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Cake day: June 26th, 2024

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  • Additional interesting stats, especially regarding statement on the safety of nuclear energy and waste:

    IAEA-database of nuclear and radiological incidents

    Note that although the list which is linked above gives an impression of the spread, diversity and frequency of incidents and accidents with nuclear power plants radioactive transports, it is not a complete list of all nuclear incidents and accidents; different national regulators have different regimes as to which incidents to report to the IAEA and which not.

    One article on nuclear energy in the UK from May 2024 says:

    A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK’s nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money…The waste itself includes 110,000 tonnes of uranium, 6,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuels & about 120 tonnes of plutonium. – Source

    [Edit typo.]


























  • A detail that is buried somewhere in this article is that Fico’s government apparently takes de facto control of Slovak parliament’s intelligence oversight committee, which is traditionally controlled by the opposition. So there is no independent oversight at all.

    It’s time for the EU and its member states to ban any surveillance software and protect EE2E (including abandoning such things like ‘chat control’) if they want protect Europe from the further rise of authoritarian regimes.








  • Just stumbled upon a new research identifies human rights abuses in battery supply chain – [archived link]:

    Research from Infyos has identified that companies accounting for 75 per cent of the global battery market have connections to one or more companies in the supply chain facing allegations of severe human rights abuses […] most of the allegations of severe human rights abuses involve companies mining and refining raw materials in China that end up in batteries globally, particularly in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China.

    The research company Infyos says that supply chain changes are needed to eliminate widespread forced labour and child labour abuses occurring in the lithium-ion battery market. It would be interesting to know what Mr. Sanchez says about this.

    In other news this week, the Spanish PM is quoted saying he doesn’t want “a war, in this case, a trade war.” So what does he say about China’s support for Russia in its war in Ukraine, Beijing’s aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea against the Philippines, against Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and other Asian neighbours?