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

What a week in non-corporate nuclear news!

Some bits of goodnews –    

Chile eliminates leprosy  Kazakhstan is rebuilding habitat for the return of wild tigers more than 70 years after the species vanished from Central Asia. Croatia Declared Landmine-free After More Than 2 Decades of Demining Efforts

  Green energy gave the UK’s flat economy a boost

TOP STORIES. Preemptive War, Permanent Emergency: The Real Cost of Trump’s Iran Strike.


Negotiation to Detonation.Trump’s 3 day ‘quickie’ war turning into a 3 year catastrophe.This Illegal US-Israeli Attack on Iran Is Also an Assault on the United Nations.
Trump’s War of Choice: Oman Reveals Iran Agreement Was Imminent. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg5sXQDR8NY

‘Bombs Will Be Dropping Everywhere’: Trump Launches Illegal Regime Change War Against Iran.

Climate. Global sea levels have been underestimated due to poor modelling, research suggests 

AUSTRALIA.  The Mushroom Treatment: A Government That Treats You With Contempt Cannot Be Trusted.                                                                       Australia and the “Epstein Coalition”- Invasion of Iran a disaster.                            The Ghost in the Kill-Chain:The Invisible Cost of “Surgical” War.              More Australian nuclear news at https://antinuclear.net/2026/03/07/this-weeks-australian-nuclear-news-2/

NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS

ECONOMICS. U.S. and Japan Ponder Nuclear Energy Project in Massive $550 Billion Deal.
ENERGY. Nuclear power falls below half its historic peak share of global electricity generation. Study: Energy Efficiency Can Address Surging Electricity Needs at Half the Cost of Gas Plants.
ENVIRONMENT. Conservationists challenge effectiveness of £700 million fish safety system. Water. Could a huge data centre revitalise Ayrshire – or ruin it?
ETHICS and RELIGION. A Catholic guide to understanding the war with Iran.Good grief…Jesus freaks taking over military indoctrination. The US War Machine Is Run By Deranged Armageddon Cultists. Iran Is Morally Superior To The United States. U.S. Military Leaders Tell Troops Trump Is Waging Iran War To Bring Forth Second Coming Of Jesus.
EVENTS. 14 March – Protesters to rally at Faslane base in anti-nuclear demonstration. Advocating for a nuclear free beach – https://www.samuellawrencefoundation.org/
HEALTH. Two pieces of news re Radiation and Health.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance relaunched amid concerns over new projects planned for Wales.

POLITICS.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.

SAFETY.NRC buckles to White House and licenses dangerous TerraPower reactor. Natural Resources Defense Council supports restart of NextEra’s Duane Arnold nuclear station, a known danger.
Coastal erosion risks to planned Sizewell C nuclear power station. Sellafield recruitment opens for Authorised Firearms Officers. Incident – New Addition to List of Nuclear Near Catastrophes. Capenhust-based nuclear facility faces prosecution after uranium leak.
SECRETS and LIES. When will US, Israel stop censoring massive damage to US facilities and Israel? Debunking the lies of the Iran War. Mendacious Rationales: The Lies Behind Operation Lion’s Roar.
SPINBUSTER. According to Pete Hegseth – “They are toast”. Golden pipedreams – UK Advanced Nuclear plan.
TEPCO planning to send probe into Fukushima nuke reactor. Japan Eyes Pacific Island for Nuclear Waste Disposal Site.TEPCO removing empty tanks to advance Fukushima plant decommissioning work.

WAR and CONFLICT.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES

‘Not One Damn Penny’: Pentagon Expected to Ask Congress for Billions to Fund Iran War.

Macron plans to deploy nuclear weapons to Britain.  France to increase its number of nuclear warheads, Macron says – as it happened.  France officially enters Nuclear Arms Race. Golden Dome to Rio Rancho: Public Infrastructure, Private Weapons, Public Consequences. Nuclear flashpoints to fallout.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Weekly Newsletter | Leave a comment

Kucinich: “Iran Could Be the Graveyard of the American Empire”

SCHEERPOST, March 4, 2026 

Former congressman Dennis Kucinich joined Robert Scheer for one of the most urgent and unflinching conversations in Scheer Intelligence history. What emerges is a portrait of a superpower stumbling into a conflict it cannot control, driven by an alliance it cannot restrain, and guided by a worldview increasingly detached from geopolitical reality.

Kucinich, long known as Congress’s most consistent voice for peace, argues that the United States has reached the “terminus” of its imperial ambitions. With Washington now openly coordinating military action with Israel and escalating toward direct confrontation with Iran, he warns that the U.S. is entering a phase of global overreach it can neither sustain nor justify.

