Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons States agree – the ban is the alternative to reckless nuclear deterrence and proliferation as Third Meeting of States Parties draws to a close.
The Third Meeting of States Parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has successfully concluded at UN Headquarters with a powerful political declaration rejecting nuclear weapons and challenging nuclear deterrence, and adopting a host of decisions that strengthen the Treaty’s process.
86 countries participated in the meeting as states parties or observers, engaging in a robust and interactive debate during the week, adopting a political declaration and package of decisions. The meeting also counted the active participation of a thousand representatives from 163 civil society organisations, including many affected community voices, and nine International Organisations. Over 70 events took place in the context of the 3MSP, in the UN and across the city during Nuclear Ban Week.
Connecting nuclear disarmament to global security concerns and introducing the roadmap to dismantle nuclear deterrence
80 years after nuclear weapons were first tested and used, and against a backdrop of increasing instability and calls for nuclear proliferation in Asia and Europe, the states parties and signatories to the Treaty are showing leadership to put an end to the threats that nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence pose to their – and everyone else’s – security.
In the Declaration adopted at the end of the meeting, TPNW states parties agreed that the best way to advance global security from nuclear weapons is to bring more countries on board the Treaty, now including 94 signatories and 73 states parties. States parties agreed that “nuclear weapons are a threat to the security, and ultimately the existence, of all states, irrespective of whether they possess nuclear weapons, subscribe to nuclear deterrence or firmly oppose it.”
A report submitted to the conference provided detailed recommendations on how TPNW states can challenge current nuclear weapon doctrines and ways in which it threatens their security, including at the UN Security Council, with media and bilaterally with nuclear-armed states. The Declaration also rejects nuclear deterrence as a threat to TPNW member states, challenging the increasing reliance on deterrence by the nuclear-armed states and other pro-nuclear weapons states that we are seeing in both Europe and Asia, stating: “Nuclear deterrence is posited on the very existence of nuclear risk, which threatens the survival of all.” This is the strongest condemnation of nuclear deterrence seen in a multilateral process.
Incorporating calls for nuclear justice from affected communities
Communities affected by nuclear weapons, including Indigenous Peoples, were integral to the meeting and the strength of its outcomes. The 3MSP heard the calls from Nobel Peace Laureates, Nihon Hidankyo, and affected individuals from the Yankunytjatjara People, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Maohi Nui (French Polynesia), Kiribati, Fiji, the Navajo Nation, among others on how TPNW states can best support those most affected through their implementation of the Treaty.
Across a series of events, including the fourth edition of the Nuclear Survivors Forum, affected community representatives were active and vocal in reinforcing the urgent need to address past harms from the use and testing of nuclear weapons – and do so in a manner that is meaningfully inclusive. The Declaration emerging from the meeting pledged “to continue to collaborate through an inclusive approach with all States, international organizations, parliamentarians, civil society, scientists, financial institutions, youth as well as communities and individuals affected by nuclear weapons, including Indigenous Peoples.”
Outlining an inclusive and bold path forward for the TPNW
States agreed to continue to work on the 50 point Vienna Action Plan adopted at the first Meeting of States Parties in 2022, in order to be able to take stock of progress and prepare the next series of actions at the Review Conference.
The Review Conference for the TPNW will be held at UN Headquarters in New York in November 2026, with South Africa serving as the president.
American companies profit from Canada’s radioactive waste
Toxic radioactive waste is expensive to clean up. Canada’s contract to clean up itslegacy waste is worth billions for a three-company consortium: Canada’s AtkinsRéalisand Texas-based Fluor and Jacobs. The two American companies run nuclear weaponsfacilities in the U.S. and U.K. in addition to their Canadian nuclear interests.
Parliament’s payment to the consortium last year was $1.3 billion. The annual payments have risen each year of the 10-year contract that will end in September 2025.
The consortium operates “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories” (CNL) in a “Government-owned, Contractor-operated” (GoCo) arrangement with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL).
