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Principled: Trump-appointed counterterrorism director Joe Kent resigns in protest over US war with Iran

ZeroHedge, 17 Mar 2026 

In a massive break from President Trump and MAGA, Joe Kent, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), announced his immediate resignation on Tuesday, citing irreconcilable opposition to the ongoing U.S. military operations against Iran.

Kent declared he could not “in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” stating unequivocally that Iran posed “no imminent threat to our nation” and that the conflict was initiated “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” The move comes weeks into active strikes targeting Iranian nuclear sites, leadership, and infrastructure, with Iranian retaliation underway and global oil markets feeling the strain.

Kent, a retired Green Beret with 11 combat deployments, former CIA paramilitary officer, and Gold Star husband who lost his wife Shannon in a 2019 ISIS-claimed suicide bombing in Syria, framed his exit as a defense of the “America First” principles Trump championed during his 2016, 2020, and 2024 campaigns. He praised Trump’s first term for decisively striking Qasem Soleimani and defeating ISIS without escalating into endless wars, noting that until June 2025, Trump recognized Middle East conflicts as a “trap” draining American lives and wealth. However, Kent alleges that “early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign” that undermined Trump’s platform, deceived him into believing Iran posed an imminent threat with a “clear path to a swift victory,” and echoed tactics used to draw the U.S. into the “disastrous Iraq war.” He explicitly compares the current situation to Iraq, warning against repeating the mistake that cost thousands of American lives.

“As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people,” Kent wrote.

The resignation carries profound weight as Kent was a Senate-confirmed Trump loyalist installed in July 2025, not a career holdover. As head of the NCTC – tasked with assessing terrorist threats from Iranian proxies and beyond – Kent is directly challenging the administration’s justification for the conflict. The letter, addressed personally to the president and thanking DNI Tulsi Gabbard, signals deeper fractures in the MAGA coalition or prompts a policy pivot, Kent’s bombshell exit underscores the high personal and political stakes of America’s latest Middle East engagement.

The resignation effectively places Kent within a growing bloc of Republican lawmakers who have opposed the Iran campaign from the outset, elevating what had been a vocal but limited faction into a more institutionally significant challenge to the administration’s approach.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), longtime advocates of non-interventionist “America First” foreign policy, were among the earliest critics of the strikes, warning they risk entangling the U.S. in another costly and open-ended Middle East conflict. Both have argued in recent weeks that the operation mirrors the strategic missteps that led to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, calling for de-escalation and greater congressional oversight.

The most prominent political voice amplifying that message has been Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has emerged as one of the war’s fiercest critics within Trump’s base. Since the first strikes in late February, Greene has repeatedly denounced the operation in media appearances and on social platforms, calling it a betrayal of Trump’s campaign pledge to avoid new foreign entanglements.

On Saturday, Greene told CNN that the Republican base is fractured“along generational lines.”

“Many of the older Americans from the Baby Boomer generation that watch Fox News all day long very much believe the talking points on Fox News, and they have spent decades of their lives convinced that fighting these wars is the right thing to do,” she explained.

Meanwhile, the knives are out. Trump’s former Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich said that Kent is a “crazed egomaniac who was often at the center of national security leaks, while rarely (never?) producing any actual work.”

March 18, 2026 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Software Upgrade Australia Didn’t Need.

18 March 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Ricky Pann https://theaimn.net/the-software-upgrade-australia-didnt-need/

Palantir and the Digital Dictator’s Operating System

Australia is undergoing a system update. It didn’t pass through a referendum, nor was it meaningfully debated in Parliament. Arriving quietly under the guise of maintenance and safety, Palantir Technologies has embedded itself into the central nervous system of Australia’s financial and intelligence apparatus. Through AUSTRAC and the Fintel Alliance, data from banks, law enforcement, and government agencies are now integrated into a single “God view”. The Australian Government is in fact investing in Palantir through stocks held by our Future Fund.

An Upgrade Without an Uninstall

Palantir represents a new phase in Silicon Valley’s evolution, a shift from consumer platforms to sovereign infrastructure. From apps designed to distract us to systems designed to govern us.

Palantir’s software deployment in Australia comes ahead of a coordinated lobbying push to expand adoption of its systems, positioning them to become a de facto operating system for governments globally through sheer market dominance.

Australia is making an unspoken admission: that social democracy is now seen as too slow and inefficient for an AI-driven world, where speed is quietly replacing human judgment. This is the great deception of hasty AI adoption.

These are the quiet admissions of a society steered by populist fear: the myth that productivity driven growth is limitless, and the delusion that automating human empathy will not edge us toward autocracy.

So where do we stop?

Do we outsource judgment.
Do we automate trust.
Do we accept a black box view of reality in exchange for speed.

The result is a feedback loop. Data feeds the system. The system reshapes perception. Perception justifies more data. Slowly, the world begins to look exactly as the software expects it to.

There’s a familiar feeling after a software update.

Nothing looks different.
The icons are where you left them.
The system boots. The coffee still tastes the same.

But something subtle has shifted.

Menus rearranged.
Permissions altered.
A few options you used to have simply evaporated.

We’re expected to accept a system that doesn’t reason, doesn’t ask permission, operates without consent, and collapses the complexity of human context, nuance, and lived experience into binary outcomes.

No announcement. No apology. Just a new normal.

The quiet inversion Orwell warned about: not brute force, but soft machinery. Not the scream, but the hum.

A world where seeing everything replaces understanding anything, where speed outranks judgment, and probability passes for truth.

The system doesn’t need to lie.

It just decides what is perceived as real.

Palantir isn’t a surveillance scandal. It’s a design choice.

Who’s Watching the Watchers?

One day, sitting on a bench, watching light move through trees, you realise something small but irreversible.

You’re no longer being seen by people.

You’re being interpreted by infrastructure.

That’s not a crisis moment.

It’s an installation moment.

And installations, once embedded deeply enough, rarely come with an uninstall option.

Australia didn’t choose authoritarianism.
It chose efficiency

We didn’t suspend democracy.
We quietly routed around it.

You don’t lose freedom all at once. You outsource it, piece by piece, to systems that promise to manage burden for us.

The pitch is seductive to politicians and bureaucrats: efficiency, seamless integration, prevention over response. But this isn’t a routine upgrade. It’s a Trojan Horse, quietly ushering in a new era of global corporatocracy.

Palantir does not merely process data; it installs a proprietary “ontology” with a map of clusters of a calculated reality that dictates to a government what is considered relevant or risky.