Scheer, who has covered war and foreign policy for decades, frames the moment bluntly: this may be the most dangerous point in modern international relations — a convergence of American decline, Israeli expansionism, and a collapsing global order.

The Empire Hits Its Limits

Kucinich begins with a stark assessment: the U.S. empire is running out of road.

“America is reaching the end of its road of empire. Iran might be the graveyard of our empire.”

He points to 800 U.S. military bases worldwide — not as defensive outposts, but as instruments of economic control. With the rise of BRICS and the weakening of the dollar, he says the unipolar era is over. The U.S. can no longer dictate global outcomes through force.

Scheer agrees, noting that Washington’s reliance on military power has grown as its economic competitiveness has declined. The U.S. no longer manufactures the world’s technology, cannot build basic infrastructure at home, and has ceded entire industries to China — yet continues to behave as if it can impose its will through bombs and sanctions.

A War Built on Illegality and Illusion

Kucinich argues that the escalation toward Iran violates both international law and the U.S. Constitution.

“There was no imminent threat. This is a war crime — several war crimes.”

He notes that the administration acted without congressional authorization and without meeting the legal threshold of imminent danger. Worse, he says, the strikes occurred during peace talks — an act he calls “treachery.”

The result is a total collapse of U.S. credibility.

“Iran rejected a ceasefire proposal because they cannot believe anything the United States says.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. A War the U.S. Cannot Win

Kucinich’s final warning is the most sobering:

“We cannot win this war. We don’t have the resources. Iran can defend itself. This is a calamity of great significance.”

Scheer agrees, arguing that the U.S. is acting like Rome in its late stage — decadent, overextended, and delusional about its own power.

The Core Message

  • The U.S. empire is collapsing under its own weight.
  • The Iran escalation is illegal, reckless, and strategically disastrous.
  • Israel’s long‑pursued confrontation with Iran is now driving U.S. policy.
  • Iran is unified, prepared, and far more capable than U.S. leaders admit.
  • American militarism is hitting its limits as economic power declines.
  • The world is moving toward multipolarity, and U.S. dominance is fading.
  • This conflict could mark the end of the American imperial era.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A Catholic guide to understanding the war with Iran

The primary international law that seems to have been violated by the United States and Israel is the U.N. Charter’s prohibition of the use of force except in self-defense. The United States, whose diplomats were among the founders of the United Nations just after the horrorshow of World War II, is a signatory to the U.N. Charter and presumably willingly governed by its prohibitions against wars of aggression or choice.

by Kevin Clarke, America, March 6, 2026

“…………………………… First of all, what do we call this thing that the United States and Israel have begun, which has so far cost more than 1,000 lives in Iran and 12 in Israel and taken the lives of six U.S. service members? In his declaration announcing the attack, Mr. Trump described the joint Israeli/U.S. air campaign as “major combat operations in Iran.”

Since the strikes began, members of Congress who support that “major combat operation” have struggled to classify it, reluctant to refer to it as a war, perhaps attempting to avoid the delicate problem of constitutional limits on the executive to engage in war-making. The framers of the American Constitution, concerned about the possibility of a renegade, unbound executive abusing this gravest authority, reserved that power to Congress under Article I, Section 8, Clause 11. You can look it up.

But like Congresses before them that demurred as former presidents began a “police action” in Korea, trudged deeper into the big muddy of the Vietnam War or cheerfully pronounced “mission accomplished” as the epic misadventure in Iraq unraveled, the current U.S. Congress has preferred to leave the authority to engage in this latest war (and perhaps ultimately the blame for it) to the Trump administration.

Some members of Congress have settled on “significant military campaign” to describe the conflict, too akin to the Putin-ish “special military operation” to my ears. Others argue that the attacks on Iran can’t be called a war until U.S. boots are on the ground—something not ruled out by the White House.

But I say if it looks like a war, bombs like a war, takes the lives of combatant and noncombatant alike like a war, it’s probably a war.

International humanitarian law, 19th- and 20th-century conventions and agreements meant to temper state tensions that lead to conflict as well as the behavior of warring parties, is likely to be further undermined by this new war. It may seem absurd to seek moral limitations on conduct in something as barbaric as war-making, but I.H.L. had notable practical successes over time in terms of the treatment of prisoners of war and the protection of noncombatants. In recent years it has included conventions abolishing land mines and chemical and biological weapons.

The primary international law that seems to have been violated by the United States and Israel is the U.N. Charter’s prohibition of the use of force except in self-defense. The United States, whose diplomats were among the founders of the United Nations just after the horrorshow of World War II, is a signatory to the U.N. Charter and presumably willingly governed by its prohibitions against wars of aggression or choice.

