nuclear-news

Deadly drone dangers

May 24, 2026 by beyondnuclearinternational

Nuclear power plants are already a liability in war zones. They also represent an open invitation for attack by armed drones, writes Linda Pentz Gunter

Drones are everywhere these days but not as ubiquitous as we once feared. Didn’t Amazon once threaten that all of its at-home deliveries would one day be made by drone? They are delivering some packages using drones — apparently dropping them from a height of 10 feet so the drones don’t collide with passersby — which is great if you ordered bed sheets, not so great for that new set of champagne flutes.

But where the drone industry has really taken off is in the business of warfare. On battlefields and beyond, drones are now routine. They are used to fire precision-guided munitions but also for targeted assassinations, and, whether deliberately or not, to hit nuclear power plants.

This, in particular, raises some extremely serious alarms, because today we have countries that have nuclear power programs that have also found themselves either directly or indirectly embroiled in wars.

The most headline-grabbing incident so far was when, on 14 February 2025, a Russian drone hit what is known as the New Safe Confinement structure at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The Confinement is the $2.7 billion dollar dome that was erected over the old sarcophagus originally built to contain the radiation still leaking from the destroyed Unit 4 that exploded and melted down in 1986.

The 2025 attack resulted in damage likely to cost around $582 million to repair.

At first, fears that radiation might be escaping as a result of the hole the drone blew in the dome’s roof were dismissed. But that situation could change dramatically given concerns that the old sarcophagus could collapse at any moment.

”That would be catastrophic because there’s four tonnes of dust, highly radioactive dust, fuel pellets, enormous amounts of radioactivity inside the sarcophagus,” Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace Ukraine told Agence France Presse in an interview.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began more than four years ago, there have been ongoing concerns about the 15 reactors there caught up in the war. Six in particular, at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the country’s worst hit southeast, have been the subject of the greatest alarm, with drone attacks and missiles landing on and damaging site buildings. Fortunately, there has been no direct hit on any of the reactors so far. But how long can such luck hold out?

The assaults at or near Zaporizhzhia caused the notoriously hypocritical wringing of hands from the International Atomic Energy Agency, stuck in between recognizing the dire risks of reactors in a war zone and its mandate to promote nuclear power all around the world. “Playing with fire”, IAEA general secretary, Rafael Grossi, has called the conflict around Zaporizhzhia, while claiming, incredibly, that nuclear power is not the problem, war is the problem.

In August 2025 a Ukrainian drone attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant inside Russia caused a massive fire and damaged an auxiliary transformer.

And then, just last week, a drone strike sparked a fire at an electrical generator just beyond the inner perimeter of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the United Arab Emirates. Again, mercifully, none of the four reactors at the site received a direct hit, although one unit was obliged to go to backup power from diesel generators.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility but the UAE is naturally pointing fingers at Iran, backed by evidence that the attack emanated from inside Iraq and therefore was likely the work of Iran-backed Shiite militias there.

Grossi called the Barakah hit in the UAE of “grave concern” and once again, like a helpless school teacher in front of an unruly class, warned that military activity around nuclear facilities is “unacceptable”.

The involvement of Tehran, officially or not, comes after powerful attacks by the US and Israel last June and again in February against all of Iran’s nuclear fuel manufacturing installations but sparing, so far, its Bushehr commercial nuclear reactor.

We have also just seen Russia and Belarus carrying out a practice deployment run with their tactical nuclear weapons, just one day after Ukraine successfully fired drones into the heart of Moscow. Belarusian authorities insist this was pure coincidence and that the drills were pre-scheduled and routine. But why practice deploying nuclear weapons if deterrence theory insists such weapons are too dangerous ever to use?

Ukraine’s defense minister, Mykhailo Federov, who has no military background, is now proclaiming the exciting future that is autonomous drones, a grim prospect given the propensity for loss of control when it comes to drones already on the battlefield. Federov and his enthusiastic backers are all too thrilled to describe autonomous weapons as “the new nuclear weapons”. He insists that “Countries that posses them will be protected.”

And so the myth continues. The more lethal — and now potentially rogue — weapons we have, the safer we will all be.

The message all of this sends is that civil nuclear power plants can become unexpectedly caught up in war zones, and can also represent inviting targets for attack, leading to potentially catastrophic results. Let’s remember, the UAE isn’t officially at war with anyone. Both Ukraine and Iran are on the receiving end of uninvited invasions.

We need drones out of our skies. We need wars not to be fought near nuclear power plants. We also need wars not to be fought at all, nuclear power plants to be shut down, and nuclear weapons, AI driven or otherwise, to be abolished.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the Executive Director of Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. She is the author of the book, No To Nuclear. Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress And Provokes War, published by Pluto Press.

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Wildfire Crews Race to Keep Fierce California Blaze From Former Nuclear Reactor Site

Shifting winds placed a former nuclear reactor and rocket testing site in the path of the growing Sandy Fire. The region’s first major blaze of the season raised alarm from families aware of the site’s history and spotty cleanup.

By Steven Rodas, Nina Dietz

Melissa Bumstead lives less than four miles
from the site of possibly the worst nuclear meltdown in U.S. history
besides the Three Mile Island accident. The Santa Susana Field Laboratory,
or SSFL, is known locally as a problem site—with a pockmarked history
amid a spotty cleanup. A blaze hitting the former nuclear reactor and
rocket testing site, Bumstead is sure, would be a cataclysm.

Inside Climate News 19th May 2026, https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19052026/california-sandy-fire-approaches-former-nuclear-reactor-site/

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

A troubled nuclear future

May 23, 2026, https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2026/05/a-troubled-nuclear-future.html

The National Energy System Operator estimates that up to 4.1GW of nuclear will be needed to deliver a clean power system in the UK by 2030, with scope for further capacity to be delivered if new small modular reactor (SMR) technology can be developed. Overall, the government’s aim seems to be to ramp up nuclear capacity to 24GW by 2050 – though that is still to be confirmed, with new ‘roadmap’ review underway.

It certainly would be hard. And expensive. But the money seems to be there for things like this. For example, Rolls Royce’s Small Modular Reactor design has been backed by up to £599m from the National Wealth Fund in a partnership deal with Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N). This, it is said, will enable work to begin on the delivery of the UK’s first SMR on Anglesey in North Wales, with £2.5bn having been allocated to SMR development. And over £14bn has been provided for the next large reactor at Sizewell. With, presumably, more to come

However, major projects like this do tax the UKs technology development capacity and there are moves to integrate civil & military nuclear expertise infrastructure to share the load and get more value by joint funding. In a new report, the right of centre Policy Exchange notes that ‘civil and defence nuclear are two distinct yet related aspects of the UK state and draw on many of the same national assets’. So it calls for ‘a more disciplined nuclear state,’ presumably with both aspects strengthened. But not everyone wants both or either to be strengthened. Most greens especially. Though, in these troubled times globally, it may be hard to be ‘anti deterrent.’ CND however has no problem with opposing both.