The U.K. abandoned GoCo contracts because of exorbitant costs and poor value for money. Under Canada’s GoCo contract, AECL owns lands, buildings, and radioactive waste, and the three-company consortium operates AECL’s sites.
When the Harper government issued the 10-year GoCo contract during the 2015 federal election period, they said AECL lacked the ability to clean up Canada’s multi-billion radioactive waste liability dating to World War II and needed “private sector rigour. From their billion-dollar annual payout, the three partner corporations take $237 million for “contractual expenses.” The salaries of 44 senior CNL managers, mostly Americans, average over $500,000 each.
Canada’s liability includes radioactive contamination in Port Hope, Ontario where uranium was refined for the U.S. nuclear weapons industry, radioactive contamination at the Chalk River nuclear laboratory site from producing plutonium for U.S. nuclear weapons, and radioactive contamination from AECL’s shutdown “prototype” CANDU reactors and its Whiteshell research lab in Manitoba.
The radioactive clean-up cost has grown each contract year, as have the consortium’s ambitions. The focus has shifted to “revitalizing” the Chalk River facility, where Parliament has allocated additional funds to build an “Advanced Nuclear Materials Research Centre.”
The Centre will conduct SMR research including research on plutonium fuels. Both American companies have interests in SMRs. The new Centre did not undergo a licensing process or environmental assessment under the Canadian Nuclear Safety.
AECL is expected to soon announce the awarding of a new 10-year Go-Co contract. Before the contract is signed, MPs should consider whether the arrangement benefits Canada, and whether these billions should be in the hands of American managers and corporations.
Commission.
Europe’s Face-Saving Theater on Ukraine
Could they have been as corrupted as Antony Blinken, who insisted to the end of his time as U.S. secretary of state that Ukraine lower the conscription age to 18, even though he knew these youth would be sent to certain death? Have Western leaders not understood that the only chance Ukraine had to win the war was with NATO’S direct participation, risking a nuclear holocaust ?
Britain’s prime minister called an “emergency” summit in London following the Oval Office Fiasco to try to convince the world it will not be Europe’s fault, but America’s (Read: Donald Trump’s) when Ukraine collapses, writes Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/05/europes-facing-saving-theater-on-ukraine/
Then Starmer added: but only if the United States joins us.
He said:
“We will go further to develop a ‘coalition of the willing’ to defend a deal in Ukraine…
And to guarantee the peace.
Not every nation will feel able to contribute.
But that can’t mean we sit back.
Instead, those willing will intensify planning now – with real urgency.
The UK is prepared to back this…
With boots on the ground, and planes in the air…
Together with others.
Europe must do the heavy lifting…
But to support peace on our continent.
And to succeed, this effort must have strong US backing.
We’re working with the US on this point, after my meeting with President Trump last week.”
Donald Trump has made it clear he is not going to commit U.S. troops to Ukraine, however. And Russia has said it would never accept Western troops there.
What Starmer is really saying is: Europe stands ready to fight and die as peacekeepers to save Ukraine if necessary, but only with the Americans. So when they refuse to come and the disastrous Project Ukraine at last comes crashing on our heads, don’t blame us, blame the U.S.A.
Trump will become even easier to blame now that he has cut off military aid and intelligence to Ukraine.
[The theater continued on Thursday at another European summit in Brussels, dubbed a “War Summit” by Politico, in which French President Emmanuel Macron, and still German Foreign Minister Alena Baerbock said Europe needed to get ready for war with Russia.]
The theater piece directed by Starmer at Lancaster House with an assembly of 15 European heads of government (and Justin Trudeau of Canada) was not really choreographed to try to convince Trump to reverse course, which appears unlikely, but as an elaborate presentation to save the hides of politicians who invested so much of their own political capital and wasted so much of their citizens’ money in the inevitable and humiliating defeat of Ukraine.
The summit was called by Starmer within two days of what he and the other Europeans saw transpire in the Oval Office on Friday. [See: Trump, Vance School Zelinsky on Reality of His War]. That occured at the end of a week in which both Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron had paid a visit to the same Oval Office where they learned first hand Trump’s determination to end the war even if it means Ukraine’s defeat.
