nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

 Nuclear news – not from the military-industrial-political-media complex

Some bits of good news –      Israel-Palestine: the bereaved parents bringing hope to a divided land.    The Country Making Orphanages Obsolete. 

Quarter Century of Collecting Seeds From Around the World Safeguards Them From ExtinctionTOP STORIES

. Trump Is Moving Relentlessly Toward Illegal War in Venezuela. 
It’s Not a Ballroom- It’s a Bunker. 
Trump Is Very Confused About Nuclear Weapons.
What Ends the SMR Bubble? 

The Next Nuclear Renaissance? 
New Radiation Protection Standards in 2026? 
Stabilizing the U.S.-China Rivalry.
Israel and US Scorn ICJ Ruling Against Starving Civilians as Method of Warfare.

Climate. ‘Change course now’: humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN head

Noel’s notes. Right wing- Left wing – on the nuclear issue it doesn’t matter

AUSTRALIA. 

NUCLEAR ITEMS

ATROCITIES. ‘Groundhog Day’: Israel Breaks Ceasefire to Attack Gaza, Killing 104 People, Including 46 Children.
ARTS and CULTURE. What we should be talking about after watching Bigelow’s ‘A House of Dynamite’ nuclear thriller.
ECONOMICS. Trump cuts Westinghouse reactors deal. South Carolina’s state utility says private firm set to restart abandoned $9 billion nuclear project.
America’s $80bn nuclear reactor fleet exposes Sizewell C costs. also at https://nuclear-news.net/2025/10/30/1-b1-americas-80bn-nuclear-reactor-fleet-exposes-sizewell-c-costs/
Buzz around nuclear shows the hole that [?]green shipping is in.
Golden Dome funding lags as industry partners line up.
EMPLOYMENT. Nuclear construction workers plan third strike.
Fears raised that specialist Vulcan MoD work could shift to Sellafield
Furloughing Workers for Armageddon: Trump, Nuclear Weapons and the NNSA.
ENVIRONMENT. Leaked document reveals Amazon deliberately planned to hide data centers’ full water use.
ETHICS and RELIGION. The Voices of Many Jews.
HUMAN RIGHTS. UN Human Rights Office Warns Israeli Settler Violence in West Bank Is “Surging”.
It’s Just Wall-To-Wall News Stories About The US And Its Allies Abusing The World.
MEDIA. Western Media Use ‘Peace’ Prize to Fuel War Propaganda.As Millions March Against Fascism, NYT Warns Against Progressives.Is a worldwide nuclear holocaust closer than ever?Radioactive Governance,
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Furious French fairies challenge nuclear plans.
PLUTONIUM. Members of Congress object to plutonium giveaway. Roll up, roll up for your free plutonium
POLITICS. Trump’s push to uphold Gaza ceasefire is creating a political crisis in Israel.
UK – MPs ‘deeply concerned’ about government’s proposed new nuclear siting policy Miliband starts fight with SNP over deploying new nuclear in Scotland. Why Scotland’s energy future shouldn’t be about nuclear.
Bechtel boss urges US government to share risk of nuclear build-out .
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.
Donald Trump’s nuclear testing order sparks pushback from Russia, China and the UN.Yanis Varoufakis & Grace Blakeley: Why Everything Feels Broken.
Iran, Russia, China question IAEA’s mandate after end of UN resolution.
No signs of suspicious work at bombed Iranian sites, IAEA chief says.
RADIATION. Dounreay waste particle ‘most radioactive’ find for three years.Three workers at nuclear fuel reprocessing plant possibly internally exposed to radiation.
SAFETY. How Russia is risking nuclear catastrophe with attempts to syphon power from Ukraine’s biggest plant.
Google joins Microsoft in plans to restart US nuclear plants to power AI infrastructure.
SECRETS and LIES. Hi-Tech Holocaust: How Microsoft Aids The Gaza Genocide.
How North Korea outsmarts US intelligence agencies—and what they should do to adapt/
SPINBUSTER. The hidden military pressures behind the new push for small nuclear reactors.
Nuclear power in Scotland would have same problems as fossil fuels–
TECHNOLOGY. Capitalism Is Shoving AI Down Our Throats Because It Can’t Give Us What We Actually Want.
WASTES. Escalating nuclear waste disposal cost leads senior MP to demand ‘coherent’ plan. 
Decommissioning. Germany destroys two nuclear plant cooling towers as part of nuclear phaseout plan.
 Nuclear waste plan turns neighbor against neighbor in a struggling Japanese fishing village.
Early engagement launched on £360m nuclear waste capping scheme
WAR and CONFLICT
Biden hands off the Ukraine war to Trump…who now owns it.
The anti-Russia, pre-SMO, Timeline of Which Legacy Media Won’t Speak.

US Deploying Aircraft Carrier Strike Group Near Venezuela as Regime Change Push Heats Up. Trump a shameful Double Ace in obliterating small, unarmed boats on the high seas.

Trump’s ‘peace plan’ traps Gaza in limbo. Trump backs renewed Israeli strikes in Gaza. Report: Israel Launched Airstrike in Gaza on Saturday After Getting US Approval
The Russia-Ukraine War – Security Lessons.
The threat of nuclear Armageddon.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.
If the US resumes nuclear weapons testing, this would be extremely dangerous for humanity.
ATOMIC BLACKMAIL? The Weaponisation of Nuclear Facilities During the Russia-Ukraine War.