It is undeniable that there are links between civil and military nuclear. So, arguably it’s hard to back/or oppose one but not the other, with, for example, some nuclear technologies being suited to dual use. That can open up some big political issues, although some see it a bit differently: ‘Civil & military nuclear can enmesh’ says Paul Dorfman, but ‘one must ask whether one inevitably leads to the other…It’s not that nuclear military interests are the sole drivers of support for civil nuclear power, but for some states dual-use technology may comprise a significant complementary factor.’

Be that as it may, the UK state does keep going with both, and is now also pushing fusion, with another £2.5bn allocation. And, despite the long history of false hopes, dating back to ZETA at Harwell in the late 1950s, there is even talk of a prototype in the mid 2030s. Although more likely the 2040s, in the case of the STEP project planned for Nottinghamshire.

Some see all of this nuclear pushing as vital or at least unstoppable. But not all. For example, in a powerful new book Linda Pentz Gunter says that amongst its many problems, nuclear power is too slow, too expensive, too dangerous and too integrally connected to the nuclear weapons complex, to serve as a rational energy choice. And US energy guru Amory Lovins agrees: ‘A kilowatt of nuclear power capacity produces several times the annual output of a kilowatt of solar or wind capacity, but at many times higher cost per kilowatt-hour. Capital markets therefore shun nuclear investments but invest one or two orders of magnitude more in solar & wind power. Those renewables therefore add two orders of magnitude more net capacity per year than nuclear, which remains a less-than-one-percent contributor to global electricity growth.’

It is sometimes argued that nuclear is needed to balance variable renewables, but large costly inflexible nuclear plants are not able to vary their output quickly and safely to meet rapid supply and demand variations. Some new SMR technology may make them more flexible. But do you like the sound of molten-flouride salt heat reservoirs? Apart from the risks, adding capacity like that is likely to make the system more expensive and, since they would only need to work part time, overall less economically efficient. Why bother when renewables are accelerating ahead, with load factors rising and costs mostly falling? They will need balancing, but newly emerging low-cost storage and smart grid systems can help balance supply and demand, so we can meet our energy needs reliably: see my last post on IRENA’s new study.

While some countries do still see civil as well as military nuclear technology as vital, they are in a minority. Out of the 195 countries in the world, only 9 have nuclear weapons and only 31 have nuclear power plants. Some middle-eastern countries may see it differently, with weapons possibilities always being an option. But interestingly, in non-nuclear (bomb and power) Norway, a Government advisory committee looking at its energy options, recently said nuclear power would not be economic, and in any case it would ‘not come in time to help achieve the Paris Agreement’s 2050 goals’, unlike ‘upgrading hydropower plants and expanding wind and solar power’. Crucially, ‘the prospect of realising a Norwegian nuclear power programme with production starting in the mid 2040’s may crowd out other power plant investments that can be realised more quickly’. So, although nuclear might be looked at again as an option in the future, ‘offshore wind offers the greatest potential for new power generation in the long term’.

That does seem to be sensible. As other independent studies have also argued, the economic case for nuclear is poor – there are better options for decarbonisation, with no radioactive wastes left to deal with, or melt-down or local leakage risks and offering no terrorist or enemy targets for attack. Sadly, for now, in the UK, we will have to make do with the government’s view that all is well with its nuclear plans, policies and procedures. For example, on safety, it has adopted all the reforms to the nuclear regulation system proposed by the independent Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce led by John Fingleton. He had found it an ‘overly complex’ and ‘bureaucratic’ system that had held back the industry. So the aim is to speed up nuclear regulation and cut costs, with ‘safe, cost effective & rapid delivery’ across the entire civil and defence nuclear enterprise. The new streamlined system should be in place by 2027. What could possibly go wrong?

Next? The National Audit Office has just come out with an assessment of the funding arrangements for Sizewell C, the next big new UK project. It says maintaining ‘investor financial returns will cost consumers over £4 billion, but will be justified if they help the project to cut construction costs and speed up delivery times’. Phew!

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Yet Another Escalation In The Empire’s War On Activism And Journalism

Caitlin Johnstone, May 26, 2026

The empire’s war on activism and journalism continues to escalate as the Trump administration targets left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and antiwar activist Medea Benjamin for the crime of bringing humanitarian aid to Cuba.

This is yet another act of aggression in the same onslaught that has seen inconvenient truth-telling and expressions of moral clarity attacked and undermined throughout the western world at every juncture in recent years.

It is not separate from the persecution of Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes.

It is not separate from the steadily increasing escalations of internet censorship we’ve seen in the wake of Gaza, Ukraine, Covid, January 6, the 2016 US presidential election, and any other excuse the imperial narrative managers could find.

It is not separate from the Trump administration’s efforts to deport non-citizens for criticizing the state of Israel.

It is not separate from the efforts to stomp out pro-Palestine protests and university campus demonstrations.

It is not separate from the arrests of activists in the UK on terrorism charges for saying the words “I support Palestine Action”.

It is not separate from activists facing criminal charges for saying “From the river to the sea” in parts of Australia and Germany.

It is not separate from imperial efforts to crack down on BDS activism and outlaw boycotts of Israeli products.

It is not separate from Israel’s ban on foreign press from entering Gaza, nor is it separate from Israel’s systematic extermination of Palestinian journalists within Gaza.

It is not separate from the artificially manufactured hysteria about “antisemitism” in western society and the efforts of western governments to silence criticism of Israel in the name of protecting Jews.

It is not separate from Israel’s massive increase in its hasbara budget this year and the armies of paid trolls we’ve seen swarming online discourse.

It is not separate from the nonstop barrage of imperial propaganda we see every day from the plutocratic press justifying every war and slandering every dissident.

It is not separate from the way imperial oligarchs like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison buy up news outlets like The Washington Post and CBS and social media platforms like TikTok and Twitter in order to manipulate the way the public thinks, acts, and votes.

It is not separate from the way tech platforms have been manipulating algorithms to hide dissident sources of information from the public and using bogus “fact checking” firms to suppress unauthorized facts.

It is not separate from government secrecy measures which forbid the public from knowing what their rulers are doing, and which aggressively punish anyone who tries to reveal inconvenient facts.

The empire is waging a relentless war on intellectual clarity and on moral clarity, because truth and morality are its enemies.

They do not want us to have unobstructed vision, lucid minds, functioning empathy centers and well-formed consciences, because if we did, we would instantly dismantle the empire brick by brick.

This is why they go after anyone who tries to expand the consciousness of western society using activism and journalism. In an empire built on lies and fueled by human blood, telling the truth is seen as treason and doing the right thing is seen as insurrection.

The only sane response to such a dystopian situation is to join in the revolution. Help spread unauthorized ideas and information. Take action to spread awareness of the abusive nature of the empire. They’re trying to keep it all in the dark, so we need to bring it all into the light.

They wouldn’t be fighting so hard to suppress truth and compassion if it didn’t present an immediate existential threat to their power structure.

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, media, USA | Leave a comment

Even American war hawks now admit Iran is defeating the US – and it will change the world

It is so widely accepted that the USA is losing the war that now even neoconservative hawks admit it. They lament that Iran’s victory reflects the decline of US hegemony and rise of multipolarity.

