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UK Ban Adds to the Tremors Taking Down the Fracking Industry

November 7, 2019

UK Ban Adds to the Tremors Taking Down the Fracking Industry

How long can BC and Alberta ignore the financial and geological realities facing them?

CuadrillaResourcesHumanChain.jpg
In 2013, protesters formed a human chain around Cuadrilla Resources’ fracking operation in West Sussex, England. The UK recently announced a ban on fracking. Photo by Bogdan Maran, EPA.

The dramatic decision by the British government to ban the disruptive technology of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) is just one of two volatile storms now shaking the industry.

And both have ramifications for the governments of British Columbia and Alberta, which actively subsidize the uneconomic industry with tax breaks, royalty credits, free water and taxpayer-funded seismic research and monitoring.

The first typhoon is the industry’s failing business model.

The fracking of shale formations in Canada and the United States has largely generated more negative cash flows than revenue, due to high capital, water and energy costs combined with rapid depletion rates and low commodity prices. 

Canadian firms such as Ranch Energy Corp. and Trident Exploration, which based their business models on fracking, recently went bankrupt, leaving massive liabilities for the public to clean up. The Tyee is supported by readers like you Join us and grow independent media in Canada

The highly indebted Encana Corp., a champion of the so-called “shale gale,” banked its future on fracking and lost. 

In recent years it was forced to sell off many of its holdings, lost 90 per cent of its share value and let go of thousands of employees. Just this month it changed its name and left Alberta for the oil-rich Permian Basin in Texas where companies are also losing money and going bankrupt. 

Investors have become so skeptical about the industry’s ability to generate profits that they’re either openly shunning the sector or refusing to loan it money. 

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Britain Ramps up Media War on Russia

July 15, 2019

Britain Ramps up Media War on Russia 

The British government appears to be more and more aping a Monty Python-type farce with each passing day. Soon the absurd ensemble will be complete if either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt becomes the next prime minister.

This week the mandarins at the Ministry of Funny Walks ruled that two internationally respected Russian news media channels were banned from attending a global conference on “press freedom”.

RT and another Russia-based news outlet Sputnik were refused permission by the British government to participate in the Global Conference for Media Freedom, held in London.

A British Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We have not accredited RT or Sputnik because of their earlier role in spreading disinformation.”

The irony of it. The British government is peddling unsubstantiated accusations (more accurately, ridiculous slander) against Russian media which is then invoked as “justification” for censorship at a much-vaunted international conference supposedly dedicated to freedom of the press. You could hardly make the farce up. It’s a kind of cross between George Orwell and Monty Python.

What the British government is doing is blatantly ramping up the media war against Russia. London is giving a license for further outrageous repression of Russian news media, as well as piling on demonization of Russia as a state.

In the same week it was reported that fellow NATO member Lithuania has blocked the news website of Sputnik in the Baltic country.

Previously, France had banned RT and Sputnik journalists from attending public press conferences held by President Emmanuel Macron. In the US, Sputnik radio stations have been curbed from reaching their American audiences.

Russia’s foreign ministry slammed the British and Lithuanian moves this week as putting unreasonable obstacles on the professional work of Russian news media.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK Foreign Office Denies Claiming Russia Responsible For Nerve Agent, Deletes Tweet

April 4, 2018

UK Foreign Office Denies Claiming Russia Responsible For Nerve Agent, Deletes Tweet

Update: It appears that either the British government can’t keep its lies and proof-less accusations straight or something far more nefarious is at play.

Following headlines (below) that British government scientists admitted they couldn’t tell where the poison – identified by the UK as A-234, also known as Novichok, used in the Salisbury poisoning of the Skripals – came from, undermining a number of claims to come out of Westminster, The UK Foreign Office denies claiming the nerve agent used in the Salisbury poisoning of the Skripals came directly from Russia, despite admitting it sent a tweet saying exactly that, and Boris Johnson making the same claim.

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Why would @foreignoffice delete this tweet from 22 March?

The UK Foreign Office has admitted it deleted the tweet which directly stated that the nerve agent came direct from Russia.

London has directly accused the Kremlin on at least three occasions of being behind the chemical attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

As RT notes, bizarrely, the Foreign Office denies Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson claimed the novichock “categorically” came from Russia, despite a recorded interview clearly showing he did.

🌹 

WATCH: Boris Johnson blatantly lies to Deutsche Welle and says Porton Down lab were “absolutely categorical” that Russia was behind the Salisbury nerve agent attack

On 03/04/18, Porton Down lab said they are unable to confirm the origin of the nerve agent

The Foreign Office has not yet deleted a tweet in which the UK’s ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, reiterates the accusation of Moscow being behind the poisoning.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Quilliam Foundation is financed by Tea-Party conservatives investigated by Sam Harris

January 10, 2016

The Quilliam Foundation is financed by Tea-Party conservatives investigated by Sam Harris

And Ghaffar Hussain, a London Borough PREVENT manager, is listed as a co-leader for their million dollar project

The Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think-tank in London that has influenced British government national security strategies, has received over a million dollars in funding from an American conservative philanthropic organisation, with close ties to the Tea Party and extreme right-wing Christian networks.

The funding comes in the form of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, for a total of $1,080,997, covering the period from September 2014 to June 2017.

One of the project leaders for the grant is Ghaffar Hussain, a former managing director of the Quilliam Foundation. Hussain is no longer formally employed by Quilliam, however. Today, he manages the government’s Preventing Violent Extremism (Prevent) programme in the London Borough of Newham.

Templeton, the Christian right, and anti-science

In 2014, ‘New Atheist’ icon Sam Harris donated $20,000 to the Quilliam Foundation. Harris has advocated “war with Islam,” including defending regime change in Iraq, advocating torture, and promoting mass profiling of Muslims “or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim.”

Despite his engagements with Nawaz, as exemplified in their co-authored book, Islam and the Future of Tolerance, Harris has never renounced such views, and Nawaz has not challenged them.

Ironically, a recent investigation commissioned by Harris concluded that the John Templeton Foundation, which now funds Quilliam, had a worrying “history of funding what could be seen as anti-science activities and groups.”

The John Templeton Foundation specialises in funding programmes that bring science and religion closer, including in some cases sponsoring dubious pseudo-scientific projects on ‘faith healing.’

For that reason, the Foundation is shunned by many prominent scientists, including for instance the well-known biologist Richard Dawkins. These scientists criticise the foundation’s promotion of conservative Christian religious ideology and right-wing causes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nuclear Lies About Renewable Energy

September 24, 2015

Nuclear Lies About Renewable Energy

solar_panels

London.

There’s no doubt about it. The British Government is spreading untruths about the price of renewable energy.

Is it deliberate? One can only assume so owing to the consistency of the pattern and the equally consistent refusal to explain or correct its misleading statements.

The context is also significant: it’s always in the context of supporting nuclear power over renewable energy sources.

One example came a few weeks ago when the Chancellor told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee in their ‘annual evidence session’ that the agreed ‘strike price’ of £92.50 per MWh (in 2012 money, RPI indexed) is “substantially cheaper than other low-carbon technology like offshore wind or onshore wind.”

This statement is palpably untrue. After RPI indexation £92.50 is actually £96.24 today’s money. Onshore wind and ground-based solar projects have bid for ‘contracts for difference’ (the main current support mechanism) and been awarded them at a price of around £80 per MWh.

Hello?? Is anyone at home?

Pressed on the justification for the claim the Treasury issued a statement: “Nuclear energy is an important part of the UK’s energy mix as we move towards a low carbon future. It is also the cheapest low carbon technology that can reliably generate electricity at such a large scale.”

 

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