Pentagon orders USS Gerald R. Ford into Caribbean, first carrier sent to region.
Israel’s AI use in Gaza potentially normalizes civilian killings, obscures blame, exposes Big Tech complicity: Expert.

The experts respond to Trump’s proposal to “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis” Trump to reduce tariffs on Beijing amid resumed US nuclear weapons testing order.

The UK is at risk of a nuclear attack as the US is set to house nuclear weapons in Suffolk, England, which would make the country a target in a US and Russia war
US President Donald Trump says South Korea has approval to build nuclear-powered submarine. Donald Trump says South Korea can build nuclear-powered submarines in US-ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2016/03/28/87605/

November 1, 2025 Posted by | Weekly Newsletter | Leave a comment

Trump Is Moving Relentlessly Toward Illegal War in Venezuela

The lawful procedure would have been to arrest people if there was probable cause they were involved in drug trafficking and bring them to justice in accordance with due process.

Venezuela isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2024.

The Trump administration’s murderous strikes on small boats at sea constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings.

By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout, October 30, 2025

s the Trump administration continues to murder people in small boats on the high seas and mounts the largest U.S. military buildup in decades in the Caribbean, it is moving inexorably toward an all-out, illegal attack and forcible regime change in Venezuela.

Despite Team Trump’s feeble attempts to legally justify its ocean strikes, which have now killed 57 people since early September, those extrajudicial killings are also unlawful.

Donald Trump’s murderous campaign came into focus on February 20, when the State Department designated eight drug trafficking organizations, including Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations. Although the administration has attempted — so far unsuccessfully — to use that designation to justify sending immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump is now invoking it in an effort to validate his illegal strikes at sea.

Moreover, on March 15, Trump issued “A Proclamation,” alleging that Tren de Aragua has been engaged, in association with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in “irregular warfare” in the United States, with no explanation of what is meant by irregular warfare. But on February 26, most U.S. intelligence agencies had made a finding that Tren de Aragua was neither controlled by the Venezuelan government, nor was it committing crimes in the United States on its orders.

On September 2, Trump announced that the U.S. had conducted a “kinetic strike” against an alleged drug smuggling vessel in the Caribbean, even though Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. military could have interdicted the vessel rather than killing all of those on board. Trump wanted to “send a message,” hardly an excuse for premeditated murder.

The lawful procedure would have been to arrest people if there was probable cause they were involved in drug trafficking and bring them to justice in accordance with due process. Both U.S. and international law provide for the arrest of alleged drug traffickers or individuals suspected of acts of terrorism, both on the high seas and in U.S. territorial waters.

In a post on social media accompanied by a video clip of the strike, Trump declared that the attack was “against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” and referred to the February 20 foreign terrorist organization designation. This did not provide a lawful basis for murdering alleged drug dealers.

Although Trump’s stated rationale is preventing drugs from Venezuela entering the United States, Venezuela isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2024.

No State of Armed Conflict, No Unlawful Combatants, No Self-Defense

It was reported in early October that Trump had notified several congressional committees that the U.S. is engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels that his administration has branded terrorist organizations, and that suspected drug smugglers are “unlawful combatants” in order to justify the strikes as self-defense………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

There is no current state of armed conflict, there is no evidence that the people on the boats were combatants, and it is illegal to deliberately attack civilians. “This is not stretching the envelope,” Geoffrey Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer who was formerly the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues, told The New York Times. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

The strikes on boats also violate the right to life enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. has ratified, making it part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The covenant says that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” It outlaws extrajudicial killing outside the context of armed conflict or by law enforcement when necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.

An Attack on Venezuela Would Be an Unlawful Act of Aggression

In addition to its increasing numbers of murders of alleged drug smugglers at sea, the Trump administration is positioning tremendous military firepower for what appears to be an imminent attack on Venezuela.

Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft-carrier strike group with five destroyers to deploy to the region to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States,” according to a Pentagon spokesperson.

“The only thing you could use the carrier for is attacking targets ashore, because they are not going to be as effective at targeting small boats at sea,”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Forcible Regime Change Violates Venezuela’s Right to Self-Determination

During his first term, Trump repeatedly voiced his desire to invade Venezuela and change its regime. He was preoccupied with the idea of an invasion, the AP reported.

In 2019, the Trump administration orchestrated an unsuccessful strategy led by Rubio to carry out a coup d’état, seize power from Maduro, and install Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

National courts around the world should investigate and charge U.S. officials, including Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth, with murder under well-established principles of universal jurisdiction.

And we must mobilize a powerful antiwar movement to demand that the U.S. government stop the illegal boat murders and stay out of Venezuela. https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-gunning-to-illegally-attack-venezuela-and-change-its-regime/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=33e1b56faa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_10_30_09_26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-33e1b56faa-650192793

November 1, 2025 Posted by | SOUTH AMERICA, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

If the US resumes nuclear weapons testing, this would be extremely dangerous for humanity

Tilman Ruff, Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, October 30, 2025, https://theconversation.com/if-the-us-resumes-nuclear-weapons-testing-this-would-be-extremely-dangerous-for-humanity-268661?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2031%202025%20-%203566936381&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2031%202025%20-%203566936381+CID_7ad11048cc6a12b2fcdd641252fbcae9&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=If%20the%20US%20resumes%20nuclear%20weapons%20testing%20this%20would%20be%20extremely%20dangerous%20for%20humanity

US President Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing immediately, “on an equal basis” with other countries’ testing programs.

