2025 June 07 « nuclear-news

RAY McGOVERN: Putin Would Not Rise to the Bait

June 4, 2025, https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/04/ray-mcgovern-putin-would-not-rise-to-the-bait/

The black-eye given Russian security services will eventually heal while the artful destruction of a handful of bombers – like earlier high-profile, but misguided operations – will have zero effect on the war in Ukraine.

By Ray McGovern, Consortium News

Ukraine’s drone attacks on air bases deep inside Russia on Sunday were timed to provoke Russia into shunning the Russia-Ukraine talks set for the next day in Istanbul. Volodymyr Zelensky and his European puppeteers also may have thought they could provoke Vladimir Putin to escalate attacks on Ukraine to such a degree that the U.S. could not “walk away” from Ukraine without appearing cowardly.

The PR benefits of destroying Russian aircraft far from Ukraine was part of Kyiv’s calculus. It was a huge embarrassment and a tactical victory in a short-lived, narrow sense.

But the black-eye given Russian security services will eventually heal. Most important, the artful destruction of a handful of bombers – like earlier high-profile, but misguided operations – will have zero effect on the war in Ukraine.

Doing Diplomacy For Once

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio immediately after the drone attacks on the Russian air bases and the sabotage/destruction of two rail bridges in Russia earlier that day.

The Russian readout said that Secretary Rubio “conveyed sincere condolences on the civilian casualties from the rail infrastructure blasts in Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk regions.” This is a sign that Lavrov did not come in with accusatory guns blazing, so to speak.

It does seem certain that Lavrov asked Rubio whether he knew of the drone attacks beforehand. And what did President Trump know?

In my view, it is conceivable that neither had prior knowledge. When the drone operation was planned the geniuses working for Joe Biden were in charge of such things – the ones who destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines.

Most likely the U.S. was kept informed, but the operation itself bears the earmarks of the sabotage the British are so fond of carrying out – with particular lust after bridges.

They did so famously during World War II and they are quite good at it. Then, as now, such sabotage had little-to-no effect on the war – merely a transitory strengthening of their proverbial upper lip.

The Talks Went On, and Will Continue

Putin and Donald Trump wanted the negotiations in Istanbul to proceed, and those were their instructions to Lavrov and Rubio. They did, and with some tangible progress on small, but significant matters like the exchange of bodies. There was a highly important exchange of papers on the terms sought by each side, and a pledge to study them before the next meeting.

Bottom Line

The driving issue is bigger than Ukraine. Both Trump and Putin want improved U.S.-Russia relations. Other matters, including Ukraine, are secondary. As of now, at least, both sides seek a negotiated settlement to the war as the primary option.

And each side will do its best to avoid escalation and show a measured flexibility – and even patience – until such time as Ukraine’s army disintegrates.

It appears that this will happen soon. I believe that, at that point, Putin will be happy to supply as much lipstick as may be needed to conceal the pig of defeat for Ukraine-and-the-West.

Ray McGovern’s first portfolio as a C.I.A. analyst was Sino-Soviet relations. In 1963, their total trade was $220 MILLION; in 2023, $227 BILLION. Do the math.

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Nuclear Power will ruin France

Nuclear power will ruin France , by Laure Nouahlat, published by Seuil , May 16, 2025, 224 p., 13.50 euros.

Neither the French population, nor any parliamentarian or senator had their say, as if nuclear power were democratically held above ground.

Reporterre 16th May 2025,
https://reporterre.net/Le-nucleaire-va-ruiner-la-France

Despite the staggering cost of all-nuclear power, France is stuck in this impasse. Here are the excerpts from the investigative book ”
Nuclear Power Will Ruin France
.” Laure Noualhat dissects the mechanisms of this waste.

Is nuclear revival reasonable ? According to Emmanuel Macron and many others, the nuclear ” holy grail “ would be the only solution to slow climate change and preserve our comfort. While the government is making savings at every turn, the sector seems to benefit from an unlimited budget.

It was announced Monday that the Cigéo nuclear waste disposal facility in Bure will cost up to €37.5 billion. To revive the industry, the bill will climb to at least €80 billion. As delays mount, these amounts are continually revised upwards. All this while EDF is already heavily in debt.

Where will the tens of billions of euros for these new EPRs be found ? And the necessary investments in the existing fleet ? It will be the State, that is, the taxpayer, who will pay.

This is what journalist Laure Noualhat demonstrates in her relentless investigative book, Nuclear Power Will Ruin France . The result of six months of investigation, it is published today in the Seuil- Reporterre collection and will be accompanied by a documentary broadcast on YouTube in early June. Through this extensive work, Reporterre is tackling a crucial issue for the future of the country, largely absent from public debate. Because these choices are made in total secrecy, Reporterre is shedding light on a subject that concerns us all.

Here are the previews of “ Nuclear Power Will Ruin France ”:

What were you doing on February 10, 2022 ? For the small world of energy, it was a memorable day. On that day, presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron stood behind a lectern under the immense tin roof of the General Electric plant in Belfort. His voice echoed like a cathedral. Behind him, GE teams had positioned a gigantic Arabelle turbine, 300 tons of gleaming steel lit as if it were an industrial museum piece.

A group of masked employees, all wearing the same electric blue construction jackets, listens learnedly to the president. Four years earlier, these women and men were part of Alstom’s energy division, the industrial flagship that former Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron had conscientiously dismantled during his time at the Ministry of Finance.

No matter, on this Thursday, February 10, the now President has just announced the ” rebirth “ of French nuclear power, boasted of national ” sovereignty “ and praised the merits of ” planning “ to address the challenges of the moment: reducing our CO2 emissions by ₅₅ % by 2050, ensuring France’s industrial development, and controlling the French people’s energy bill.

No law regulates presidential will

Regardless of the background—environmental, energy, nuclear, activist, industrial, or political—this speech hit the mark and is historic. With its delivery, President-candidate Macron has just rescued France from decades of uncertainty by relaunching the mass construction of nuclear reactors. Since its approval in 2003 by the National Assembly, the Flamanville EPR project has been mired in endless setbacks. In 2012, President Hollande chose a contrary path by enshrining in law the reduction of nuclear power’s share to 50 % of the electricity mix by 2025 (compared to 65-70 %) and to 30 % by 2030. In short, the socialist planned a slow phase-out of nuclear power, allowing for the preparation of the decommissioning of the oldest reactors, the ramp-up of renewables, and an unprecedented effort toward energy efficiency.