By Ben Norton, Geopolitical economy, May 25, 2026

It is now widely acknowledged that the United States is losing the war against Iran, which Washington itself started.

Even some neoconservative hawks — who were architects of the wars on Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and who for years advocated for an attack on Iran — have now reluctantly acknowledged that Tehran is winning this war, and that Washington’s loss will have massive geopolitical repercussions.

“There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done”, wrote the prominent neocon Robert Kagan in The Atlantic. “With control of the strait [of Hormuz], Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished”.

Western media outlets report that the US is losing the war with Iran

Just a few weeks after the United States and Israel launched this war of aggression on 28 February, British newspaper The Independent acknowledged that “Iran is the clear winner, as Trump’s desperate bid for peace shows he wants out of the war”.

Soon after, the US corporate media began to concede the same.

In mid-April, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed observing that “the Iran War seems to be failing”. This was written by Gerard Baker, the conservative former editor-in-chief of the newspaper, and an erstwhile Trump supporter.

Meanwhile, US intelligence agencies have been feeding information to US media outlets, disclosing that the war has been going very badly.

The New York Times reported in May, citing US intelligence sources, that Iran still has access to the vast majority of its missile capabilities.

Tehran can still use 30 of its 33 missile sites on the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint, through which roughly 20% of globally traded crude passed on a daily basis before the war.

Trump declared a US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, to try to choke off Iran’s oil exports.

However, US intelligence officials acknowledged in an article in the Washington Post that Iran is able to withstand this US military blockade for many months.

Moreover, US intelligence officials told numerous media outlets — including CNN, NBC News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post — that Iran has succeeded in destroying or at least heavily damaging the majority of the US military’s bases and other assets in West Asia.

At the same time, Fortune magazine reported that the US military has been quickly using up its stockpile of missiles.

Fortune cited Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Linda Bilmes, who estimated that the US war on Iran will likely cost more than $1 trillion.

Trump has denied all of this publicly, instead adamantly claiming victory.

“They’re militarily defeated. In their own minds, maybe they don’t know that”, Trump said of Iran.

Nevertheless, these constant leaks by US intelligence officials, to a multitude of media outlets, tell a very different story. They show that this war is going very badl

Neoconservative hawks admit Iran is winning the war

In fact, the war is going so badly that some of the most prominent neoconservative ideologues in the United States have publicly conceded that Iran is winning.

This was the conclusion of an article published in the pro-war mouthpiece of Atlanticism, The Atlantic. The piece was titled “Checkmate in Iran”, and it bore the subtitle “Washington can’t reverse or control the consequences of losing this war”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

US war against Iran is extremely unpopular among Americans

What explains the sudden opposition of these notorious neoconservative hawks, who spent decades pushing for war on Iran?

They can apparently see the writing on the wall. The war has gone horribly, and it is extremely unpopular at home.

60% of Americans oppose Trump’s handling of the war on Iran, while just 33% support it, according to a May survey published by NPR, PBS News, and Marist Poll.

Prominent neocons are simply jumping off the sinking ship. They recognize that Trump and the Republican Party are extremely unpopular, and that this war is blowing back, hard. Even American war hawks now admit Iran is defeating the US – and it will change the world – Geopolitical Economy Report

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear test veterans hope for justice as secret files are released.

Servicemen exposed to radioactive fallout in cold war weapons testing are using newly declassified documents to fight for a fair compensation scheme

In November 1957, thousands of servicemen on Christmas Island in the South
Pacific watched the testing of Britain’s first megaton thermonuclear bomb.
Witnesses compared it to seeing the end of the world.

Many viewed the
explosion on the island while wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts, with
sunglasses handed out to protect their eyes. Veterans claim they were
exposed to needless risk and were the victims of gross negligence. Large
numbers later suffered blood disorders and cancers, which they believed
were caused by exposure to radioactive fallout. Most were denied war
pensions because of ill-health.

By contrast, those involved in the US
nuclear testing programme, including the Manhattan Project led by J Robert
Oppenheimer, benefited from a $2.6bn no-fault compensation fund. France
agreed in 2008 that it would pay compensation to nuclear test veterans who
suffered illness linked to radiation exposure.

British veterans now hope
the release of thousands of previously classified documents from the Merlin
files into the National Archives will help support their near-70-year
battle for justice. Some of these newly released documents analysed by The
Observer detail risks of radioactive fallout, health monitoring of military
personnel and orders for blood samples to be taken from servicemen that
could be used for evidence in any subsequent claims for damages.

Observer 24th May 2026, https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/nuclear-test-veterans-hope-for-justice-as-secret-files-are-released

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, UK | Leave a comment

From Occupation to Erasure: How Legacy Media Failed Gaza

ScheerPost Staff, May 25, 2026

The Complicit Lens: How Media Helped Normalize the Destruction of Gaza

On the latest episode of Scheer Intelligence, host Robert Scheer sat down with media scholar Robin Andersen for a blistering examination of how major American media institutions covered — and often concealed — the realities unfolding in Gaza.

At the center of the discussion is Andersen’s new book, The Complicit Lens: U.S. Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza, which argues that corporate media did far more than simply fail the public. According to Andersen, institutions like The New York Times and CNN helped manufacture a sanitized narrative that erased the historical roots of Palestinian suffering while shielding Israeli state violence from meaningful scrutiny.

Throughout the conversation, Scheer and Andersen return to a central question: What happens when the institutions tasked with informing the public become instruments of political messaging?

Andersen points to leaked newsroom directives reportedly instructing journalists to avoid words such as “occupation,” “ethnic cleansing,” and even “refugee camp.” The effect, she argues, was not merely semantic. It fundamentally stripped audiences of the historical and legal context necessary to understand Gaza itself. If Palestinians are never described as occupied people, then their resistance appears irrational rather than rooted in decades of dispossession and military control.

Scheer repeatedly stresses that this is not simply a failure of journalism, but a crisis of democracy and intellectual freedom. The conversation expands beyond Gaza into the repression seen across American universities, where students and professors protesting the war increasingly found themselves surveilled, punished, or accused of antisemitism. Andersen describes how campus protests were portrayed not as organic moral outrage, but as dangerous extremism requiring police intervention and political suppression.The interview also confronts the growing contradiction at the heart of American political discourse: criticism of the Israeli government is increasingly treated as hostility toward Jewish identity itself. Scheer, drawing from his own Jewish background, calls this “a blasphemy against the Jewish people,” arguing that the history of Jewish struggle has long been rooted in universal human rights and dissent against oppression — not unconditional allegiance to state power.

One of the most striking parts of the discussion centers on how Palestinian voices — especially journalists documenting the destruction on the ground — were marginalized by establishment media even as they risked and lost their lives reporting from Gaza. Andersen argues that social media and independent outlets became essential because they bypassed traditional gatekeepers that often repeated official Israeli talking points without verification.Scheer ultimately frames the crisis as one extending far beyond a single conflict. If governments, media institutions, and universities can collectively narrow the boundaries of acceptable speech around Gaza, then the implications for democratic society are profound. The issue is no longer only about what is happening overseas, but whether Americans themselves retain the ability to openly question power without fear of censorship, retaliation, or ideological policing.