That Ukraine would lose was obvious two years ago to Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz when they both gently broke that news to Zelensky privately in Paris in February 2023.
The private remarks clashed with public statements from European leaders who had routinely said then, and still say today, that they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes to achieve victory on the battlefield. That was Joe Biden’s line too.
The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the private remarks to Zelenksy two years ago, wrote:
“The public rhetoric masks deepening private doubts among politicians in the U.K., France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to expel the Russians from eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and a belief that the West can only help sustain the war effort for so long, especially if the conflict settles into a stalemate, officials from the three countries say.
‘We keep repeating that Russia mustn’t win, but what does that mean? If the war goes on for long enough with this intensity, Ukraine’s losses will become unbearable,’ a senior French official said. ‘And no one believes they will be able to retrieve Crimea.’”
Indeed Ukraine’s losses have become unbearable. Macron and Scholz tried to tell Zelensky at that Élysée Palace dinner in February 2023 that he must consider peace talks with Moscow, the Journal reported.
According to its source, the newspaper quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.”
Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported.
One wonders then why Scholz and Macron and the rest of Europe have persisted in fueling a lost cause that has since chewed up tens of thousands of additional Ukrainian lives. Could they be so corrupt that the survival of their political careers was worth the carnage of another nation’s men?
Could they have been as corrupted as Antony Blinken, who insisted to the end of his time as U.S. secretary of state that Ukraine lower the conscription age to 18, even though he knew these youth would be sent to certain death? Have Western leaders not understood that the only chance Ukraine had to win the war was with NATO’S direct participation, risking a nuclear holocaust ?
It seems that U.S. and European leaders kept an unwinnable war going until now to save their own careers. They could never admit defeat. But it did not save Biden or Harris or Blinken or Scholz or Trudeau, and Macron is in trouble too as voters saw through them all.
They’d all staked too much on the outcome of the war. They allowed their economies to fall. They pushed government censorship of social and alternative media to hide criticism that they were allowing men to die so that they would not be accused of “losing Ukraine.”
It’s been a cornerstone of history from ancient emperors to Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in Vietnam, and now Biden and Starmer in Ukraine: Let them die so that we may stay in office.
With defeat staring them in the face, who better to blame it on than the ogre, Donald Trump, who has dared to inject realism into the twisted dream of using Ukraine to weaken and defeat Russia.
It’s a failed policy that the European and Ukrainian leaders desperately need to keep going. One way to attempt this, as Chicago University professor John Mearsheimer said, is for the British, French and Ukrainians to “trap” the United States into giving a “security guarantee” to Ukraine.
Language in the mineral deal Zelensky had gone to the U.S. on Friday to sign calls for “common protection of critical resources.” Mearsheimer told a TV network in India that that is “the way they are trying to trap Trump and Co., and Trump won’t be trapped.”
This became evident in the Oval Office dust up last Friday when Trump angrily rejected Zelensky’s insistence on a U.S. “security guarantee” before he’d agree to a ceasefire and sign the mineral agreement. [See: Trump, Vance School Zelensky on Reality of His War]
The only way to keep their war going is to cajole Trump into getting the U.S. deeper into the morass, rather than wisely pulling out and pushing for a deal to end it.
As much as they might despise Trump, Starmer’s Sunday performance was designed to suck up to him. And an ungrateful Zelensky, reconsidering his public feud with Trump, is trying to make up with a man that seems susceptible to flattery.
In his address to the U.S. Congress Tuesday night, Trump said:
“Earlier today I received an important letter from President Zelensky of Ukraine. The letter reads: ‘Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.’
‘Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians,’ he said. ‘My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. … We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine, maintain its sovereignty and independence. … Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time.’
That is convenient for you. I appreciate that he sent this letter. I just got it a little while ago. Simultaneously we’ve had serious discussions with Russia. Then I’ve received strong signals that they are ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?
Wouldn’t that be beautiful?
It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end the senseless war. If you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides.”