In February 2017, candidate Macron – a former minister under Hollande – took up this promise.
”
I will maintain the framework of the energy transition law. I am therefore maintaining the 50
% target,
“ he confided to the
WWF during a Facebook Live broadcast watched by 170,000 people and interviewed by… Pascal Canfin, who will join the President’s list for the 2019 European elections.

Five years later, facing General Electric employees, the Jupiterian president performed an about-face. Six
EPR2s will emerge, he promises, built in pairs on three sites: in Penly in Normandy, in Gravelines in the North, and in Bugey in the Ain. And eight more will be under consideration. Neither the French population, nor any parliamentarian or senator had their say, as if nuclear power were democratically held above ground. Since this announcement, the program of the six EPR2s
has still not been validated by any legal decision, much less by an ”
energy and climate programming law
” (
PPE ), which should have been revised for the occasion.

To date, in 2025, no law governs the presidential will shaped by long years of lobbying (by associations such as Xavier Moreno’s Cérémé or Bernard Accoyer’s Nuclear Heritage & Climate, but also Voies du nucléaire or the French Nuclear Energy Society) since his arrival in power.

A colossal cost

Knocking down walls or hiding the misery, insulating here or repainting there, moving the pipes, changing the door… it’s difficult to ask a tradesman for a quote for work if you don’t know what you’re going to do. It’s the same with nuclear reactors.

As these lines are being written, in March 2025, three years after the Belfort speech, no one knows how much the EPR2 will cost . This is normal: their detailed design has not been completed despite the 10.5 million hours of engineering already devoted to the project.

In February 2022, the government had put forward a construction cost of 51.7 billion (2020 euros). In 2023,
EDF made two updates to the costing, noted by the Court of Auditors in its report on the
EPR sector in January 2025:
”
The overnight construction cost [as if the reactor were completed in a single night] of three pairs of
EPR2s rose from 51.7 to 67.4 billion euros [2020 euros], an increase of 30
% under unchanged economic conditions and excluding the effect of inflation.
“ In 2023 euros, the bill reaches 80 billion. For comparison, this figure of 80 billion already represents four times the annual deficit of the Social Security…

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France, media, politics | Leave a comment

Ukrainian attack on Russian bombers shows how cheap drones could upset global security

The June 1 Spider Web operation likely marks the largest attack on a nuclear-armed state’s nuclear assets to date, one that was executed using laptop-sized drones.

While this represents an operational success for Ukraine, it is still unclear whether and how the drone attack will impact Russia’s conduct of the war. Some fear this operation could lead to a nuclear escalation

By Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin | June 5, 2025, https://thebulletin.org/2025/06/ukrainian-attack-on-russian-bombers-shows-how-cheap-drones-could-upset-global-security/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Drones%20attack%20on%20Russian%20bombers%20upset%20global%20security&utm_campaign=20250605%20Thursday%20Newsletter

On Sunday, social media started broadcasting videos of airfields shrouded with columns of smoke and parked airplanes on fire. These were not common airplanes but Russian strategic bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons virtually anywhere on the globe. Behind these attacks were small drones, like those used to capture scenic social media videos, remotely operated by Ukrainian pilots.

The day after, some Russian media and influential figures called for retaliation with nuclear strikes. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly said in a phone call with President Donald Trump that he planned to retaliate against Ukraine for its surprise attack. According to a reading of the Russian nuclear doctrine, the Ukrainian attacks could technically prompt a nuclear retaliation by Russia.

This military operation is the latest illustration of how cheap, accessible drones are changing modern warfare. It also exposed another reality: Drones will wreak havoc on global stability if nobody controls their proliferation.

A turning point. Last week’s drone operation, which the Ukrainian military called “Operation Spider’s Web” and which was 18 months in the making, looked like it came straight out of a James Bond movie: More than a hundred first-person view drones were secretly shipped inside containers on commercial trucks sent toward locations deep inside Russian territory, nearby highly sensitive military airfields. With just a click from operators based in Ukraine, all containers’ roofs simultaneously opened, and drones navigated to their targets to unleash destruction. The number of aircraft damaged or destroyed is still unclear. (Ukrainian authorities claim 41 aircraft were destroyed.) What is certain, however, is that several of Russia’s most critical and advanced strategic nuclear-capable bombers were damaged.

The drones were likely “Osa” quadcopters, 13-15 inches in length and developed and assembled in Ukraine at a cost of around $600 to $1000 each, according to an early analysis of the attack by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Each drone likely carried an explosive payload of about 3.2 kilograms and detonated on impact with the targeted airplanes. To communicate with the drones, Ukrainian operators are believed to have used Russian mobile telecommunication networks, such as 4G and LTE connections. It is also likely that the drones were supported by artificial intelligence systems to give them autonomy in case the telecommunication with the operators would break, and to assist in precisely targeting identified weak spots on the airplanes.The drones were likely “Osa” quadcopters, 13-15 inches in length and developed and assembled in Ukraine at a cost of around $600 to $1000 each, according to an early analysis of the attack by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Each drone likely carried an explosive payload of about 3.2 kilograms and detonated on impact with the targeted airplanes. To communicate with the drones, Ukrainian operators are believed to have used Russian mobile telecommunication networks, such as 4G and LTE connections. It is also likely that the drones were supported by artificial intelligence systems to give them autonomy in case the telecommunication with the operators would break, and to assist in precisely targeting identified weak spots on the airplanes.

The June 1 Spider Web operation likely marks the largest attack on a nuclear-armed state’s nuclear assets to date, one that was executed using laptop-sized drones. It also stands as the most significant demonstration of drones’ ability to penetrate deeply into heavily defended territory with significant strategic impact. While this represents an operational success for Ukraine, it is still unclear whether and how the drone attack will impact Russia’s conduct of the war. Some fear this operation could lead to a nuclear escalation.

For decades, major powers have pursued so-called strategic stability, a situation in which nuclear adversaries are deterred from launching direct military attacks against one another due to their mutually destructive nuclear capabilities. States also realized that continuing to develop more weapons in a never-ending arms race was costly and increased the risks of conflicts. This is why they agreed to engage in arms control and arms reduction, while making sure to maintain strategic stability.

But this fragile balance between great powers has always been vulnerable to new and disruptive technologies such as microchips, precision-guided missiles, or cybertechnology. Drones, especially small and cheap ones, represent a unique challenge to this balance, one that often evades the grasp of major powers.

