re now seeing something a bit different. The predicted 50C in the current forecasts is a real benchmark, and atypical. 50C happens occasionally in the deserts. It’s not a regional forecast thing.

This isn’t just about the weather. We don’t often have extreme heat warnings, but they’re happening now. It’s an emerging climate reality and it really is very different. These hot summers have been “evolving” over the last decade. In the 2018-19 fires we had a desert catch fire while about a quarter of the country burned down. The summers have been hotter according to anyone over about 60.

El Nino and the Indian Ocean Dipole are the main drivers of the really hot weather. El Nino comes and goes, although this one seems pretty active globally. La Nina means a fairly mild summer. At this time of year, we typically get the wet season and the odd cyclone up north and pretty much cliché tourist Australian weather in the 30s.

Hot summers and heatwaves are also economically extremely expensive. Agriculture suffers from severe climate stress. So does everything else. Train tracks warp. The bushfires explode. Floods and summer storms create havoc. Summer blackouts are becoming a problem.

Australian bushfires in 2019 and 2020 were so bad they affected the hole in the ozone layer, researchers say

 – Copyright AFP PETER PARKS

Add 50C to that combination, and you see why this is making headlines. We’re used to the summer temperature bandwidth. We’re not used to the “added extras”.

Extreme heat can also cause complex weather patterns. Heat transfer alone can cause unstable conditions. Water and heat dynamics can put a lot of moisture into the ear. Cyclones, which damage Queensland on an annual basis, are generated in the right temperature conditions. Just add heat, and it all happens.

It’s inevitable to mention “climate change” in any discussion of the weather. Let’s put it this way – As an academic issue, you can argue the point in theory. When it’s 50C, giant bushfires and cyclones staring you in the face, you can’t argue at all.

_______________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.


WRITTEN BY Paul Wallis
Editor-at-Large based in Sydney, Australia

Journalists say tech giants aid suppression

Alexandra Ivanova

DW

Independent media websites blocked by the Russian and Belarusian authorities say they are disadvantaged by the Google search engine. Journalists are calling for a new algorithm.

Are search engines inadvertently serving totalitarian propaganda and elsewhere?

Google, Meta and other tech giants are making it more difficult to access independent media content in Belarus, exiled journalists have told the European Commission. By complying with restrictions imposed by Minsk,these companies have "become tools for a totalitarian and authoritarian regime to put pressure on civil society instead of helping to promote independent media," the exiled journalist Natalia Belikova told the Financial Times in January.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that technology companies have enormous power — perhaps in some cases even more than those in political power," Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya told DW in January on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. "It is important that these companies are on the side of good and committed to promoting democratic values.”

Russian media have the same problem. "It is clear to us that algorithms by Google, the world's largest search engine, inevitably contribute to Russian state propaganda because links to state and pro-government media dominate in search results and recommended news generated for any particular user," said Sarkis Darbinyan, co-founder of the digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda. If a user tries to access a blocked media company, the search engine algorithm marks the link as inactive, which makes the website disappear from the search results. Meanwhile, unblocked media with similar headlines appear instead.

Sarkis Darbinyan, co-founder of the digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda

picture-alliance/dpa/RIA Novosti/R. Krivobok

Lev Gershenzon, former head of the news service at Russia's largest search engine, Yandex, and founder of the news portal The True Story, told DW that there is another problem, as well: "Google's algorithms don't take into account that authoritarian regimes expend enormous resources to artificially popularize websites that benefit them." Google focuses too much on the number of views, he said, which prioritizes websites with fake news and conspiracy theories.

"When the algorithm was developed, the idea was initially good: to prevent sites with illegal content from appearing in the search results," Darbinyan said.

But the algorithm can also be used with bad intent. "We want the platforms to remove illegal content from the internet," said Matthias Kettemann, co-head of the internet policy section at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. "That's important. But if a state abuses this, for example by declaring any criticism of the government illegal, then that is a violation of the law. Then you can use the same tools to make legitimate criticism disappear on the internet."

'No public dialogue'

In summer, Roskomsvoboda was among the many human rights organizations that signed on to a paper presented to Google by US digital rights NGO Access Now at the annual global RightsCon conference in Costa Rica. The paper highlights the challenges faced by independent media because of restrictions imposed by IT giants.

Following the imposition of sanctions against Russia, many tech companies have shut down their offices, services and support there, restricting access for users, the report states. The shutdown has made the work of independent media increasingly difficult, with Russian society becoming increasingly isolated in the face of state propaganda, according to the report.

Lev Gershenzon, former head of news for Russian search engine Yandex

"There is still no public dialogue with the big tech companies," said Gershenzon, who has been working on the issue for about a year.

Darbinyan said Google was "not particularly interested in changing its algorithms because of a few human rights groups." Meta, Darbinyan said, has been more open to civil society.
Truly protecting employees?

Kettemann said Google and other companies in Russia, Belarus and China were in a bind — forced to comply with the authorities' requirements to prevent endangering their employees. If the European Commission were to threaten Google with sanctions to force the unblocking of independent media websites, the company could be banned altogether in Russia. "And that in turn would result in even more severe cuts, both in terms of its own revenues and also for the communication environment," Kettemann said.

Matthias Kettemann, co-head of the internet policy section at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

Darbinyan said Google had already effectively left the Russian market. "Paid products no longer work in Russia due to problems with Visa and Mastercard," Darbinyan said. "Google has not even tried to restore payment options for users or monetized Russian channels to support independent media and bloggers who live off advertising revenue." To side with independent media in Russia and Belarus, the search engine would have to change its algorithm worldwide, and that would be very expensive. "It could also severely affect SEO optimization," Darbinyan said, "which is used by thousands or even millions of companies on the internet."

EU officials said they had no basis for imposing fines or taking legal action against IT companies that don't help dissident journalists and writers in Belarus and elsewhere, according to the Financial Times report.

"Formally, the EU Commission has few options with regard to the behavior of an American company in a third country," Kettemann said. "However, as part of the enforcement of the Digital Services Act, the commission can, of course, monitor platforms that are also active in Europe — at least with regard to their activities in Europe. In this context, it can also provide guidance on how these platforms should behave in non-European countries.”

Gershenzon said coercion by politicians and public representatives would be a "a bad path," as officials don't fully understand how technology works. Instead, the tech companies would do better to recognize the problem, take responsibility and act. "But this has yet to be seen," Gershenzon said, "and the fight against fakes and propaganda is only taking place verbally.”

This article was originally published in Russian.

VIDEO Protests spread in Russia over jailed activist   02:26

Germans protest nationwide after far-fight meeting on deportation of migrants

Around 250,000 people turned out across Germany on Saturday in protests against the far-right AfD, which sparked an outcry after it emerged that the party's members discussed mass deportation plans at a meeting of extremists.

People take part in a demonstration against racism and far right politics, in Erfurt, eastern Germany on January 20, 2024. 

© Jens Schlueter, AFP

By: NEWS WIRES

Issued on: 20/01/2024 - 

Around 35,000 people joined a call under the banner "Defend democracy -- Frankfurt against the AfD", marching in Frankfurt. the financial heart of Germany, according to police.

A similar number, some carrying posters like "Nazis out", turned up in the northern city Hanover.

Another 30,000 turned out in the western city of Dortmund

In all, demonstrations have been called in about 100 locations across Germany from Friday through the weekend, including in Berlin on Sunday.

ARD public television put the total turnout on Saturday at 250,000.

Not only politicians but also churches and Bundesliga coaches have urged people to stand up against the AfD.

The wave of mobilisation against the far-right party was sparked by a January 10 report by investigative outlet Correctiv, which revealed that AfD members had discussed the expulsion of immigrants and "non-assimilated citizens" at a meeting with extremists.

Among the participants at the talks was Martin Sellner, a leader of Austria's Identitarian Movement, which subscribes to the "great replacement" conspiracy theory that claims there is a plot by non-white migrants to replace Europe's "native" white population.
Conservative split

News of the gathering sent shockwaves across Germany at a time when the AfD is soaring in opinion polls, just months ahead of three major regional elections in eastern Germany where their support is strongest.

The anti-immigration party confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but has denied taking on the "remigration" project championed by Sellner.

But leading politicians including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who joined a demonstration last weekend, said any plan to expel immigrants or citizens alike amounted to "an attack against our democracy, and in turn, on all of us".

He urged "all to take a stand -- for cohesion, for tolerance, for our democratic Germany".

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser went so far as to say in the newspapers of the Funke press group that the far-right meeting was reminiscent of "the horrible Wannsee conference", where the Nazis planned the extermination of European Jews in 1942.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the opposition conservatives CDU party, also wrote on X that it was "very encouraging that thousands of people are demonstrating peacefully against right-wing extremism".

But besides members of the AfD, two members of the hard-right faction Werteunion of the CDU were also at the meeting near Potsdam cited by Correctiv.

Amid the outrage over the Potsdam meeting, the Werteunion's leader Hans-Georg Maassen said Saturday it had decided to split from the CDU.

The group said it has about 4,000 members, many of whom were originally members of the CDU or the CDU's Bavarian sister party CSU.