By the end of the interview, Andersen delivers a stark warning: journalism that abandons accuracy, historical context, and moral clarity ceases to function as journalism at all. It becomes public relations for power.

And in moments of mass suffering, silence and distortion become forms of complicity.

Scheer Intelligence: Highlights

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….From Occupation to Erasure: How Legacy Media Failed Gaza

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media | Leave a comment

128 years of US exploitation, degradation of Cuba continues on steroids

17 May 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Walt Zlotow , West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, 128 years of US exploitation, degradation of Cuba continues on steroids – The Australian Independent Media Network

One must go back to 1898 for the last time the US was not exploiting Cuba and its people to benefit rapacious US capitalism and organized crime. That year the US cooked up fairy tale about Spain blowing up the US Maine, sent to Havana Harbor to intimidate Cuba’s Spanish ruler. The Maine did blow up but from an accidental internal explosion, not a Spanish mine. Those 261 sailors could not be said to have died in vain so President McKinley and his war party blamed Spain in order to declare war, kick Spain out of the Americas and take over Cuba for US exploitation.

But nothing in the previous 126 years compares to the diabolical cruelty, including death, the US has inflicted upon Cuba by President Trump and his bloodthirsty Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

This is not exaggeration. Need a lifesaving operation in Cuba under the Trump, Rubio oil blockade? Faggedaboudit. Much medical care is unavailable in oil starved Cuba when the lights go dark. Food and life sustaining supplies are becoming scares as farmers and merchants cannot get their wares to the people with a transport system largely shut down. Nearly a fifth of Cubans have fled the Trump, Rubio regime change operation.

Trump glories in their death and destruction he’s unleased. “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

Trump is expanding in more grotesque terms US policy to degrade Cuba into submission going back to 1960. A secret State Department memo back then under Eisenhower promoted overthrowing Castro thru:

“… a line of action, while adroit and inconspicuous as possible, denies money and supplies to Cuba to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of the Castro government.”

Trump simply dropped the “adroit and inconspicuous” fig leaf.

Ironically, the first US embargo in Cuba was good for the Cuban people. In April, 1958, Eisenhower imposed an arms embargo on the Batista regime. The US had been supporting Batista’s murderous rule for 25 years to insure his support of US economic control, both legal and criminal that enriched US capitalists and Mafia enterprises to the detriment of the Cuban people. Eisenhower didn’t have an epiphany to help the Cuban people. He simply saw the inevitable triumph of Castro’s revolution and sought to curry favor with its eventual rulers.

Twenty months later Castro prevailed, Batista fled and Cuba finally ended 62 years of US cruelty and exploitation. Not quite. Within year the US imposed Cuban embargo 2.0 designed not to facilitate the inevitable revolution but to destroy it. Sixty-six years on, with the entire world community except Israel voting year after year in the UN for the US to stop, America’s endless lust to crush the Cuban revolution continues apace. And under the depraved Trump, Rubio oil embargo, it has become a monumental war crime against the 11 million sorrowful Cuban souls.

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, SOUTH AMERICA, USA | Leave a comment

Memorial Day: The Glorification of War, Not War’s Victims

Edward Curtin, SCHEERPOST, 25 May 26

Although Memorial Day in the United Sates is ostensibly a day for honoring soldiers killed in wars, it is, rather, a day for promoting war. If it were to honor the dead, all its pageantry would be in opposition to war.

Rather than being haunted by the ghosts of war, many Americans are very proud of all its soldiers killed while killing foreigners for the military industrial complex and the super-rich who own the country.

For the U.S.A. is a warfare state; it has been waging imperialistic overseas wars for a long, long time, and using its soldiers as cannon fodder. Most families of dead soldiers find it impossible to admit that their loved ones died in vain, even if courageously.

Without waging wars, the U.S. economy, as presently constituted, would collapse. Business goes on as usual.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. not all of the wars’ victims die. Vast numbers become “living corpses,” also mostly anonymous and forsaken. Across the world and here at home wherever the American war machine has set its sights, the lame and crippled struggle on, victims of bombs and bullets, napalm and white phosphorous, nuclear radiation, torture, biological weapons – all the grotesque weapons the ghouls of the weapons’ industries have conjured up from hell for their paymasters. Countless living victims, yes, but the weapons industries carefully count their bloody profits, as do those who invest in these companies while turning a blind eye to their own complicity. Do they fly the flag on Memorial Day on their manicured lawns?

Many of the wounds of war are psychological and spiritual. And so many of the victims suffer silently. Wars’ terrors follow them everywhere down their nights and down their days, and they can often find no escape from the nightmare images that populate their minds, flashing in and out. It’s beyond imagining the living hell of children worldwide reliving the sight of the bloodied mangled bodies of their parents at their feet, victims of bombs or death squads or perhaps “collateral damage,” as if any words or reasons could undue their everlasting trauma or cover up the radical evil of those who killed them.

We owe it the wounded, dead, and tormented war victims everywhere to memorialize them with the words:

War is a lie, and only truth will free us. We need a non-violent revolution.

And to stop marching with the drums drumming and the flags flying as if we are proud of the U.S. killing machine. Memorial Day: The Glorification of War, Not War’s Victims – christinamacpherson@gmail.com – Gmail

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Obstacles to Peace in Europe Are Not What We Think

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 26 May 2026, The Obstacles to Peace in Europe Are Not What We Think, by Thierry Meyssan

The compromise reached between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on August 15 has still not materialized in Ukraine. The obstacles are not those the United States anticipated. Ukraine is not cooperating, while Germany and the United Kingdom want war.

President Donald Trump acknowledged to his counterpart Xi Jinping that he was his equal. Since World War II, every American president has considered himself superior to others because he was the most powerful and the richest.

Conversely, from a Chinese perspective, Xi Jinping considers himself the equal not only of Donald Trump, but of each of his counterparts. A Chinese person does not believe that having greater resources makes you superior.

This concept of a hierarchy between nations is purely Western. Therefore, the evolution of the US president should not be interpreted without considering the cultural context of the observer.

The following week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, visited Beijing. Western commentators asserted that the Russian was being held hostage by the Chinese. Again, this demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of their relationship. It is not the product of their respective interests, but of their shared history. From the sacking of the Summer Palace to the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Slavs, each has experienced how Westerners behave. They have concluded that they can only resist them by remaining united. It is therefore absurd to consider replicating what Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger did in 1972: decoupling the two states.

At the Anchorage summit on August 15, 2025, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin discussed doing business between their two countries and making peace in Ukraine. Despite several attempts, Washington failed because it wanted to sell weapons to the Europeans first. Today, it seems much more difficult, and the Europeans are beginning to manufacture their own.