Desperate Europeans and Ukrainians need Trump to keep their war and thus their careers going, perhaps none more so than Zelensky.
Will Trump stand firm, or will he succumb to a trap?
Changing nuclear policy would make ‘SNP as bad as Tories’, MSP warns
By Xander Elliards Content Editor, 9th March
CHANGING the SNP’s policy on nuclear weapons would be a “panic measure” demonstrating the same lack of principles as the Tories or Labour, an MSP has warned.
Bill Kidd, who is also co-president of the
global group Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and
Disarmament, issued a warning to his party after its long-standing policy
on nuclear weapons came under fire on multiple fronts – including from
within.
As the fear of Russia rises in Europe, Labour have chosen nuclear
weapons as an issue on which to attack the SNP. Just this week, Prime
Minister Keir Starmer took aim at the party’s stance on nuclear weapons
in the Commons – followed by Labour MP Joani Reid and Scottish Secretary
Ian Murray doing the same two days later. Then, Ian Blackford, the SNP’s
former Westminster leader, joined the calls for the SNP to change tack on
nuclear weaponry – saying the party should support multilateral
disarmament instead of unilateral disarmament.
The question being asked is
simple: will the SNP stick with their support for the removal of nuclear
weapons from Scotland on day one of independence? Or, will they change tack
and say nukes can stay on the Clyde indefinitely (which, in practice, is
what waiting for multilateral disarmament means)?
For Kidd, who spoke to
the Sunday National from a UN summit on the Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the answer is clear. “There may be increasing
pressure from the UK, from the UK political parties – and in fact I
expect that there will be – but that is another example of why the SNP
should stand firmly as an anti-nuclear [party],” he said.
The National 9th March 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/24992541.changing-nuclear-policy-make-snp-bad-tories-msp-warns/
Britain’s nuclear submarines bill spirals by £5bn
The MoD blames inflation as the cost of replacing the UK’s at-sea deterrent hits £37bn
Szu Ping Chan Economics Editor. Matt Oliver Industry Editor
The cost of replacing the submarines carrying Britain’s nuclear deterrent
has ballooned by more than £5bn in just three years, according to official
documents. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has raised its estimate for the
lifetime cost of manufacturing and maintaining four new ballistic missile
submarines to £36.7bn as of March last year, up from an estimate of
£31.5bn in 2020-21. It is also £2.5bn more than projected in March 2023.
Telegraph 9th March 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/09/cost-for-britains-new-nuclear-submarines-spirals-by-5bn/
US support to maintain UK’s nuclear arsenal is in doubt, experts say.
Guardian 8th March 2025,
Malcolm Rifkind joins diplomats and analysts urging focus on European cooperation to replace Trident.
Britain’s ability to rely on the US to maintain the UK’s nuclear arsenal is now in doubt, experts have warned, but working with European states to replace it will be costly and take time.
An existing debate about the future of Trident – Britain’s ageing submarine-launched nuclear missile system – has taken a dramatic new turn in recent weeks amid fears Donald Trump could pull out of Nato.
A range of concerns had already loomed over the £3bn-a-year programme, not least around its efficiency and effectiveness after a second embarrassing failed test launch last year.
Costs have also been a longstanding challenge but replacing Vanguard submarines on time has been prioritised over coming in under budget.
Downing Street sought to play down concerns earlier this week after diplomatic figures including the former British ambassador to the US Sir David Manning floated the scenario of an end to Anglo-US nuclear cooperation.
However, calls for Britain to make alternative plans have been joined by the former UK foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who initiated talks in the 90s between the UK and France on nuclear weapons cooperation.
“It really is necessary for Britain and France to work more closely together because if American reliability ever came into question, then Europe could be defenceless in the face of Russian aggression,” he said.
“The contribution by America must now be to some degree in doubt, not today or tomorrow, but over the next few years and certainly as long as Trump and people like him are in control in Washington.”………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/08/us-support-uk-nuclear-arsenal-in-doubt-trident-france
The Russians aren’t coming, the Russians aren’t coming.