‘Cheap drone’ warfare. Drone technology is not new. It was already used during the Cold War and has been a hallmark of the war in Iraq, with its precision strikes in the middle of the desert. Military powers such as the United States, Russia, and China have long invested in and developed expensive, highly advanced drones for various missions. Enhanced by artificial intelligence and increasing autonomy, modern drones have already promised to transform warfare by enabling operations without risking human pilots and possibly transforming the decision-making of those using them.

Things took another turn in the 2010s.

Enabled by advances in microelectronics and battery technologies, smaller and cheaper drones started to be mass-produced for commercial purposes by companies like DJI and others. It did not take long for the military to adapt these drones for warfare purposes. Combined with cutting-edge telecommunication technology, these smaller drones could form intelligent swarms and offer real-time video feeds to their operators.

This time, the nuclear powers were not the only ones to engage in the arms race. Unlike other delivery systems, such as missiles or jet fighters that have significantly higher entry costs, smaller states and even non-state actors could acquire inexpensive drones and transform them into rudimentary but effective “air force” and delivery systems.

The simplicity of their acquisition, use, and diffusion into the hands of actors of various sizes around the globe is what makes cheap drones such a game-changer for modern warfare—and now also for global security.

These inexpensive drones enable smaller states to conduct effective asymmetric warfare against more powerful opponents. It is in great part thanks to its drone force that Ukraine has stood its ground against the world’s second-largest military since 2022. Reports indicate that small drones may have contributed to up to 70 percent of Russian equipment losses so far in the conflict—and this number is likely to become higher if the war continues, given Ukraine’s rapidly growing drone production capacity.

More crucially, cheap drones can be used to sabotage well-defended strategic assets. In what is often described as terrorist acts, Yemen’s Houthis have used drones to attack commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, thereby disrupting about 12 percent of global trade in 2024. Houthis’ drones also destroyed Saudi Arabia’s critical oil infrastructure, disrupting 5 percent of global oil supply in 2019.

But the most striking instance of their strategic reach remains the Ukrainian operation of June 1. This operation also foreshadows a dangerous shift in global stability.

Risk of escalation. Historically, only major nuclear powers had effective means to inflict damage on the nuclear capabilities of other major powers. And for most nuclear-armed states, an attack on their nuclear capabilities, even a conventional one, called for nuclear retaliation. To avoid nuclear escalation, nuclear powers have carefully crafted doctrines, strategies, and agreements between themselves to create predictability and increase strategic stability. But to a certain extent, this system of balance was not designed with the expectation that smaller actors could threaten critical nuclear assets of the nuclear-armed states.

Smaller states with no nuclear capabilities and less familiar with the game of strategic stability, like Ukraine, might not fully realize the direct or indirect risk of nuclear escalation that their drone operations could entail. More alarming, non-state actors could also potentially actively seek to initiate a nuclear escalation between nuclear adversaries with drone-enabled false flag operations.

Discussions around drone regulation in war often center around their ethical uses and their level of AI-powered autonomy, which are certainly crucial issues to tackle. But states must also recognize the highly disruptive impact that cheap and widely accessible drones can have not only on warfare but on global security and stability.

One way forward is to implement strict export control and purchase regulations on small drones, such as those implemented for small firearms. Such policies will inevitably collide with the booming industry and market of small, cheap drones that are increasingly popular for commercial purposes and leisure activities. But states will need to work on some form of control of drone export and weaponization, lest they are willing to risk more nuclear crises.

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Let’s not pretend nuclear works

Funding the Future, Richard Murphy, June 6 2025, https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/06/06/lets-not-pretend-nuclear-works/

As the Public Accounts Committee has reported this week:

The retrieval of waste from ageing buildings at the most hazardous nuclear site in the UK is not happening quickly enough.

In its report on decommissioning Sellafield, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns that the estimated £136bn cost of the project would rise even more if work is further delayed, while expressing scepticism as to whether or not recent signs of improvement in performance could represent another false dawn.

The PAC found in 2018 that government needed a firmer grip on Sellafield’s nuclear challenges, and now warns that not enough progress has been made in addressing its most significant hazards.

One building, the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS), has been leaking radioactive water into the ground since 2018 – the PAC calculates, at current rates, enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool roughly every three years. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) accepts this leak is its “single biggest environmental issue”, but that the radioactive particles are “contained” in the soil and do not pose a risk to the public.

The PAC’s report finds that Sellafield Ltd has missed most of its annual targets for retrieving waste from several buildings on the site, including the MSSS. The PAC’s inquiry heard that the MSSS is the most hazardous building in the UK, and as a result of Sellafield Ltd’s underperformance will likely remain extremely hazardous for longer. The report seeks answers from Government on how it will hold the NDA and Sellafield Ltd to account in ameliorating the site’s greatest hazards.

Nuclear power created the most hazardous building in the UK.

The cost of nuclear cleanups is staggering.

And still, we pretend that nuclear power is a cost-effective way of generating power.

Who do those making this claim think are fooled by it?

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Zelensky Offers to Broker Peace Between Musk and Trump

KYIV (The Borowitz Report) 7 June 25

—In a bold attempt at high-stakes diplomacy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered on Friday to broker a peace deal between Elon Musk and Donald J. Trump.

“It is time for the fighting to stop,” Zelenskyy said to Musk and Trump. “And I am willing to make the ultimate sacrifice: sitting in the same room as the two of you.”

Addressing Trump, the Ukrainian declared, “Mr. President, Elon gave you 250 million dollars, and you haven’t said ‘thank you’ once.”

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | culture and arts | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s dangerous new ‘gift’ to Washington

Striking Russia’s nuclear assets, Ukraine’s audacious operation newly imperils arms control and ensures that the war will drag on.

Aaron Maté, Jun 07, 2025

An audacious Ukrainian drone attack on four military bases across Russia, dubbed Operation Spider’s Web, handed Moscow one of its worst humiliations of the war. With a fleet of inexpensive drones hidden inside cargo trucks, Ukrainian intelligence penetrated deep inside Russian territory and caused significant damage to military aircraft, including long-range, nuclear-capable bombers. “The strike was a serious blow, and to suggest otherwise is self-delusion verging on sabotage,” wrote Rybar, a popular pro-Kremlin social media channel.