It replaces the presumption of innocence with algorithmic probability, shifting justice from what you did to what you might do. Once a sovereign nation relies on such a system, it no longer acts as a customer but as a dependent, outsourcing responsibility and accountability.

Authors note: I don’t mean to be nasty but…

I’m not in the habit of playing the man/woman/person instead of the ball but, this is the age of disruption in a period of brazen populism that rewards narcissism.

People like Trump, Musk, Altman, Karp and Thiel routinely make statements that are disconcerting, extreme, misleading, and at times plainly unhinged.

They face little consequence because wealth and power insulate them, reinforcing the belief that billionaire status equates to insight – despite being far removed from the lived reality of the people most affected by the chaos caused by the systems they shape.

Buyer Beware: To understand the creeping authoritarianism we as Australians just installed, we must look at the radically unhinged ideologies of the architects who designed it.

Peter Thiel: The Sovereign Dream

Founder Peter Thiel has been unusually candid about his beliefs. He has stated that he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible.

His worldview, influenced by René Girard’s theory of mimetic conflict, treats human society as inherently unstable, something to be managed, contained, and overseen by a competent elite.

Thiel’s Zero to One philosophy celebrates monopolies. Competition, he argues, is wasteful. Governance by consensus is inefficient. The future belongs to singular systems operated by those smart enough to bypass friction.

This worldview is not theoretical. Thiel is now a New Zealand citizen and has publicly acknowledged preparing for large scale civilisational disruption.

He owns property on New Zealand’s South Island, widely reported as part of a network of fortified survival infrastructure intended to function during a catastrophic global event, often described in Silicon Valley as an H2 scenario, a hard reset moment involving systemic collapse.

This may sound like a dramatic interpretation of his intention however, considering the dots we are joining, Palantir is the practical expression of this thinking.

Its a monopoly on state intelligence designed to operate beyond the slow checks and balances of democratic process, resilient not just to crime or terrorism, but to  political instability itself.

This is mostly true for all disruptive big tech firms. They grow and evolve so fast that the consequential fallout of the technology lags years behind legislation. They operate in the wild west at the expense of law, privacy, social cohesion, mental health, criminality and human rights till the sheriff arrives.

Alex Karp: The Dialectical Justifier

CEO Alex Karp presents differently. He speaks the language of philosophy, progress, and reluctant necessity. He frames Palantir through a dialectical lens, civil liberties on one side, a dangerous world on the other, resolved by a system powerful enough to neutralise chaos.

Alex Karp acts as the “dialectical justifier, using Hegelian philosophy to reframe total mass surveillance and the reduction of citizens to managed variables as a necessary, moral “synthesis” between civil liberties and global chaos.

In this framing, surveillance is not abuse but compromise.
Dominance becomes protection.
Efficiency becomes morality.

Karp has acknowledged that bad times are very good for Palantir. The company is built for crisis. It thrives on instability, on moments when societies are willing to trade uncertainty for control.

The contradiction is hard to miss. In claiming to prevent fascism by enforcing order, the system quietly adopts fascism’s core mechanism, total visibility, preemptive control, and the reduction of citizens to managed statistical variables.

It is not win lose.
It is domination.

It is founder Peter Thiel who pushes this idea of world domination into the realm of absolute madness.

Thiel delivered a series of private, unhinged lectures titled “The Antichrist”. Using cobbled-together 1st-century doomsday theology and pop-culture manga like One Piece, he attempted to frame himself and his fellow technocrats as heroic rebels holding back a demonic, stagnant global state.

If you strip away this ridiculous theatrical charade, you don’t find a philosopher. You find the Nero of Silicon Valley, a wanna be digital dictator actively engineering the end of inconvenient democracy.


Here is the actual plumbing behind the smoke and mirrors:

A: The Hypocrisy of the “Anti-Satanist” Thiel preaches that global governance and regulation are the “Antichrist” of our era. Yet, his primary engine of wealth, Palantir, is the ultimate weapon of the administrative state.

Palantir provides the data-mining backbone for ICE, the Pentagon, and global police forces. He decries the global surveillance state while acting as Big Brother’s lead software engineer.

He isn’t fighting the system as a small government libertarian; he just wants the monopoly on its operating system.

B: The Untruths of “Stagnation” In his lectures, Thiel claims the world is trapped in scientific “stagnation,” literally labelling anyone who advocates for climate change mitigation, environmental survival, or AI safety guardrails as a “Luddite” and a “legionnaire of the Antichrist”.

This is a blatant untruth used to mask regulatory capture. He doesn’t care about stagnation; he simply demands a world where his tech monopolies can operate without the friction of human empathy, environmental protection, or legal boundaries.

C: The Puppeteer Behind the Chaos Thiel presents a false binary choice between total “Armageddon” and a stagnant global state.

But he is not a prophet warning us of the fire; he is the arsonist selling the fire extinguisher.

Operating through dark money donor networks, Thiel is the primary financial engine behind figures like J.D. Vance and organisations such as the Heritage Foundation – the architects of the Project 2025 blueprint.

He is one of the chief puppeteers behind the Trump-era chaos. Thiel actively funds anti-establishment disruption to dismantle regulatory frameworks, intentionally manufacturing the very societal chaos he claims only Palantir’s mass surveillance can manage.

D: The Delusion of Superiority and Human evolution Driven by René Girard’s “Mimetic Theory,” Thiel views the general public as a mindless, moronic mob that must be controlled by elites like him.

Embracing the delusion of the Sovereign Individual, Thiel has no intention of fixing the democratic systems he helps break. Instead, he is hoarding fortified doomsday bunkers in New Zealand, actively preparing for an “H2 scenario” heralding a catastrophic, systemic global collapse.

This deep disregard for humanity culminates in an obsession with redesigning human evolution itself. Thiel treats human limitation and death as defects to be solved, pouring massive investments into transhumanism, cryonics, and young blood transfusions.

His endgame is a complete evolutionary split: engineering a future where the billionaire class achieves digital eternity as a sovereign, immortal species, leaving the masses to burn on an unregulated, collapsing planet.

This may be hard to grasp but thats the type of people Australia has entrusted their government data to.

The Verdict

Australia didn’t choose authoritarianism; it chose efficiency. We are quietly outsourcing our reality to an unaccountable technocracy.

Thiel’s lectures aren’t a warning about a coming digital dictator; they are a job application for the position.

He is the man who sells you the matches, then offers to build you a fireproof bunker for the price of your freedom.

Palantir isn’t just software. It is an installation moment. And installations this deep rarely come with an uninstall option.