If Trump is referring to the resumption of explosive nuclear testing, this would be an extremely unfortunate, regrettable step by the United States.

It would almost inevitably be followed by tit-for-tat reciprocal announcements by other nuclear-armed states, particularly Russia and China, and cement an accelerating arms race that puts us all in great jeopardy.

It would also create profound risks of radioactive fallout globally. Even if such nuclear tests are conducted underground, this poses a risk in terms of the possible release and venting of radioactive materials, as well as the potential leakage into groundwater.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has been signed by 187 states – it’s one of the most widely supported disarmament treaties in the world.

The US signed the treaty decades ago, but has yet to ratify it. Nonetheless, it is actually legally bound not to violate the spirit and purpose of the treaty while it’s a signatory.

What testing is used for, and why it stopped

In earlier years, the purpose of testing was to understand the effects of nuclear weapons – for example, the blast damage at different distances, which provides confidence around destroying a given military target.

Understanding the consequences of nuclear weapons helps militaries plan their use, and to some extent, protect their own military equipment and people from the possible use of nuclear weapons by adversaries.

But since the end of the second world war, states have mostly used testing as part of the development of new weapons designs. There have been a very large number of tests, more than 2,000, mostly seeking to understand how these new weapons work.

The huge environmental and health problems caused by nuclear testing prompted nations to agree a moratorium on atmospheric testing for a couple of years in the early 1960s. In 1963, the Partial Test Ban Treaty banned nuclear tests in all environments except underground.

Since then, nuclear-armed states have stopped explosively testing at different times. The US stopped in 1992, while France stopped in 1996. China and Russia also aren’t known to have conducted any tests since the 1990s. North Korea is the only state to have openly tested a nuclear weapon this century, most recently in 2017.

These stoppages came in the 1990s for a reason: by that time, it became possible to test new nuclear weapon designs reliably through technical and computer developments, without having to actually explode them.

So, essentially, the nuclear states, particularly the more advanced ones, stopped when they no longer needed to explosively test new weapon designs to keep modernising their stocks, as they’re still doing.

Worrying levels of nuclear proliferation

There is some good news on the nuclear weapons front. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has now been signed by half the world’s nations. This is a historic treaty that, for the first time, bans nuclear weapons and provides the only internationally agreed framework for their eventual elimination.

With the exception of this significant development, however, everything else has been going badly.

All nine nuclear-armed states (the US, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel) are investing unprecedented sums in developing more accurate, stealthier, longer-range, faster, more concealable nuclear weapons.

This potentially lowers the threshold for their use. And it certainly gives no indication these powers are serious about fulfilling their legally binding obligations to disarm under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Moreover, multiple nuclear-armed states have been involved in recent conflicts in which nuclear threats have been made, most notably Russia and Israel.

Worryingly, we have also seen the numbers of nuclear weapons “available for use” actually start to climb again.

This includes those in military stockpiles, those that have been deployed (linked to delivery systems such as missiles), and those on high alert, which are the ones most prone to accidental use because they can be launched within minutes of a decision to do so. All of these categories are on the increase.

Russia, in particular, has weapons we haven’t seen before, such as a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile that President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday his country has successfully tested. China, too, is embarking on a rapid build-up of nuclear weapons.

And the US has just completed assembling a new nuclear gravity bomb.

A new START treaty also not moving forward

Nearly all of the hard-won treaties that constrained nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War have been abrogated.

There’s now just one remaining treaty constraining 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, which are in the hands of the US and Russia. This is the New START Treaty, which is set to expire in February next year.

Putin offered to extend that treaty informally for another year, and Trump has said this is a good idea. But its official end is just four months away, and no actual negotiations on a successor treaty have begun.

The US has also said China needs to be involved in the successor treaty, which would make it enormously more complicated. China has not expressed a willingness to be part of the process.

Whether anything will be negotiated to maintain these restraints beyond February is unclear. None of the nuclear-armed states are negotiating any other new treaties, either.

All of this means the Doomsday Clock – one of the most authoritative and best-known assessments of the existential threats facing the world – has moved forward this year further than it has ever done before.

It’s really an extraordinarily dangerous time in history.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump Is Very Confused About Nuclear Weapons.

The president says he wants to resume nuclear testing but doesn’t seem to know why.

By Tom Nichols, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/10/trump-nuclear/684758/

Just before heading to his meetings with the leader of China, the president of the United States issued some comments about nuclear weapons, or “nuclear,” as he tends to call them. He wants to resume nuclear-bomb tests, something no nuclear state except North Korea has done since the last century. But his reasoning is a bit confused: In the space of one short announcement, he managed to get a lot wrong, which is worrisome, because he’s the only person in America who has the authority to order the use of nuclear arms.