For Ukraine and its Western backers, the strikes reinforce their ability to inflict significant costs on Russia more than three years into an invasion that Kyiv was expected to lose within days — and bolster the case for continued US support. For Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, the images of smoldering Russian aircraft “help change the rhetoric in the US,” where it can no longer be said, as Donald Trump argued in their Oval Office showdown, that “Ukrainians are losing this war, and don’t have the cards.” Added former senior Zelensky aide Oleg Ustenko: “Trump said we don’t have the cards — this shows we do have the cards, and we can play them.”

Powerful elements in Washington would undoubtedly agree. By targeting part of Russia’s nuclear triad, “[s]ome officials said Ukraine’s drone attacks could be viewed as a gift to the United States,” the New York Times reported. Days after visiting Kyiv to promote his push for harsh sanctions on Russia’s trading partners, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham hailed Ukraine’s “ever-resourceful” effort “to successfully attack Russian bombers and military assets.”

As grateful proxy war sponsors like Graham illustrate, Ukraine had ample grounds to believe that it was handing the US a “gift.”…………………………………………………………………………..https://www.aaronmate.net/p/ukraines-dangerous-new-gift-to-washington?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=165354982&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Global Network Statement on Golden Dome

Golden Dome would create a dangerous arms race in space. It is an offensive, not defensive program……. it will embolden the US to launch a first-strike attack and attempt to pick off any retaliatory strike.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, L3Harris and SpaceX would likely be the prime beneficiaries along with Republican megadonor Peter Thiel’s Palantir and venture capital-backed startup Anduril.

Donald Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ proposal is a continuation of Ronald Reagan’s SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), the Star Wars system of early 1980’s.

Trump calls it a ‘layered defense shield, safeguarding the American homeland with unwavering precision, ensuring the security and resilience of our nation’. Trump shared few specifics in the May 20 news conference, saying “Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space.”

Early cost estimates from Congressional sources range from $550 billion to trillions over 20 years. Trump wants a $25 billion down payment for the program in 2025. Canada is being brought into Golden Dome likely to help pay for it. We should expect that NATO members will also be hit up to help cover the massive costs.

There are already extensive missile defense programs, such as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GBMD); the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) program; the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Satellite Tracking Layer program; the ‘Space Based Infra-Red System’ (SBIRS) of missile detection and tracking satellites and its replacement the ‘Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infra-Red’ (Next Gen OPIR) satellites. The aim of Golden Dome is to combine these with new components, such as space-based interceptors aimed at intercepting missiles soon after launch.

The price tag is bound to be the Achilles Heel of the Golden Dome program. Already, over the past 70 years, the US has spent more than $500 billion on missile defense, according to an American Physical Society (APS) report. Golden Dome would be a colossal waste of resources when the US has $37 trillion in debt. Merely replicating Israel’s Iron Dome over the US — multiplying it out to cover nearly four million square miles — would require 24,000 Iron Dome batteries at $100 million each. Development cost of Golden Dome would be more than we spend on the Pentagon budget in one year.

Golden Dome would create a dangerous arms race in space. It is an offensive, not defensive program. It is extremely unlikely to be able to provide the claimed 100% effective shield against an all-out attack from thousands of missiles incorporating countermeasures such as multiple decoy warheads or the ability to maneuver in the final stages of their trajectory. However, it will embolden the US to launch a first-strike attack and attempt to pick off any retaliatory strike.

The US and Canada land mass is so vast that Golden Dome could never successfully cover it all. Golden Dome just won’t work. It simply encourages other nations to expand hypersonics development, mass drone swarms, advanced cruise missiles and other technologies to overwhelm the US system.

Israel’s similar Iron Dome proved not to be effective when Iran launched missiles and drones that evaded that system. “Intercepting even a single, nuclear-armed intercontinental-range ballistic missile or its warheads … is extremely challenging,” physicist Frederick Lamb of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign said at an APS meeting in March. “The ability of any missile defense system to do this reliably has not been demonstrated.”

Ensuring protection from just one ‘enemy’ ICBM launch site would require more than 1,000 interceptors in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the APS report finds. Protection from ten ICBMs might demand over 30,000 interceptors, depending on missile types. For comparison, there are currently about 12,000 active satellites in orbit around Earth, most in SpaceX’s Starlink network.

Scientists at China’s Zhejiang University have created a composite, multi-layered, heat-absorbing stealth material they say can evade detection by infrared and microwave systems at long ranges. It operates at temperatures up to 700 °C, meaning it can be potentially used in an array of military and space applications.

That’s bad news for Golden Dome, which will rely on ground and space-based early warning, tracking, fire control and radars to detect and track threats. Without help from its sensor-based eyes and ears, Golden Dome’s interceptors would be essentially useless and firing blind in the event of a crisis.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, L3Harris and SpaceX would likely be the prime beneficiaries along with Republican megadonor Peter Thiel’s Palantir and venture capital-backed startup Anduril.

Any war in space would lead to the Kessler Syndrome – masses of orbiting debris – making it virtually impossible to utilize orbits that are becoming dangerously congested like Lower Earth Orbit (LEO). There are currently more than 1,550 Starlink satellites in LEO with thousands more planned.

Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites are launched from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Space Force bases. All space launches today have major environmental impacts – particularly exhaust products trapped for long periods in the upper atmosphere that are further damaging the ozone layer. Space is an environment that must be protected. Golden Dome’s huge number of launches would be the stake in the heart of planet Earth.

Deployment of Golden Dome would also doom any hopes for nuclear disarmament as China, Russia, North Korea and others could not afford to get rid of their nuclear retaliatory capabilities. No other nation will surrender to US becoming the Master of Space.

The Pentagon (Space Force) has long been planning to control the pathway from the Earth to the Moon and beyond. Plans for space-based orbiting battle stations, used to ‘police’ the Earth-Moon gravity well to ensure US and allies ‘control and domination’ of space, are called for in the 1997 US Space Command document ‘Vision for 2020’.

The US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia in 2002. From 1972 until 2002 the Treaty bound the US and Russia to very limited missile defense systems in order to maintain the deadly nuclear balance. What is needed now is a new global ABM Treaty that all states can sign up to and ensure that no state, or group of states, can hold the threat of a nuclear first strike over others.

If the US truly wishes to protect the US and Canada, then it should honor the spirit of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. It should agree to negotiate and sign a treaty at the United Nations to ban all weapons in space. China and Russia have been annually introducing a space weapons ban treaty for more than 30 years but the US and Israel have been blocking its development.