March 18, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Iran’s nuclear materials and equipment remain a danger in an active war zone

March 17, 2026 , Matthew Bunn, The Conversation

Before launching his war on Iran, President Donald Trump said his most important goal was that Iran would “never have a nuclear weapon.” Yet it is not clear what, if anything, his administration has planned for dealing with Iran’s stock of enriched uranium that could be used to make nuclear bombs – or its remaining deeply buried nuclear facilities and the nuclear equipment that might be in them, or hidden elsewhere.

U.S. and Israeli strikes in June 2025 seriously damaged Iran’s major nuclear facilities and killed several prominent scientists associated with the country’s nuclear program. However, contrary to Trump’s claim that the Iranian nuclear program had been “completely obliterated,” it appears that Iran had stored much or all of its enriched uranium in deep tunnels that were not destroyed.

The Trump administration’s demand, just two days before the attacks began, that Iran export its enriched uranium stocks represented a tacit acknowledgment that Iran’s government still had control of this material or could get access to it.

So, as airstrikes on Iran continue, an unclear fate faces several elements of Iran’s nuclear program, including:

  • Its stock of enriched uranium.
  • Its centrifuges for enriching more uranium, and parts for more centrifuges.
  • Any equipment it may have for turning enriched uranium into metal, shaping it into nuclear weapons components and taking other weapons-assembly steps.
  • The documents and expertise from its past nuclear weapons program.
  • Its as-yet-intact nuclear facilities that are deep underground.

I have been studying steps to stop the spread of nuclear weapons – including managing the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program – for decades. My conclusion is that if all these capabilities remain in place, the war will have accomplished little in reducing Iran’s nuclear capability, while likely increasing the government’s belief that it needs a nuclear weapon to defend itself.

Where could Iran’s uranium be?

The most immediate concern is roughly 970 pounds (441 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium containing 60% of the U-235 isotope that is relatively easy to split. That’s what Iran was believed to have before the summer 2025 bombings, and much of it reportedly survived those strikes.

Over 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of it is reportedly stored in deep underground tunnels near Isfahan. Other stocks of this material are thought to be in a deep underground facility near Natanz known as Pickaxe Mountain, and in Fordow, one of the sites bombed in summer 2025.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has reportedly acknowledged that the Isfahan tunnels are too deep to destroy with bunker-buster bombs like those used on the underground Fordow facility last summer. Pickaxe Mountain, under granite, would be at least as challenging a target.

What could the uranium be used for?

With just 100 centrifuges, Iran could further enrich the 60% enriched material to be 90% or more U-235 in a few weeks. That is the concentration needed for the nuclear weapon design that Iran was working on in the secret nuclear weapons program it largely stopped in late 2003.

Even without further enrichment, the 60% enriched material could be used in a bomb, either exploding with less power or using more material and explosives.

Beyond Iran using this material itself, there are other concerns. Nobody knows who might get it if Iran’s government collapses. Some lower-level people managing it might decide to try to sell it as part of trying to save themselves from the current crisis, as happened after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Government studies have warned that even a sophisticated terrorist group might be able to make a crude nuclear bomb if it had the needed uranium.

Could it be removed peacefully?

One possibility is that the current Iranian government, or a future one, might be willing to cooperate or at least acquiesce in getting rid of the country’s nuclear material. The existing Iranian government reportedly offered to blend it down to a lower concentration in the negotiations that Trump ended by attacking Iran in February 2026.

Highly enriched uranium has been removed from many cooperative countries over the years. One early example was Project Sapphire, in 1994, in which U.S. teams worked with Kazakhstan to fly some 1,280 pounds (580 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium to safe storage in Tennessee. Similar efforts have removed tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from scores of sites around the world, removing the risk that terrorists could get hold of that material.

Could it be captured?

Without cooperation, and with the uranium in tunnels too deep to destroy from the air, the only other option for eliminating them could be sending in a team of either U.S. or Israeli soldiers and experts while the war continues.

U.S. special forces troops have long trained with federal scientists and experts to disable or secure adversaries’ nuclear weapons and material. But it wouldn’t be easy: Mark Esper, a defense secretary in Trump’s first term, has warned that actually doing so in Iran would take a large force and be “very perilous.”

Trump has said he would only do so if Iran was “so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight on the ground level.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Fundamentally, Iran’s nuclear knowledge cannot be bombed away. Ultimately, I believe, U.S. security would be best served through agreements to limit Iran’s nuclear efforts, coupled with effective international inspection, keeping watch year after year. Provisions to do that were central to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal between China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and Iran. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018, enabling Iran to make the highly enriched uranium that now poses a danger.

In my view, only diplomacy can again provide strict limits and effective monitoring in the future. But this war may well have ruined the chances for such diplomatic options for many years to come. https://theconversation.com/irans-nuclear-materials-and-equipment-remain-a-danger-in-an-active-war-zone-278008

March 18, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Uranium | Leave a comment

Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private ‘Antichrist’ lectures

March 18, 2026 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

The Architecture of Silence: Palantir, AUKUS, and the Business of Genocide

While Palantir refines its “kill chain” in Gaza, Australia is engaged in the largest military transfer of wealth in its history.

The submarines will not arrive until the early 2040s. In the meantime, Australia has established an export licence-free environment with the UK and US, allowing military and dual-use goods to be transferred between AUKUS partners without oversight. This includes AI and autonomy technologies 

The line between Australian defence procurement and U.S. military-industrial interests has effectively dissolved

18 March 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, Australian Independent Media

On December 10, 2025, Responsible Statecraft published a report that should have shaken capitals around the world. Buried in the details of President Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” for Gaza was a revelation: two American surveillance firms, Palantir and Dataminr, had embedded personnel inside the U.S.-run Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in southern Israel.

Their presence was not incidental. Palantir’s Project Maven – an “AI-powered battlefield platform” that collects surveillance data from satellites, drones, and intercepted communications to “optimize the kill chain” – was being positioned to shape Gaza’s post-war security architecture. Dataminr, which scans social media to provide “event, threat, and risk intelligence” to governments and law enforcement, was also inside the room.

This is not conspiracy. This is confluence – the quiet alignment of corporate interests, military objectives, and  political capture. This article traces that confluence from the battlefields of Gaza to the boardrooms of Australia, and asks a simple question: Who benefits?