President Trump has therefore begun withdrawing troops from Europe and abandoning the war that the Pentagon planned to extend to Transnistria and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He announced that he would withdraw at least 5,000 troops from Germany. Vladimir Putin, for his part, decreed that he would grant Russian citizenship to any adult Transnistrian who requested it. Finally, Donald Trump withdrew his support for the European Union High Commissioner who was administering Bosnia and Herzegovina in violation of the Dayton Agreement (1995). Simultaneously, his former Secretary of National Security, General Michael Flynn, is organizing US investments in the Serb-held area of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These events suggest that the United States favors a peace in Ukraine that recognizes all of Novorossiya as Russian. This is historically and culturally justified, but it will only be possible by holding a referendum on self-determination. For the moment, Russian forces have no intention of liberating Odessa. The peace treaty could, however, acknowledge this.

Here again, contrary to what we believe, the difficulties do not lie where we perceive them.

The three main ones are now:

1) recognition of the Nazi ideology of the current government in Kyiv and the denazification of Ukraine;

2) recognition of the undemocratic nature of German reunification and the independence of East Germany;

3) recognition of the UK’s anti-Russian obsession and the dismantling of the European Defence Union before it is definitively formed.

Ukraine

Even though Western powers persist in believing that the Russian intervention in Ukraine is an attempt at annexation and the beginning of Russia’s westward expansion, Moscow never invaded its neighbor, but rather implemented Resolution 2202, which it had guaranteed before the Security Council.

To claim that Russia invaded Ukraine is as absurd as saying that France invaded Rwanda. We know that it intervened to end a genocide (for which it was partly responsible), in accordance with a Security Council resolution.

The current Ukrainian government is illegitimate. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s term expired long ago. Every three months, he extends martial law, which serves no other purpose than to prevent new elections. However, his latest decree on this matter extends martial law from May 2nd to August 4th. It would be possible to organize an election campaign and a vote during that time. However, the electoral lists will need to be cleaned up, as they still include soldiers killed in action and civilians who fled. No one knows their exact number, but they could represent between one and two-thirds of registered voters.

The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) is equally problematic. Only a third of the members participate. The laws it passes are therefore of dubious legitimacy. For example, it voted to destroy one hundred million books—on the grounds that they were signed by Russian authors or printed in Russia, without distinguishing between contemporary authors and literary classics. Similarly, this parliament banned the country’s main church and all opposition parties. Moreover, there is a CIA office within the Rada itself that drafts all the laws. The members present simply ratify them.

Russia’s primary demand is the denazification of Ukraine. This is what President Putin declared when launching his special military operation. From a Russian perspective, this is non-negotiable. Indeed, what defines the identity of the Russian Federation is not the memory of Catherine the Great, but that of the Soviet struggle against Nazism. This ideology aimed to annihilate the entire Slavic population (but neither the Jewish nor the Roma population), as explained in Mein Kampf. Even if we in the West are unaware of it, the Second World War was not waged to carry out the Holocaust, but to murder the Slavic population.

Yet, the illegitimate administration of the unelected president Zelensky refuses any denazification measures. There are currently numerous monuments glorifying the Nazis and their collaborators, the “fundamental nationalists.” The history of Ukraine was entirely rewritten by them, with the help of British MI6 and the American CIA, after the Second World War. This propaganda aims to make people believe that the “Banderists” fought the Nazis, which is absolutely false. No: the Banderites were Nazis.

Convinced that there will never be denazification, the “fundamental nationalists” are planning the construction of a Pantheon in their honor. General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the presidential administration, organized the repatriation of the remains of perpetrators of crimes against humanity, buried around the world during the Cold War, on March 28. Rob Jetten and Luc Frieden, the Dutch and Luxembourgish prime ministers, have already agreed to the transfer of the bodies of the fascist Yevhen Konovalets and the Nazi Andriy Melnyk.

Germany

In our minds, Germany is a democratic state that successfully reunified in 1990. However, as Dmitry Medvedev, Vice Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, recently stated, reunification is merely an illusion. West Germans never consulted East Germans. Under international law, reunification is invalid.

The 2025 federal elections produced different and opposing results in the former West and East Germany. West Germans voted for the CDU or SPD, while East Germans voted for the AfD. This is the sole reason why the first two parties are classified as “democratic” and the third as “far-right.”

Yet, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (a Christian Democrat) has pursued a widespread crackdown on all those who challenge his authority, labeling them “conspiracy theorists.” Relying on the Munich Office for the Protection of the Constitution (a branch of the federal body which housed many of the Reich police officials after the war), he banned several media outlets and imprisoned journalists.
Simultaneously, Germany is gradually rebuilding its army with financial assistance from the United Kingdom, just as its predecessor, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, rebuilt the German army with the help of the Governor of the Bank of England, Lord Montagu Norman. He has reinstated conscription for men and requires every volunteer to notify Berlin before going on holiday abroad.

Germany is also rebuilding its military-industrial complex, this time with European funds.
It is preparing for a war like the one in Ukraine, even though a war against Russia would be of a completely different nature. Regardless, the entire German industry is now producing Ukrainian drones and selling them in the Gulf against Iran. Following this logic, Berlin wants to bring Ukraine into the European Union, even though it does not meet the accession criteria set by the treaties: it would simply be a matter of creating a new status, that of “associate member,” and the trick would be done. Having ignored the negative results of the 2005 French and Dutch referendums, this would be just another decision made against the will of the people.

Friedrich Merz, grandson of a Nazi dignitary, cannot imagine his country not being allied with the Ukrainian “fundamental nationalists,” nor holding accountable those who sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipeline and caused the collapse of German industry.

The United Kingdom

Since the 19th century, the United Kingdom has perceived Russia as its sole rival, not only in Europe, but in the world. Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, conceived the “Great Game,” the colonization of Central Asia, in order to neutralize the Russian Empire. Today, British strategy remains unchanged.

London continues to portray Moscow as an obscurantist power. It is no longer a matter of fabricating the Zinoviev telegram (which allowed the Soviets to be accused of wanting to interfere in the UK elections), but of making people believe that the Kremlin’s occupant is a madman who has a passenger plane shot down in Ukraine and poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal or Alexei Navalny.

Its latest invention is the attack on European airports by unidentified drones. Regardless of the truth, London is using this to convince the North Sea states to join its Joint Expeditionary Force, which it has just transformed into a military alliance, the “Northern Marines,” under its command. It hopes to bring all the member states of the European Union and Turkey into the alliance.

This is why the hereditary Lords—and there are still some—are doing everything they can to keep Keir Starmer in Downing Street. The Prime Minister is, in fact, a Labour member who is, in secret, an agent of big business: unbeknownst to his own party and the media, he attended meetings of the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission. Also unbeknownst to everyone, he appointed Peter Mandelson—an accomplice of the criminal Jeffrey Epstein—as Her Majesty’s ambassador to Washington.

The important thing is to maintain the illusion that the United Kingdom has no dealings with either the State of Israel or Hamas; to continue concealing the fact that Israeli chiefs of staff have been secretly visiting Whitehall throughout the Gaza genocide, in which the British army actively participated. It is better to claim, like Christian Turner, Peter Mendelson’s successor, that only one state has a “special relationship” with Washington: Israel.