In the past, the United States has turned to the United Nations to provide a veneer of legitimate authority to its military actions in Korea, during the Gulf War, various Iraq incursions and other military campaigns in Kosovo, Haiti, Libya and Syria. The Trump administration this time did not bother to seek U.N. cover for its attack on Iran, extending its disdain for the United Nations to perhaps this ultimate conclusion. But U.N. officials should not feel especially slighted since the president similarly did not bother to seek an authorization from the U.S. Congress.

Self-proclaimed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has made a point of mocking the niceties of international law as the United States continues an illegal campaign to kill alleged drug smugglers across the Caribbean Sea. He has, with alarming gusto, asserted that U.S. forces, or warriors as he prefers to call service members, will not be limited by international law or “woke” rules of engagement; they will instead be focused on victory, whatever the cost. He appears to be a man of his word in this regard.

A New York Times analysis points to U.S. forces as the likely author of a missile strike on an elementary school that claimed 175 lives, mostly schoolgirls, on Feb. 28. The U.S. military has so far not confirmed its role in the strike nor apologized for its gruesome outcome.

A Just War or just more war? 

The church’s just war tradition has been challenged by contemporary theologians as insufficient and outdated, yet it remains a worthy filter through which to judge the moral defensibility of a turn to war-making. Jus ad bellum is the church’s tradition of moral instruction meant to guide discernment before making the decisions to begin an armed conflict. Jus in bello is the church tradition that governs behavior during armed conflict.

According to just war teaching, conflict can only be joined as an act of self-defense or in defense of an ally, though it may be engaged to protect the vulnerable or respond to a grave threat. Intention in choosing armed conflict cannot be darkened by a desire for vengeance or retribution but focused on preventing a greater evil and the restoration of peace.

War-making must be a last resort, all peaceful avenues of resolution having been exhausted. The use of force must be proportional, that is, the suffering it prevents must be greater than the misery it is likely to create. The conflict cannot be the cause of more disorder and evil than those it seeks to address. In conflict, belligerents must discriminate between combatant and noncombatant, taking all measures to protect the latter.

The administration seems to have ignored or violated a number of these preconditions and prohibitions in its decision to go to war with Iran………………………………………………………………………………….https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/weekly-dispatch/2026/03/06/iran-israel-united-states-catholic-just-war/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=A%20Catholic%20guide%20to%20understanding%20the%20war%20with%20Iran%E2%80%8B&utm_campaign=Daily%203%206%2026

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Natural Resources Defense Council supports restart of NextEra’s Duane Arnold nuclear station, a known danger.

March 5, 2026, https://beyondnuclear.org/nrdc-lends-support-to-restart-closed-reactor/

Natural Resources Defense Council supports the proposed restart of Iowa’s permanently closed Duane Arnold nuclear power station on assurances of adequate public safety upgrades to a Fukushima-style reactor from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

In a disappointing reversal of its previously critical stance toward nuclear power and especially the dangerously flawed 1960s vintage GE Mark I boiling water reactor, a major green group now appears to be supporting the restart of exactly that reactor model. The Natural Resources Defense Council’s stated in a blog “Rising Demand, Real Choices” that it had submitted comments to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission supporting the restart of the permanently closed and decommissioning GE Mark I Duane Arnold nuclear reactor in Iowa. NRDC “filed comments today at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission supporting an early step in the reactor’s restart: the transfer of the plant’s license to NextEra.” Duane Arnold is nearly identical to the three reactors that melted down in Japan in March 2011.

NRDC nuances its advocacy for the restart with, “To be clear, NRDC’s long-held concerns regarding nuclear energy—including issues related to siting, cost, safety risks, waste management, water use, mining supply chain issues, and community impacts—remain unchanged and must be addressed. The Duane Arnold plant will have to prove it can operate safely and responsibly.”

Let the record reflect, “easier said than done” as this nation’s nuclear regulatory agencies, from the beginning, with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) first licensing Duane Arnold on November 24, 1974, knowing full well in 1972 that the undersized design of the GE Mark I boiling water  reactor containment would very likely fail under the tremendous overpressurization and explosive hydrogen gas generated under severe nuclear accident conditions and their top safety official encouraged development to be halted. That scientifically confirmed warning was not only ignored but suppressed for years by AEC fears that the halt of construction and cancellations would derail the government plan for a massive nuclear power build up.  Duane Arnold was one of the those obfuscated start-ups.

Since then, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is identified as a captured regulator and an expert at stonewalling reactor safety concerns from  fire protection for safe reactor shutdown to ignoring currently projected climate change impacts on severe nuclear accident risks and frequency.

The NRC relicensed Duane Arnold on December 16, 2010, with an initial extension of 20 years to February 21, 2034 with the built-in containment vulnerability. Eighty-five days later, the Fukushima nuclear accident demonstrated a 100% containment failure rate under overpressurization from hydrogen gas detonations for the three units at that were at full power. NRC wrangled for years with the weak, undersized containment vulnerability only to allow the fundamental design flaw to remain unchecked to date.