Part One: The Business Model – AI as Occupation

Palantir’s “Kill Chain” Optimisation

Palantir Technologies has been explicit about its ambitions. CEO Alex Karp has described the company’s technology as “optimising the kill chain.” Project Maven, for which Palantir recently secured a $10 billion Pentagon contract, sucks information from multiple sources and “packages it into a common, searchable app for commanders and support groups.” It has already been deployed to guide U.S. airstrikes across the Middle East, including in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

Since January 2024, Palantir has been in a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s military for “war-related missions”. The company has expanded its Tel Aviv office significantly over the last two years. Karp defended this collaboration amid international concerns over war crimes, saying Palantir was the first to be “completely anti-woke”.

The Gaza Laboratory

For the last two years, Gaza has functioned as an incubator for militarised AI. Israel’s Lavender system, an AI-assisted surveillance tool, used predictive analytics to rank Palestinians’ likelihood of being connected to militant groups, based on an opaque set of criteria. Public sector workers – healthcare workers, teachers, police officers – were included on kill lists because they had ties to Hamas by virtue of working in a territory the group governed.

The Gospel system functioned as a “mass assassination factory.” One source admitted spending only “20 seconds” per target before authorising bombing – just enough to confirm the Lavender-marked target was male.

Under Trump’s proposed “peace plan,” these technologies would be scaled up. The plan envisions “Alternative Safe Communities” – fenced, heavily monitored compounds where Palestinians would be relocated, their movements tracked by AI systems, their online activity scanned by Dataminr, their phones monitored by Palantir’s platforms. Entry would be contingent on approval by Israel’s Shin Bet, with criteria that could disqualify hundreds of thousands based on algorithmic “risk scores.”

For tech companies, war is opportunity. Access to vast datasets, real-world testing for new military systems, and long-term contracts for post-war surveillance infrastructure.

For Israel, the arrangement offers a way to outsource occupation while maintaining control.

For Palestinians, it promises more of what they have already endured: unremitting horror, dragnet surveillance, and death by algorithm.

Part Two: The Australian Connection – Wealth Transfer and Complicity

AUKUS: The $368 Billion Commitment

While Palantir refines its “kill chain” in Gaza, Australia is engaged in the largest military transfer of wealth in its history. The AUKUS nuclear submarine program is estimated to cost $368 billion over coming decades, with $53–63 billion allocated for the first decade alone.

The submarines will not arrive until the early 2040s. In the meantime, Australia has established an export licence-free environment with the UK and US, allowing military and dual-use goods to be transferred between AUKUS partners without oversight. This includes AI and autonomy technologies developed under Pillar 2 of the agreement, which focuses on “artificial intelligence and autonomy, quantum science, advanced cyber, and electronic warfare.”

The same technologies being tested on Palestinian populations in Gaza are, under AUKUS, being integrated into Australia’s defence infrastructure.

The Ghost Shark Precedent

In September 2025, the government announced a $1.7 billion investment in “Ghost Shark” autonomous submarines – underwater drones developed by Australian company Anduril, whose U.S. parent has close ties to the defence establishment. Assistant Minister Matt Thistlethwaite described the technology as so impressive that “the Americans have invested in the company.”

The line between Australian defence procurement and U.S. military-industrial interests has effectively dissolved.

The Cost of Living vs. The Cost of War

While this wealth transfers to the United States, Australians struggle with a cost-of-living crisis that the government refuses to adequately address. The Robodebt scheme – an automated system that raised unlawful debts against welfare recipients – offers a template for how algorithmic governance can devastate vulnerable populations .

The National Anti-Corruption Commission recently found two public servants engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” in relation to Robodebt. But as Economic Justice Australia noted:

“The system punishes only the vulnerable. The main sanction for damaging behaviour at the top levels of the Department has been naming and shaming.”

No one went to jail. No one lost their pension. The system protected itself.

The same pattern is now repeating at scale: algorithms making life-and-death decisions, with no one accountable when they fail.

Part Three: The Segal Nexus – Silencing Critics, Enabling the Agenda

The Envoy’s Role

Jillian Segal AO, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, occupies a unique position at the intersection of power. Her credentials are impeccable: former ASIC deputy chair, board member of the Sydney Opera House Trust, the Garvan Institute, and the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. She is deeply embedded in the networks that connect Australian business to Israeli interests.

In December 2025, the Albanese Government formally adopted Segal’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism, accepting all 13 recommendations………………………………………………………………………………………..

The framework created by the antisemitism envoy – however well-intentioned – provides cover for those who would shut down debate. Critics are not engaged; they are managed. Those who persist are not answered; they are silenced.

The Business Connection

Segal’s husband’s company, Henroth Investments, donated $50,000 to Advance Australia, a right-wing lobby group that has shared anti-immigration content and claimed Palestinians in Australia were a “risk to security.” She has disclaimed knowledge of the donation, and government ministers have accepted her statement .

But the appearance matters. When the antisemitism envoy is married to a donor to an organisation that promotes anti-Palestinian rhetoric, it feeds a perception that her role serves a particular 
 political agenda rather than a genuine anti-racism brief. When her networks connect Australian business to Israeli interests, and when those interests align with the very AI companies testing their technologies on Palestinian populations, the confluence becomes visible.

Part Four: The Alignment of Values

In a bizarre way, the values of Palantir’s leadership align with the values of Australia’s political class…………………………………………………………………………………

What if they were, instead, a mechanism to enable and facilitate Israel’s transition to an AI-driven economy independent of the United States?

Consider the logic:

  1. Israel seeks economic independence. Netanyahu has announced plans to “taper off” U.S. military aid, pivoting toward AI sovereignty. A $200 million joint AI and quantum science center with the U.S. is in development.
  2. A state reliant on a single product must ensure demand. If Israel’s future exports are AI-driven surveillance and warfare technologies, it needs customers. It needs a demonstrated market. It needs a proof of concept.
  3. Gaza provides the laboratory. The technologies tested there—Lavender, Gospel, the Maven platform – are refined in real-world conditions, with a population that cannot resist, cannot refuse, cannot escape.
  4. Critics must be silenced. This is where the antisemitism framework becomes essential. If criticism of Israel’s actions can be reframed as antisemitism, if legitimate concerns about algorithmic warfare can be dismissed as hatred, if the very people documenting war crimes can be delegitimised – then the business model is protected.
  5. Australia plays its part. By adopting the antisemitism envoy’s recommendations, by embedding the IHRA definition into policy, by creating legal frameworks that can be used to silence critics, Australia becomes an enabler of this system. Not through conspiracy—through confluence. Through the quiet alignment of interests that requires no coordination, only opportunity

Part Six: The Accountability Vacuum

The Robodebt scheme offers a template for what comes next………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Conclusion: What We Have Discovered

This article has traced a network of connections that is not conspiracy but confluence:

  • Palantir and Dataminr embedded in Gaza, testing AI systems on a captive population, refining technologies that will be exported worldwide.
  • AUKUS transferring Australian wealth to the U.S. military-industrial complex, integrating the same AI and autonomy technologies into our defence infrastructure.
  • Jillian Segal positioned at the nexus of Australian business, government, and Israeli interests, her office providing the framework that silences critics.
  • The antisemitism claim deployed not against genuine hatred, but against legitimate criticism of Israeli policy – protecting the business model, enabling the silence.
    · The accountability vacuum ensuring that when things go wrong, no one is responsible.