May 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Survey begins to determine remote island’s suitability for nuclear disposal site

But while the local leaders of the municipalities in Hokkaido and Genkai approved the literature reviews, the Hokkaido and Saga governors, whose permission NUMO will seek to go on to the next stage — a preliminary on-site survey — are opposed

By Eric Johnston, STAFF WRITER, May 21, 2026, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/nuclear-energy/

A survey to determine the suitability of a remote island in the Ogasawara Islands chain as a final disposal site for radioactive nuclear waste began Wednesday.

The National Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO) will carry out a review of the scientific literature on the geology of Minamitorishima, Japan’s easternmost island, located nearly 2,000 kilometers from Tokyo.

The literature review is the first stage of an investigation into whether the site would be suitable for constructing an underground nuclear storage facility. The radioactive waste would need to be buried at least 300 meters underground for up to 100,000 years.

Minamitorishima has no civilian residents and is part of Ogasawara Village. The mayor, Masaki Shibuya, gave his approval for the survey last month.

Over the next two years or so, experts will scrutinize geological maps and academic papers regarding earthquake fault lines and volcanic activity on and around the island.

Local governments that agree to participate in the literature review can receive up to ￥2 billion in grants, and the central government has been encouraging as many of them as possible to raise their hands.

“The final disposal of radioactive waste is a critical issue that Japan as a whole must resolve, and we intend to conduct literature surveys in as many parts of the country as possible,” NUMO President Akira Yamaguchi said in a statement Wednesday.

Minamitorishima is only the fourth site to agree to the survey. Suttsu town and Kamoenai village in Hokkaido Prefecture have been surveyed, and NUMO is compiling feedback on the report. Genkai, in Saga Prefecture, is currently undergoing a survey as well.

“If Suttsu and Kamenaichi intend to proceed with a preliminary survey, I’ll express opposition at this time,” Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki said in March, citing an October 2000 prefectural assembly ordinance opposing the introduction of nuclear waste into the prefecture.

Saga Prefecture Gov. Yoshinori Yamaguchi has also indicated his opposition to his prefecture hosting a final disposal facility.

“I have no intention of accepting any new burdens,” Yamaguchi said in April when asked about his position on whether he’d provide consent for Genkai to conduct a preliminary on-site survey after the literature survey.

Unlike the other three candidate sites, Minamitorishima has no permanent residents and is off-limits to the public. It houses facilities operated by the Maritime Self-Defense Force, the Japan Meteorological Agency, and the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry.

The Japanese government is moving to restart as many nuclear power plants as possible. But on-site storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel at many power plants are approaching full capacity, while plans to have the spent fuel recycled at the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant in Aomori Prefecture remain stalled.

In February, the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan released figures showing that storage pools at 17 nuclear plants where spent fuel is cooled were 78% full as of the end of last year.

May 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

World War Trump (everywhere, Somalia too)

In the Trumpian Age, Every Accusation Is Also a Confession

SCHEEROST, Nick Turse Tom Dispatch, May 22, 2026

“It’s got no anything,” President Donald Trump said of Somalia in a recent xenophobic rant. “All they do is run around shooting each other.”

As is true of so much with this administration, every accusation is also a confession.

U.S. troops have been shooting Somalis since the early 1990s, after lame duck President George H. W. Bush launched an ostensibly humanitarian intervention there that would be embraced by his successor, Bill Clinton. By June 1993, U.S. and U.N. troops had begun attacking various targets in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, linked to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, who had helped overthrow dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The next month, in a major escalation, U.S. helicopter gunships attacked a house in that city where a group of Somali clan leaders was meeting. The International Committee of the Red Cross said 54 people were killed and 161 wounded. Aidid claimed that 73 Somalis had died, including women and children, and more than 200 had been wounded. U.S. forces suffered no casualties whatsoever.

And it wasn’t long before — in the early 2000s, under Bush’s son, George W., as part of what became known as the Global War on Terror — American troops began slaughtering Somalis again. In addition to major conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush, the younger, launched early drone wars from Pakistan to Yemen, including in Somalia. His successor, President Barack Obama, upped the Forever War ante, becoming an assassin-in-chief in Somalia and beyond. Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, continued the drone war there, too, when he entered the White House.

However, for all those years of slaughter in Somalia, no American president has ever attacked Somalis with the persistence and at the rate of President Donald J. Trump, especially in his second term in office.

The second Bush administration conducted 11 airstrikes in Somalia, killing as many as 144 people — including possibly 55 civilians, according to the think tank New America. Obama presided over 48 strikes during his eight years in office that killed as many as 553 people. Trump’s first term saw a massive escalation in such drone strikes. Over his first four years, Trump carried out 219 attacks, a 271% increase over the 16 years of the George W. Bush and Obama presidencies. But even that spike has paled in comparison to the relentless rate of attacks during Trump’s second term in office. While Biden exceeded Obama’s total in half the time — 51 strikes in four years — Trump is already set to eclipse his own infamous first-term record in less than a year and a half. He has presided over at least 190, if not more, air strikes in Somalia.

Trump’s killing spree in Somalia is just a small part of his wider war on the world. It’s no exaggeration to say that he has the U.S. military “run[ning] around shooting” people on an epic scale. During his two terms in office, Trump has overseen armed interventions and military operations — including air strikes, commando raids, proxy conflicts, so-called 127e programs, and full-scale wars — in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, Venezuela, Yemen, and an unspecified country in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as attacks on civilians in boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean. His second term has, in fact been a furious blitz of global war-making, only half-noticed by the American news media. In March, for example, the United States made war on three continents during just three days, conducting attacks in Africa, Asia, and South America. During that span, the U.S. also struck a civilian boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Less than a year and a half into Trump’s second term, the U.S. has already killed more than 2,000 civilians from Latin America to the Middle East and Africa. “This is unprecedented in terms of the sheer number of theaters where harm to civilians has been reported within such a short space of time,” said Megan Karlshoej-Pedersen, a policy specialist with Airwars, a British-based organization that tracks civilian harm globally. She also pointed to attacks in the Caribbean Sea, the eastern Pacific Ocean, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

A War on Children

Since the U.S. began conducting air strikes in Somalia back in 2007, as many as 170 civilians have been killed, according to Airwars. The U.S. military has, however, only admitted to six of those deaths and 11 other injuries — and has never publicly apologized to any families of the victims or those who survived its attacks.

In one April 2018 attack in Somalia during Trump’s first term, a U.S. drone strike killed at least three (and possibly five) civilians. A woman and child were among the dead, according to formerly secret U.S. military investigation documents, but the same report concluded that their identities might never be known. A 2023 investigation I undertook for The Intercept, however, exposed the details of that disastrous attack. The woman and child — 22-year-old Luul Dahir Mohamed and her 4-year-old daughter, Mariam Shilow Muse — survived the initial strike but were killed by a double-tap attack as they fled for their lives. Abdi Dahir Mohamed, one of Luul’s brothers, said of the Americans who killed his sister and niece: “They know innocent people were killed, but they’ve never told us a reason or apologized. No one has been held accountable.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Some of those attacks could well have been categorized as crimes of war. Others are certainly extrajudicial killings — or, simply put, outright murders. Those deaths and so many others can be traced back to Donald Trump and his contempt for the lives of people across this planet.