We, the undersigned, call upon the US Congress, the White House, and the Canadian government to abandon plans for the creation of the Golden Dome. Rather than wasting massive amounts of tax dollars on a new space arms race those funds should be used for human needs, environmental protection, education, health care and long neglected infrastructure repair. The US and Canada should lead a global initiative to protect our global commons and keep space for peace.

List in formation: (long list of the undersigned): ………………………………………………………………………………………………. To add your name to this statement, email globalnet@mindspring.com. https://space4peace.org/global-network-statement-on-golden-dome/

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

17 June – WEBINAR : STATE OF THE NUCLEAR “REVIVAL”.

Across the country, nuclear power lobbyists are working overtime—pushing dangerous legislation, undermining democracy, and siphoning funding away from real climate solutions.Join us on Monday, June 17 at 1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern for an urgent webinar on the state of the so-called “nuclear revival” and what we can do to stop it.You’ll hear from organizers on the frontlines:🔹 Catherine Chudy, Board Member, Oregon Conservancy Foundation: Reporting on efforts to defend Oregon’s nuclear moratorium and defeat dangerous subsidies in Washington.🔹 Jamie Valdez, Executive Director, Roots 2 Resilience: Sharing updates from Colorado on grassroots resistance to SMRs in Pueblo and opposition to legislation falsely labeling nuclear power as “clean” energy.🔹 Tim Judson, Executive Director, NIRS: Exposing how Maryland’s Next Generation Act threatens to funnel funding to new reactors across the Midwest and Northeast.We’ll discuss how these battles are connected—and how we can win.Save your spot and join the movement to stop the nuclear revival and invest in a truly just, renewable future.📅 Date: Monday, June 17
🕐 Time: 1:00 PM Pacific / 4:00 PM Eastern
📍 Location: Online (Zoom link to follow)

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Events | Leave a comment

Ukraine “Stinks Of Authoritarianism” – Kiev Mayor Klitschko Hits Out At Zelensky

Meanwhile, after earlier in the week calling for three way meetings between himself, President Trump and Putin, Zelensky has now declared that it would be “meaningless” and instead wants more military aid.

by Tyler Durden, Tuesday, Jun 03, 2025

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The former mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko has blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and bluntly stated that the country is plagued by authoritarianism.

The former world heavyweight champion boxer told the Times of London that Kiev City Council essentially cannot operate because of “raids, interrogations and threats of fabricated criminal proceedings.”

“This is a purge of democratic principles and institutions under the guise of war,” Klitschko declared, adding “I once said that it smells of authoritarianism in our country. Now it stinks of it.”

The Times describes Zelensky and Klitschko as being in a “de facto state of war.”

The report notes that the Ukrainian government has arrested seven Kiev city officials as part of ongoing investigations targeting an alleged criminal network involved in corruption cases related to urban development.

“Many mayors are intimidated, but my celebrity status is a protection,” Klitschko stated, adding “You can dismiss the mayor of Chernihiv, but it is very difficult to dismiss the mayor of the capital, whom the whole world knows.”

“That is why everything is being done to discredit and destroy my reputation,” he further urged.

Zelensky has reportedly been considering arresting Klitscho after he called for the President to consider ceeding Crimea to Russia as part of a peace deal.

This fued has been ongoing for sometime. A year and a half ago, Klitschko urged that Zelensky failed to prepare Ukraine properly for the war with Russia and will “pay for his mistakes.”

A major escalation is expected after Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on Russian airbases Sunday, which many are equating with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

The true cost of the nuclear weapons industry

The CND responds to Starmer’s growing militarism with a ‘Tour of the bases’ protest. TONY STAUNTON reports from Plymouth

Morning Star 6th June 2025 https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/true-cost-nuclear-weapons-industry

NE of the most outrageous elements of Starmer’s offensive Strategic Defence Review is the suggestion of a “Defence Dividend.” Our demand for “Welfare not Warfare” is acutely illustrated by the reality of life for working-class communities surrounding military nuclear sites.

Plymouth Devonport, with the Trident nuclear submarine base situated at its heart, is one of the poorest electoral wards in southern England.

The Devonport nuclear naval base is managed by Babcock International plc, the arms manufacturer with an annual turnover of £4.5 billion, profits mostly contrived out of taxpayers’ hefty payments.

That the nuclear weapons are in the hands of private corporations for profit surely undermines the concept of national security — Babcock is the main benefactor of the local freeport, deregulating its secret nuclear enterprise.

Plymouth’s Establishment constantly reminds the population that the nuclear facility is responsible for 10 per cent of the city’s economy. This alone is a fabrication. The highly paid nuclear engineers and scientists at the base live outside the infrastructure-poor city and take their incomes with them.

It’s been like this for 40 years. There has been no “Plymouth dividend.” One in three children in Devonport and neighbouring wards live in poverty, surely impossible were the dockyard to really be a “jobs magnet.”

In fact, a total of 5,500 people work there, half as naval service personnel with little local connection. The wages of many of the rest are nothing to shout about.

Meanwhile Devonport’s local index of social deprivation according to the Public Health Service is 44, twice the annual average. Nuclear weaponry does not produce social wealth and prosperity.

Investment in arms industries take the money away from social infrastructure. Plymouth has the huge regional hospital, Derriford, now in a financial meltdown, making cuts to the 11,000 staff and standards of service.

The hospital is reliant upon the addition of medical staff from the Royal Navy, offering a false-propaganda device for Babcock as the city’s benefactor.

Plymouth University is in financial crisis, with over 5,000 staff easily competing with the dockyard as an income generator for the city (students live in the city centre), now making 200 redundancies.

Babcock funds nuclear research and training at the Uni and FE College, making them beholden, uncritical, and pro-nuclear across the curriculum.

Plymouth’s Labour Council, combating potential bankruptcy and absurd debt levels, has always supported the nuclear dockyard, championing the military nuclear cause, the status of nuclear weaponry, and the nationalism it projects.

The council has half the workforce of 20 years ago. Our schools are crumbling, all “academised’ with the continuous shedding of staff.

Meanwhile, there have been at least 10 serious accidents at the dockyard including spills of radioactive waste in the past 30 years, Babcock was fined over £600,000 in 2022 for breaches in health and safety regulations (H&S). Human-made toxic radioactive elements are identifiable in our sea, rivers, soil and air.