The pattern is consistent. The players are visible. The evidence is documented.

Australian news analysis

What remains is for Australians to ask themselves: Is this who we want to be?

Do we want our wealth transferred to corporations that “optimize the kill chain“? Do we want our government to enable the testing of AI warfare on a captive population? Do we want our  political class to silence critics while profiting from death?

The answer, for those with eyes to see, should be clear.

But the system is designed to keep those eyes closed. To cry “antisemitism” at anyone who questions. To ensure that the only voices heard are those that align with the business model.

Politics

We have seen through it. Now we must help others see. https://theaimn.net/the-architecture-of-silence-palantir-aukus-and-the-business-of-genocide/

March 18, 2026 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF)  at Chalk River.

The word is getting around that dumping a million cubic metres of long-lived radioactive waste 1 km from the Ottawa River is not a great idea, particularly without the free, prior and informed consent of Kebaowek First Nation, on whose unceded territory this flawed project would be located.

A new e-petition calls on the Government of Canada “to issue a directive under Section 19 (1) of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to order the CNSC to revoke the licensing of the NSDF at Chalk River.” A very good idea.The link is 

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247

Just one small correction — most of the radionuclides in the waste will remain radioactive for millennia, so the radioactivity will not “wear off” in 300 years.

March 18, 2026 Posted by | Canada, Events | Leave a comment

Trump’s NATO Warning Sounds More Like a Threat

17 March 2026 AIMN EditorialBy Peter Brown, https://theaimn.net/trumps-nato-warning-sounds-more-like-a-threat/

When Donald Trump warned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization could face a “very bad future” after a lukewarm response from allies to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, the remark sounded less like diplomacy and more like a threat.

NATO was not created to serve as a backup force for American military adventures. It was created for collective defence. The alliance’s core principle – Article 5 – obliges members to assist one another only if a member state is attacked.

That principle has been invoked exactly once: after the September 11 attacks, when NATO allies rallied to support the United States in Afghanistan.

But this situation is fundamentally different.

No NATO country has been attacked. No member state has invoked Article 5. The current tensions stem from U.S. military action against Iran, not from an assault on the alliance itself.

Under those circumstances, NATO members are under no treaty obligation to participate in a U.S.-led effort to reopen shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet Trump’s message to allies is unmistakable: if they do not show up, the future of the alliance itself could be in doubt.

That turns the very idea of an alliance on its head.

Collective security works because nations believe they are joining a defensive pact – one where each country comes to the aid of another when attacked. It does not work if allies believe they are being asked to endorse or participate in conflicts they did not start and may not support.

Many European governments understand the stakes. Joining a military operation in the Persian Gulf could risk direct confrontation with Iran and potentially draw their countries into a wider regional war.

Their hesitation is not betrayal. It is caution.

And from their perspective, the question is obvious: why should NATO automatically rally behind an escalation that began with the United States?

Trump has long criticised NATO members for failing to spend enough on defence and for relying too heavily on American protection. But warning that the alliance itself could have a “very bad future” if allies refuse to follow Washington into a new confrontation moves beyond burden-sharing debates.

It begins to sound like coercion.

Alliances survive on trust – trust that members will defend each other when attacked, and trust that the alliance will not be used as leverage to compel support for unilateral decisions.

If that trust erodes, NATO’s greatest strength – unity – begins to weaken.

And once an alliance starts being treated less like a partnership and more like a tool, its future really does become uncertain.

Warning: This video of Trump airing his grievances about being snubbed by NATO countries is difficult to watch (apart from when the host speaks). You will most likely go through these stages: 1) Trump’s idiocy is entertaining, 2) Trump’s constant droning is becoming boring, and 3) I can’t take this rubbish anymore. (I made it to the the beginning of the third stage. You might do better.)

March 17, 2026 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Safety meltdown: Trump’s weakening of nuclear reactor regulations sparks opposition

Morning Star 16th March 2026, https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/safety-meltdown-trumps-weakening-nuclear-reactor-regulations-sparks-opposition

Nuclear safety experts warn that sweeping cuts to oversight rules could undermine environmental safeguards as the White House races to bring new reactors online by 2026, says Chauncey K Robinson

ON MARCH 4, attorneys general from several states across the US announced they’d formed a coalition to oppose the Trump administration’s new rules slashing security and environmental requirements for experimental nuclear reactors.

The coalition asserts that the new rules incentivise the creation of “much more nuclear waste.” They argue that the fundamental nature of nuclear fission technology entails risks to the environment and public health, which the federal government is downplaying.

In January, exclusive reporting from National Public Radio revealed that President Donald Trump’s Department of Energy (DOE) quietly overhauled a set of safety directives related to nuclear power plants. The changes were shared with the companies the administration is charged with regulating, but not with the public, according to documents obtained by NPR.

As reported by the news outlet, the orders eliminate hundreds of pages of security requirements for reactors. The updated rules loosen protections for groundwater and the environment, cut back on record-keeping requirements, and raise the amount of radiation a worker can be exposed to before an official accident investigation is triggered.

The public announcement of this move didn’t come until early February, when the DOE finally disclosed the fact that it was establishing a categorical exclusion (CatEx) for the application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures on the authorisation, construction, operation, reauthorisation, and decommissioning of advanced nuclear reactors.

The DOE defended the change, claiming that it is “based on the experience of DOE and other federal agencies, current technologies, regulatory requirements, and accepted industry practice.” In a statement sent to NPR after it broke the initial story, the DOE asserted that the “reduction of unnecessary regulations will increase innovation in the industry without jeopardizing safety.”

Yet the announcement, and the Trump administration’s rationale for it, have drawn immediate backlash from critics who say the move is dangerous and irresponsible.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, asserted that the experimental reactors have insufficient operating experience “to justify a claim that you can just turn them on and they’re going to be safe and that you don’t have to worry.”

The scientist said that the administration was taking a “wrecking ball to the system of nuclear safety and security regulation oversight that has kept the US from having another Three Mile Island accident,” referencing the historic 1979 nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania.