The US should continue to work with Russia to end the war, reestablish normal diplomatic relations and reinstate the 3 nuclear agreements America dumped with Russia this century The survival of peoplekind depends on this détente
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 9 Mar 25
The US pause of all weapons and intelligence to Ukraine has got some Western European countries in uproar.
French President Emmanuel Macron is scrambling to make up the slack by pledging massive military aid to Ukraine by France and whichever neighbors he can con into squandering their treasure to sustain Ukraine’s lost cause against Russia. Macron may as well be shouting the ‘The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.’ when he blurted out “Russia has become a threat to France and Europe for years to come. I want to believe that the United States will remain by our side, but we need to be ready if that were no longer the case. The future of Europe should not be decided in Washington or in Moscow.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned, “We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times.” German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz recently declared that Europe had “five minutes to midnight.”
For 76 years Europe NATO members have been dependent on Uncle Sam to save their bacon from an imaginary enemy. The aforementioned leaders are now pledging to make up for America’s pullback from their own economies already weakened by three years of aid to the lost war in Ukraine.They are calling for EU member states to take on additional debt and ramp up military spending by $840 billion over four years, some of which will continue weaponizing the war in Ukraine till the last Ukrainian soldier is dead.
Macron recklessly went further stating that French troops could be sent to Ukraine. “Our forces will be there if necessary to guarantee peace, not before a peace agreement is signed. We will continue to meet with allies to move toward the signing of such an agreement. The only thing French and other European troops in Ukraine will guarantee is being attacked by Russia and possibly triggering nuclear war.
The US should continue to work with Russia to end the war, reestablish normal diplomatic relations and reinstate the 3 nuclear agreements America dumped with Russia this century The survival of peoplekind depends on this détente.
While a daunting task, if those objectives can be achieved the US should further encourage Europe to provide for their own defense by withdrawing from NATO which became obsolete 34 years ago when the Soviet Union went poof. With a GDP ten times Russia’s, that should be snap.
If America does withdraw from Europe, the hardliners in France, Germany and the EU, might come to their senses that…the Russians aren’t coming, the Russians aren’t coming.
Britain’s nuclear weapons fiasco is a nightmare for Rachel Reeves
Overhauling the UK’s ageing defence has left the Chancellor facing a fresh battle to balance the books
Sir Keir Starmer was the first Labour leader in three decades to visit the
Barrow shipyard where Britain’s next generation of nuclear submarines are
being assembled. The Prime Minister, on the opposition benches at the time,
was unflinching in his support for the UK’s submarines-based nuclear
deterrent – a continuous at-sea presence that the Royal Navy has
maintained since 1969.
But while keeping Britain safe may be priceless,
being ready for war doesn’t come cheap. Trident, Britain’s nuclear
deterrent, gobbles up a significant share of our defence budget, leaving
the share devoted to troops and guns far below the 2pc Nato baseline. While
the Treasury said in October that its commitment to the UK’s nuclear
deterrent was “absolute”, many have warned that costs are spiralling
out of control, piling more pressure on a Chancellor who is already
struggling to balance the books.
Telegraph 8th March 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/08/britains-nuclear-weapons-fiasco-nightmare-rachel-reeves/
UN summit ‘delivers strongest condemnation yet’ of nuclear deterrence
NUCLEAR-ARMED states are undermining global security and must end their
weapons programmes, a UN summit has affirmed. The third meeting of states
parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)
concluded at the UN building in New York on Friday, with delegates agreeing
on a statement described as the “strongest condemnation of nuclear
deterrence ever heard from a multinational forum”. “Nuclear deterrence
is posited on the very existence of nuclear risk, which threatens the
survival of all,” the states parties warned.
The National 7th March 2025 https://www.thenational.scot/news/24991984.un-summit-delivers-strongest-condemnation-yet-nuclear-deterrence/
Radioactive pollution is increasing at Britain’s nuclear bases
7 Mar 25 https://cnduk.org/radioactive-pollution-is-increasing-at-britains-nuclear-bases/
Radioactive air emissions have been increasing year-on-year at Coulport one of Britain’s nuclear submarine bases in Scotland. This development is of some concern as it would lead to increased health risks wherever the emissions were inhaled.