On Wednesday evening, the president placed this post on his Truth Social site:

The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. On Wednesday evening, the president placed this post on his Truth Social site:

The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. On Wednesday evening, the president placed this post on his Truth Social site:

The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Almost none of this is right. Russia has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear bombs, largely because the Russians are still holding on to a lot of smaller tactical weapons designed for use on a battlefield. Trump is correct that China is much further back; the People’s Republic probably has something like 600 warheads, meaning that it would have to produce almost 1,000 bombs a year to reach parity with the U.S. or Russia by the end of the decade. (Possible? Maybe, but Beijing has only added about 100 warheads in the past two years.) Also, the United States did not create some shiny new arsenal during Trump’s first term. It is true that America is about to spend a gigantic amount of money—roughly $1 trillion—to modernize its strategic nuclear arsenal, but that plan has been in the works since the Obama administration.

So what, exactly, is Trump talking about? Parsing the president’s posts is never easy, but Trump is probably nettled about Russia’s claim to have tested a long-range, nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik.

Trump shouldn’t worry too much: The Burevestnik is a truly stupid idea. Cruise missiles are stealthy and difficult to counter, because they can fly low and hug terrain—but they are basically just unpiloted small aircraft using regular fuel, and so they have a far more limited range than ballistic missiles. The Russians, however, now claim that they have a cruise missile powered by a nuclear reactor that can fly halfway around the world. Russian President Vladimir Putin first announced this project back in 2018, and the Burevestnik has all the hallmarks of Soviet-era boasting about a great technical achievement that doesn’t provide a lot of strategic advantage. (In the old days, the Soviets had a compulsion to claim that the Soviet Union had the biggest and best of everything, leading to the Cold War–era joke that the Kremlin bragged about making the world’s biggest microchips.)

In any case, resuming nuclear testing is a terrible idea, not only because it would undermine America’s long-standing commitment to restraining a global arms race, but because detonating warheads to see if they actually work hasn’t been necessary in a very long time. Nuclear tests don’t make much sense for U.S. national security, but they’re a great way to raise international tensions. During the Cold War, the superpowers sometimes engaged in nuclear tests as a way of signaling nerve and resolve. Unfortunately, these tests served mostly to put both East and West on edge, pollute parts of the United States and the former Soviet Union, and make a lot of people sick.

Trump may be stuck in this sort of Cold War mentality, trying to show his toughness by resuming testing, especially because he seems to take it personally when Russia engages in occasional nuclear swaggering. But Trump is not alone on this issue. Some nuclear hawks will claim that the U.S. deterrent lacks credibility because none of its bombs have been detonated in decades, as if other nations are emboldened by the possibility that America is fielding weapons that won’t work. In fact, America and other nuclear states have ways of testing every component of their arsenal—and every nuclear-armed nation knows it. Nuclear stability rests on many policies, but no one is contemplating an attack on the United States based on some mad assumption that the response will be a rain of duds.

Of course, another possibility is that Trump’s announcement means nothing. Before Trump, statements by the president were policy. But Trump says a lot of things, and he reverses course regularly; often, what look like important pronouncements turn out to be random thoughts that have escaped the weak gravity of Trump’s attention span. In any case, resuming nuclear testing isn’t easy: Such tests require a lot of preparation and infrastructure, unless Trump’s goal is merely to explode some weapons and call it a “test.”

For now, this announcement about nuclear testing seems to be yet another example of Trump reflexively taking Russian bait. Resuming nuclear testing looks weak and petulant, not strong and confident. No American president should ever let the Kremlin get under his skin—especially not where nuclear weapons are concerned.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s nuclear testing order sparks pushback from Russia, China and the UN.

SBS World News, 31 Oct 25

Trump said the Pentagon will immediately resume testing the US nuclear arsenal on an “equal basis” with other nuclear powers.

United States President Donald Trump has landed back in the US after a surprise directive to begin nuclear weapons testing that has raised the spectre of renewed superpower tensions.

Trump announced the order on social media, just as he was entering a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday.

It came days after Russia declared it had tested nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered cruise missiles and sea drones.

The blunt statement from Trump, who boasts frequently about being a “peace” president, left much unanswered.

Chiefly, it was unclear whether he meant testing weapons systems or actually conducting test explosions — something the US has not done since 1992.

“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump also said that the US has more nuclear weapons than any other country and that he had achieved this in his first term as president.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its latest annual report that Russia possesses 5,489 nuclear warheads, compared to 5,177 for the United States and 600 for China.

In his post, Trump said — minutes ahead of his meeting with Xi — that China was expected to “be even within 5 years”, without substantiating the claim.

China, Russia express concerns

In response to Trump’s announcement, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun urged the US to “earnestly abide” by a global nuclear testing ban.

Russia questioned whether Trump was well-informed about its activities.

“President Trump mentioned in his statement that other countries are engaged in testing nuclear weapons. Until now, we didn’t know that anyone was testing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Russia’s recent weapons drills “cannot in any way be interpreted as a nuclear test”, Peskov said. “We hope that the information was conveyed correctly to President Trump.”

Peskov then implied that Russia would conduct its own live warhead tests if Trump did it first.

“If someone departs from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly,” Peskov said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that if any country tests a nuclear weapon, then Russia will do so too.

Both countries observe a de facto moratorium on testing nuclear warheads, though Russia and the United States do regularly run military drills involving nuclear-capable systems.

The US has been a signatory since 1996 to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all atomic test explosions, whether for military or civilian purposes.