The overhaul of the reactor rules came about after the president signed an executive order in May last year titled “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy,” which called for three or more experimental reactors to come online in time for the 250th anniversary of US independence on July 4 2026. The new rules seem to be intended to help the administration meet the unprecedentedly tight deadline, despite warnings of danger.

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has usually been in charge of regulating commercial nuclear reactors, “advanced reactors” are defined as next-generation nuclear fission systems that “differ from today’s reactors primarily by their use of inert gases, molten salt mixtures, or liquid metals to cool the reactor core.

“Advanced reactors can also consider fuel materials and designs that differ radically from today’s enriched uranium-dioxide pellets within zirconium cladding.”

While the DOE touts these new reactors as being designed for improved safety, economics and environmental impact, scientific reports paint a different picture. In 2021, a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) found that “they [‘advanced’ non-light-water nuclear reactors] are no better — and in some respects significantly worse — than the light-water reactors in operation today.”

Critics also note that Trump’s push for more nuclear reactors by July 4 may have less to do with “advancement” or celebrating our nation’s birthday than with the demands of AI and the tech billionaires connected to it.

Billions of dollars in private equity, venture capital and public investments are reported to be backing the reactors. This includes tech giants Amazon, Google and Meta.

Last year, when numerous nuclear power industry executives visited the Oval Office, Trump called the industry “hot” and “brilliant.” This sentiment seems to align with his aggressive public rejection of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

Yet, the coalition of attorneys general — from Washington, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and the District of Columbia — is sounding an alarm that the administration’s actions will be detrimental to the environment and communities.

“The words ‘exemptions,’ ‘exclusions,’ and ‘nuclear safety regulations’ should never be put together. When it comes to nuclear energy and public safety, there should be more safety regulations and environmental protections, not less,” said coalition participant California attorney general Rob Bonta.

“With this new exemption, the Trump administration is trying to run before it can walk by accelerating the development of certain experimental and largely unproven advanced nuclear reactors — just like the president himself acknowledged,” Bonta said in a statement.

Bonta noted that advanced nuclear reactors lack a proven track record of safety.

The coalition’s comment letter makes a number of key assertions. It states that the DOE failed to adequately consider the potential environmental impacts of advanced nuclear reactors and that the department provided no concrete data demonstrating the reactors do not have the potential to “create significant environmental impacts.” The letter also accuses the DOE of exceeding its authority to regulate nuclear reactors.

The recent expansion and deregulation of nuclear power around the globe, particularly in the United States, has been a cause of concern for many environmental and safety advocates who warn that the world is sliding further down a “slippery nuclear slope.”

This is an edited version of an article published at peoplesworld.org.

March 17, 2026 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Shhh! Don’t Mention the War! Scam of the Week

March 17, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Alone at the Apex

17 March 2026 Michael Taylor AIM Extra, https://theaimn.net/alone-at-the-apex/

From his position at the commanding heights of American power, President Trump has often conveyed a singular conviction: the world does not sufficiently recognise his leadership – or America’s preeminence under it.

While ordinary citizens contend with everyday concerns, the president has framed his role in sweeping, almost solitary terms, as if the United States – and by extension, he personally – bears responsibility for the globe’s direction. Gratitude, in this view, is scarce; deference, even scarcer.

Consider trade policy. The administration’s use of tariffs was presented as a masterful recalibration of global economic relations – a straightforward tool to restore fairness and protect American interests. Yet the response was not passive acceptance. Major trading partners, including close allies, imposed countermeasures of their own. What was intended as a decisive unilateral stroke became a cycle of retaliation, raising costs for consumers and businesses on all sides. The expectation of unilateral acquiescence met the reality of sovereign interests.


A similar pattern emerged with the proposal to acquire Greenland. The president highlighted its strategic value – vast Arctic real estate with clear national-security implications – and floated the idea of a purchase from Denmark. The Danish government and Greenland’s leadership rejected the notion outright, citing sovereignty and self-determination. What may have appeared a bold real-estate opportunity to one side registered as an affront to national autonomy on the other. The ensuing diplomatic friction, including threats of economic pressure, underscored a fundamental disconnect: not every asset is available for negotiation, no matter the bidder’s confidence.

Efforts at broader diplomatic architecture have encountered comparable resistance. The “Board of Peace,” envisioned as a new mechanism to resolve international disputes and oversee initiatives like Gaza reconstruction, was launched with American leadership at its centre. Yet participation has been limited, with skepticism from many quarters about its structure, authority, and resemblance to existing multilateral bodies. The absence of broad buy-in has left the initiative more aspirational than operational.

Most recently, the call for international naval support in the Strait of Hormuz – urging allies and affected nations to deploy warships to secure a vital global chokepoint amid tensions with Iran – has met with tepid or nonexistent commitments. Despite appeals to countries heavily dependent on the route’s oil flows, including longstanding partners, few have stepped forward. The United States finds itself shouldering the burden largely alone, as others prioritise their own strategic calculations over collective action under American direction.

One can anticipate the familiar refrain on Truth Social: grievances about unfair treatment, unappreciative allies, thwarted deals, and the solitary burden of American greatness. The pattern is consistent – a belief that bold American initiatives should command automatic support, met instead with the stubborn pluralism of an independent world.

The deeper tension lies here: the president appears to operate from an assumption of unchallenged primacy, where U.S. proposals carry inherent authority. Yet the international system has long since moved beyond unipolarity. Other nations – democracies and autocracies alike – possess their own agendas, red lines, and capacities to say no. They are not subjects awaiting edicts; they are actors with vetoes of their own.

This is not ingratitude so much as the ordinary friction of a multipolar era. The loneliness at the top is real, but it stems less from betrayal than from the quiet erosion of exceptional leverage. The hill may be high and gilded, but it is no longer solitary – and insisting otherwise only accentuates the isolation.

March 17, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‘We deserve to know the truth’: 11 questions about US bases in Britain

From where they are exactly to the laws governing them, here’s what we need to know to hold the UK government accountable for Trump’s use of British bases

MARK CURTIS , Declassified 4th March 2026

Keir Starmer has given his approval for Donald Trump’s US to attack Iran using British military bases.

But the UK government imposes a considerable veil of secrecy over the US use of these bases, keeping the British public in the dark about how its territory is used in foreign wars. 

Former Labour Party leader and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn said: “From transferring equipment to refuelling planes to surveillance flights, we deserve to know the truth about exactly what these military bases are and have been used for, whether to benefit the US or Israel or both. 