Investigations by The Ferret and The National newspaper found that emissions of radioactive tritiated water vapour had doubled at the Royal Navy’s nuclear weapons storage depot at Coulport on Loch Long between 2018 and 2023. According to the Scottish Pollution Release Inventory, tritiated water vapour emissions at Coulport were 1.7 billion becquerels (units of radioactivity) in 2018, rising steadily to 4.2 billion units in 2023. Tritiated water vapour is harmful when inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin as its radiation causes cancer and cardiovascular diseases including strokes.
The investigation also found that eight miles from Coulport at Faslane, where Britain’s nuclear submarines are based, tritiated water containing over 50 billion units of radioactivity had been dumped into the Gareloch. The level of dumping peaked in 2020, when 16.6 billion units were discharged.
The Ferret noted that in 2019, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) “changed the rules to allow certain tritium-contaminated effluents from nuclear submarines at Faslane to be discharged into the Gareloch.” Both SEPA and the MoD claim these emissions are within official safety limits.
However Dr Ian Fairlie, CND’s science advisor, states that these limits are unreliable, as official estimated doses from tritium contain “large uncertainties.”
CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:
“From faulty nuclear-armed subs on dangerously extended patrols to crumbling nuclear waste sites, Britain’s nuclear industry is putting us all at great risk. Instead of enforcing the highest levels of environmental standards, the government is just redefining what ‘acceptable risk’ means. All so it can allow the dumping of radioactive water, putting local people at greater risk of cancer. This is beyond reckless. It’s time to scrap Trident and its replacement, and decommission the nuclear industry.”
East Lindsey District Council wants to claim costs for nuclear waste site work
By James Turner, Local Democracy Reporter, 07 March 2025
A council is seeking to claim costs incurred while participating in a
process that could see a nuclear waste site built in Lincolnshire.
Following a demonstration outside the East Lindsey District Council offices
in Horncastle, members backed a motion urging leader Craig Leyland
(Conservative) to pursue a claim against Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) for
expenses incurred during the Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) process.
The council’s executive is set to discuss withdrawing from the process on
April 23 after the government agency ruled out the former gas terminal site
in Theddlethorpe, instead considering land between Gayton le Marsh and
Great Carlton, near Louth. Two other sites, in Mid Copeland and South
Copeland in Cumbria, are also under consideration.
Lincs Online 7th March 2025 https://www.lincsonline.co.uk/horncastle/council-wants-to-claim-costs-for-nuclear-waste-site-work-9407507/
Ripping up the rules on nuclear power heightens the risk to us all
CND, Labour Outlook 7th March 2025 https://labouroutlook.org/2025/03/07/ripping-up-the-rules-on-nuclear-power-heightens-the-risk-to-us-al
“Ripping up the rules for nuclear greatly exacerbates the risk of accidents, will contaminate more of our environment with radioactive waste, and above all, raise the spectre of nuclear conflict.”
Sam Mason, convenor of CND’s Trade Union Advisory Group explains why the government’s new rules for expanding nuclear power production must be opposed.
The government’s announcement that it is going to ‘rip up the rules to fire-up nuclear power’ may be music to the ears of nuclear proponents but for CND, it is something we must vehemently oppose.
Part of wider planning law reforms to put ‘builders not blockers’ first and ‘build baby, build’, the proposal is to extend beyond the eight sites identified for nuclear power plants in 2009, and to include small or advanced modular reactors. This means nuclear sites could be constructed anywhere across England and Wales, and anyone opposing them on legitimate grounds of safety or the environment for example dismissed as NIMBYs.
According to the government, nuclear is needed for energy security and to satisfy high demand from ‘local users such as data centres, gigafactories, hydrogen and synthetic fuel production and/or industrial clusters’. It also includes using nuclear for district heat networks, being placed closer to centres of population, and in proximity to military activities.