Duane Arnold is presently utility certified to the NRC as “permanently” closed and defueled reactor for the purpose of decommissioning in SAFSTOR mode or “deferred dismantling”.  The 615 megawatts electric Mark I boiling water reactor is owned by three utility entities; the majority owner, NextEra Energy Resources (70% interest) and two minority owners, Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO with 20% interest) and Corn Belt Power Cooperative (10% interest). The utilities have submitted an application to the NRC to consolidate a 100% ownership transfer to NextEra as sole owner and a plan to reverse the decommissioning certification to instead seek NRC approval for a likely to exceed $1.6 billion rehabilitation, refueling and restart effort by 2029. Google has signed with NextEra for a Power Purchase Agreement as the primary electricity customer for an expanded AI infrastructure, cloud computing and energy guzzling data centers. Post-consolidation, CIPCO, at 0%, will purchase Duane Arnold surplus electricity and Corn Belt Power Cooperative, at 0%, will sell its share to NextEra.

In Beyond Nuclear’s view, as well as many public safety, environmental protection and safe energy advocates, the immediate, permanent closure, decommissioning and environmental cleanup of  Duane Arnold and all GE Mark I boiling water reactors are warranted in the ever extending aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi’s multiple hydrogen explosions. The subsequent reactor core meltdowns breached the universally flawed GE Mark I containment design and construction, releasing harmful radiation downwind into the atmosphere and recurring radioactive batch releases from the wreckage of the three melted reactor cores into the Pacific Ocean that persist today.

The uneconomical, aging and dangerously flawed Duane Arnold nuclear power station was first announced by NextEra Energy Resources in a Federal Register Notice of its intent to the NRC on March 2, 2020 to permanently close and defuel the reactor by October 30, 2020.

Then, on August 10, 2020, a fierce “derecho” with severe thunderstorms, a deluge of rain and straight line winds reaching up to 140 mph swept across the hundreds of miles of prairie knocking out vast stretches of the electric grid including all six offsite power lines to 100% of Duane Arnold’s safety systems causing the reactor to SCRAM. Onsite back up generators restored critical reactor cooling systems but the badly damaged site included the collapse of the reactor’s cooling towers. NextEra’s subsequent damage assessment concluded, “[O]ur evaluation found that replacing those towers before the site’s previously-scheduled decommissioning on Oct. 30, 2020, was not feasible.” NextEra elected to immediately set the date for permanent closure of Duane Arnold, a Fukushima-style reactor, a notorious General Electric Mark I boiling water reactor even in 1972 under warnings from the Atomic Energy Commission safety officials that it was not safe.

We are now coming up on the 15th commemoration of the triple meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors caused by a combination of natural disasters that overwhelmed the significantly flawed and identified vulnerable design problem built into every GE Mark I reactors containments. These containments are now demonstrated to have a 100% failure rate under severe accident conditions as were all three Fukushima reactors at full power on March 11, 2011 experiencing devastating hydrogen gas explosions and widespread radioactive releases. This widespread radioactive contamination of the biosphere (land and sea) from the fallout persists to date and indefinitely into the future.

Where Fukushima’s radioactive releases largely blew out over the Pacific Ocean, a radioactive breach from the volumetrically undersized  Mark I reactor containment system in the event of a severe over-pressurization accident, will instead spread out over US populations sickening those caught in the fallout, contaminating farms, pastures and agriculture, and similarly dislocating local, commercial and industrial economies.

If restarted, as NRDC supports,  Duane Arnold initial 20-year license renewal (40 to 60 years) will expire on February 21, 2034. And well before that date, NextEra will most assuredly file an application to extend the operating license of a still fundamentally flawed and vulnerable reactor  with an additional 20 year  subsequent license renewal application (60 to 80 years) out to February 21, 2054, presently without a hard look at  a changing climate that might already have been central to it closure.

Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club presently have a “petition for judicial review”  pending  ruling from an October 30, 2025 oral argument in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Beyond Nuclear and Sierra Club v. US NRC.  The petitioners through legal counsel have raised a purely legal issue of whether the US NRC, as a matter of law,  can refuse to evaluate climate change change impacts (derechos, increasingly severe hurricanes, flooding, sea level rise, etc.) on the risk and frequency of severe nuclear accidents. The  NRC is illegally entrenched in refusing to perform a lawfully required environment impact statement that fully evaluates the impact of climate change, saying only that such an evaluation is “out of scope” of reactor licensing.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

NRC buckles to White House and licenses dangerous TerraPower reactor

5 Mar 2026, , https://beyondnuclear.org/nrc-buckles-to-white-house-and-licenses-dangerous-terrapower-react

Nuclear Regulatory Commission license of dangerous new reactor risks lives

Beyond Nuclear decries NRC decision to put public safety aside and buckle to Trump orders to license a Gates reactor known as “Cowboy Chernobyl”

Last September, the then three sitting commissioners at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission insisted during a Senate hearing they would put safety first when considering the approval of new reactor projects. 