“There is a reason why the government is so reluctant to tell us: they know that this information could tip British complicity in genocide and war into active participation. We will continue to push for a full, public and independent inquiry into the use of these bases.”

Here are some of the things we need to know about the US military and intelligence presence in the UK and British territories. 

Where exactly are they?

We don’t know where all US military personnel in Britain are. Whenever governments answer questions about the US presence in the UK, they mention major bases which the US Air Force operate – such as at Fairford, Mildenhall and Lakenheath – but have also referenced “undisclosed locations”.

The government also says that, in addition to the major air bases with a US presence, there are six other designated Nato facilities in the UK, where US military personnel can also be located. 

But Declassified recently found a US War Department document highlighting 22 American military sites in Britain, some of which successive UK governments have failed to mention. It is not clear how many of these 22 sites are currently hosting US military personnel. 

Declassified has identified other locations in Britain that are likely to host US military or intelligence personnel, bringing the total to 24.

Even this may not cover the full scale of the US military presence in the UK, since it is believed that US military personnel are frequently, if not permanently, stationed at still more sites, such as the key Royal Navy bases at Coulport, Devonport and Faslane. 

Keir Starmer’s government is also refusing to tell parliament how many US forces are located at each of its major bases in Britain. The reason it gives for not saying is that “we are in a new era of threat that remains more serious and less predictable”.

The government also refuses to say where the US has any navy, army or marine detachments in the UK. Incredibly, it says “the overall US force composition across its UK footprint is a matter for the US”.

Who really owns the US military sites in Britain?

This is also unclear. The US War Department document we found states that, as of 2024, it owned, leased or otherwise controlled 22 military sites in Britain, and that these are worth £11bn. The UK government contends that the War Department owns no facilities in Britain, making the exact terms of the US presence even more unclear.

The US document, for example, said its War Department owns 12 buildings covering over 39,000 square feet at RAF Oakhanger in Hampshire, which is a satellite ground station. 

Yet in answer to a recent parliamentary question, the MoD said it owns RAF Oakhanger. 

The government also says it owns MOD Bicester, which is another site where the US War Department says it holds 261 buildings. What are the terms and conditions governing these holdings?

What military operations does the US conduct from Britain?

Governments have refused to give us the full picture. The standard response is: “The Ministry of Defence does not comment on the operational activity of other nations”, even when they’re operating in Britain. 

When the US bombed Iran in June last year, the MoD refused to say if US aircraft based in Britain had been involved. 

The MoD also refuses to say if the US has used its British bases to transport arms to Israel. 

What US military operations need UK approval?

Britain has a vague agreement with the US on the use of British bases, going back to a 1952 communiqué between prime minister Winston Churchill and president Harry Truman. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.declassifieduk.org/we-deserve-to-know-the-truth-11-questions-about-us-bases-in-britain/

March 17, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Pro-nuclear group faces questions over ‘links’ to major London PR firm.

 BRITAIN Remade is the apparently “grassroots” group leading the push
to overturn Scotland’s ban on nuclear power. But The Ferret has found
that two of its directors come from a firm which lobbies for the UK’s
biggest nuclear company.

Britain Remade organised the recent launch of the
“Scotland for nuclear energy” campaign and has repeatedly called for
Holyrood to reverse its long-standing opposition to new atomic energy. The
“pro-growth” group campaigns to make it easier to build things in the
UK – including housing, transport links and clean energy.

It says it is
“independent” and “grassroots”. But it has been alleged that
Britain Remade has close ties to the London-based public relations firm
Stonehaven. Stonehaven represents EDF – the French energy giant that owns
Scotland’s last operational nuclear power station at Torness in East
Lothian. EDF could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of any move to lift
the ban on new nuclear plants.

A Ferret investigation into the relationship
between Stonehaven and Britain Remade uncovered that BRM Futures Ltd –
the private company behind the campaign group – recently named two senior
Stonehaven figures as directors. We also found other overlaps including
that Britain Remade had been incorporated at an address that was previously
the registered office of Stonehaven, by an individual whose name resembles
that of Stonehaven’s finance director.

Critics argued the public has “a
right to know who is behind any campaign” otherwise there was a risk of
Scottish democracy being “undermined behind closed doors”. Britain
Remade told The Ferret it had “never taken a penny of corporate money”,
sets its own priorities and campaigns “on what we think matters for the
country”. It also said any claim that funders get a veto on anything it
writes or campaigns on is “categorically untrue”.

However, despite
direct questions, it did not confirm the nature of its relationship with
Stonehaven or whether it had been set up by anyone at the firm. Stonehaven
did not respond to a request for comment. Companies House filings –
updated on February 3, just two days before the Glasgow launch of the new
nuclear campaign – show that BRM Futures Ltd appointed Pandora Lefroy and
Rachel Wolf as directors in October 2024. Lefroy has worked at Stonehaven
for more than 10 years and is now the firm’s managing partner. Wolf is
the chief executive of Public First, another consultancy firm bought by
Stonehaven last year, and now sits on the board of the wider Stonehaven
Group Holdings Limited. Filings show that BRM Futures Ltd was incorporated
in February 2022 on the first floor of an office building called Thavies
Inn House, in the Holborn area of London. Until three months previously,
that same address had been Stonehaven’s registered office.

The sole
founding director listed on the incorporation document was Henry Frank
Lewis. He resigned in November 2022 when the campaign was officially
launched and current staff members Sam Richards, Sam Dumitriu and Jeremy
Driver were appointed. Stonehaven’s finance director is Harry Lewis.
Britain Remade did not respond to a question about whether he and Henry
Frank Lewis were the same individual. Like EDF, Britain Remade is named as
a client of Stonehaven on the professional lobbying register. It has also
reportedly used technology provided through Stonehaven to launch a petition
on onshore wind that secured more than 11,000 signatures. James Mitchell, a
professor of public policy at the University of Edinburgh, said the public
should be “very wary” of any organisation which was unwilling to
provide “such basic information”.

“The public has a right to know who
is behind any campaign pursuing a policy including, crucially, who funds
the campaign and with what level of funding,” he said.

 The National 15th March 2026

March 16, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Why should Trump get all the blame?

10 March 2026 Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.net/why-should-trump-get-all-the-blame/

I’ve just read an article about planning nuclear power for a “post-Trump world” I’m wondering how many people are actually doing just that – planning for a “post Trump world.” Well, Donald Trump isn’t one of them. He’s got a pretty good plan for re-election in 2028. Never mind the fact that the USA Constitution forbids a President from having a third term in office. Heck, by 2028 there won’t be an American Constitution if Trump is still in office.