A further driver for the government’s plans is the creation of good jobs, to drive growth and support climate action. With the impacts of climate change accelerating across the globe there is an urgent need to decarbonise our energy system, but nuclear power is not the answer on any of these levels.
The government’s laudable aim to decarbonise electric power by 2030 includes 4.5 gigawatts of nuclear power. For reference, the long over budget and delivery of Hinckley Point C in Somerset is due to generate 3.2gw of power.
Assurances about maintaining high standards of regulation do little to assuage fears of this nuclear proliferation. The addition of a new Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce to speed up delivery will cover both civilian and defence nuclear. Reporting directly to the Prime Minister, it serves to further emphasise we cannot decouple civilian nuclear from the weapons system.
Much is made about the low level of risk from nuclear, including new technologies such as SMRs. However, as we mark the 14th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster on 11 March, it should serve as a stark reminder of the impact of nuclear, and its legacy to current and future generations.
Ripping up the rules for nuclear greatly exacerbates the risk of accidents, will contaminate more of our environment with radioactive waste, and above all, raise the spectre of nuclear conflict. We must do all we can to oppose these plans.
Air Force Activates Key Unit for Nuclear Modernization at VSFB
COMMENT. Well, they conned a woman into this killer industry, coddled and “educated” her into this top military job.
The nuclear lobby made keen to promote their pretence that nuclear weapons are good for women!
Most women would not like being part of this.
March 7, 2025, By Jennifer Green-Lanchoney
VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. —
In a ceremony marking a new chapter in America’s nuclear deterrence strategy, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Suzanne Lamar assumed command of the newly activated Site Activation Task Force (SATAF) Detachment 9 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, March 6.
The activation of SATAF Detachment 9 represents a crucial step in modernizing the nation’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capabilities, as the Air Force prepares to replace the aging Minuteman III system with the new LGM-35A Sentinel.
Vandenberg SFB’s Western Range serves as the primary testing ground for the Air Force Global Strike Command’s ICBM deterrent architecture. The Sentinel program represents a significant update to U.S. nuclear deterrent capabilities.
“Space superiority and nuclear deterrence start here at Vandenberg,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Lutton, Air Force Global Strike Command deputy commander. “Seventy years ago, Vandenberg hosted the dawn of ICBM testing, and we carry that forward here as we bring this new capability to the joint force.”……………………………….
The SATAF detachments, including Detachment 9 at Vandenberg, are crucial components of AFGSC’s strategy to maintain a “continuously viable, secure, and effective land-based nuclear deterrent.” Similar detachments are scheduled for activation at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming (April 3); Malmstrom AFB, Montana (April 4); and Minot AFB, North Dakota (summer 2025)……………………………………………………… https://www.afgsc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4112894/air-force-activates-key-unit-for-nuclear-modernization-at-vsfb/
University of Suffolk co-opted by the nuclear industry.
Ipswich jobs fair showcases Sizewell C opportunities
The University of Suffolk hosted a jobs fair showcasing Sizewell C
opportunities. More than 200 people attended the event, organised by the
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and Sizewell C. The fair provided
information on the thousands of jobs, apprenticeships, and training
opportunities available at the nuclear power plant. Attendees had the
chance to connect with local companies in the Sizewell C supply chain, as
well as colleges and charities.
Ipswich Star 7th March 2025 https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/24986367.ipswich-jobs-fair-showcases-sizewell-c-opportunities/
Does the Deep State really exist, and if so, is it being dismantled?
March 9, 2025, https://theaimn.net/does-the-deep-state-really-exist-and-if-so-is-it-being-dismantled/ .
What is the Deep State? Does it really exist?
These questions are hard to answer. I had heard the term Deep State over many years, and I connected it with all sorts of conspiracies – not just about U.S. politics and intelligence systems, but with wild ideas about satanism, reptilian shapeshifters, the antichrist, child-trafficking, blood harvesting – and all connected with extreme right-wing and pro- Trump propaganda. So I just dismissed and ignored them – there was no such thing as the Deep State !
It is not that simple.
Indeed, it is very complex.