United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said through his deputy spokesman that “nuclear testing can never be permitted under any circumstances”………………………………………… https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/trump-nuclear-testing-order-pushback/a21zghnl1

November 1, 2025 Posted by | China, politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Trump cuts Westinghouse reactors deal

one thing should be clear, significant financial risks are still there. Only four Westinghouse AP1000 units were ever financed in the US and remain a testament to nuclear power high risk, recurring and gross failure to financially control runaway cost-of-completion and time-to-completion estimates.  

October 30, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/trump-cuts-westinghouse-reactors-deal/

On October 28, 2025, the Trump White House announced its commitment to stake at least $80 billion of US federal dollars to initiate yet another very risky run at new construction of Westinghouse Electric Company’s  AP1000 nuclear stations. This is the follow-up to his May 23, 2025 executive orders to “unleash” more atomic power in the nation. Only this time, the Trump deal entitles the federal government, the designated buyer of the new reactors, to a 20% equity stake thereafter in Westinghouse’s returns in excess of $17.5 billion. Trump’s financing deal was cut with Westinghouse’s newest parent companies Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, after the March 29, 2021 Westinghouse bankruptcy as of “the largest historic builder of nuclear power plants in the world.” At the time of the bankruptcy, Westinghouse was a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s Toshiba Corporation. Toshiba itself only narrowly escaped the financial meltdown.

On his latest visit to Asia, President Trump signed a nuclear deal with Japan newest, most hawkish and first woman Prime Minister, Saneae Takaichi, also announced on October 28th with an agreement to invest  hundreds of billions of dollars in US critical infrastructure including in Trump’s pledge to domestically build new Westinghouse AP1000 reactor units and small modular reactors in the United States conditional on the involvement of Japanese contractors.

The Trump deal doesn’t specify just how much US taxpayer money will be spent on the new Westinghouse units Trump wants to build.

But one thing should be clear, significant financial risks are still there. Only four Westinghouse AP1000 units were ever financed in the US and remain a testament to nuclear power high risk, recurring and gross failure to financially control runaway cost-of-completion and time-to-completion estimates.  Those new AP-1000 project orders were the only four units that managed to muster financing in South Carolina (V.C. Summer Units 2 & 3) and Georgia (Vogtle Units 3 & 4) of 34 US units announced in the 2007 launch with much ballyhoo of a so-called “nuclear renaissance.”  The two projects’ financing was only made possible by the two state regulators indenturing their electricity ratepayers to Construction Work In Progress (CWIP) charges through their respective Public Utility Commissions levying a series of customer rate hikes in advance of electricity usage to guarantee construction financing.  Otherwise, without public ratepayer on the hook for the advanced financing, a total of 30 other proposed new “advanced” reactor units (including 8 additional AP1000 units) were cancelled and withdrawn nationwide without a shovel in the ground.

South Carolina’s V.C. Summer AP1000 construction project was abandoned in 2017 with $10 billion in sunk costs and shrouded in FBI arrests, federal criminal convictions and guilty pleas by two high ranking SCANA utility executives, CEO Kevin Marsh, and Vice President Stephen Byrne, pleaded guilty to defraud South Carolina state regulators and its ratepayers after being charged with the crime by the U.S. Attorney’s office. Additionally, two Westinghouse Electric executives, Carl Churchman, a Vice President, pled guilty to making related false statements to the FBI investigators and sentenced to serve house detention and Jeffrey A. Benjamin, Senior Vice President for new plants and major products, who plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud and serving one year and a day in federal prison.

Georgia’s Vogtle AP1000 two-unit project was eventually completed seven years behind the schedule to start operations in 2023 and 2024 with their original estimated combined cost of construction ballooning from $14 billion to an estimated $36.8 billion.  Due to the expansion, massive rate hikes and prolonged delay, the Vogtle nuclear power station is now the largest and most expensive generator of electricity by atomic power in the United States.

In other related news, on Friday, October 24, 2025, South Carolina’s Santee Cooper Board of Directors unanimously voted to authorized the state-owned utility to sign a letter of intent to ask Brookfield Assets Management, previously mentioned as one of Westinghouse’s parent companies, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to take over the completion of the previously abandoned and only partially built nuclear reactors.

Santee Cooper’s CEO Jimmy Stanton was quoted by The State news service to pledge that, “There are no additional financial risks for our customers at all”. The Letter of Intent is meant to be the first step in a new permitting for the completion of construction project and then obtaining a federal license for full power operations.  The original Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) combined construction and operating license that Santee Cooper and SCE&G held is no longer valid following their 2017 abandonment of construction. The new licensee, assuming that to be Brookfield Assets or its qualified proxy, will need to go back to the US NRC and the state to reacquire the necessary  permits to restart what is now called “the greatest construction failure in state history.” Santee Cooper has said it does not plan to hold the federal construction permit. Customers of Dominion Energy, the VC Summer Unit 1 new operator, are already on the hook to pay roughly 5% of their monthly bills for the original expansion project.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

How Russia is risking nuclear catastrophe with attempts to syphon power from Ukraine’s biggest plant

The exiled mayor of Enerhodar, close to Zaporizhzhia, reveals his fear of an ecological catastrophe

Sam Kiley, In Zaporizhzhia, Wednesday 29 October 2025, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-ukraine-russia-war-b2855001.html

Europe’s biggest nuclear reactor has become a battlefield in Ukraine’s defence against Russian invaders as they risk a catastrophic meltdown in its efforts to connect it to Moscow’s national grid.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which has six reactors, was captured by Russian troops early in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It has remained a dangerous potential flashpoint for a nuclear disaster ever since.

