Also on today’s menu:
Radioactive Water ‘Contained’ At Nuclear Power Plant
Sans Blague: We’re Not Going To Take It
A Veteran Looks Back At World War II
Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to make his first visit to Russia since Russian troops invaded Ukraine more than a year ago. He is due to have lunch with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, on Monday, followed by talks on Tuesday.
China has offered to broker a plan to end the “special military operation” in a 12-point document, but did not specifically say that Russia must withdraw its troops from Ukraine. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said China would uphold “an objective and fair position” on the war in Ukraine and “play a constructive role in promoting talks for peace” that include respect for national sovereignty.
Meanwhile, Slovakia and Poland, both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have pledged to send MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine to help the country defend itself against the Russian aggression. Ukraine has asked Western countries for modern jets like the F-16, but they would require a long training period. Other NATO countries are considering sending Soviet-era planes such as the MiG, which Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly.
The Kremlin has threatened to destroy any fighter jets Ukraine’s allies provide. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the West’s aircraft would not affect the outcome of the war, and would only “bring additional woes for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people”.
After Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, an expected presidential candidate in 2024, made the comment, “While the U.S. has many vital national interests ... becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” Ukraine invited him to come for a visit, with foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko saying, “We are sure that, as a former military officer deployed to a combat zone, Governor Ron DeSantis knows the difference between a ‘dispute’ and war.”
Radioactive Water ‘Contained’ At Nuclear Power Plant
Minnesota officials withheld information about a leak discovered in late November at the Xcel Energy nuclear power plant, waiting until March 16 to notify the public and say there is no immediate health risk. The utility company is monitoring the cleanup of 400,000 gallons of radioactive water that it says is “fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility”.
The water contains tritium, a naturally occurring radioactive isotope of hydrogen, which the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission says emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far in air and cannot penetrate human skin.
The plant is about 35 miles upstream from the state’s most populous city, Minneapolis, on the Mississippi River. State officials said they had waited to get more information before going public with the leak, and the Minnesota Department of Health has said the leak did not reach the Mississippi River.
Xcel Energy previously had a small leak at its Monticello plant in 2009.
It is 12 years since triple reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, and the country is preparing to release a massive amount of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea, having no further area to hold the wastewater. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, hopes to have a concrete facility completed by spring to dilute the treated water.
Massive amounts of fatally radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the reactors. Trial removal of melted debris will begin in Unit 2 later this year, and spent fuel removal from Unit 1 reactor’s cooling pool is to start in 2027. Some experts say it would be impossible to remove all the melted fuel debris by 2051.
Yet, despite the record of nuclear accidents that in the United States included the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, Georgia Power Company is planning to start Vogtle Unit 3, the only nuclear unit under construction in the United States, this April. Vogtle was originally scheduled to have its first unit operational in 2016, but technology and operational problems have extended the timeline and pushed up costs. Unit 4 was to be in service in the second quarter of 2023.
Sans Blague: We’re Not Going To Take It
Mathilde Panot, leader of the left-wing party, La France Insoumise (LFI), says French President Emmanuel Macron has plunged the country into a government crisis, without parliamentary or popular legitimacy, while far-right opposition leader Marine Le Pen has called for a no-confidence motion against Macron’s government. Police in Paris have clashed with protesters at Place de la Concorde after two months of heated political debate and strikes.
The reason? Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne invoked article 49:3 of the constitution, allowing the government to avoid an Assembly vote, minutes before it was scheduled to take place, on a controversial bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, effectively forcing through the pension reforms.
Unions vowed to maintain their opposition to the pension changes, with the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) saying another day of strikes and demonstrations are being planned for Thursday, March 23.
A Veteran Looks Back At World War II
Back in 2015, I interviewed Harold “Bub” Sheffield of Bristol about his experiences as a Marine Corps Raider, having joined the Marines right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was the first episode of what was to be a series of veterans’ interviews as part of the Liberty Independent Media Project.
The documentary was offered as a pay-per-view video, with a free trailer offering a hint of what Bub had to say.
A few weeks ago, I re-introduced the trailer on Facebook, with a great response. It convinced me that the full documentary should be available at no cost, and I have put it on the Liberty Project website. Now I’m including it here to make it available to even more people. Whether you knew the late Bub Sheffield or not, I think you’ll find his recollections to be worth your time.
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