If you start delving, the term Deep State takes you back to Turkey, over 100 years ago, where the concept of a “shadow government” a “secret state within the state” was a real thing. In more modern times the Deep State is defined as:
“The deep state conspiracy theory in the United States is an American political conspiracy theory that posits the existence of the deep state, a clandestine network of members of the federal government (especially within the FBI and CIA). The theory argues that there exist networks of collaborators within the leadership of the high-level financial and industrial entities, which exercise power alongside or within the elected United States government” – Wikipedia
So, OK it’s still just a theory – a conspiracy theory pushed by Donald Trump’s supporters in order to discredit USA’s Biden Democrat administration? And various extreme religious and other wacky groups tacked the more sinister stuff onto it.
The trouble is, as with many problems, there is some truth in it. Over the decades since World War 2, successive U.S. Presidents have turned to secret discussions with unelected officials from the CIA in particular, but also from other agencies and business circles, relying on their advice to make decisions. The decisions were then pretty much rubber-stamped by a complacent and oblivious Congress.
The following (annoying advertisement-afflicted) video from early 2024, is unmistakably a propaganda piece for the Trump campaign. But it does contain some telling information. Even from its first example, we see that J.F. Kennedy, in the Cuban missile crisis, went not to his advisors, but to a social group of very secret members of the CIA to decide what to do. The development of the very powerful, very secretive CIA, in partnership with military leaders, rocket scientists from Germany, media and business leaders, produced an information network on which Presidents relied for decision-making. The CIA’s spying powers that were appropriate in war against the enemy are now directed also against the American public, even in peacetime. Huge well-funded resources went to secret activities that included misinformation and disinformation against civil rights and peace activists. Congress accepts these secret programmes in the name of security.
That video – however pro-Trump it might be, does not mention satanism, etc. If you separate that wacky stuff from the Deep State story – it is all remarkably convincing. To an American public, fed up with the secrecy, the endless expensive pointless wars – Vietnam, Iraq Afghanistan …, Donald Trump’s promise of change, and of dismantling the Deep State sounded attractive.
And hey – presto ! Trump is doing it! He’s sacking those unelected officials, thousands and thousands of them. He’s purging law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and plans to cut 70 percent of staff from various government agencies — freezing of billions of dollars in funding,
Ain’t that great!
Actually, no.
We might welcome the disruption of a Deep State system based on militarism, with the USA forever fomenting trouble overseas, and spending unknown $squillions on military gimmickry. A phrase springs to mind – “Throwing the baby out with the bath-water” . That’s a very corny metaphor. But what is really happening is this:
Trump’s aim is nothing to do with the “Deep State” . Trump’s goal and methodology was set out, detailed in Project 2025, the Center for Renewing America and the America First Policy Institute. The goal is the destruction of democracy – removing or rendering useless the laws, regulations, protocols and rules that prevent autocratic power. No more compromise, limited power, checks and balances and accountability. He made a good start in getting control over the Supreme Court
And I don’t know if everybody noticed two salient points in Trump’s “defeat of the Deep State”
- the power and unaccountable funding of the Pentagon will continue.
- Trump’s getting rid of “unelected officials” – but apparently taking orders from unelected Elon Musk.
The end goal is the dictatorship of Donald Trump. It would be funny if it were not so deadly serious. The first step – the “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day Holiday Establishment Act” gives a clue as to what will follow.
The President Trump phenomenon will end eventually, for sure in chaos. Western World leadership is in the hands of a powerful, but unhinged , dictator, who is taking the advice of another powerful unelected unhinged billionaire, Elon Musk.
The whole process is far too much to pay for the destruction of the Deep State. Yes, it is welcome that the secretive decision-making by unelected officials and business leaders – taking the USA into endless wars – has been stopped. But its replacement is a terrifying fascism.
And at the end of it all, after the chaos, what will emerge? If we’re lucky enough to avoid catastrophes of global heating, and war, will we again get a government of men that are happy to have decisions made by macho men in bureaucracy and industry, who are itching for war – another Deep State in the name of “security”?
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