Plymouth is the decommissioning centre for nuclear vessels, 15 rotting nuclear submarines bobbing at anchor and costing £30 million a year to “keep safe,” their nuclear cores needing constant cooling and the rusting hulks routinely patched to prevent leaks.

The subs are the subject of stalled decommissioning, the authorities not sure what to do with these hulks of radioactive waste. Were the UK’s nuclear weapons to be cancelled tomorrow, there is at least 100 years of work here, just to decommission and clean up the contamination.

Yet now they’re going to build more. Plymouth Devonport nuclear dockyard is receiving £1 billion to refit the dry docks in order to service the Dreadnought super-submarines carrying nuclear warheads up to 300 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The contract will suck-up 600 construction workers much needed for house building and home-retrofitting, the city is littered with half-finished buildings lost to skill shortages.

We all can list what £1 billion could do for the city if invested in social infrastructure and climate jobs.

Plymouth, our coastline dramatic and beautiful, could long have been a centre for construction of wind and wave electricity generators, our geography predisposed, but those industries are not nearly as profitable as the tax-funded nuclear blank-cheque cash cow.

Nuclear weapons are not just illegal weapons of mass destruction, they represent the impoverishment of working-class lives.

Join us on Saturday to send a powerful message to the government to shift its disastrous direction and invest in Peace not Nukes! March and rally. Meet at 12 noon at the Guildhall Square, Armada Way, Plymouth and from 2pm at Devonport MoD Naval Base, Camels Head.

Tony Staunton is CND vice-chair and Plymouth resident.

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

US military waste contractor with flawed safety record backing Australian N-waste dump

Declassified Australia can report that over a 10-year period from 2012 to 2022, during which Amentum managed the WIPP facility, multiple highly hazardous incidents occurred.

Amidst allegations of “gross mismanagement”, the dangerous incidents at the WIPP facility cost US taxpayers at least US$2 billion, and caused a three-year closure of the nuclear waste plant while redesign, repair, and remediation efforts were undertaken.

Jorgen Doyle, June 7, 2025 https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/06/us-military-waste-contractor-with-flawed-safety-record-backing-australian-n-waste-dump/

A US military mega-contractor assisting an Australian company to develop a proposal for a nuclear waste dump in Central Australia has a flawed safety record in handling nuclear waste storage.

A DECLASSIFIED AUSTRALIA SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

In Alice Springs, Central Arrernte Country, the giant American military contractor, Amentum Holdings, is responsible for the day-to-day running of facilities for the secretive US-Australian Pine Gap satellite surveillance base. Now it’s involved in developing a proposed nuclear waste dump in Central Australia.

Declassified Australia can reveal that Amentum’s Alice Springs-based workforce of 400 people provides a myriad of support services to keep the ever-expanding base functioning, including infrastructure management, facilities operations, and maintenance services.

The proposal for the low-level nuclear waste dump comes as the Australian Government is seeking ways to manage and ultimately dispose of high-level nuclear waste from nuclear reactors in the proposed AUKUS submarines, as well as from other defence-related nuclear and hazardous waste, including visiting US and UK nuclear-powered submarines and warships.

As Declassified Australia exclusively reports, despite Amentum having a problematic record of nuclear waste management overseas, it is now involved in the nuclear waste disposal business in Australia.

Proposed Chandler waste facility

Amentum has been contracted to advise Australian hazardous waste company, Tellus Holdings, on the Chandler nuclear waste dump in Central Australia.

The Chandler nuclear waste dump is proposed to be constructed within a salt formation on Southern Arrernte country, 15km from the Aboriginal community of Titjikala and 120km south of Alice Springs.

The Northern Territory Environmental Protection Authority’s assessment report for the Chandler dump describes the project components as including construction of an underground salt mine at a depth of up to 860 metres, permanent hazardous waste disposal vaults within mined-out salt caverns, temporary above-ground storage facilities for hazardous waste, and associated infrastructure like haul roads, access roads, and salt stockpiles.

In August 2024, Tellus announced that the company had contracted Amentum to conduct a Strategic Review of the project to assess timelines, feasibility and potential international waste streams to be disposed of at the facility.

Sydney-based Tellus Holdings was founded in 2009 and describes its mission as “providing advance[d] end-to-end solutions for managing the world’s most challenging hazardous materials”. The company operates Australia’s first geological repository for low-level nuclear waste which started in 2021 at Sandy Ridge, 240km northwest of Kalgoorlie.

When Tellus’ American-born chief executive Nate Smith, a former attorney at powerful Wall Street law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, was interviewed on ABC Radio last August, he cited the proximity of Amentum’s workforce based in Alice Springs as a strong reason for selecting Amentum to carry out the strategic review of the proposed nuclear waste dump.

Declassified Australia can exclusively reveal that at an NT Defence Week presentation held in Alice Springs in May 2024, an Amentum speaker stated that the company is contracted directly by the US Government, and “employs roughly 400 people” providing services to the Pine Gap base.

According to an attendee at the event, the speaker said Amentum provides the operation services and maintenance of facilities, utilities management, renovation, security, environmental health and safety, catering, and housing services.

The company regularly posts ads for the employment of new contractors to provide services like cleaning, gardening and even swimming pool repair. On some days, the speaker said, there have been as many as 200 contractors for Amentum working on site at the spy base, 15km south of Alice Springs.

Amentum and the US military

Based in Virginia, Amentum is one of the US’s largest military contractors. The company employs 53,000 people across 80 countries, and provides services as diverse as chemical and biological weapons decommissioning, US army helicopter training, to running the Nevada Bombing Range and the Kennedy Space Centre.

As well as supporting the US’s most important satellite surveillance base outside the US at Pine Gap, Amentum also works extensively in managing and maintaining US military facilities, primarily in West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The company operates in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, where it provides operations and maintenance services on US military installations.

In Iraq, it manages and maintains US air force bases; and has previously operated in Afghanistan, where it maintained helicopters for the Afghan Air Force, and serviced airfields and trained Afghan police, until US forces evacuated the country.

In Somalia, Amentum is assisting in the construction of six new military bases, while in Ethiopia it is working to “enhance biosafety and biosecurity” at a vaccine lab and training facility.

Amentum is also involved more directly in training armed militias and military forces. In western Africa, the company operates in Benin, where it trains the country’s armed forces for “counter-terrorism” operations.

However, Amentum’s activities have been subject to controversy, even by the standards of a global military contractor.