One way or another, I’d bet that Trump won’t be in office for that third term. By 2028, the apparently dim-witted American public might just not vote for Donald Trump, however colourful and entertaining he might be. Or the Republicans might have had enough, and somehow kicked him out in the meantime. Or some more dramatic events might have made him lose his grip on power – a nuclear war? He might even be in gaol – though I guess that’s a silly left-wing fantasy. Or even the seemingly immortally healthy Donald might get sick, or even die.

I just hope and pray that he is not assassinated. That would turn him into a martyr. A saint? As a recovered Catholic, I do think kindly of my old church. I just can’t imagine that current Catholicism could stomach the idea of Saint Donald Trump.

But anyway, I digress. And indeed this whole post is a digression. But to try to get to the point – what is wrong with the leaders of the Western world? It seems that only Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchéz has denounced the USA/Israel’s illegal attack on Iran. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney in January, briefly saw through Donald Trump, but by March, Carney had second thoughts, and fell into line in the conga dance behind him. The UK wavered and waffled, but ended up supporting the war. Confusion reigns in the EU. As for Australia – words fail me, as the ruling so-called Labor Party wriggles about, trying to deny that it supports the USA/Israel war. Twas so nice of Albanese to present Trump with a pretty little statue-thing of an AUKUS submarine.

It’s not just the war on Iran. It’s the support for Israel’s genocide. It’s the spectacle over two years, of politicians giving Trump standing ovations, smiling happily as they shake hands with this deranged, ignorant, sociopathic President of the USA. Surely they could manage mere politeness, and not a complete vision of fawning servility.

And when it all goes to shit, as it surely will, what will be their legacy? Will they be remembered as leaders of insight and integrity? Will they be remembered at all. Most likely, they’ll be gone and forgotten after the next election.

Let’s just remember, that pathetic lying confidence man, Trump, could not have done so much damage, so much harm, caused all that suffering, without their support.

March 15, 2026 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

Macron accosted

Moment rattled Emmanuel Macron is confronted by activists who storm stage during nuclear summit

By PERKIN AMALARAJ, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER, Daily Mail, 0 March 2026

The protesters, dressed sharply in black suits and ties, interrupted Macron and UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi as they were greeting heads of state today. 

They held banners bearing the Greenpeace logo and reading ‘Nuclear Power = Energy Insecurity’ and ‘Nuclear power fuels Russia‘s war.’

One of them shouted at Macron, ‘Why are we still buying uranium from Russia?’ to which the president replied, ‘We produce nuclear power ourselves.’ 

France has its own uranium enrichment capacity, but also imports enriched uranium for its power plants, including from Russia, according to the latest customs data published by the French government.

Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom accounted for about 44% of the global uranium enrichment capacity in 2025, according to the World Nuclear Association. 

European nuclear power producers have struggled to wean themselves off these supplies four years after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Around 15 Greenpeace activists blocked arriving convoys outside the venue in Boulogne-Billancourt on the outskirts of Paris on Tuesday, the environmental campaigning group said in a statement.

France is hosting the second world nuclear energy summit on Tuesday, where world leaders will meet to discuss and promote nuclear power.

The protesters, dressed sharply in black suits and ties, interrupted President Emmanuel Macron and UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi as they were greeting heads of state today

One of them shouted at Macron, ‘Why are we still buying uranium from Russia?’

‘For Greenpeace France, the holding of such a summit is an anachronism, an event completely out of touch with reality and with the lessons to be learned from the tragic situations of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the strikes on Iran, and the impacts of the worsening climate disruption,’ the group said. 

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen today called Europe’s turn away from civilian nuclear power a ‘strategic mistake’, arguing that the Middle East war had exposed the continent’s fossil fuel ‘vulnerability’.

‘It was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emission power,’ she said at the opening of a nuclear energy summit just outside Paris as the US-Israeli war with Iran entered its second week.

‘For fossil fuels, we are completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports. They are putting us at a structural disadvantage to other regions,’ she said at the summit, which aims to boost the use of civilian nuclear energy.

‘The current Middle East crisis gives a stark reminder of the vulnerability it creates,’ she added.

‘We have home-grown low-carbon energy sources: nuclear and renewables. And together, they can become the joint guarantors of independence, security of supply, and competitiveness – if we get it right.’

Macron struck a similar note, saying civilian nuclear power helped provide energy sovereignty.

France has its own uranium enrichment capacity, but also imports enriched uranium for its power plants, including from Russia,…………………………………………………………………… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15631733/Moment-rattled-Emmanuel-Macron-confronted-activists-storm-stage-nuclear-summit.html

March 14, 2026 Posted by | EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Trump, Netanyahu down to last card in criminal Iran war

10 March 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, https://theaimn.net/trump-netanyahu-down-to-last-card-in-criminal-iran-war/

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister began their second war on Iran in 7 months with just 2 war crime cards to play.

The first card was the US, Israeli version of Blitzkrieg from the air. Kill Iran’s beloved leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, demand surrender, then wait for the 90 million Iranians to capitulate to new masters Trump and Netanyahu. That was projected to take just about 72 hours.

As expected, millions of Iranians came into the streets following Khamenei’s assassination. But not to welcome the grisly invaders bombing them. It was to show near total support to the Islamic government, cheering them on to inflict as much retaliation possible to repel the Trump Netanyahu criminal tag team.

And they are succeeding, causing massive damage to US military facilities in Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait. Saudi Arabia and UAE. All 6 are running out of defensive interceptors provided by Uncle Sam. Why? Trump is giving them all to himself and his war partner Netanyahu. When this is all over, the Gulf States will never again trust America for their defense. They may even tell the US to vamoose the region PDQ.

Iran is also bombing Israel night and day, giving Netanyahu, flying around the region 24/7 to avoid Khamenei’s fate, a taste of what he visited on Palestinians in Gaza for 2 years.

That leaves Trump and Netanyahu with their last war crime card to play. Bomb Iran to smithereens till there is no more Iranian weapons or personnel left with which to retaliate.

Big problem facing America and Israel is size. Both Israel and US military facilities nearby are compact in size making them easy targets, while Iran, the 17th largest country by area, has their tens of thousands of missiles scattered and largely unreachable.

Now that Iran has chosen to fight to the death rather than capitulate as expected, the advantage may be tiltng in their favor. Rumors surfacing Trump is pondering an off ramp to stop the bleeding he has no way of controlling.

Worst case scenario remains that Netanyahu may get so desperate facing unfathomable defeat, he escalates to war crime card 3… nuke Tehran.

March 13, 2026 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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