Senators had raised fears that new executive orders issued by the White House last May that demanded fast-tracking new reactor projects, could jeopardize the commissioners’ judgement. The Senators also asked if the commissioners feared losing their jobs if they refused to license a reactor they viewed as dangerous. Two said they did.

“This week we learned that the now five members of the NRC commission are all too willing to capitulate to Trump’s rubber stamp orders, protect their jobs and sacrifice public safety in order to license a new reactor design that is known to be extremely dangerous,” said Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project at Beyond Nuclear. The two new commissioners are nuclear industry insiders chosen by the White House.

Gunter’s remarks came after the NRC commissioners voted unanimously this week to grant a construction license to the Bill Gates company TerraPower’s 345-megawatt sodium-cooled small modular reactor, designated for a site in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

“It appears that the White House influence is working,” Gunter said. “But pressuring regulators to cut safety corners and fast-track a technology as inherently dangerous as nuclear power is gambling with the lives of thousands and possibly millions of people.”

Dr. Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned last December after NRC staff approved the TerraPower design, that the “fast” reactor, known as the Natrium, is deeply flawed and highly vulnerable to a serious accident.

“Make no mistake, this type of reactor has major safety flaws compared to conventional nuclear reactors.” Lyman said. “The potential for rapid power excursions and the lack of a real containment make the Kemmerer plant a true ‘Cowboy Chernobyl.’”

“The White House, through its executive orders and by exerting control over the NRC, has embarked on a dangerous dismantling of essential safety regulations,” Gunter said. 

The new reactor rush puts the US on a path to another nuclear disaster while wasting precious time and billions of taxpayer dollars better spent on implementing a rapid and widespread renewable energy program. This would  answer the country’s energy needs faster and without the extreme risks and ever soaring costs posed by nuclear power technology,” Gunter concluded.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

In Iran, Israel’s morbid military cult now has the US fully in its grip

In this catastrophic war of choice, it is Tehran fighting a rearguard action to restore geopolitical sanity. If Iran loses, god only knows where Israel and the US will drag the world next

Jonathan Cook, Mar 06, 2026

The admission this week by US secretary of state Marco Rubio, echoed by Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, that Israel forced Washington’s hand in attacking Iran has rightly caused consternation.

Breathing life into something that would normally be treated as an antisemitic trope, Rubio argued that the Trump administration had been left with no choice but to attack Iran because, had it not, Israel would have launched an attack anyway, exposing US soldiers to retaliation.

Rubio stated: “The president made the very wise decision: We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

Rubio was using the term “preemptively” in a highly irregular and misleading way.

In international law, aggression is an illegal application of force – the “supreme international crime”, according to the 1950 principles set out by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. But there is a potential mitigating factor if the attacking state can show it was acting pre-emptively: that is, it was acting to prevent a plausible, immediate and severe threat of attack.

Rubio, however, was not suggesting that the US acted “preemptively” against a threat from Iran. He meant Washington had acted preemptively to stop its ally, Israel, from setting off a chain of military events that would lead to US soldiers being harmed.

Had the Trump administration really been acting preemptively in these circumstances, the US should have attacked Israel, not Iran.

Paper tiger

But Rubio’s comment begged a further question: Why didn’t Washington simply tell Israel it was forbidden from starting a war against Iran without US approval?

After all, Israel would be incapable of mounting any kind of attack on Iran without the critical support provided by the US.

Israel has had to rely on help from US military bases dotted around the region, as well as the Arab states that host those bases.

The attack would have been quite inconceivable without the backup of a massive armada of US war ships sent to the region by Trump.

Israel can withstand Iranian retaliation only because it gets a degree of protection from missile interception systems provided and funded by the US.

And on top of all that, Israel is regional hegemon only because it gets massive subsidies from the US – worth many billions of dollars a year – to preserve it as one of the strongest militaries in the world.

In other words, Israel would have found it impossible to wage war on Iran alone. It is a paper tiger without the US.

Rubio’s comment suggested one of two possibilities: either that the US, with the strongest military in world history, is under the thumb of the tiny state of Israel; or that Trump has made his own military, the strongest-ever, servile to Israel.

Whichever it is, it is hard to square with Trump’s repeated assertion that he is putting America First.