Fighting and bombardments by both sides of the complex and the power station itself, which has been entirely occupied by Russian forces who base troops in its buildings, have forced the “cold shutdown” of the reactors.

This means that its nuclear material is not used to generate power but needs to be constantly cooled.

The fighting cut electricity from Ukraine, meaning that the cooling system had to rely entirely on diesel generators and a skeleton staff for a month.

Regular power was only restored in the last week, after the longest period the ZNPP had been disconnected from electricity to drive its cooling systems.

Russia needs to cut the Ukrainian power link in order to install its connection into the Russian network – a long-stated ambition.

“The Russian Federation is putting in its power line, but elements of it have been successfully damaged by Ukraine,” explained Mykhailo Shuster, nuclear expert and former director of procurement at Energoatom – Ukraine’s nuclear power agency.

“Russia is now at a high level of readiness, and to connect it, the power supply from Ukraine must be interrupted.”

It is unclear whether Russia has been able to connect the Ukrainian plant to its own network during the 30-day outage. If it did so, it would then have to install converter stations to synchronise the two grids.

But the power cuts to the cooling systems, combined with the near collapse of the water supplies there after Russia blew up the Kakhova Dam – the main water source for the ZNPP – is causing jitters among local leaders.

The exiled mayor of the now-occupied Enerhodar, the town next to Zaporizhzhia, told The Independent he fears nuclear fallout could melt into the groundwater around the plant, contaminate the Dnipro River and eventually the Black Sea.

“Kakhovka Dam is destroyed; there is nothing to cool it with – even if they miraculously restore the equipment in the future,” he said.

“Worst case scenario: the water will eventually evaporate from the cooling pond, and there will be nothing to cool nuclear fuel.”

“It can melt the concrete and go into the groundwater,” Dmytro Orlov added from his office in Zaporizhzhia. Mayor Orlov runs humanitarian programmes for the thousands of people, mostly nuclear power workers, who fled the advancing Russians from his town to safety here.

The mayor recalled the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which remains the worst nuclear disaster in history.

“The estimated amount of nuclear fuel there is about 10 times more than in Chernobyl,” he warned.

A small team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Authority regularly inspects the power station and has reported military training and explosions in and around the facility.

Russian artillery and mortars have been seen shelling and bombing Ukrainian towns and villages on the opposite bank of the Dnipro.

After power was restored, IAEA director general Mario Grossi said: “What was once virtually unimaginable – a nuclear power plant regularly losing off-site power – has unfortunately become a common occurrence during this devastating war. However, this was the most challenging loss of power event we have experienced so far.

“There is still much work to do to further reduce the risks of a nuclear accident.”

November 1, 2025 Posted by | Russia, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

‘Groundhog Day’: Israel Breaks Ceasefire to Attack Gaza, Killing 104 People, Including 46 Children.

 Democracy Now, October 30, 2025 

Israel launched major airstrikes on Gaza, killing at least 104 people, including 46 children, in the deadliest attacks since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire was announced. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “powerful strikes” on Gaza Tuesday after Israeli officials accused Hamas of killing an Israeli soldier in Rafah — which Hamas has denied. Netanyahu is trying “everything possible to resume the genocide in Gaza,” says Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza. “The only condition is that he needs to maintain the facade of the ceasefire.”

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: Israel launched major airstrikes on Gaza beginning Tuesday night, killing at least 104 people, including at least 35 children — about a third of the dead — in the most lethal attacks since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire began on October 10th.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered what he called “powerful strikes,” unquote, on Gaza after Israeli officials accused Hamas of killing an Israeli soldier in Rafah. Hamas denied involvement in the soldier’s death.

President Trump defended Israel’s attacks while also saying nothing is going to jeopardize the ceasefire……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.democracynow.org/2025/10/29/gaza_israel_strikes_muhammad_shehada

November 1, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

It’s Just Wall-To-Wall News Stories About The US And Its Allies Abusing The World.

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 29, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/its-just-wall-to-wall-news-stories?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=177462655&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

It’s just news story after news story about the US and its allies terrorizing the world today.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been filming themselves committing horrific massacres in Sudan over the last couple of days, reportedly murdering some two thousand civilians. You can see the bloodstains on the ground in satellite images. As we discussed the other day, the RSF and its atrocities are backed by the UAE, a close partner of the United States.

Meanwhile Israel has committed another wave of massacres of its own throughout the Gaza Strip, reportedly killing 104 people in a single day, including 46 children. This is as many Palestinians as would typically be killed on any given day in Gaza prior to the so-called “ceasefire”.

CBS News’ 60 Minutes has released a cartoonishly blatant war propaganda piece on “Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator” about how poor and unhappy the people of Venezuela are under their current government. The piece featured an interview with Republican Senator Rick Scott, who said that “If I was Maduro I’d head to Russia or China right now; his days are numbered.”

The US can make threats, impose sanctions and amass war machinery, but you don’t truly know they’re serious about attacking a country until they start churning out Pentagon propaganda in the mainstream press.