Amentum is providing training to three of Libya’s armed groups as part of attempts to unify major armed factions in Tripoli to “counter Russian influence” within the country and across the African continent.

The company is currently defending a case before a US court on charges of human trafficking in Kuwait, through its predecessor companies AECOM and DynCorp. The companies allegedly participated in abusive practices against 29 interpreters working under US Army contracts during the US-led invasion of Iraq, “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. The abusive practices included forced labour under threat of deportation and arrest.

Amentum’s nuclear activities

In addition to its military contracts, Amentum has been working to support the development of nuclear reactors and facilities across a number of countries.

In the UK, Amentum has recently been selected as project manager for the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant on the Suffolk coast.

In South Africa, the company is working on extending the life of the country’s only nuclear reactor by 20 years. In the Netherlands, Amentum has been commissioned to undertake technical feasibility studies for two proposed new nuclear reactors.

It is on the American continent that Amentum’s reputation for managing nuclear facilities has suffered serious blows.

In 2012, Amentum formed the Nuclear Waste Partnership, a limited liability company, with BWX Technologies, in order to bid on a US Department of Energy contract to operate and manage a US nuclear weapons waste disposal facility in New Mexico, known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

Amentum’s experience managing the WIPP nuclear weapons waste disposal facility is cited as one of the reasons Tellus selected Amentum as its partner to carry out the strategic review of the planned Chandler project.

However, Declassified Australia can report that over a 10-year period from 2012 to 2022, during which Amentum managed the WIPP facility, multiple highly hazardous incidents occurred.

The incidents, described by an expert on the WIPP as a “horrific comedy of errors”, transformed a facility once regarded as “the flagship of the [US] Energy Department” into an object of serious concern.

Nuclear weapons waste disposal

The WIPP is, like Tellus’ proposed Chandler Project in Central Australia, located within a salt formation. Salt formations are generally considered ideal for the storage of nuclear waste because of their geological stability, capacity to dissipate heat generated by waste, low permeability to water and gasses, and self-sealing properties.

The WIPP site is massive. Its underground footprint currently includes 10 excavated “panels”, each consisting of seven rooms, totalling 100 acres. An 11th panel is under construction, and the US Department of Energy intends to expand the site to eventually consist of nineteen panels.

The facility has received more than 14,000 shipments of military nuclear waste since becoming operational in 1999. Its 800-strong workforce transfers transuranic waste received in drums to storage rooms 655 metres underground for permanent disposal.

The WIPP facility exclusively receives waste from the US’s nuclear weapons program, including tonnes of excess plutonium. Waste originating from 22 Department of Energy facilities, including the infamous Los Alamos National Laboratory (birthplace of the atomic bomb) is transferred to the WIPP facility for long-term storage.

There are proposals for the WIPP to take waste now classified as “high-level” once that waste has been ‘reclassified’ as transuranic (non-uranium) waste. This would pave the way for its storage at WIPP.

“Reclassification of nuclear waste could make disposal simpler and cheaper” is the breezy conclusion of one such proposal written by the editorial staff of Nature journal.

The site is legislated to receive 175,564 cubic metres of waste, and as of 2021, had reached 56.7% of its capacity.

Originally slated to begin closure in 2024, expansion plans and permit modifications have led nuclear watchdog groups to warn that what was only intended as a pilot plant is morphing into “Forever WIPP”.

The US Department of Energy itself now admits that “ final facility closure could begin no earlier than 2083”.

Faulty design and handling at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

On 5 February 2014, less than 18 months into the Nuclear Waste Partnership’s management of the WIPP site, a truck caught fire within the facility, and six workers were hospitalised with smoke inhalation.

A subcontractor under the Nuclear Waste Partnership subsequently sued the company for “gross mismanagement of a major construction contract” involving reconstruction of an underground air-monitoring system that failed during the truck fire.

The subcontractor alleged that the Nuclear Waste Partnership, run by Amentum and BWX Technologies, “was such a disorganised project manager that it caused repeated delays and cost overruns, resulting in multiple breaches of contract”.

The subcontractor claimed that NWP “used faulty designs that caused chronic problems and forced crews to redo large and expensive parts of the project”.

The faulty problems cited by the subcontractor included “a flawed design in hollow-roof panels requir[ing] an extensive redesign that dragged on for almost a year and at times forced work to shut down in other areas”.

Further, “[t]he building’s foundation had to be redesigned, requiring crews to move underground pipes they had already installed; and [a] defective design plagu[ed] the building’s control system”.

Less than a fortnight after the truck fire, on 14 February 2014, a barrel containing americium, plutonium, nitrate salts and organic kitty litter ruptured at the facility.

The rupture quickly spread contaminants “through about one-third of the underground caverns and tunnels, up the exhaust shaft, and into the outside environment”, exposing 22 workers at the WIPP facility to low levels of radioactive contamination.

Following the incident, the site was shuttered for three years. Clean-up efforts cost US$640 million, and a further US$600 million in operational costs were accrued during the years 2014-2017 while the site was being remediated and not accepting new waste.

In addition, the US Government paid US$74 million to New Mexico to settle permit violations involving the radiation release and the truck fire two weeks earlier.

Once costs associated with temporarily storing the nuclear waste that had been destined for WIPP are taken into account ( “hotel costs”, including the weekly inspection of more than 24,000 barrels of nuclear waste for leaks), the long-term cost of the incidents to US taxpayers is likely in excess of US$2 billion.

The WIPP site finally reopened in 2017 after three years of remediation efforts. The installation of a new ventilation system to replace the previous one contaminated in the incident of February 14, 2014 cost an additional US$486 million, and was only completed in March 2025.

A safety analysis conducted prior to the WIPP facility becoming operational reassured regulators that the likely frequency of accidents involving the release of radioactive material at the facility would be once every 200,000 years.

However the two serious incidents of February 2014, resulting in a three-year closure of the WIPP facility, occurred just 15 years into the site’s operation.

The US Department of Energy faced years of pressure from nuclear watchdog groups to end the Amentum and BWX partnership responsible for running the WIPP from 2012.

The Department finally decided not to renew Amentum and BWX partnership’s decade-long contract managing the WIPP nuclear weapons waste disposal facility. They exited in 2022.

The proposed Australian project

Back in Central Australia, Amentum’s strategic review of the Chandler Project is due to be completed soon.