This point is so glaringly obvious it is presumably the reason why Rubio was forced to walk back his comments the next day. Meanwhile, Trump hurriedly suggested it was he who had forced Israel’s hand to attack Iran, not the other way round.

Geopolitical insanity

The more likely truth is not that Israel forced Trump’s hand. It is that he was seduced by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s false claim that an attack on Iran would be a cakewalk – if they struck at a moment when they could be sure of killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Such a decapitation strike, Trump was led to believe, would be a repeat of his Venezuela “success”, when he kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas to bring him to trial in New York.

In Venezuela, the flagrant flouting of international law by the US was intended to be the equivalent of pointing a loaded shotgun at the head of Maduro’s replacement, Delcy Rodriguez. Do as we say, or the new president gets it from both barrels.

Netanyahu knew exactly how to sell Trump, still giddy on the noxious fumes of this lawbreaking venture, the idea that he could repeat the exercise in Iran. The ayatollah’s successor would similarly be putty in his hands.

Which is why, in this catastrophic war of choice by the US and Israel, it is Tehran fighting a rearguard action to restore a little geopolitical sanity. If Iran loses, or the US succeeds without paying a fearsome price, god only knows where Israel and Washington will drag the world next.

The world’s fate, in a real sense, is in Tehran’s hands.

Israelisation’ of the US

What the joint attack on Iran demonstrates most clearly is how much Netanyahu has succeeded over the past quarter of a century in “Israelising” Washington and the Pentagon.

The US has always waged illegal wars of aggression. It has always been more gangster than global policeman. But just because Washington was run by ruthless criminals, it did not mean it was incapable of getting still more deranged, still more psychopathic.

That is what Netanyahu has been working on. And Trump is now giving full rein to the Israelisation of the US. The clues are everywhere.

On Wednesday secretary of war Pete Hegseth – the traditional title of “secretary of defence” presumably sounded too law-abiding – dropped any pretence of being the good guy.

He insisted US forces were acting “without mercy” and that the Iranian regime “are toast”. The US would deliver “death and destruction all day long”.

The previous day he had set out the game plan: “No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The word of God

Central to these beliefs is the gathering of Jews, as God’s Chosen People, into the Land of Israel – a much larger area than that covered by the modern state of Israel.

For Christian fundamentalists such as Hegseth and a growing number of US commanders, Israel is the catalyst for the End Times.

For very obvious reasons, Israel has been nuturing its ties with the huge numbers of Christian fundamentalists in the US. They are politically active – their vote secured the presidency for Trump – and they treat Israel as a critically important domestic issue rather than a foreign policy matter. https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/in-iran-israels-morbid-military-cult

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Good grief…Jesus freaks taking over military indoctrination


Walt Zlotow,  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL, 6 Mar 26.

As a non-theist I both respect freedom of religion and demand separation of church and state.

Most violations of the latter concern relatively minor infractions such as school prayer or posting the 10 Commandments in the public square.

Never in my life could I imagine our government promoting America’s grotesque, criminal war on Iran by telling military personnel in all the services that this war is God’s plan to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,”

This was not one-off insanity by a rogue military leader. The
Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reports over 100 complaints from 30 military installations about their commanders’ instructions. One NCO complained their commander “urged us to tell our troop this was all part of God’s divine plan and supported it with numerous citations from the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”

While Christian nationalism has simmered on the back burner of the military for decades, under fanatical Christian Nationalist and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, it’s now official US military policy. Hegseth is egged on by irreligious President Trump, who cynically uses Christian nationalism to justify his warfare in the Middle East on behalf of Israel.

You do not have to be a non-theist to oppose this religious madness Trump and Hegseth infect our military with to promote endless war in the name of God. You just have to be a decent, morally centered person.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

The US War Machine Is Run By Deranged Armageddon Cultists

Caitlin Johnstone, Mar 06, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-war-machine-is-run-by-deranged?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=189993154&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave one of his signature “I don’t have a small penis” tirades at the Pentagon on Wednesday, ranting and raving about the big, powerful, masculine war machinery that’s currently raining death and destruction upon the people of Iran.

“We will fly all day, all night, day and night finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders, flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC,

Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only US and Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it’s over,” Hegseth bloviated, saying there will be “B-2s, B-52s, B-1s, Predator drones, fighters controlling the skies, picking targets, death and destruction from the sky all day long.”

“This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be,” the War Secretary spouted.

This would be the same Pete Hegseth who was mentioned in a recent article by Jonathan Larsen titled “U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for ‘Armageddon,’ Return of Jesus”, which reports that US military commanders are telling American soldiers that they are on a mission from God to fulfill a biblical prophecy and bring about the end of the world.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has enshrined evangelical Christianity at the uppermost levels of the U.S. military, airing monthly prayer meetings throughout the Pentagon,” Larsen reports, saying that “Last year, the Pentagon confirmed to me that Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study. It’s led by a preacher who says God commands America to support Israel.”