“It’s filthy dirty, disgusting dirty,” Trump said of Somalia, but in truth, that’s a more apt description for the soul of the country that exports slaughter, year after year, and is led by a man who revels in it. “It’s a horrible place,” he continued about Somalia.

And once again, every accusation of his should be considered a confession, too. https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/22/world-war-trump/

May 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

American Democracy Does Not Exist

Caitlin Johnstone, May 20, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/american-democracy-does-not-exist?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=198559968&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Thomas Massie has lost his congressional seat against a primary opponent whose Israel lobby funding made the race the most expensive House of Representatives primary in history. Massie has been a rare Republican opponent of Israeli abuses on Capitol Hill.

The spending on Massie’s ouster topped out at a staggering $32 million when all was said and done. The second- and third-most expensive House primary races were also heavily slanted by Israel lobby funding, with AIPAC pouring millions into toppling progressive Democrats Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman.

Americans just watched the Israel lobby openly manipulate yet another election, and then in like two weeks they’re going to hear their government tell them they need to regime change another foreign country to bring “democracy” to its people. Americans themselves do not have democracy.

The ceasefire with Iran is tenuous and could end at any time. Washington is currently drumming up ridiculously transparent pretexts to justify attacking Cuba. And you just know as soon as the bombs start falling on whatever country they’re going to fall on, Americans will be told this is a good thing because it will bring freedom and democracy to whatever population is getting ripped apart by military explosives.

It’s just so silly how often the US propaganda machine bangs on about “democracy” while vast fortunes are poured into slanting the American electoral process to advance the agendas of plutocrats and special interest groups.

Let’s bring democracy to the Iraqi people! Oh no, the Russians are interfering in our democracy!

And meanwhile nothing of the sort actually exists in America. When the elections go toward whoever can afford to spend the most on manipulating and deceiving the public into voting their way, that’s not democracy. That’s plutocracy.

The rich buy up news outlets and social media platforms, pour funding into think tanks and lobby groups, and sponsor the primary campaigns of anyone who disagrees with them, and in so doing they are able to exert enough influence to get the public to vote in whatever way advances their agendas.

That’s why Americans have a joke of a minimum wage and no normal healthcare system. It’s why corporations are allowed to exploit the working class and pollute the environment without consequence. It’s why AI is being shoved down our throats with zero regulation while it consumes our clean water and takes our jobs. And it’s why American-made bombs are still falling in Lebanon and Gaza.

The rich and powerful are going to keep doing this until they are made to stop. They’re going to keep using their wealth and influence to manipulate public behavior until people stop allowing them to. You can’t vote this problem away, because they control the votes.

Forget about bringing democracy to Cuba. Try bringing democracy to the United States.

May 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The military threat to nuclear power plants around the world

Direct strike could release radioactive material and cause mass terror

By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK, https://theweek.com/world-news/the-threat-to-nuclear-power-plants-around-the-world

The “vulnerability” of the civilian energy infrastructure was exposed this week when a drone strike on the United Arab Emirates cut off power to a nuclear reactor, said Bloomberg.

It’s the first time a fully operating nuclear power plant has had to rely on back-up generators because of a military attack, but reactors in Ukraine and Iran have also been threatened by recent conflicts.

Why would a nuclear site be targeted?

A country might target a nuclear power plant to cripple an enemy’s power grid, or to force a surrender through the psychological terror of threatening a radiological disaster. An attack on such facilities could also be used to delay a nation’s ability to enrich nuclear material.

Alternatively, armies may attack, or occupy, a nuclear plant to seize control of a strategic geographic corridor or to prevent defending forces from using the area.

What does international law say?

Under the Geneva Conventions, civilian structures, including nuclear power plants, “are protected against attack”, but the treaties also state that they can be hit “for such time as they are military objectives”. This is a “loophole” that “aggressor states” have “interpreted widely”, said Dan Sabbagh, The Guardian’s defence and security editor.

Attacking a nuclear power plant also breaks legal resolutions passed by the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors.

What would happen if a site were hit?

An attack on a nuclear site would not necessarily lead to a mushroom cloud or an immediate release of radiation because modern plants are built with multiple safety systems that can shut down reactors and contain damage.

But the reactor’s core could continue to heat up after a strike. This could lead to a build up of hydrogen gas, which could cause further explosions and damage. If the reactor began to degrade, radioactive material could be released and that can remain in the environment for years or even decades. It could potentially spread across borders and enter water systems or settle into the soil.

There are other consequences. Attacks on nuclear installations “risk undermining the emerging nuclear renaissance” in Western economies as an alternative to fossil fuels, said Bloomberg. Politicians and the public are “highly sensitive to radiation emergencies”, so an incident in one country “tends to dampen enthusiasm” for nuclear power elsewhere.

An attack on a nuclear plant would also be a hugely symbolic moment. Although conventional power plants have been “repeatedly bombed” by Russia during the Ukraine war, said Sabbagh, Kyiv’s three functioning nuclear plants have “remained relatively unscathed” because Moscow regarded a direct attack on them to be “taboo”.

May 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety | Leave a comment

‘Independent’ Cuban Media Pushing Regime Change

Revealed: USAID, NED & Open Society Quietly Bankroll Cuba’s “Independent” Media In Push for Regime Change

Mint Press News, May 21, 2026, Alan Macleod

Amid escalating U.S. aggression towards the Cuban island through a maximum pressure campaign and the threat of military intervention, the United States government has been covertly funding a huge network of Cuban media outlets that claim to be independent in a push for regime change against the independent socialist government.

These outlets present themselves as unbiased investigative journalism, but are quietly being financed by Washington through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Foundation in order to sow discontent across the Caribbean nation, softening it up for a potentially “imminent” invasion by the Trump administration.

Cuba faces some of its worst energy blackouts in its history, thanks to the U.S. blockade, which is attempting to strangle the island into submission. As a Communist state defying U.S. orders, Cuba has, since 1959, been in the crosshairs of Washington, which is attempting to overthrow the government. MintPress sheds light on this shady regime change nexus.

Independent Journalism, Funded by the State Department

CubaNet is one of the most influential and well-established news outlets covering affairs on the Caribbean island. Founded by anti-government activists in 1994, the site has become the go-to source of information for corporate media, which regularly cite it, and present it as an objective and unbiased independent media (e.g., The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and The Los Angeles Times). CubaNet reporters have written op-eds in major U.S. newspapers such as USA Today, calling for an immediate change in government on the island.

But CubaNet is not as independent as it seems. The outlet is bankrolled by the U.S. national security state. CubaNet has received millions of dollars in funding from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as the Open Society Foundation.

One currently active $500,000 USAID grant, for instance, was awarded to CubaNet to “engage on-island young Cubans through objective and uncensored multimedia journalism.” While ostensibly a laudable goal, even the grant’s own one-sentence description hints that its purpose is to undermine and attack the Cuban government. It states that it will (emphasis added) “increase the free flow of information to and from Cuba in order to offset the regime’s disinformation campaigns.”

Another news organization receiving huge sums of money from Washington is ADN Cuba. Literally meaning “Cuba’s DNA,” the outlet has amassed a significant following online, boasting over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, over 200,000 on Instagram and over 1.3 million on Facebook. It describes itself as “an independent media outlet committed to freedom and democracy in Cuba.” Yet it is actually based in Spain. And it does not seem particularly committed to transparency about its funding.

What is clear, however, is that ADN Cuba has received millions of dollars from the U.S. national security state. In September 2024, USAID approved a $1.1 million grant to ADN Cuba — a gigantic amount of money for an organization that publishes barely one story per day on its website. This was on top of a $1.5 million allocation for the 2022-2024 period.

Indeed, since 2020, ADN Cuba has received in excess of $3 million from USAID alone. This relationship is not disclosed to readers — even in stories directly covering USAID funding Cuban media — and is relegated to the footnotes of obscure U.S. government funding databases.

Diario de Cuba is another Spanish-based news outlet that publishes a wide variety of stories, all with one thing in common: a deep aversion to the Cuban government. The BBC describes it and CubaNet as key sources for impartial news, run by journalists who “report without censorship and to paint a broader picture on the country’s reality.”

And just like CubaNet, Diario de Cuba has received seven-figure funding from Washington. Between 2016 and 2020, Diario de Cuba received $1.3 million in USAID cash — almost as much as CubaNet over the same period. This generous funding has allowed it to reach a global audience, with over 600,000 followers on Facebook alone.

The Central Intelligence Agency used to directly (and secretly) sponsor hundreds of media outlets across the world. However, after a series of scandals and more information about its nefarious activities came to public attention, Washington decided to outsource many of its most controversial foreign operations to organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A.,” Carl Gershman, the NED’s longtime president [until 2021], said, explaining the 1983 decision to create his organization. NED co-founder Allen Weinstein agreed: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the C.I.A.,” he told The Washington Post.

Under the guise of democracy promotion and human rights, the U.S. government channels money to political and social groups across the world in order to maximize its strategic goals, including regime change.

In recent years, the U.S. has used the twin organizations of the NED and USAID to bankroll anti-government protests in Hong Kong, to attempt a color revolution in Belarus, to overthrow the government of Ukraine in 2014 and to organize riots across Iran earlier this year.

In Cuba, the NED and USAID played a critical role in organizing a (failed) uprising against the government in 2021. USAID in particular spent millions of dollars funding, organizing and promoting the San Isidro Movement — a collective of musicians, artists, and journalists– to lead a counter-revolution on the island.

San Isidro members were at the forefront of a wave of nationwide protests that July. The demonstrations were immediately signal boosted by Western corporate media, top celebrities and U.S. politicians, including President Joe Biden. Neitzens were flooded with the astroturfed “SOS Cuba” campaign, that trended across the Internet for days.

In the end, however, the coordinated efforts of the U.S. failed to convince ordinary Cubans to take to the streets, and the movement quickly petered out.

Esteban Rodríguez, a key member of the San Isidro movement, is a producer at ADN Cuba.

Pause US Money, and see ‘Independent’ Media Immediately Collapse

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Jobs for the Boys

All this, however, pales in comparison to the resources the U.S. has dedicated to Radio and TV Martí. Founded in 1985 by the Reagan administration, the Miami-based network boasts dozens of full-time employees and receives tens of millions of dollars from Washington annually.

Unlike the rest of the journalism industry, workers at Radio and TV Martí enjoy strong job security and six-figure wages, despite the fact that the Cuban government is able to jam and block many of their broadcasts from reaching Cuba, meaning precious few people consume its content.

Since its creation, Washington has spent at least $800 million on Radio and TV Martí.

The outlets profiled make up only a small portion of the network of anti-government media being funded by the United States. Most of the recipients of American money remain anonymous — a decision taken in part to hide their identities and preserve their credibility inside Cuba.

The National Endowment for Democracy considers Cuba a “long-standing priority,” and is currently officially funding 32 separate projects on the island.

Media related grants include one $80,000 project titled “Strengthening Access to Information,”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Anti-government media are only a small portion of the huge array of groups Washington secretly funds and supports. From musicians and academics, to civil society, educational and religious groups, to think tanks, charities and NGOs, there exists a vast nexus of organizations receiving vast sums of money from the U.S. government.

Two of these bodies include The Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, or OCDH) and lawyers’ group, Cubalex.

Both groups produce reports denouncing the Cuban government and are regularly cited as impartial authorities on human rights on the island in Western outlets, such as The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post. But what readers are not told is that both organizations are bankrolled by the U.S. national security state. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Digital Bombardment

In 2010, a new social media and messaging app, Zunzuneo, took Cuba by storm. From nowhere, it went viral, picking up tens of thousands of users — a very large number for the time on such an internet-sparse island.

None of its users, however, were aware that the platform had been secretly created by USAID in order to promote regime change. Their plan was to first provide an excellent service that would capture the market, then to slowly drip feed Cubans anti-government messaging, and finally to direct them to join “smart mobs” aimed at triggering a color revolution……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Unending War on Cuba

In October, for the 33rd consecutive year, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly (165-7) to call for an end to the American blockade against Cuba. This economic war was established by the Eisenhower administration in response to the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

These illegal unilateral coercive measures, which an internal U.S. government memo states are designed to “decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government,” cost Cuba billions every year, and severely impede its development.

The U.S. attempted to invade Cuba in 1961, and brought the world to the brink of annihilation during the subsequent Cuban missile crisis. It reportedly attempted to kill its leader Fidel Castro hundreds of times and carried out waves of terror attacks against the country, including using biological weapons on the island.

Successive administrations continued the economic war against Cuba, which was ramped up after the fall of the Soviet Union. But the Trump State Department, run by Cuban-American Marco Rubio, has taken it to a new level, declaring the island to be one of its top priorities.

Trump himself has declared that Cuba is “next” on the list of countries being targeted for regime change. “We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished” with Iran he said last month.

It is in this context that the U.S. government’s funding of a vast array of media outlets targeting Cuba should be seen; the media attack is just one facet of Washington’s multipronged approach to regime change.

Many of the organizations profiled here publish in English, and nearly all are used as supposedly credible sources of information on Cuba for Western corporate media, meaning that U.S. State Department narratives are laundered into the American public consciousness through this network.

Many Cubans and Americans are completely unaware that their news about the island comes largely through a matrix of shady outlets quietly funded by the U.S. national security state via the NED and USAID. Their purpose is to keep up the flow of negative stories in order to soften the public up into accepting regime change on the island. After all, in war, truth is always the first casualty. https://www.mintpressnews.com/revealed-usaid-ned-open-society-quietly-bankroll-cubas-independent-media-in-push-for-regime-change/290942/

May 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media | Leave a comment

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