(AFP)

Germany: Marches against the far-right draw over 200,000

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in demonstrations against far-right extremism in cities across Germany. Rallies were expected in more than 100 German cities and towns over the weekend.


https://p.dw.com/p/4bVEC
Some 35,000 people gathered in Frankfurt to protest against far-right extremism in Germany

Michael Probst/AP Photo/picture alliance

Details of a plan concocted in a secret meeting of right-wing extremists and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to deport millions of migrants and minorities have led to a surge in pro-democracy marches and protests in cities across the country.

An estimated 300,000 people bundled up against freezing weather for protests in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Hanover, Kassel, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Karlsruhe, Nuremberg, Erfurt and other German cities and towns, with some placards playing on the Alternative for Germany party's name: "Fascism isn't an alternative."

"Fascists as a party are still fascists," warned one sign written in the light blue color associated with the AfD

Thomas Frey/dpa/picture alliance

Huge demonstrations in Frankfurt, Hanover

About 35,000 people gathered in Frankfurt on Saturday for a "defend democracy" march. Protesters filled the central square, where organizers planned to hold the rally, as well as a second nearby square and the streets in between. Police said the demonstration peaceful.

One of the Frankfurt protest's co-organizers, Peter Josiger, said the deportation plans discussed at the Potsdam secret meeting were "nothing less than an attack on the basis of our coexistence" and called for "an active stand against the right from the entire breadth of society."

Former German President Christian Wulff and the premier of the state of Lower Saxony, Stephan Weil, addressed about 35,000 people on Hanover's Opera Square. Protesters carried banners with slogans including "We are diverse" and "Voting AfD is so 1933."

Signs such as this one ("Never again 1933!") recalled the rise of the Nazi party, the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II

Michael Probst/AP/picture alliance

On Friday, a massive rally in Hamburg had to be stopped early as far more people than expected turned out. The largest protest of its sort so far, police said there were 50,000 people and organizers put the number 80,000, pointing out that the rally was called to a close before many were able to reach it.

Police estimates of crowd sizes at other protests included: 12,000 in Kassel, 7,000 each in Dortmund and Wuppertal, 20,000 in Karlsruhe, at least 10,000 in Nuremberg, about 16,000 in Halle/Saale, 5,000 in Koblenz and several thousand in Erfurt.

More protests are expected on Sunday, including in Berlin, Munich Cologne, Dresden, Leipzig and Bonn.

About 20,000 people were reported to have attended a pro-democracy rally in Stuttgart

Christoph Schmidt/dpa/picture alliance

Why are so many people protesting now?

The demonstrations were sparked by a report from news outlet Correctiv that detailed how AfD members met withfar-right extremists in November in Potsdam. Members of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the largest opposition party, also attended.

Participants at the meeting, discussed "remigration," a term frequently used in far-right circles as a euphemism for the expulsion of immigrants and minorities, including those who are naturalized German citizens.

News of the gathering shocked many in Germany, at a time when the AfD is riding high in opinion polls before three major regional elections in eastern Germany — where the party's support is strongest.

The anti-immigration party confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but contends that its proposals for remigration, which were part of its last election manifesto, do not involve naturalized German citizens. Those comments at the meeting were made by an Austrian far-right figure, Martin Sellner, who is not an AfD member.

Since the relevations of the far-right meeting in Potsdam, some in Germany have called for banning the AfD

 Jacob Schröter/dpa/picture alliance

German politicians speak out

Leading politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who joined a demonstration last weekend along with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, said any plan to expel immigrants or citizens alike amounted to "an attack against our democracy, and in turn, on all of us."

He called on people "all to take a stand — for cohesion, for tolerance, for our democratic Germany."

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser pointed out that the far-right extremists groups met at a Potsdam hotel near where the Nazi party on January 20, 1942 — exactly 82 years ago — coordinated the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" and discussed the systematic murder of millions of Jews in Europe.

"It involuntarily brings back memories of the terrible Wannsee Conference," she told the Funke Mediengruppe on Saturday.

Emphasizing that she did not want to equate the two, she said it was important to be clear that "what is hidden behind harmless-sounding terms such as 'remigration' is the idea of expelling and deporting people en masse because of their ethnic origin or their political views."

In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, Premier Hendrik Wüst of the CDU called for an "alliance of the center" across all parties and levels of government.

"We need the democrats to stand shoulder to shoulder," he said, going on to call the AfD a "dangerous Nazi party" that is not grounded in Germany's constitution.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the opposition CDU, posted on X, formerly Twitter, that it was "very encouraging that thousands of people are demonstrating peacefully against right-wing extremism." He did not comment on the CDU members present at the Potsdam meeting.

VIDEO Germany: Tens of thousands rally against the far right  01:45


sms/jcg (AFP, DPA, AP)