Larsen reports that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been inundated with complaints from every branch of the US military that troops are being told by their leaders that President Trump has been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” and similar statements.

Then you’ve got House Speaker Mike Johnson spouting religious war rhetoric, claiming Iranians have been led to evil by a “misguided religion”.

“The largest state sponsor of terrorism, Iran and its proxies, have killed more Americans than any other terrorist regime on Earth,” said Johnson on Wednesday. “They are dedicated to it. They have been, and they say the quiet parts out loud. They wanted to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, and they’d like to take us out as well. We’re the great Satan in their analogy and their misguided religion.”

So as if we didn’t have enough problems to deal with, it turns out the world is ruled by a nuclear-armed Armageddon cult.

The US empire is the most evil, destructive and dangerous power structure on this planet. It is operated by psychopaths and guided by demented religious zealotry. These freaks wouldn’t be believable as villains in a children’s cartoon show.

These are the people claiming to have the moral authority to decide who should be the leader of a sovereign nation on the other side of the planet. These are the powerful individuals whose choices are determining the path our species will take into the future.

They are everything they accuse Iran of being. They are dangerous religious fanatics. They cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. They are the tyrants. They are the monsters.

This is unsustainable. These guys gotta go. The US empire must fall. Humanity depends on it.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Australian PM Anthony Albanese gave Donald Trump model nuclear submarine on golden plate at White House

Prime minister also presented Melania Trump with a $3,000 Paspaley pearl pendant

Josh Butler, Guardian, Thu 5 Mar 2026


The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, gave Donald Trump a gift of a model nuclear submarine with golden plates and finishes, internal documents reveal, during his visit to the White House last year which sealed the president’s support for the Aukus pact.

The prime minister also presented the US first lady, Melania Trump, with a A$3,000 Paspaley pearl pendant.

The information, obtained by Guardian Australia from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet after a four-month freedom of information process, revealed more about the delicate diplomatic planning and charm offensive that went into Albanese’s long-awaited first face-to-face meeting with Trump.

“Gift form” documents from the department reveal Albanese came to the White House bearing a two-foot-long model Virginia-class submarine, mounted on a base with gold plates, and a pearl necklace from one of Australia’s most famous jewellers.

Albanese had previously stated he’d given the Trumps a model submarine and jewellery, but at the time neither Albanese’s office nor his department would reveal any further information about the gifts.

Other world leaders and business titans have showered Trump with expensive gifts – often gold. The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, presented Trump with a gold medal and golden trophy for a newly created “Fifa peace prize”; the Apple CEO, Tim Cook, gave Trump a glass disc with a golden base; South Korea’s president gave him a golden crown; while a group of Swiss billionaires gave him a golden clock and engraved gold bar………………….https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/05/australian-pm-albanese-trump-white-house-visit-gold-submarine-gift

March 9, 2026 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics international | Leave a comment

Golden Dome to Rio Rancho: Public Infrastructure, Private Weapons, Public Consequences

The build out continues without public hearings or environmental review

Elaine Cimino, Substack, Feb 26, 2026

What’s Happening Nationally

The U.S. Department of Defense is accelerating development of a next-generation missile defense architecture referred to as “Golden Dome.” It is framed in national defense strategy as a layered homeland shield designed to counter emerging threats, including hypersonic weapons.

Modern missile defense is not just about ground interceptors. It requires:

  • Hypersonic propulsion systems
  • Advanced thermal shielding
  • Rapid manufacturing capacity
  • Space-based tracking and sensor networks
  • Scalable industrial production

This is not theoretical. Federal strategy and procurement planning show an expansion of missile tracking systems and accelerated contractor engagement across the defense sector.

When the Pentagon scales a program like this, the supply chain scales with it.

Missile production is not a single building. It is a network of chemical processing, propulsion casting, electronics assembly, static testing, and heavy logistics. When one node expands, infrastructure expands with it. This when the supply chain externalizes costs to communities.

What’s Happening Locally

Project Ranger is an “advanced manufacturing” project.

It is contractually defined as a:

“hypersonic systems test and manufacturing facility.”

3609_PPA_Castelion_LEDA_(10.17.…

At the same time, the City and County approved public funding specifically to expand Paseo del Volcán to benefit this Project.

3609_SandCo_Ranger_LEDA_City_IG…

The agreements also acknowledge that audit and inspection provisions are subject to Department of Defense and national security constraints.

3609_PPA_Castelion_LEDA_(10.17.…

Those are not abstract references. They place this facility squarely within the national defense ecosystem.

