2025 September 23 « nuclear-news

Nuke Power is Trump/Fascist Power…and an Epic Global Failure.

Karl Grossman – Harvey Wasserman, 15 Sept 25, https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/15/nuke-power-is-trump-fascist-powerand-an-epic-global-failure/

Donald Trump has torched atomic power’s last illusion of credible regulation. He’s destroyed the last shreds of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, exponentially raising the likelihood of an apocalyptic radioactive disaster while escalating America’s transition to energy fascism. His nuclear boosterism has been joined by the core of the Democratic Party, including California’s Governor Gavin Newsom among many others.

But the low-cost zero-carbon tsunami of green Solartopian technology may yet prove unstoppable in the marketplace.

For the first time in US history, a president has fired a sitting NRC commissioner. Another has resigned. A DOGE flunky with zero nuclear expertise has decimated the NRC’s technical support staff.

The NRC has always acted, as the Boston Globe has put it, “more like an industry booster than a watchdog.” But a recent Washington Examiner headline may comprise the Commission’s ultimate epitaph: “Regulators fear dismissal if they slow Trump nuclear power plans.”

The commissioners themselves have nearly all been absurdly industry-friendly. But the rank-and-file NRC staff offered significant expertise. Now even that is gone.

Trump now loudly demands the commissioners “rubber stamp” Small Modular Reactors that are untested, unproven, uninsured and hyper-expensive. Industry supporters worry that soaring delays and prices followed by underperformance, accidents and radiation releases due to unreliable, unregulated construction could doom the technology.

Safety concerns have been confirmed by the refusal of the insurance industry to cover damages from an accident. The refusal stretches back to 1957, when Congress approved the Price-Anderson Act, shielding the industry from a requirement to get private insurance. Thus the “nuclear clause” in every U.S. homeowners policy says: “This policy does not cover loss or damage caused by nuclear reaction or nuclear radiation or radioactive contamination.”

“The NRC has always been a nuclear lapdog, not a watchdog. But under the Trump Administration’s new executive orders” expediting a drive for nuclear power in the U.S. “the lapdog has had its teeth removed. Its vocal cords cut. It can’t bite. It can’t bark, even if it wanted to!” said Arnie Gundersen, a form top executive in the nuclear power industry and now as chief engineer of Fairewinds Associates a leading challenger nuclear power.

As the orders, notes the U.S. Department of Energy, state: “The executive orders instruct the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to create an expedited pathway to approve reactors” and “expand American nuclear energy capacity from around 100 GW [gigawatts] today to 400 GW by 2050.”

Under Trump, “Nuclear safety is in complete free fall at NRC, and there is no parachute,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at the organization Beyond Nuclear. “For example, the agency’s staff and licensing board have already shockingly approved an unprecedented, extremely risky restart of the closed Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan. To restore the operating license, the NRC cobbled together an ad hoc and convoluted regulatory pathway in close collusion with Palisades’ owner, reckless Holtec International. Holtec has zero experience or competence with operating a reactor, repairing one, building or restarting one, let alone at a problem-plagued nuclear lemon like Palisades.”

Palisades is “a badly designed, poorly built, and now dangerously age-degraded 60-year-old reactor that cannot begin to meet modern-day safety standards, which are themselves under serious attack by Trump, DOGE, and the industry,” said Kamps. “If the NRC commissioners reject our appeals and rubberstamp Palisades’ unneeded restart, it will risk a Chornobyl- or Fukushima-scale radioactive catastrophe, an existential threat to 21 percent of the entire planet’s surface freshwater supply, the Great Lakes.”

Further, by approving the Palisades restart, the NRC appears to be getting ready to approve “copycat closed reactor restarts at Three Mile Island-1 nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, and the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant in Iowa,” he said.

Said Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service: “The atmosphere in the agency is clearly one where people who speak out will likely be first on the DOGE reduction-in-force list and everyone left is on notice that they could be next. As much as the chilling effect, my concern is also that inspections and enforcement could well be ending. Even if they keep resident inspectors at reactors to comply with the Atomic Energy Act, they may be taken off inspection duty and told to work on license applications and rewriting the regulations.”

Said Michel Lee, chairman of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy:

“To truly understand the developing safety and security threat, you have to connect the dots.”

“First you have the series of Trump executive orders demanding a rushed buildout of the nuclear-military-industrial complex. These orders and other actions being undertaken by administration, especially DOGE, are effectively dismantling the nation’s long-established nuclear regulatory scheme,” said Lee, an attorney.

“Cost-benefit analysis is being directed to focus on the ‘benefits’ of nuclear,” she continued. “Transparency is being drastically reduced. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is being ‘reformed,’ and its mission now explicitly includes ‘facilitating nuclear power.’ The Department of Energy and the Department of Defense—apparently now the “Department of War”—are now designated as facilitators in the processing of nuclear reactor license applications. This whole enterprise is stated as needed for national security and to promote energy intensive industries, namely AI.”

“So, all that is worrisome enough. Now connect the dots with the demolition derby going on across the broader federal regulatory landscape, with other independent agencies and boards deemed no longer independent and the vast numbers of federal employees—the ones not laid off—losing labor union rights and protections,” said Lee. “Connect the dots and draw your own picture.”

Among the complex of 94 licensed nuclear power plants in the United States, the myriad owners display wildly varying levels of competence, corruption and criminal behavior.

In the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster, the NRC and plant owners lied about radiation releases, their health impacts, and the reactor’s melted core. They produced no credible epidemiological studies of radiation impacts on nearby downwinders but still claim without basis that “no one was harmed.”

In California, NRC resident site inspector Dr. Michael Peck was purged by the NRC for warning that Diablo Canyon’s reactors cannot withstand a credible earthquake. His warning was trashed. Had any of the many large earthquakes that have recently shaken our planet hit in central California in the fault-studded area where Diablo Canyon is located, downwind Los Angeles could now be a radioactive wasteland.

Diablo’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric, has pleaded guilty to 92 federal manslaughter felonies for incinerating eight San Bruno, California residents in an avoidable 2010 gas pipeline fire, and more than 80 people who perished after PG&E ignited the Northern California infernos that destroyed the California town of Paradise.

The owners of the decrepit Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants bribed Ohio’sHouse Speaker, now in federal prison, with $61 million.

Despite the vulnerability of all nuclear power plants in the U.S. and the criminal incompetence of so many atomic owner/operators, there are no realistic plans to evacuate any major American city facing radioactive clouds like those that spewed from Chernobyl and Fukushima. And with Trump destroying FEMA and the NRC, the public can expect no workable warning. Without insurance, a public health safety net, or a feasible emergency response apparatus, countless residents of Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, et. al, will lose their lives, health, homes and property. Martial law will become inevitable.

As renewables advance, the economics of atomic power make ever less sense. Zero new large reactors are under construction in the U.S. The two at the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina have been abandoned, wasting $9 billion. Two at the Vogtle, Georgia nuclear plant site took 15 years to build and cost $40 billon, double their original time frame and price tag.

The 94 operating US plants can’t compete with renewables.

Nor can much-hyped Small Modular Reactors, already plagued with massive overruns, delays, cancellations, and no promise of significant power generation for at least a decade. Unproven plans to reopen dead reactors like Palisades and TMI-1 involve cost projections very far beyond already proven, readily available renewables.

All commercial reactors emit radioactive Carbon14. Additional greenhouse gases come with both reactor operations and the mining, milling, and enrichment of radioactive fuel, along with the as-yet unsolved demands of storing spent stuff.

All nuclear power plants scorch the planet at 300 degrees Centigrade, killing billions of fish with hot water outtakes that have repeatedly forced much of the French fleet—among others—to shut. Immensely expensive fusion reactors would burn at 100 million degrees Centigrade, far hotter than the sun.

Major breakthroughs in renewables have made wind, solar, geothermal, wave energy, batteries, and efficiency far cheaper, safer, cleaner, faster-to-build, and more job-producing than nukes or fossil fuels.

Renewables are now capable of producing all the planet’s energy needs at far less cost than any fossil/nuclear generators while operationally creating virtually zero greenhouse gases. Recent advances in wave energy, solar panels installed over aqueducts and canals, “balcony solar” in Germany and elsewhere keep the technology ever on the rise.

But there are powerful forces still pushing nukes, all of them bound up with fascism. Atomic reactors were first meant to produce fissionable material for atomic weapons. The nuclear power/nuclear war connection has always been intimate.

Trump’s fierce attacks on wind and solar aim primarily to preserve market share for the fossil/nuke billionaires who buy his elections. That income is at the core of American fascism.

Nuke apologists who claim to simultaneously support both atomic power and renewables suffer a deadly delusion. Every dollar wasted on the “Peaceful Atom” delays the vital transition to the green-powered Earth that the human species must have to survive.

Renewable technologies offer the public the power to own and control the

decentralized nature-based power supply essential to any future democracy on this planet—which is precisely what the fossil/nuke industry most hates about them.

Atomic power is a corporate/military-based technology designed to keep all electric and political power under the firm fascist grip of the likes of Donald Trump and his billionaire beneficiaries. Its mission in their eyes is to obliterate all renewables, not to co-exist in some “all the above” delusion.

Nuke reactors burn the planet at 300 degrees Centigrade while spewing radioactive carbon 14, and even more carbon in the mining, milling, enriching, transporting and then burying nuclear fuel. Should any reactor explode it would turn much of the US into a radioactive wasteland while opening the door to martial law and a Trumpian dictatorship.

The astonishing success of new green supply, storage and efficiency has completely dwarfed nukes and fossil fuels in terms of cash, climate and competitive economics.

It’s a revolution that’s been seized by China, handing it near-total control of the export market in wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, electric cars—and thus the global economic future. Worldwide roughly 90% of new energy installations involve wind, solar or batteries, with the vast majority being controlled by the Chinese. The New York Times has recently reported on how China is spectacularly advancing, “pulling away” in “selling clean energy to the world.”

Thus Trump and California Governor Newsom have teamed up with an insane death squad of “liberal” pro-nuke Democrats to decimate the America’s once-vanguard green industries and their long-lost lead in the global economy.

They’re at the same time dooming our democracy to permanent nuclear dictatorship and our economy to the dead-end radioactive dump of a profoundly failed technology—all at once dooming our democracy, our prosperity and our planet. Thankfully, Solartopian green technologies can reverse the death spiral—if we make it happen.

As physicist Amory Lovins, professor of Energy and Environment at Stanford University, has just written: “An intensive influence campaign seeks to resurrect a ‘nuclear renaissance’ from the industry’s slow-motion collapse documented in the independent annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Claims that past failures won’t recur have convinced many politicians that socializing nuclear investments rejected by private capital markets, weakening or bypassing rigorous safety regulation, suppressing market competition, and commanding military reactor and data-center projects as a national-security imperative will restore nuclear expansion and transform the economy. This illusion neatly fits the industry’s business-model shift from selling products to harvesting subsidies.”

“A few awkward facts intrude,” Lovins continues. “Even the most skilled firms and nations keep delivering big reactors with several times the promised cost and construction time. A swarm of startup firms that have never built a reactor are dubiously rebranding their inexperience as a winning advantage. New designs are said to be so safe they don’t need normal precautions (though not safe enough to waive nuclear energy’s unique exemption from accident liability). Political interference in nuclear licensing is eroding public confidence. Proposed smaller reactors cost more per kWh, produce more nuclear waste per kWh, and often need more concentrated fuel directly usable for nuclear weapons.”

“And nuclear power faces the same fundamental challenges as fossil fuels: uncompetitive costs, runaway competitors, dwindling profits, and uncertain demand. Few, if any, vendors have made profits selling reactors—only fueling and fixing them. Nuclear electricity loses in open auctions, so only Congressional bailouts–$27 billion ($15 billion paid out) in 2005, $133 billion in 2021-22, tens of billions more in 2025 — saved most existing U.S. reactors from closure.”

“Now comes another vision: powering the glorious new world of artificial intelligence,” Lovins went on. “This may be a trillion-dollar bubble, but it’s sellable until market realities intervene. The International Energy Agency expects data centers, mostly non-AI, to cause only a tenth of global electricity demand growth to 2030, doubling their share of usage—to just 3%. So AI won’t eat the grid. But IEA forecasts renewables will power data-center growth 10-20 times over, while Bloomberg NEF predicts over 100. Nuclear lost the race to power the grid, so new reactors have no business case or operational need.”

Harvey Wasserman wrote the books Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth and The Peoples Spiral of US History. He helped coin the phrase “No Nukes.” He co-convenes the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition at www.electionprotection2024.org Karl Grossman is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and Power Crazy. He the host of the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman (www.envirovideo.com)

September 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Fukushima recovery plagued with setbacks

September 22, 2025 by beyondnuclearinternational

Perhaps the most significant stumbling block, acknowledged by Tepco on July 29, is the “unprecedented” technical complexity of locating, contacting, removing, and containerizing 880 tonnes of highly radioactive melted reactor fuel still smoldering at the bottom of the three devastated reactors.

In 14 years’ time, engineers managed to design, build, test, and rebuild a one-of-a-kind robot that removed less than one-gram of the waste fuel from reactor No. 2 last year. That November “breakthrough” was three years behind schedule, “and some experts estimate that the decommissioning work could take more than a century,” CBS News and Mainichi Japan reported.

Melted fuel, radioactive soil and a struggling fishing industry are some of the lingering legacies of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, writes John LaForge

Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world, and the regular quakes raise traumatic memories of the March 11, 2011, record-breaker that left 19,000 dead and smashed the six-reactor Fukushima-Daiichi site. This summer, a magnitude 5.5 quake struck just off Japan’s southeast Tokara coast on July 3; a mag. 4.2 quake hit east of Iwaki, in Fukushima Prefecture July 12; and a mag. 4.1 quake shook the same area July 25.

In late July, a mighty 8.8-magnitude quake struck Avacha Bay in Russia’s Far East, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuations across the entire Pacific Rim. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was one of the strongest ever recorded.

The owner/operator of the wrecked reactor complex, Tokyo Electric Power Co., evacuated its entire staff of 4,000 in response to warnings of a possible nine-foot tsunami, after first halting its pumping of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific.

Elsewhere in Japan, over 1.9 million people were urged to evacuate the eastern seaboard, and a 4-foot tsunami wave did strike north of Fukushima at Iwate Prefecture, some 1,090 miles from Avacha Bay, site of the major Russian earthquake.

China partially lifts ban on Japanese seafood imports

China “conditionally resumed” the importation of Japanese seafood products on June 30 ⸺ except from the 10 prefectures closest to the Fukushima disaster site ⸺ after conducting water sample inspections off the coast of the site. Beijing had banned all such imports from Japan as a protest and precaution, following the 2023 start of deliberately discharging large volumes of radioactively contaminated cooling water into the Pacific Ocean.

The 2023 ban was imposed to “comprehensively prevent the food safety risks of radioactive contamination caused by the discharge of nuclear wastewater from Fukushima into the sea,” China’s General Administration of Customs said then. Shocked by Japan’s action, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry added that the discharge was an “extremely selfish and irresponsible act,” which would “push the risks onto the whole world (and) pass on the pain to future generations of human beings,” the Agence France-Presse reported.

Chinese customs officials said June 30 the seafood import ban would continue for ten prefectures, namely Fukushima and its nine closest neighboring states. Products from other regions will need health certificates, radioactive substance detection qualification certificates, and production area certificates issued by the Japanese government for Chinese customs declarations, the government said.

Relatedly, Hong Kong announced that it will maintain its ban on Japanese seafood, sea salt, and seaweed imports from the same ten prefectures still targeted by mainland China ⎯ Fukushima, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo, and Chiba ⎯ citing ongoing concerns about the risks associated with the discharge of radioactive wastewater.

Tepco Lost $6 Billion as Meltdown Recovery Falters

Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings corporation (Tepco) lost $5.8 billion (903 billion yen) between April and June this year as the owner and operator of the triple reactor meltdown at Fukushima became overrun with the costs of inventing, designing, building, and testing robotic machines with which to remotely extract the ferociously radioactive melted reactor fuel from deep inside the earth-quake and tsunami-wrecked reactors.

There are a total of over 880 metric tonnes of “corium” or melted and rubblized uranium and plutonium fuel in three reactors that Tepco claims it will extract. Nikkei-Asia reported August 1 that Tepc o says it has $4.7 billion “earmarked for future demolition work” (700 billion yen), which doesn’t even cover this spring’s one-quarter loss. Tepco has said that its preparations for the extraction are “expected to take 12 to 15 years.”

The quarterly financial loss makes a mockery of announced plans by the government and TEPCO to fully complete decommissioning of the rubbished reactors by 2051.

Two out of 14-to-20-million tonnes of radioactive soil buried on PM’s office grounds, in “safety” parody

In a surreal display of political slapstick on July 19th, the office of Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba buried on his office’s garden grounds two cubic meters of radioactive soil scraped up during Fukushima clean-up operations (in which some 14-to-20 million cubic meters of topsoil and debris were collected) ⎯ “to show it is safe to reuse.”

Nippon Television reported that “The radioactive cesium concentration in the soil being buried is 6,400 Becquerels per kilogram” (Bq/kg). “Becquerels” are a standard measuring unit of radioactivity. The 6,400 is below the legally permitted limit of 8,000 Bq/Kg.

The radiation emitted by the soil originates from cesium-137, which was released in large amounts by Fukushima’s melting and exploding reactors and subsequently fell to the ground as fallout. Cesium fallout continues to contaminate vast areas of forest and farmland in the region.

The millions of tons of collected soil now in storage are being tested and sorted to identify material with cesium at 8,000 Bq/Kg or less. Several million tons of it may then be used as fill in construction projects, road-building, and railway embankments all around Japan. Asphalt, farm soil, “or layers of other materials should be used to seal in the radioactivity,” Akira Asakawa, an Environment Ministry official with the soil project, told the Agence France-Presse.

The PM’s demonstration plot is the first “reuse” of the poisoned waste, while experiments elsewhere have been halted due to public protest. The PM’s contaminated dirt was covered up with about eight inches of normal soil to provide some radiation shielding.

Any radiation exposure is unsafe, but adverse effects like radiation sickness, immune disorders, or cancers caused by contact with the radioactive soil would take years or decades to appear, owing to the latency period between radiation exposure and the onset of induced health problems. The joke seems to be that since Prime Minister Ishiba hasn’t dropped dead after walking by, low-dose exposure must be harmless.

Readers may remember a very similar high-level comedy sketch performed by former President Barack Obama, who traveled to Flint, Michigan in May 2016. Drinking water supplies there had been contaminated with lead and to calm the public uproar, Obama sat before the cameras and theatrically downed a glass of water. The straight-faced routine was proof positive and rock-solid confirmation beyond a doubt that Flint’s tap water was safe to drink. Bottom’s up!

Fukushima Disaster Response to Last Eons

Countless dilemmas and setbacks have plagued the now 14-year-long emergency response to the triple reactor meltdown and widespread radiation releases that began on March 11, 2011, at Fukushima on Japan’s northeast coast.

Unprecedented is the key word here, since the industry has never before had to contain such a large mass of wasted and unapproachable radioactivity. All the work of dealing with the wasted fuel must be done robotically and remotely, since the waste’s fierce radioactivity kills living things that come near. Just planning and preparing to remove the “corium” material will take at least another 12 years.

Toyoshi Fuketa, head of a regulatory body overseeing the site, said at a press conference earlier that “The difficulty of retrieving the first handful of debris has become apparent,” the Kyodo News agency reported.

The torturously slow process has made Tepco’s early prediction of complete cleanup by 2051 (40 years’ time) appear to have been made up for PR reasons.

Tepco said July 29 that it would need another 12 to 15 years’ worth of preparation ⎯ until 2040 ⎯ “before starting the full-scale removal of melted fuel” at the No. 3 reactor. Tepco earlier claimed that “full-scale” extraction would begin four years ago, in 2021 according to the daily Asahi Shimbun August 1.

Of an estimated 880 tons of debris, only 0.9 grams have been recovered to date. With one million grams in a tonne, Tepco has only 879 million-plus grams to go, and “A simple calculation based on the time since the accident suggests the removal process could take another 13.6 billion years to complete,” the Asahi Shimbun smirked.

China’s reactor report card omits embarrassing emission info’

China issues annual reports on its extensive nuclear power operations known as “China Nuclear Energy.” The 2024 edition, its latest, made headlines by omitting for the first time information on the routine radioactive gases and liquids released from its operating reactors.

Kyodo News reported that the omission may be a way to avoid accusations of hypocrisy, as China has strenuously condemned Japan’s discharge of radioactively contaminated wastewater into the Pacific. At the same time China’s domestic reactors in 2022 reportedly “released wastewater containing tritium at levels up to nine times higher than the annual discharge limit” set by Japan’s discharge authorities. ###

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter. This article first appeared on Counterpunch.

September 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

“Recognizing” The Rubble Of Palestine

Caitlin Johnstone, Sep 22, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/recognizing-the-rubble-of-palestine?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=174214040&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

UK, Canada and Australia: Never fear, Palestinians! We’re here to save the day!

Palestinians: You’re going to stop the genocide?

UK, Canada and Australia: HAHAHAHAHA! No! Oh god no. Haha! No, we are going to give a great big Thumbs Up to the idea of your eventual statehood!

Palestinians: Will you at least stop sending them weapons?

UK, Canada and Australia: LOL no.

In response to the UK, Canada and Australia announcing their recognition of a Palestinian state, Benjamin Netanyahu has proclaimed that Israel will never allow such a state to exist.

“It’s not going to happen. There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel will continue expanding settlements in the West bank.

It’s funny how Israel supporters will claim it’s a genocidal hate crime to say “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, but apparently it’s fine to say from the river to the sea Palestine will not be free. Even if you say it while actually committing genocide.

Israeli officials coming out saying there will never be a Palestinian state are completely discrediting all the two-state solution western liberals who’ve spent two years condemning Hamas because they didn’t pursue their liberation by going through the proper channels.

Reminds me of that Jon Stone quote you see going around sometimes, “One reason people insist that you use the proper channels to change things is because they have control of the proper channels and they’re confident it won’t work.”

Westerner: I support a two-state solution.

Israel: There will never be a Palestinian state.

Westerner: Okay then I support a one-state solution where everyone has equal rights.

Israel: You’re calling for an end to the Jewish state you monster.

Westerner: Alright then I support the Palestinian resistance.

Israel: That’s supporting terrorism. You are Hamas and we can legally murder you.

Westerner: Well can I at least support a permanent ceasefire to end the genocide?

Israel: [cocks pistol] What did I just tell you about supporting Hamas?

Westerner: Okay then, I support Palestinians living as a permanent underclass until they can be slowly salami sliced out of existence as a people.

Israel: Getting warmer.

Westerner: I support removing all Palestinians from their historic homeland via ethnic cleansing or extermination before the end of Donald Trump’s presidential term.

Israel: [puts away gun] That’s more like it.

I saw a video where two Australian doctors described how they had to deliver a baby via emergency c-section because the baby’s mother had been decapitated by an Israeli airstrike. Information like this always reminds me of that period last year when all the western politicians and media outlets were telling us that the worst people in the entire world were the university students who were protesting against this genocide.

The Global Sumud Flotilla is saying they’re seeing drones around their ships again just days out from their planned arrival to bring aid into Gaza. Earlier this month drones repeatedly dropped incendiary firebombs on the boats.

This comes as Israel’s Foreign Ministry declares that the flotilla is a Hamas ally, and as Google runs Israel-sponsored ads spinning the flotilla as a terrorist operation.

I don’t know if the Israelis are going to kill these courageous activists, but you can tell they really, really want to.

Remember that time we spent two years watching a horrific live-streamed genocide and then everyone tried to tell us we’re supposed to cry and express our deepest condolences when one of the propagandists for that genocide got shot? That was weird, right?

When Biden finally fucking dies I’m going to be much more insensitive and hostile than I ever was about Charlie Kirk, because he was objectively more murderous and destructive. And when I do, right wingers won’t be shrieking at me about how evil it is to speak ill of the dead. These people have no principles; they’re just herd-minded NPCs trying to canonize a horrible man because he has the same ideology as them.

You’re never going to believe this, but it turns out that news story everyone’s been yelling hysterically about is being used to advance many pre-existing agendas of the US empire.

Officials at the US War Department have announced that they’re considering using Charlie Kirk as a tool for military recruitment. You can add that to the list of all the other agendas they’re using Kirk’s death to advance like increased censorship and surveillance and attacks on leftist dissident groups.

This was predictable from the very beginning. Never play along with their games.

September 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

David versus Goliath: the battle of a small indigenous community against a federal radioactive waste dump.

There are fewer than 500 of them, but they have managed to put a stop to a federal nuclear waste dump project worth several hundred million dollars…

Anne Caroline Desplanques, Journal de Montréal, September 19, 2025, https://tinyurl.com/mwuymkjp

Federal authorities plan to store the remains of the Bécancour nuclear power plant, Gentilly-1, in a dump in Chalk River, on the edge of the drinking water source for millions of Quebecers.

At a time when the Carney government is promoting nuclear power as one of the ways to make Canada an energy superpower, our investigative team has obtained rare access to this ultra-secure complex, which Ottawa wants to hand over to the Americans. We spoke with citizens and experts who are concerned about the environment and the country’s sovereignty.

There are only 365 Anishinabeg living in the tiny Kebaowek First Nation reserve in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. But through their lawyers, they have succeeded in putting a hold on a multi-million-dollar federal radioactive waste dump project on their traditional territory.

In February, the Federal Court ruled that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission had not obtained the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples before authorizing the construction of the dump, in violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In March, the court determined that the project endangers several species, including the spotted turtle, a threatened species less than 30 centimeters long that lives for about 50 years and reproduces infrequently, as it does not reach sexual maturity until around 20 years of age.

Federal lawyers have appealed both decisions. If they fail to convince the courts, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) will have to go back to the drawing board and resume consultations. In the meantime, the project, called the “near-surface waste management facility,” is on hold.

A geotextile membrane to contain radioactivity

It is intended to be a permanent storage and disposal site for up to one million cubic meters of radioactive waste. The waste will be placed on a layer of clay, sand, and geotextile approximately 1.5 meters thick, and covered with another layer of sand, rock, and a membrane.

This is not enough to protect the environment from PCBs, asbestos, heavy metals, and dozens of radioactive elements that CNSC plans to bury there, fears physicist Ginette Charbonneau of the Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive (Coalition Against Radioactive Pollution).

” Radioactive waste cannot be disposed of, it can only be isolated. For that, you need more than a membrane,” she insists.

CNSC assures that this buried waste will have “low-level” contamination and will therefore no longer pose a danger to the environment and health in 500 years, at the end of the containment cells’ useful life.

A pile of waste

But nuclear chemist Kerry Burns has his doubts. Retired from Atomic Energy of Canada since 2010, he was tasked with analyzing waste from the Chalk River laboratories to determine its radioactive content.

He explains that, in the past, CNL buried tons of waste in the sand, which they now plan to exhume and place in their new landfill. However, there are no records indicating the precise level of contamination, he says, describing a gigantic pile of mixed waste.

The project site has too much risk to leave anything to chance, insists the scientist: the landfill will be only one kilometer from the Ottawa River in sandy, porous soil.

“If the contamination escapes from the cells, it will very quickly find its way into the water, and it will be extremely difficult to measure and stop,” he warns.

Like Ms. Chabonneau, Mr. Burns argues that the materials should be isolated in a deep geological repository far from water sources.

This is the method used by one of the American companies chosen to manage CNL, Amentum: it isolates low-level waste in New Mexico in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), which has isolation chambers 660 meters underground.

September 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, indigenous issues, Legal, wastes | Leave a comment

10th International Uranium Film Festival in Berlin, October 7-11, 2025

FESTIVAL PROGRAM FOLDER GERMAN (DOWNLOAD)

Music video „Hiroshima“ – Tuesday, October 7th, 7 p.m. Zeiss Groß-Planetarium / Opening

Silent Fallout. Baby Teeth Speak

– USA/Japan, 2023, Director and Producer Hideaki Ito, Assistant Producers: Rieko Tomomatsu, Naomi Sakai, Sachiko Kamakura, Chieko Watanabe, Narrator: Alec Baldwin,

Documentary, English 76 min.

In 2001, baby teeth were found in the Tyson Valley in St. Louis. They were part of 320,000 baby teeth collected for a project half-a-century earlier. Few people now know that the continental US is radioactive. The US has conducted more than 100 atmospheric nuclear tests at home and more than 100 in the Pacific. Ironically, vast amounts of radioactive material generated by the nuclear tests ended up on U.S. soil. The enormous amount of radioactive material produced by the nuclear explosions was carried by the wind across the continent, where it fell to the ground in rain and snow, contaminating pastures, vegetables and water. Everywhere, there were reports of radioactive contamination. Milk was a special source of concern, given that it was considered an essential source of nutrition for children. Milk from cows feeding on contaminated pastures contained plentiful amounts of Strontium 90. The strontium entered children’s bodies, stayed in their bones, and emitted radiation that attacked their cells. At that point, scientists and mothers in St. Louis launched an ambitious project to measure Strontium 90 in baby teeth to find out if their children were being exposed.

Wednesday, October 8th, 4 p.m. Lichtblick – Under the Cloud

USA/Mexico, 2023, Director Pedro Reyes Alvarez, Producer SITE Santa Fe, Documentary, 24 min. English

Under the Cloud is a short documentary that examines the ongoing legacy of nuclear violence in the American Southwest, where uranium extraction and nuclear testing have left deep scars on both the land and its people. Featuring voices like Leona Morgan, a Diné anti-nuclear activist, the film reminds us that nuclear energy and nuclear weapons are inseparable—a fact that remains dangerously overlooked. Alongside her, other community members speak about the destruction of their environment, the health crises that continue to afflict their people, and their resistance to the mining of sacred lands

Pedro Reyes is a multidisciplinary Mexican artist whose work spans between sculpture, architecture, video and collaborative action. With a career dedicated to exploring social and political themes through creative interventions, Reyes focuses on transforming instruments of violence into tools for peace and community engagement. His innovative projects blend art, activism, and education, often addressing issues such as disarmament, nuclear threat, and environmental justice.

Half-Life of Memory: America’s Forgotten Atomic Bomb Factory

USA, 2024, Director: Jeff Gipe, Producer: Dan de Jesus, Documentary, 55 min. English.

In the suburbs of Denver, the U.S. secretly manufactured thousands of atomic weapons, leaving behind a toxic legacy that will persist for generations. The Rocky Flats plant produced a staggering 70,000 atomic bombs, each serving as a “trigger” for thermonuclear warheads. Concealed by government secrecy, the plant’s fires, leaks, and illicit dumping of nuclear waste contaminated the Denver area with long-lived radioactive toxins.

Today, the radioactive legacy of Rocky Flats continues to threaten public health, yet surprisingly few people are aware the plant ever existed.

Website: https://halflifeofmemory.com(link is external)

Wednesday, October 8th, 6 p.m. Filmkunst 66 –Toxic NATO

Germany, 2023, Director and Production: Moritz Enders, Documentary, 26 min.

During the Kosovo War, NATO used tons of uranium munitions against the former Yugoslavia. Since then, a cancer epidemic has raged there. Lawyer Srdjan Aleksić refuses to accept this – and wants to sue the military alliance. Does he have a chance in his fight for justice? Director Enders accompanies the lawyer, whose family has also been affected by the consequences of the use of uranium weapons in the 1999 Yugoslav War and who is currently conducting several legal proceedings. Aleksić is pursuing legal action to ensure that the numerous victims of the NATO bombings receive compensation.

Moritz Enders: “In my opinion, NATO has clearly committed war crimes. While the production and possession of uranium weapons are not yet prohibited by treaty, their use violates international humanitarian law, human rights, and environmental rights. What makes matters worse is that NATO didn’t actually attack military targets with uranium ammunition, which would have made a certain amount of sense from a military-tactical perspective. Due to its hardness, uranium ammunition is capable of penetrating the armor of heavy vehicles, such as battle tanks. Yet NATO used it to attack targets that it could have also attacked with conventional ammunition without compromising the effectiveness of the attacks.”

Panel on DU weapons with director Moritz Enders, Dr. Srdan Aleksic, Prof. Manfred Mohr (ICBUW) & book presentation: “Uran 238. Das Krebs Geschoss“.

Wednesday, October 8th, 8 p.m. Moviemento – Chernobyl – Our Overlooked Fighters

France/Germany/Ukraine, 2022, Director: Emi Dietrich, Documentary, Russian/Ukrainian with German subtitles, 25 min.

While politicians are once again considering the expansion of nuclear energy, its dangers are often forgotten or even concealed. Liquidators from Borodyanka, Kharkiv, and Ivankiv recount their dangerous missions during the Chernobyl disaster. They discuss the effects of radiation on their health, their current situation, and their views on nuclear energy.

Atomkraftwerke im Krieg (Nuclear Power Plants in War)

Germany, 2023, directed by Reinhard Brüning, documentary, 53 min.

How safe are nuclear power plants in war zones? In 2024/2025, Ukraine experienced its worst winter to date. Bombs and drones are destroying the infrastructure and threatening the safety of the nuclear power plants. Added to this is the occupation by the Russian military. Refugee power plant workers report on the desolate situation at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. This gripping documentary reveals the extraordinary stories of the relentless struggle to protect Europe from the next nuclear disaster. To what extent have the strict safety measures at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, fallen victim to the war? Reinhard Brüning: „After several reports on Chernobyl and Fukushima, I actually thought I’d finished with this topic. But then the attack on Ukraine came along, and the issue of nuclear power plant safety appeared in a new light.”

and many more films……………………………………………………………………………. https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/berlin-2025-program

September 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Trump and the Shadow of Fascism

22 September 2025 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/trump-and-the-shadow-of-fascism/

In recent months, accusations that Donald Trump and his administration embody fascism have become more frequent. The word carries historical weight, and using it carelessly risks turning it into a mere insult. But the question is worth asking seriously: how many characteristics of fascism can be seen in Trump’s presidency – and his ongoing movement?

Political theorists have identified common traits of fascist regimes: cult of personality, scapegoating of minorities, attacks on the press, obsession with law and order, disinformation, and disdain for democratic norms. Viewed through this lens, Trump and his administration tick many of the boxes.

Trump has built a cult of personality unlike any modern U.S. president, insisting that loyalty to him is more important than loyalty to law or country. He scapegoats immigrants, Muslims, and political opponents, framing them as existential threats to “real Americans.” He repeatedly called the media “the enemy of the people,” sought to revoke press credentials, and encouraged investigations into his critics.

Perhaps most concerning was his open disdain for democratic norms. From loyalty tests for judges and civil servants to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Trump treats democracy as conditional – acceptable only if it delivered the outcome he wanted.

Where the comparison to fascism is less exact is in the total control of society and the economy. Trump has not dissolved Congress, suspended elections (yet), or nationalised industry. The courts, press, and opposition party remain functional, though under immense and constant pressure. This distinction is crucial, but it may also reveal fascism’s modern adaptation rather than its absence. Historical fascism seized power through overt revolution; the Trumpist method appears to be the exploitation of democratic institutions from within, using their inherent weaknesses and freedoms – such as free speech and political polarisation – to consolidate power. The goal seems not to be to abolish the system outright, but to render it so subservient to a single leader that its formal structures become a façade.

What we are left with is not a carbon copy of 1930s Europe but something closer to what scholars call “authoritarian populism” or “illiberal democracy.” Still, the overlap is close enough to warrant alarm. The cult of personality, the scapegoating, the attacks on democratic institutions – these are not harmless quirks of an unconventional politician. They are warning signs.

These signs are amplified by a key tactic of modern authoritarianism: the creation of a parallel information ecosystem. Through relentless propaganda, the delegitimisation of factual reporting, the embrace of conspiracy theories, and the promotion of outlets that serve as state-media proxies, a significant portion of the population is persuaded to live in a reality defined not by shared facts, but by the leader’s will. This breaks the common ground necessary for democratic debate and makes accountability impossible.

If anything, Trump’s movement shows how easily a democracy can slide toward authoritarianism without formally abolishing elections or rewriting constitutions. The question now is not whether Trumpism matches fascism perfectly, but whether we are willing to ignore the unmistakable echoes. The history of the 20th century teaches us that fascism does not arrive in a day; it arrives in degrees, often masked by populist appeal and enabled by those who believe the institutions are too strong to fail. The warning is not that America has become a fascist state, but that it has proven vulnerable to the very playbook that leads there.

September 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

First of four containers of tritium waste at LANL has been vented

By Alaina Mencinger amencinger@sfnewmexican.com
Sep 16, 2025

The first of four flanged tritium waste containers awaiting removal from Los Alamos National Laboratory has been vented, the New Mexico Environment Department announced Tuesday afternoon.

The container can now be moved for treatment at LANL and then, eventually, to an off-site disposal area.

No internal pressure was found in the first container, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, suggesting the inner containers in the flanged tritium waste container hadn’t leaked. Air monitoring did not show an increase of tritium beyond background levels, the federal agency wrote…………………………………

This weekend, several groups, including Communities for Clean Water, urged state and federal officials to stay the venting and requested additional guidance on precautionary measures. The New Mexico Environmental Law Center drafted a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday asking the state leader to halt the process.

“This project is the direct result of decades of mismanagement,” Joni Arends of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety stated in a news release ahead of scheduled weekend venting. “Instead of investing in real solutions like filtration or long-term storage until decay, DOE is forcing our communities to accept dangerous shortcuts.” https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/first-of-four-containers-of-tritium-waste-at-lanl-has-been-vented/article_4b5cf404-0458-4880-ba3f-7a1c754a500e.html

September 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA | Leave a comment