Neither Tellus nor Amentum responded to a series of questions put to them about aspects of the nuclear waste dump project.

With Tellus eager to push on, the massive international nuclear waste dump proposed for Southern Arrernte country 120km south of Alice Springs could commence as early as 2028.

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, wastes | Leave a comment

TASC’s new legal challenge against Sizewell C’s secret flood defences

by Together Against Sizewell C (TASC

ASC urgently need your help in our battle against the environmentally
damaging Sizewell C project. We have discovered that the project now
includes a stated commitment by Sizewell C Ltd to the Office for Nuclear
Regulation (ONR) to install additional sea defences in a ‘credible maximum’
climate change scenario. These defences in the form of two huge 10 metre
high ‘overland flood barriers’ were not included in the approved DCO
project. In our opinion, these flood barriers, if installed, will likely
have additional adverse impacts on the neighbouring designated wildlife
sites including RSPB Minsmere as well as the Heritage Coast and Suffolk
Coast & Heaths National Landscape. We need to ensure that the original
promotor EDF and the now UK government controlled Sizewell C Ltd are not
allowed to use climate change uncertainties as an excuse to delay
assessment and avoid public scrutiny of these additional structures for
decades. The full impact of the whole project should be assessed now.

Crowd Justice 5th June 2025,
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/sizewell-c-legal-challenge/

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

Ayatollah Rejects US Nuclear Proposal, Vows Iran To Keep Enriching Uranium

by Tyler Durden, Thursday, Jun 05, 2025 –https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ayatollah-rejects-us-nuclear-proposal-vows-iran-will-keep-enriching-uranium

Iran has finally reacted to the US proposal for a fresh nuclear deal which was submitted Saturday via Omani mediators, and as expected it has dismissed Washington demands to take uranium enrichment down to zero.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made clear in fresh statements Wednesday that abandoning uranium enrichment was “100%” against the Islamic Republic’s interests. This comes on the heels of a Truth Social post issued by President Trump which said in all caps: WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM.

Khamenei as the Ayatollah, or top Shia religious cleric, has final say over all matters of state policy, but notably he didn’t call for halting the talks altogether, after it’s gone through five rounds, including at Rome.

He said the US proposal “contradicts our nation’s belief in self-reliance and the principle of ‘We Can'”. This is consistent with Iranian officials’ prior position defending enrichment as a matter of national sovereignty that cannot fully be abandoned.

The question that remains is whether the US would allow for limited, lor low-levels of enrichment, instead of the ‘down to zero’ position which is being hotly debated about. “Uranium enrichment is the key to our nuclear program and the enemies have focused on the enrichment,” Khamenei said during a televised speech.

He addressed the nation on the anniversary of the death of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He made it very clear where Tehran stands on the proposal currently offered by the Trump White House:

“The proposal that the Americans have presented is 100% against our interests … The rude and arrogant leaders of America repeatedly demand that we should not have a nuclear programme. Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?,” he added.

There has been somewhat contradictory messaging coming out of Washington, with the Wall Street Journal having reported Sunday that the White House issued a directive last week telling federal agencies to halt the imposition of any new sanctions on Iran. Does this mark a step back from ‘maximum pressure’ in order to give talks a better chance?

The new policy went out to top officials at the National Security Council and Treasury Department, and then to the State Department,” WSJ said.

“Relevant officials working on the Middle East were looped in, but the directive had to spread much further. Iran sanctions intersect with U.S. policy toward China, where buyers take in more than 90% of Iran’s oil exports, as well as Japan, Europe, India and Southeast Asia.”

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Greta Thunberg Speaks from Aid Ship Heading to Gaza Despite Israeli Threats: It’s My Moral Obligation

SCHEERPOST, June 5, 2025 By DemocracyNow!

As Gaza faces over three months of Israeli blockade, a group of 12 activists is sailing to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. The Madleen ship was launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and initially planned to sail from Malta last month, but the group’s ship was damaged in a drone attack. The new mission includes the renowned Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who speaks with Democracy Now! live from the Madleen. “We deem the risk of silence and the risk of inaction to be so much more deadly than this mission,” says Thunberg.

Transcript…………………………..

GRETA THUNBERG: “A month after our latest attempt to go on with this mission, the boat was bombed twice. All evidence suggests Israel. And we are doing this because we have to keep our promise to the Palestinians to do everything in our power to protest against the genocide and to try to open up a humanitarian corridor.“………………………………………………..

…. I happen to have a platform for some reason, and then it is my moral obligation to use that platform. And if my presence on this boat can make a difference, if that can show in any way that the world has not forgotten about Palestine, and to try once again to attempt to break the siege and open up a humanitarian corridor and deliver the extremely needed humanitarian aid, then that is a risk I am willing to take.

And it’s something that we just simply have to do. We cannot just sit, sit around and do nothing and watch this like live-streamed genocide unfold in front of our very eyes. So we are doing this because we are human beings who care about justice. And when our complicit governments fail to step up, it falls on us, unfortunately, to do so.

………………………………. My message is that right now international law is failing us. International institutions, our governments are failing us. Media, our companies are all failing us. Or “failing us” is a diplomatic way of saying that our system seems to be designed in a way that is built upon exploitation and oppression of people. And so, there’s no one to turn to. There’s no one we can turn to to rescue the situation, but it falls on us to step up, to continue flooding the streets, to continue organizing, boycotting, to speak up on all platforms to try to send a clear message that we will not stand for what is happening right now.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://scheerpost.com/2025/06/05/greta-thunberg-speaks-from-aid-ship-heading-to-gaza-despite-israeli-threats-its-my-moral-obligation/

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Gaza, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Vatican City Is Now Powered By Solar

Carolyn Fortuna, May 2025

Vatican City Is Now Powered By Solar. Pope Francis had a dream that the
Vatican would run entirely on green energy. He wanted to highlight the need
“to make a transition to a sustainable development model that reduces
greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, setting the goal of climate
neutrality.”

To model what this could look like, he announced that solar
panels would be installed on a Vatican-owned property outside Rome, and the
power generated from that could supply all of Vatican City’s energy
needs. The future installation would be projected to “ensure, not only
the power supply of the radio station existing there, but also the complete
energy support of Vatican City State,” he wrote. Fast forward to 2025,
and the project is completed.

Clean Technica 29th May 2025,
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/05/29/vatican-city-is-now-powered-by-solar/

June 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Italy, renewable | Leave a comment

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