Public road expansion + hypersonics manufacturing + DoD-related oversight constraints is not a coincidence. It is infrastructure alignment.

Why That Matters

Defense corridors do not appear overnight. They form through a predictable sequence:

  1. A federal defense initiative accelerates.
  2. Contractors expand production capacity.
  3. Local governments subsidize access roads, land, and utilities.
  4. Environmental and cumulative impact questions lag behind infrastructure commitments.

That sequence is visible here.

When public funds expand a major corridor to serve a hypersonics manufacturing site, that is not simply “economic development.” It is regional integration into a national defense supply chain.

The Public Interest Questions.

We want transparency, scope, and full disclosure.

A hypersonic test and manufacturing facility

3609_PPA_Castelion_LEDA_(10.17.…

enabled by publicly funded road expansion

3609_SandCo_Ranger_LEDA_City_IG…

raises foreseeable impacts that must be openly evaluated:

  • Industrial water demand
  • Hazardous materials transport
  • Air emissions and plume modeling
  • Outbound waste streams
  • Long-term infrastructure maintenance costs
  • Cumulative regional build-out effects

If the project is positioned within a rapidly expanding missile defense program, then induced growth and scaling pressures are foreseeable.

Treating the road expansion as separate from the facility ignores the integrated purpose described in the agreements.

Bottom Line

The documents do not describe a small standalone factory.

They describe a hypersonics test and manufacturing facility….

Project Ranger is part of a larger defense build-out, whether local officials frame it that way or not. When national missile defense accelerates, local communities become supply-chain territory. Rio Rancho deserves a full accounting of what that means…………………………..

When national missile-defense acceleration intersects with local public subsidies, the burden does not fall on billionaires or defense contractors. It falls on residents:

  • Water withdrawals and contamination risk
  • Air emissions and particulate exposure
  • Hazardous materials transport through residential corridors
  • Fire risk in a drought-stressed landscape
  • Increased infrastructure maintenance costs
  • Rising insurance premiums
  • Rising bond obligations
  • Rising utility rates
  • Decreased property value stability

This is the real “skyrocket” — the cost to households………………………………………………………….. https://elainecimino652909.substack.com/p/golden-dome-to-rio-rancho-public?r=281p2&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=split&triedRedirect=true

March 9, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Global sea levels have been underestimated due to poor modelling, research suggests

 Sea levels around the world have been underestimated due to inaccurate
modelling, with research suggesting ocean levels are far higher than
previously understood. The finding could significantly affect assessments
of the future impacts of global heating and the effects on coastal
settlements.

Globally, the research found ocean levels are an average of
30cm higher than previously believed, but in some areas of the global
south, including south-east Asia and the Indo-Pacific, they may be
100-150cm higher than previously thought.

Rising sea levels are a major
threat to coastal communities across the world, and the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that by 2100
levels may rise by 28-100cm. The latest research, published in Nature,
combined the analysis of 385 pieces of peer-reviewed scientific literature
released between 2009 and 2025 with calculations of the difference between
the commonly assumed and actual measured coastal sea levels.

The new
calculations reveal that following a relative sea level rise of 1 metre, it
is estimated that 37% more coastal areas will fall below sea level,
affecting up to 132 million individuals. “If sea level is higher for your
particular island or coastal city than was previously assumed, the impacts
from sea level rise will happen sooner than projected before,” said
Minderhoud.

 Guardian 4th March 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/04/global-sea-levels-underestimated-poor-modelling-research

March 9, 2026 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

U.S. and Japan Ponder Nuclear Energy Project in Massive $550 Billion Deal

By Michael Kern –  Oil Price 4th March 2026, https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-and-Japan-Ponder-Nuclear-Energy-Project-in-Massive-550-Billion-Deal.html

The United States and Japan have been considering the inclusion of a nuclear power project involving Westinghouse in the $550-billion package of investment that Japan has pledged in the U.S. under the bilateral trade deal, sources familiar with the plans told Reuters on Wednesday.  

Last year, as part of the U.S.-Japan trade agreement, Japan pledged to buy $8 billion worth of American products per year. The Government of Japan has also agreed to invest $550 billion in the United States, the White House said.

At the time, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, hailed the deal as “historic” and said that the U.S. would use the $500-billion Japanese investment “to build our energy infrastructure, chip manufacturing, critical minerals mining, and shipbuilding to name a few.”  

The plan for a nuclear power project, as well as a copper refining facility, is being discussed and could be talked into details later this month when Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is due to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on March 19, according to Reuters’ anonymous sources.    

Westinghouse, which could be involved in the nuclear power project, was named as a company that has expressed interest to launch projects in the energy sector, according to a joint fact sheet for the Japan-U.S. Investment. 

March 9, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, USA | Leave a comment