In the same interview, Scott also said that if Maduro is successfully ousted, “it’ll be the end of Cuba.”

“America is gonna take care of the southern hemisphere and make sure there’s freedom and democracy,” he added.

The senator’s statements suggest that the US is preparing a push in Latin America similar to what it has been executing with Israel in the middle east, eliminating any powers which refuse to bend the knee. South of the US border the top two disobedient governments are the socialist states of Venezuela and Cuba. In the middle east the US and Israel have spent the last two years bombing Iran and Yemen, securing a regime change in Syria, and doing everything they can to eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah in order to rule the region uncontested.

And of course we’ve still got the horrifying US proxy war in Ukraine, where men continue to be dragged off against their will to fight in a nightmarish conflict that most Ukrainians now oppose, but which Zelensky is saying he intends to keep fighting for years against the will of the public. This whole miserable ordeal could have been avoided with a little diplomacy and a few low-cost concessions, but the western power alliance avoided off-ramp after off-ramp in order to ensure that Russia would get sucked into another costly military quagmire.

All over the world the US and its allies are murdering and abusing people in order to dominate the planet and ensure the survival of the capitalist system with which its power is intertwined. It is a giant murder machine feeding on human blood and the life force of our biosphere while providing nothing but obstacles to a healthy world.

The US-centralized empire is a disease that affects our entire species. We had better find a cure, and fast.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

No signs of suspicious work at bombed Iranian sites, IAEA chief says

Iran International, Oct 29, 2025,

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday there were no signs of suspicious activity at Iranian nuclear sites bombed by the United States in June, adding that inspectors had gradually resumed some work in Iran.

“We do not see anything that would give rise to hypotheses of any substantive work going on there,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in New York.

“These are big industrial sites where there is movement, there is activity going on and we are very quick to indicate that this does not imply that there is activity on enrichment,” he added.

Iran suspended cooperation with IAEA inspectors after a 12-day war in June against Israel and the United States, codified via a new law passed by parliament.

Grossi told reporters that inspectors had no access to the to sites stricken in June, but confirmed that some inspection was under way.

“We are trying to build it back, and we are inspecting in Iran,” he said, “not at every site where we should be doing it – but we are gradually coming back.”

Respecting NPT

In September, Iran and the agency agreed in Cairo to restart inspections. However, after Germany, France and the United Kingdom triggered the reimposition of UN sanctions, it remained unclear whether Iran would comply.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Tuesday that Iran’s commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards agreement with the agency remain in place…………………………………. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202510291624

November 1, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Radioactive Governance

The Politics of Revitalization in Post-Fukushima Japan

by Maxime Polleri, Sales Date: January 2026

https://nyupress.org/9781479836833/radioactive-governance/

Examines the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster

The 2011 Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear disaster was the worst industrial nuclear catastrophe to hit Japan. It was a major event, rated at the highest severity, which released radioactive elements into the power plant’s surrounding environment when back-up systems failed and could not sufficiently cool the nuclear reactors. At least 164,000 people were permanently or temporarily displaced.

Radioactive Governance offers an ethnographic look at how the disaster was handled by Japan. Unlike prior nuclear-related narratives, such as those surrounding Chernobyl or Hiroshima, which focused on themes of harm, trauma, and victimization, the Japanese government consistently put forward a discourse of minimal or no radiation-related dangers, a gradual bringing home of former evacuees, a restarting of nuclear power plants, and the promotion of a resilient mindset in the face of adversity. This narrative worked to counter other understandings of recovery, such as those of worried citizens unsuccessfully fighting for permanent evacuation because they were afraid to go back to their homes.

Providing a rich theorization of how both governments and citizens shape narratives about catastrophic events, Radioactive Governance not only displays how Fukushima became a story of hope and resilience rather than of victimization, but also how radioactive governance shifted from the nuclear secrecy that characterized the Cold War era to relying on international organizations and domestic citizens to co-manage the aftermath of disasters.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | media, resources - print | Leave a comment

Donald Trump says South Korea can build nuclear-powered submarines in US

 Donald Trump has said he has given South Korea permission to build
nuclear-powered submarines in Philadelphia, in an announcement that could rattle China as the US president prepares to meet Xi Jinping. “South
Korea will be building its Nuclear Powered Submarine in the Philadelphia
Shipyards, right here in the good ol’ U.S.A.,” Trump wrote on the Truth
Social platform on Thursday during his visit to the US ally and ahead of a
summit with President Xi. Trump said the US-South Korea military alliance
was “stronger than ever” so he had “given them approval to build a
Nuclear Powered Submarine”.

 FT 30th Oct 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/a6ee6741-5a66-41b1-80b6-5e01e4a823a5

November 1, 2025 Posted by | South Korea, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Furloughing Workers for Armageddon: Trump, Nuclear Weapons and the NNSA

To maintain and reproduce an arsenal of mass death and thanatotic desire, you need people of suspended moral principles. “Oversight matters,” Plonski remarks. “Reducing the federal workforce means increased risk in ensuring the reliability and safety of our nuclear stockpile.”

30 October 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/furloughing-workers-for-armageddon-trump-nuclear-weapons-and-the-nnsa/

Instead of satirising nuclear war – a possible if difficult thing to do – the time has come to satirise the laying off and furlough of those who solemnly monitor and maintain such machinery fit, not for preserving life so much as ending it at a fiery, radiated terminus. If it’s not possible to totally disarm a nuclear inventory, it might be possible to reduce the forces behind them or render some idle. It turns out that this is happening in Freedom’s Land itself, the United States of America. 

Those responsible for maintaining the US nuclear weapons arsenal have not been having the best of years. In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the heads of agencies to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force, consistent with applicable law.” This was part of the now infamous Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative. Within a few days, 300 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), located within the Department of Energy, were fired. Prior to that, it had 2,000 staff and 55,000 contractors at its disposal.

The NNSA describes, as one of its “core missions” ensuring that the US “maintains a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear stockpile through the application of unparalleled science, technology, engineering, and manufacturing.” Easy to forget, on reading this, that we are not talking about agricultural supplies or lifesaving medicines, but over 3,000 nuclear warheads and ongoing production specific to that agency. “The Office of Defense programs,” the description goes on to say, “carries out NNSA’s mission to maintain and modernize the nuclear stockpile through the Stockpile Stewardship and Management System.”

NNSA deputy division director, Rob Plonski, was understandably upset that his citadel was being thinned. Ego, reputation and prowess in the nuclear field was at stake. “We cannot expect to project strength, deterrence and world dominance while simultaneously stripping away the federal workforce,” he moaned in a post on LinkedIn. He would have taken heart by the subsequent rescinding of the termination decision for all but 28 of the staff by NNSA acting director Teresa Robbins.

Trump, on the other hand, was having one of his more lucid moments, telling reporters on February 13 that nuclear forces should not be exempt from budgetary trimming. “There’s no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons. We already have so many, you could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over.” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, was having none of that. DOGE employees, he charged, were storming “in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for.” They barely realised that the purge was less to do with the Department of Energy than “the department of nuclear weapons.”

In October, the NNSA was again revisited by crisis, with the decision to furlough 1,400 employees due to that event distinct to US politics, the government shutdown. Till that point, the shutdown had lasted almost three weeks, with the Senate failing to pass a continuing resolution bill since October 1. Only 400 essential employees are being retained, labouring in patriotic sweat without pay. A spokesperson for the DOE explained that they would be working “to support the protection of property and safety of human life.”  

Since its creation in 2000, the agency has had few such hiccups. “This has never happened before,” noted Energy Secretary Chris Wright during a news conference at the Nevada National Security Site on October 20. “This should not happen.” Wright, however, spoke of pursuing “creative ways” in paying the vast number of contractors, at least till the end of October.

Particular concern centres on the Pantex plant in Texas, the assembly and disassembling site for nuclear weapons, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, responsible for, according to the DOE, the retrieval and storage of nuclear materials, fuelling of naval reactors, and the performance of “complementary work for other government and private-sector entities.”

The NNSA had tried to argue that money be made available from previously passed spending bills to prevent the furlough. A DOE spokesperson proved icy in remarking that, “While the administration was able to identify funds to keep NNSA weapons laboratories, plants, and sites operating with our contractors, legal and budgetary limitations required the administration to begin furloughing NNSA federal employees.”

Therein lies the problem. To maintain and reproduce an arsenal of mass death and thanatotic desire, you need people of suspended moral principles. “Oversight matters,” Plonski remarks. “Reducing the federal workforce means increased risk in ensuring the reliability and safety of our nuclear stockpile.” With the support of 26 lawmakers, Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) in her October 23 letter to Wright and NNSA administrator Brandon Williams similarly argued that the federal employees in question “play a critical oversight role in ensuring that the work required to maintain nuclear security is carried out in accordance with long-standing policy and the law.” Trump has also been fuzzy on the matter of nuclear weapons, acknowledging the nonsense of increasing the pile, yet simultaneously wanting tighter deadlines to deliver ever more modern weapons to the Pentagon. 

This fantastically confused state of affairs throws up an interesting question: Why not turn the attention to reducing the stockpile itself and pause the euphemistically named modernisation process? A slimmer, sharper workforce for a more diminished, manageable arsenal of death that should never be used in any case. The National Security State remains, however, a tough, insatiable customer.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | employment, USA | Leave a comment

Trump a shameful Double Ace in obliterating small, unarmed boats on the high seas


Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL,30 Oct 25

WWI saw the elevation of intrepid fighter pilots to heroic heights as they fought for the skies in flimsy, wood and canvas death traps over the Front. Average life span about 3 weeks. To celebrate their status cheating death while bringing death to the enemy, they were exalted as an Ace if they downed 5 enemy planes. Achieving 10 kills made them a Double Ace.

A century plus later Donald J. Trump has forever besmirched the honored designation of Ace with his 10th kill of small unarmed boats on the high seas in the Caribbean and Pacific, sending several dozen unknown innocents to Davey Jones locker. Eddie Rickenbacker received the Congressional Medal of Honor as America’s Ace of Aces with 26 kills in WWI. Richard Bong received the Congressional Medal of Honor as America’s Ace of Aces with 40 kills in WWII.

Gleefully celebrating each of his first 10 kills on the high seas, Double Ace Donald J. Trump will only receive the everlasting condemnation of history for his ongoing, senseless destruction of human life from the safety of the now Trump desecrated Peoples House.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment