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 Here’s why Labour’s nuclear plans are wrong for Scotland

THE UK Government has used the distraction of Andy Burnham’s coronation and the
row over defence spending to quietly push out a report that sets out where
they would like to build new nuclear power plants in Scotland.

However, it hasn’t gone unnoticed by energy experts. The report from GB Energy
Nuclear, titled “Technical Advice on Potential Future Nuclear Power Plant
Siting in Scotland”, is suitably tentative – any new build would depend
on the SNP making a complete about-turn on policy to allow the development
of plants that Scottish planning legislation explicitly blocks.

New nuclear power plants are consistently vastly behind schedule and over-budget,
whilst Scotland’s renewable energy revolution continues to deliver ever
greater contributions to meeting our energy demands. However, this new
report not only explicitly states where Labour would like to see new plants
built, it also quietly notes the risks development at those sites would
create for communities and our environment.

Whilst Torness, Dounreay, and Hunterston are earmarked, it also singles out the north shore of the Forth Estuary, the south bank of the Forth, and the Angus and Aberdeenshire coast. Note the common theme here – these are all coastal sites,
variously flagged for risks to Sites of Special Scientific Interest
(SSSIs), Special Protected Areas (SPAs), cultural heritage, and flooding
risks.

Those in Fife and Stirlingshire have particular reasons to be
worried. Coastal management is a difficult and complex task as it is. As
climate change brings increases in extreme weather events, coastal erosion,
sea level rise, and storm surges, tough decisions are being made about
which coastal areas will be defended, and how, and which will be subject to
managed retreats that will provide greater resilience for communities and
critical infrastructure.

Added to which, however we decide to manage one
stretch of coastline will have impacts on other stretches. This is why we
have a National Marine Plan. That work is hard enough without dropping in
new security-critical sites that would exacerbate existing problems and
make it even harder to manage and protect our often-fragile coastlines.
Furthermore, siting new plants further inland, for example along the Forth,
is no less risky.

The report notes that demand for cooling water is likely
to be a limiting factor, and that no supporting flow data for that part of
the Forth is currently available. Far from being “secure”, new nuclear
will build in greater insecurity and costs to our electricity supply. If
England, which has long lagged far behind Scotland in deploying renewables,
wishes to take those risks that’s a matter for its own electorate.
Scotland doesn’t need to follow suit, and no amount of scaremongering,
cajoling, or false promises from Shanks or the nuclear industry should
persuade our government to think otherwise.

 The National 7th July 2026,
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/26260100.labours-nuclear-plans-wrong-scotland/

July 11, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Revealed: landmark Scottish AI project has no prospect of meeting renewables promise

“the AI growth zone designation is based more on optimistic and flashy promotional material than anything technically viable,”

The question of whether AI is a boom or bubble now largely rests on huge infrastructure projects such as Lanarkshire.

a series of high-profile projects announced over the past years were “phantom investments”, with the government failing to examine claims of job creation or audit multibillion-pound sums.

“Instead of governing for their communities, they choose the AI narrative.”

Government and developers privately acknowledged Lanarkshire datacentre site had power provision ‘issue’

Aisha Down, Guardian, 6 July 2026

A landmark AI development billed as delivering jobs and prosperity has misrepresented its plans to channel a nuclear reactor’s worth of power to a site in rural Scotland, a Guardian investigation has found.

When it was announced in January, the government promised that an £8.2bn AI datacentre complex in Lanarkshire – built by the US firm CoreWeave and the Scottish company DataVita – would be powered entirely from on-site renewables and built by 2030.

The AI datacentre complex represented a large part of Britain’s ambitions to keep up in the global AI race by building the infrastructure that underpins artificial intelligence. A central plank of the project’s viability was its ability to power itself.

But documents obtained through freedom of information (FoI) requests and analysis of public records suggest the datacentre has no prospect of meeting that goal.

The Guardian obtained internal correspondence showing that the government and the site’s developers, even as they publicly promised that the Lanarkshire site would have up to 1GW of “new energy infrastructure”, were privately acknowledging that the site had an “issue” with “power provision” and that this would not happen.

In response to questions from the Guardian, the government said the Lanarkshire complex would connect to the grid. This means it will either join a years-long queue or be expedited ahead of hundreds of other projects also vying for a connection. A government spokesperson said the site’s needs would still be met “overwhelmingly” with renewables.

The findings raise critical doubts over the UK’s ability to confront the key question now facing the world’s massive AI buildout: how to  provide the extraordinary energy required to make it plausible.

At best indicative, at worst complete bunk’

AI datacentres are, essentially, buildings full of very specialised silicon chips. The chips do the calculations that underpin artificial intelligence models. The world’s biggest tech companies are now ploughing hundreds of billions of dollars into the buildout of AI datacentres. Behind all this spending is the belief that AI will fundamentally transform the global economy, and that once it does, the AI datacentres will pay for themselves.

The question of whether AI is a boom or bubble now largely rests on huge infrastructure projects such as Lanarkshire.

The new details are not the first signal of problems in the UK’s burgeoning datacentre industry. In March, the Guardian reported that a series of high-profile projects announced over the past years were “phantom investments”, with the government failing to examine claims of job creation or audit multibillion-pound sums.

Power is a particularly fraught issue in the UK, where it is more expensive than anywhere else in Europe. There is an eight- to 10-year queue for new developments to connect to the grid, a delay that hangs over houses and hospitals as well as datacentres.

Britain is not the only place where political ambitions appear blind to the cost and difficulty of massive datacentre projects. Cecilia Rikap, an associate professor at University College London, said: “Governments around the world, including in the UK, are making political promises that ignore the realities of building infrastructure.

“Instead of governing for their communities, they choose the AI narrative.”

An analyst for a UK engineering consultancy who has advised several AI growth zone projects said: “There doesn’t seem to be appropriate scrutiny, public or otherwise, on these nationally significant projects. The figures and designs behind many schemes are at best indicative, and at worst complete bunk.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………The energy consultant who reviewed the figures said: “To go from ‘nothing public’ to ‘country’s largest operational onshore windfarm’ in four years is pretty ambitious.” Given that DataVita has no plans on file for such a development, he concluded that the 2030 deadline was unlikely to be met.

HfD Group, DataVita’s parent company, recently posted plans for an “energy park” in Lanarkshire. These plans do not appear to have entered the planning process yet, but envision “up to 19” wind turbines being built in Lanarkshire. This would still only provide about 5% of what DataVita claims it will generate.

DataVita said the delivery of its energy commitments was “subject to final commercial agreements, planning, grid and consenting processes”.

Kat Jones, the director of APRS, said: “There is a wave of applications for hyperscale AI datacentres coming to Scotland and they all say they’re going to use renewable energy. We have examined DataVita’s plans to build renewables to power their 500MW datacentre and found them wanting.

“Even if they could build the amount of energy infrastructure they say they will, it would cover 100 kilometres squared, but only provide for half their energy requirements on average.”

‘Power provision remains a key issue’

This shortfall is not only DataVita’s problem. As a “growth zone”, Lanarkshire is a centrepiece of the UK’s AI ambitions – one of five sites designated to receive broad government support in building out vast datacentre parks.

On paper at least, AI growth zones need to meet a strict set of requirements, the most important being that they should have a realistic path to powering themselves. These requirements were set out in an application last summer that invited sites across the UK to apply to be AI growth zones.

The government asked applicants to show they had an already allotted grid connection or an alternative “behind-the-meter” solution – that is, a way to generate energy independently without a grid connection.

The Guardian established that the Lanarkshire site did not have the necessary grid connection, through an FoI inquiry to the UK’s National Energy System Operator (Neso). DataVita’s stated plans to generate its own electricity, meanwhile, do not appear to hold water.

Documents obtained by the Guardian through an FoI suggest both the government and DataVita are aware of these issues but that the government chose to designate Lanarkshire as an AI growth zone anyway.

In February, Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, addressed a letter to the managing director of DataVita, Danny Quinn, about Lanarkshire’s designation as an AI growth zone. He said: “I recognise that power provision remains a key issue and we will continue to engage with the UK government and relevant partners to secure timely grid connections that enable and support the development to proceed at pace.”

In a meeting in March, DataVita and officials from NatureScot appeared to bank on an expedited grid connection for the project: “DV4 will be driven by Scottish Power connections timescales which we expect to be brought forward to 2027.”

Meanwhile, other internal communications show that shortly before the Lanarkshire project was announced, UK and Scottish officials appeared to entertain the idea that DataVita’s site would simply burn gas to power itself. (DataVita said gas or any other fossil-fuel generation would not be used to power its datacentres.)

The consultant said DataVita’s own publications, and the fact they contain no indication of how it could realistically generate the energy it claims, called into question the seriousness of the government’s policymaking around a central component of its growth plans.

“It indicates that the AI growth zone designation is based more on optimistic and flashy promotional material than anything technically viable,” he said.

As for the government’s apparent willingness to later help DataVita get a grid connection, he said: “It now appears that the government is willing to loosen their own criteria to meet the arbitrary political timescales they set themselves.”

In response to a query from the Guardian, DataVita said the Lanarkshire development’s “energy strategy is based on new renewable generation, private-wire infrastructure, and intelligent connection to Scotland’s electricity system, with delivery subject to final commercial agreements, planning, grid and consenting processes”.

A government spokesperson said: “The Lanarkshire AI growth zone is on track to be the biggest datacentre development in Scottish history. AI is critical to the UK’s future prosperity and security – and to unlock its benefits, we need the infrastructure that underpins it.

“The whole government is determined to create the right conditions for investment in the UK’s AI and datacentre infrastructure – with Lanarkshire set to be the first AI growth zone in the country to see hardware rolled out.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/06/lanarkshire-scotland-ai-datacentre-project-renewable-energy

July 11, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Zelensky honoring Ukrainian WWII fighters who massacred Poles and Jews not a good way to get Polish help in lost war against Russia.

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL , 9 July 26

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is traveling all over Europe begging for defensive missiles to repel Russian missiles and drones for which he has little to no defense. But he’s near totally alienated his Polish ally by his recent decision to sign a presidential decree bestowing the honorary title of “Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army” on an elite unit of the nation’s special forces after a World War II-era militia that slaughtered Poles and Jews during World War II. 

Zelensky is even digging up the bones of former WWII era Ukrainian fascist leaders who participated in these anti Polish, anti-Jew atrocities to rebury them with honors in Kyiv. They include Andriy Melnyk, Yevgen Konovalets and Stepan Bandera. Why? Zelensky seeks to rev up Ukrainian nationalism to solidify his losing fight against Russia.

This anti Polish sentiment goes back to the end of WWI when newly created Poland gobbled up parts of Ukraine in the creation of their new state. The Nazi invasion of WWII allowed Ukraine ultra-nationalists to join forces with the Nazis to inflict payback on Poland. Zelensky is exploiting that sentiment to shore up his dwindling support among his dishearteded, demoralized populous suffering impending defeat in their lost war.  

Poland officials are furious and won’t be sending Zelensky defensive missiles anytime soon.

Former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller describes Zelensky’s honoring a WWII era fascist militia as akin to Germany renaming a military unit after the Nazis’ Einsatzgruppen death squads.

Back in February 2022, Russian President Putin stated one of his war goals was denazification of Zelensky’s Kyiv government. Zelensky’s bizarre, ludicrous honoring of WWII era fascist Ukrainian militias and their leaders is doing nothing to prevent Ukraine’s inevitable collapse and proving Putin’s war goal justified.

July 11, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Labour minister dodges question on SNP Government and UK nuclear plans.

 
A LABOUR energy minister has refused to say if his Scottish counterparts were
consulted before the UK Government published a report on building new
nuclear power stations north of the Border.

Last week, the nuclear wing of
GB Energy – set up by Labour after the 2024 General Election –
published a scoping study into building nuclear power plants in Scotland
despite the SNP-led Scottish Government’s opposition to new nuclear.

In the Commons on Tuesday, SNP MP Graham Leadbitter asked whether the UK
Government had held discussions with the Scottish Government or any local
authorities prior to announcing the list of potential nuclear energy sites.
Michael Shanks, a UK energy minister and Scottish Labour MP, avoided the
question, saying only that the Westminster Government was “open to
discussions with the Scottish Government on opportunities for new nuclear
in Scotland”.

Leadbitter then said: “Two years ago, Labour promised to
cut bills for every household by £300. “Not only are households now
paying hundreds of pounds more instead of less, Labour’s nuclear tax on
household energy bills will cost Scots a further £300 million over the
next decade.

 The National 7th July 2026, https://www.thenational.scot/news/26259570.labour-minister-dodges-question-snp-government-uk-nuclear-plans/

July 11, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Gaza’s 1000-Day Siege: A Catastrophic Humanitarian Collapse Across Health, Food, and Human Life

Lee Siu Hin – Palestine Watch, Global South News, July 6, 2026

As the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip marks its 1000th day on July 2, 2026, the enclave of over 2.1 million Palestinians stands on the brink of total humanitarian collapse. 70 % The Gaza Strip is under occupation control following the expansion of the “Yellow Line,” amid ongoing displacement of border communities The Israeli Occupied Forces (IOF) siege has systematically dismantled every foundational pillar of human survival: healthcare infrastructure, food security, clean water access, educational systems, and psychological well-being.

Data compiled from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO), UN humanitarian bodies, and Medics Worldwide’s periodic reports, compiled by Doban AI analysis, paints a harrowing portrait of sustained destruction, mass mortality, and intergenerational trauma. This article analyzes the multifaceted humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza after 1000 days of siege, integrating empirical statistical data, healthcare operational maps, and crisis trend charts to document the scale of human suffering and structural collapse.

Overall Demographic and Casualty Catastrophe After 1000 Days

The 1000-day IOF genocide and siege has inflicted unprecedented human loss, turning Gaza into a graveyard for ordinary civilians, with women and children bearing the brunt of the violence. According to the 2026 genocide repercussion report, the cumulative death toll since October 2023 has reached 73,066 fatalities, with total injuries soaring to 173,514. Among the victims, civilian children account for the most devastating proportion of casualties, highlighting the targeted destruction of Gaza’s future generations.

Child-specific mortality and injury data reveal a relentless humanitarian tragedy: 21,730 children have been killed, 45,113 children injured, and 59,054 children orphaned over the 1000-day period. On average, one child dies every 52 minutes in Gaza’s ongoing conflict. The crisis has also left permanent physical disabilities on thousands of young lives, with 1,134 children suffering amputations. Alarmingly, 565 infants have been born and killed amid the war, while 1,078 infants under one year old have lost their lives, reflecting the total breakdown of maternal and infant care systems across the strip.

Beyond direct violence, the siege has triggered a public health disaster for women and their reproductive health. Official statistics show the genocide had created 28,224 widows, 57% of pregnant women in Gaza suffer from severe anemia, while over 900 spontaneous abortions are recorded monthly, driven by environmental pollution, rodent infestations, and rampant epidemic outbreaks. The maternal mortality rate has surged dramatically in recent years, rising from 13.5 per 100,000 live births in 2022 to 33.4 per 100,000 live births in 2025, a more than twofold increase that underscores the collapse of reproductive healthcare services.

Systematic Collapse of Gaza’s Healthcare System

After 1000 days of targeted destruction and resource blockade, Gaza’s healthcare system is inches away from total standstill, with systematic attacks on medical infrastructure, severe drug shortages, and massive attrition of medical personnel. IOF have targeted every formal medical facility in the strip, with 40 out of 40 hospitals and 158 out of 158 primary healthcare centers (PHCs) subject to deliberate attacks. Of Gaza’s core medical facilities, only 29 Ministry of Health hospitals remain partially operational, while 11 are completely out of service; 94 PHCs function at reduced capacity, and 64 have been fully disabled.

The scale of medical infrastructure destruction extends far beyond building damage. Official records document 216 targeted attacks on ambulances, 825 overall violations of healthcare facility; 1,723 heath personal were killed, 362 were detained by Israel; and the destruction of critical medical equipment essential for life-saving care. Key destroyed assets include 25 of 35 oxygen stations, 61 of 110 power generators, all 7 MRI machines, and 13 of 17 CT scanners. Compounding equipment losses, the sector faces catastrophic supply shortages: 87% of laboratory consumables and diagnostic assays are completely depleted, eliminating the ability to conduct routine medical testing and disease diagnosis. Zero drug stock, a total depletion of medications for kidney, cancer, and hemophilia patients.

Dire Operational Situation of Gaza’s Regional Medical Facilities (June–July 2026)…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Catastrophic Food Insecurity and Malnutrition Crisis…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..


Environmental Degradation and Public Health Epidemics………………………………………………………………………………………………………….


Mental Health Collapse and Lost Generational Futures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Conclusion: A Century of Displacement and Unresolved Human Suffering

Since the October 2023 “ceasefire” agreements—largely unenforced paper promises—1,031 additional martyrs and 3,309 new wounded civilians have been recorded as of late June, proving that temporary truces have failed to curb civilian mortality and medical suffering.

After 1000 days of relentless siege, the Gaza Strip has transitioned from a state of humanitarian crisis to a state of structural societal collapse. The systematic destruction of healthcare, food, water, education, and economic systems has created an intergenerational catastrophe whose impacts will persist for decades. Gaza’s Palestinian refugee crisis, already the longest-running modern displacement crisis, has been exponentially exacerbated: 42% of Palestine’s total population are refugees, with 6.2 million UNRWA-registered Palestinian refugees worldwide, and over 9 million total displaced Palestinians globally.

Every statistical indicator, infrastructure assessment, and human story confirms that Gaza stands inches away from absolute ruin—on the brink of total famine, healthcare shutdown, environmental collapse, and generational psychological destruction. Despite international humanitarian efforts and temporary medical support from regional teams, the ongoing siege, infrastructure destruction, and resource blockades continue to kill civilians, medical staffs, humanitarian workers and journalists dare to speak, daily.

We need more aid, but more important, we need justice: Free Palestine, break the siege and end of the genocide.

Palestine Watch https://www.PalestineWatch.net

Panda Aid https://www.PandaAid.org

Refence:

1) August 22, 2025 IPC: Gaza Strip Acute Food Insecurity Malnutrition July- Sept 2025 Special Snapshot

https://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Gaza/July2026_1000Days/IPC_Gaza_Strip_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Malnutrition_July_Sept2025_Special_Snapshot(2).pdf

2) July 3 2026: MWW-Periodic Report NO. 35

https://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Gaza/July2026_1000Days/July_3_26–MWW-Periodic_Report_NO35.pdf

3) July 3 2026: Genocidal repercussions of the Israeli aggression 2026(1000 Day) English

https://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Gaza/July2026_1000Days/Genocidal_repercussions_of_the_Israeli_aggression_2026(1000_Day)English.pdf

https://www.palestinewatch.net/post/7-6-gaza-s-1000-day-siege-a-catastrophic-humanitarian-collapse-across-health-food-and-human-life

July 11, 2026 Posted by | Gaza, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Labour ‘scaremongering’ to push Scotland into new nuclear, experts say

By Xander Elliards, The National 7th July 2026

 LABOUR ministers are “scaremongering” in the hope of pressuring
Scotland into building new nuclear power stations, a group of energy
experts has warned. Writing a joint article for The National, six academics
suggested that the UK Government was using “false promises” of a
“golden age of nuclear in England and Wales” in order to try and force
a U-turn from the Scottish Government.

As it stands, the SNP have an
effective veto on any new nuclear developments north of the Border because
planning laws are devolved to Holyrood. However, the UK Government last
week published a GB Energy report scoping out Scottish sites that could
host a new nuclear power plant, and on Tuesday UK energy minister Michael
Shanks said Labour will do “everything we can to move forward”.

Writing for The National, Dr Keith Baker, Dr Paul Dorfman, Professor Peter
Strachan, Dr Ian Fairlie, Professor Lynn Jamieson, and Gordon Morgan argued
that Scotland does not need any new nuclear energy plants “and no amount
of scaremongering, cajoling, or false promises from Shanks or the nuclear
industry should persuade our government to think otherwise”.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/26260544.labour-scaremongering-push-scotland-new-nuclear-experts-say/

July 11, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Cleaning up: Ukrainian Woman suspected of Monaco bombing found shot dead near Kyiv

The affair could prove politically costly for Kyiv. Any evidence linking members of Ukraine’s intelligence services to a bombing on European soil would be deeply damaging, coming as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived at a Nato summit on Tuesday seeking to shore up western support while Russia continues its deadly bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

Last week, German prosecutors accused Ukrainian “state authorities” of ordering the 2022 explosives attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe.


Pjotr Sauer, The Guardian, Tue, 07 Jul 2026, https://www.sott.net/article/507300-Cleaning-up-Ukrainian-woman-suspected-of-Monaco-bombing-found-shot-dead-near-Kyiv

Anastasiia Berezovska was being sought by police over attack that seriously injured a Ukraine-born businessman

A woman suspected of carrying out last week’s bomb attack in Monaco that seriously injured a Ukraine-born business tycoon has been found shot dead near Kyiv, in the latest twist in a case that has shaken the wealthy Mediterranean principality.

Ukrainian prosecutors said on Tuesday the woman had been found with a gunshot wound to the head and that two men had been arrested in connection with the case, including an officer with Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) and a former law enforcement officer.

On Friday, Interpol issued a red notice for 39-year-old Anastasiia Berezovska, a Ukrainian national who speaks German. The notice – a request to law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a suspect pending extradition – said Berezovska was wanted by Monaco on charges of attempted murder, placing an explosive device in a public place with criminal intent, and criminal conspiracy.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Berezovska received cryptocurrency payments from the two men who were later arrested, leading investigators to treat them as “individuals potentially involved in the attempted murder in Monaco”. They added that the serving HUR officer was “acting on his own initiative” and did not inform his superiors about his contacts with Berezovska.

Prosecutors also released footage showing a blood-stained “torture chamber”, containing hammers and other equipment, which they said was discovered during searches of the men’s properties.

The Guardian could not independently verify the prosecutors’ account.

The affair could prove politically costly for Kyiv. Any evidence linking members of Ukraine’s intelligence services to a bombing on European soil would be deeply damaging, coming as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived at a Nato summit on Tuesday seeking to shore up western support while Russia continues its deadly bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

Prince Albert II of Monaco previously condemned the bombing as “an odious act” and said all the principality’s security services had been mobilised.

The victims have not been officially identified, but police and judicial sources told French media they were Vadym Iermolaiev, 58, a businessman originally from Ukraine who now holds Cypriot citizenship, his girlfriend and their son. Iermolaiev and his partner were taken to hospital with serious injuries, while the child sustained minor injuries.

French prosecutors allege Berezovska, who had been living in Germany, disguised herself as a man before placing an explosive device in the entrance hall of the family’s apartment building in Monaco.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iermolaiev had been living in Monaco as part of a group of wealthy Ukrainian businessmen and politicians that independent Ukrainian media labelled the “Monaco battalion”.

Ukraine imposed sanctions on Iermolaiev in 2023, alleging he had maintained business links with Russian entities operating in Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow, including Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

Comment: The Guardian hews to the narrative . . . .

Monaco’s deputy prosecutor said last week that the suspected attacker fled the principality on foot into neighbouring France before travelling by car to Germany via several European countries, including Italy.

Ukraine has carried out numerous lethal operations involving explosive devices against senior Russian military officers and Kremlin-backed Ukrainian officials inside Russia, but there is no established precedent for such attacks on European territory.

Last week, German prosecutors accused Ukrainian “state authorities” of ordering the 2022 explosives attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe.

Comment: Among other criminal activities, Vadym Iermolaiev apparently ran a number of call center scamming operations. From the Daily Mail:

Now, Ukrainian police sources have claimed that the violent attack is directly linked to a network of fraudulent call centres in Dnipro, Ukraine, allegedly used to carry out large-scale financial scams across Europe.

The Yermolaiev family is alleged to have played a significant role in the scheme, with the oligarch’s name reportedly at the centre of a sprawling pan-European investigation into clandestine call centres operating out of Ukraine.

According to sources, the so-called ‘boiler room’ operations defrauded thousands of investors in Germany, Estonia and Ukraine of more than €100million (£86million) between 2019 and 2022, through fake cryptocurrency investment schemes.

The network also allegedly sold fraudulent divorce advice to unsuspecting victims.

Ukrainian law enforcement sources say that French investigators believe the murder attempt may have been orchestrated by members of a criminal network in retaliation.

Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that the attempted assassination stemmed from a failed agreement to divide territory and unpaid debts allegedly owed to organised crime bosses in Dnipro.

While Vadym, who is currently subject to sanctions in Ukraine, handled the financial side of the operation, it was his son, Artur, who reportedly ran the network.

According to local reports, Artur was arrested by Interpol in Cyprus at the end of 2025 following an Estonian arrest warrant.

Although it isn’t mentioned, Zelensky is known to demand a cut of criminal profits made in Ukraine in exchange for looking the other way. The professionalism of the operation certainly points to a state operation.

From ZeroHedge:

Per Euronews:

After the explosion, she is believed to have walked to the nearby French town of Beausoleil, where she retrieved her rental car and drove through Italy to Germany, her last known country of residence, Morgan Raymond, Monaco’s deputy public prosecutor, told reporters.

“The relative sophistication of the explosive device and the modus operandi appear to indicate that the person who planted the device did not act alone,“ the prosecutor said, confirming that the individual was “a woman posing as a man.”

Given that Ukrainian businessman Iermolaiev had long ago been declared an enemy of the Ukrainian state, and has been under sanctions for years for his extensive business dealings in Crimea, Ukrainian intelligence has come under the spotlight for possible involvement in the Monaco bomb attack – a first of its kind in the small, wealthy principality.

Le Figaroreported that the investigation focuses on Zelensky’s secret police (SBU) in the Monaco bomb attack: “According to several concurring sources at Le Figaro, investigators are focusing on the possibility that the attack was orchestrated by the SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence service.”

So already the Zelensky government is desperately trying to distance itself from the ordeal, claiming that Ukraine’s own intelligence officer was merely “acting on his own”. More details are as follows:

Ukrainian authorities said they detained two men on suspicion of murdering Berezovska “by prior conspiracy.”

Police said that one of the men – a current employee of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate – confessed to the murder of Berezovska and claimed that the second suspect, who is a former law enforcement officer, was an accomplice.

July 11, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

The Zionist Plan for a Concentration Camp in Gaza

Israel moves to intern 600,000 Palestinians in the “most moral concentration camp in the world.”

Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire Jul 10, 2026

Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno. These should be destinations Israeli Jews remember and abhor, and yet we are told, by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (PDF), that a concentration camp in the works on the ethnic cleansed ruin of Rafah is somehow not only moral, but the most moral concentration camp in the world.

The support given by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the criminal plan being promoted by Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, involving the construction of a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, which would incarcerate all the enclave’s residents, is a moral and historic nadir for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. No matter how they try in Israel to wrap this move with laundered epithets, they are talking about a concentration camp.

The Zionist state, according to Katz, plans to herd 600,000 Palestinians currently forced to shelter in tents and makeshift homes within the coastal al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza to an area in the ruins of Rafah city. “Eventually, the entire civilian population of over two million in Gaza would be confined to this small ‘city,’” the Middle East Eye reports.

Katz said that once concentrated in the new city, Palestinians would be encouraged to “voluntarily” leave the Gaza Strip for other countries, as part of an “emigration plan” he said “will happen”.

In July, 2025 the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) proposed a “Humanitarian Transit Area” where Gaza residents would “temporarily reside, deradicalise, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so,” Al Jazeera reported. GHF operated food distribution sites outside the United Nations system.

Humanitarian aid organizations and UN-affiliated experts say GHF previously violated humanitarian principles by directing civilians to hazardous militarized aid sites instead of establishing a neutral network. The BBC reported that more than 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid since the GHF began operating in May, 2025. Oxfam and Save the Children report Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” fired on Palestinians seeking aid. GHF ended its operation in late 2025.

In March, the RAND Corporation published Pursuing Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration in Gaza: A Critical Pathway to a Durable Peace. The white paper follows a Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) three-stage strategy used by UN Peacekeeping to transition war-torn societies to peace.

The RAND report does not take into account Israeli policies of settlement expansion, collective punishment, arbitrary imprisonment, and periodically “mowing the grass,” that to say conducting violent raids into Gaza. Decades of Zionist mistreatment of Palestinians naturally perpetuates radicalization and determined resistance.

The Strategic Hamlet Program

In 1962, the administration of Ngo Dinh Diem, in collaboration with the Kennedy administration, initiated the counterinsurgency Strategic Hamlet Program in South Vietnam. This rural pacification initiative involved relocating South Vietnamese villagers into barbed-wired “protected hamlets,”…………………………………

The French constructed “protective villages” in Tonkin, later known as agrovilles,…………

The Malaysian strategic villages were established in the 1950s under the Briggs Plan, a British counterinsurgency population-control and resettlement program……………….

British Concentration Camps in South Africa………………………………

Violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s “New Rafah” plan is a high-tech version of previous concentration camps. In a similar fashion to the Strategic Hamlet Program and the Boer camps in South Africa, “New Rafah” is primarily intended to separate Palestinian civilians from Hamas and prepare for the forced migration of two million people (despite the fact few if any countries are willing to take ethnically cleansed Palestinians)……………………………………. https://anotherdayintheempire.substack.com/p/the-zionist-plan-for-a-concentration

July 11, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza | Leave a comment

Plaintiffs Demand Release of Critical Documents and Extension of Public Comment Period on Expanded Plutonium Bomb Core Production

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, South Carolina Environmental Law Project,  July 6, 2026

Georgetown, SC — Today the South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) notified the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), that it must publicly release three critical documents. At issue is the fact that NNSA is withholding important information from American taxpayers during a public comment period for a Pit Production Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS).[1] The public comment period ends this July 16 (ironically the 81st anniversary of the Trinity Test of the first plutonium pit).

Plutonium “pits” are the radioactive fissile cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons. None of NNSA’s future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is all for new-design nuclear weapons that could prompt the U.S. to return to testing and accelerate the new arms race.

SCELP, representing the nonprofit organizations Savannah River Site Watch, Tri-Valley CAREs and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, sued NNSA to force it to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. This resulted in a federal judge finding NNSA violated NEPA and the agency ultimately agreeing to complete a Pit Production PEIS. Now it appears that NNSA is cherry-picking information to support its aggressive agenda of expanded plutonium pit production and suppressing negative information that could work against it.

The three documents that SCELP is demanding are:

  1. A new plutonium pit life study by independent scientists known as the JASONs. NNSA claims that potential aging effects drive the need for the immediate production of new pits, thereby ruling out the alternative of reusing some 15,000 existing pits. In contrast, a 2006 JASON pit life study concluded that most pit types have reliable lives of more than 100 years and those that don’t have relatively easy fixes[2] (the average pit age is now ~43). We believe that NNSA has been withholding an unclassified summary of the new JASON pit life study since the end of 2025. NNSA has not released it despite requests by Members of Congress and public Freedom of Information Act requests.
  2. A Department of Energy “Special Study” on NNSA leadership and management of its troubled plutonium pit production program, scheduled for completion in December 2025.[3] That Study is expected to be critical of the new pit production plant at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, which will be the most expensive building in US history ($30 billion-plus). DOE has not released this Special Study despite requests by Members of Congress and public Freedom of Information Act requests.
  3. A new “Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis” (PSHA) for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that is nearly a decade overdue.[4] A 2007 LANL seismic analysis prompted badly needed seismic upgrades to the Lab’s plutonium pit production facility. NNSA’s April 2026 draft Pit Production PEIS stated that the new PSHA would be completed in early 2026,[5] yet it is still not available for public comment.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://nukewatch.org/press-release-item/plaintiffs-demand-release-of-critical-documents-and-extension-of-public-comment-period-on-expanded-plutonium-bomb-core-production/

July 11, 2026 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Why Israel fears a US-Iran Deal far more than Conflict

The same policies that sought to guarantee Israel’s survival may now be undermining its future

By Paul Rogers.  July 7, 2026, https://www.opendemocracy.net/israel-fears-united-states-iran-peace-more-than-conflict-netanyahu/

The US/Iran Memorandum of Understanding remains just about intact despite several exchanges of fire. Oman’s recent decision to release $6bn in frozen Iranian assets has helped to ease tensions, but it is also a reminder that the Strait of Hormuz issue is only one of the problems ahead.

Another is the vexed issue of the proxy wars, with the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict being the most difficult. The on-off discussions between Israel and the Lebanese government might imply that this conflict is also subject to talks, but this is simply not so. Beirut does not control Hezbollah, which acts as a state within a state and does not see itself as bound by the US/Iran talks – a view shared by Israel.

For Israel, this is a core issue. Binyamin Netanyahu and those around him view Donald Trump’s behaviour as little short of a betrayal. They would greatly prefer the whole peace process to collapse as they attempt to convince the electorate that only the current Israeli prime minister can keep Israeli Jews safe.

Understanding this requires looking beyond today’s diplomacy to the security doctrine that has shaped Israeli policy since 1948. This doctrine is rooted in a desire to keep the state safe by whatever means are deemed necessary, whether the use of extreme force, irregular warfare, assassination or short- and long-term occupation. 

These violent methods have often led to the mass deaths and injuries of Palestinian civilians, as well as their detention without trial, and have slowly but surely dragged Israel into an insecurity trap of its own making. 

Take the current disastrous conflict in Gaza. Three months from now will be the third anniversary of Hamas’s 7 October assault on southern Israel, which killed 1,195 people. The shock of what happened shattered most Israelis’ presumption of control, but few were able to see the wider context. 

From afar, some analysts noted that the Hamas attacks followed more than 15 years in which the Israeli Defence Forces had employed rigorous control over the two million Palestinians in Gaza, including through four conflicts that killed at least 5,000 Palestinians and wounded thousands more, many of them maimed for life.  

While these conflicts might have helped preserve an Israeli perception of security, in one sense they made Israel’s response to the 7 October assault even more violent. Many within Israel concluded that if even this high level of control could fail, then much greater force would be needed. Gaza’s Palestinians were framed as “human animals” against whom any amount of force was legitimate.  

Many millions of people across the world have since come to view Israel’s actions over the past three years – which have killed many tens of thousands in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Lebanon – as terrifyingly excessive.

In reality, it is little more than a continuation of an Israeli security posture dating back 80 years and in the wake of the killing of six million Jews in the Holocaust. As Israel is competing for the right to land that can be achieved only by denying that right to Palestinians, it is fundamentally insecure and therefore has to be “impregnable in its insecurity”.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the new state of Israel rapidly consolidated its hold on the land assigned by the UN partition and the additional land it gained in the war of independence. For Palestinians, this was the Nakba, the ‘catastrophe’, in which at least 700,000 people were forced to flee their homes. 

By 1956, Israel was sufficiently secure in its support from the UK and France to take part in the Suez crisis. While that was disastrous for the UK and France, Israel came out of it stronger. A decade later, it fought the Six-Day War against surrounding Arab states to take control of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Gaza, and the whole of Jerusalem, while further displacing Palestinians. Many thousands living in refugee camps in the Jordan Valley were forced to flee once more, mostly east to Jordan.

Over the past 60 years, Israel has fought more wars, both large and small, and suppressed internal revolts in two intifadas – all in pursuit of a peace that never comes, yet still with the memory of the Holocaust.  

The country maintains a vigorous and well-funded lobby in the US and works hard to maintain its standing in the UK, so that it can be argued that any opposition to modern-day Israel and the current Netanyahu government is antisemitic.

Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, a disaster is unfolding for Israel: public support is fraying. Some US polls now show more support for Palestinians than Israelis, and in the UK Keir Starmer’s support for Israel has been one factor in his downfall.

Back in Israel, many Israeli Jews vigorously reject much of Netanyahu’s politics, yet simply want the Palestinian problem to go away by just about any means. There are a few exceptions, including a small peace movement and some determined human rights groups. Very recently, former prime minister Ehud Barak has been bitterly critical of settler violence across the occupied West Bank. 

These efforts have not so far led to a domestic mood change, but this could change as the international community increasingly regards Israel as a rogue state. In time – possibly in the coming months – there is likely to be a full-fledged campaign of economic damage, boycotting and social isolation that Israel will not be able to ignore.  

That may end up being Netanyahu’s crowning, if bitter, achievement.

July 11, 2026 Posted by | history, Israel | Leave a comment

Radioactive Taxpayer Cash Cow, Canada 2026

Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force Canada, July 2026

Critics from civil society organizations and academia are calling out the Nuclear Energy Strategy for Canada released on Jun. 22 by the federal government as a cash cow for the nuclear industry. This hubris-driven attempt to grab world “energy superpower” status based on past-century technology will be accomplished without public input. The document reads like a wish list of nuclear developments, including the goal of 10 new large reactor projects in Canada by 2040.

This strategy is a gross economic mistake, dangerous for human health and security, and a diversion from urgently needed action on safer, faster and cheaper renewable energy. This benefits only the fossil fuel sector (during reactor construction) and the nuclear industry to the tune of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars – because nuclear power is by far the most expensive of all electricity sources and is unnecessary to reach net zero.

The document also promises to “streamline” the regulation of nuclear projects by removing independent oversight and speeding up approvals. This presents huge public risks when dealing with inherently dangerous technology like nuclear power.

The government is promoting the export of home-grown CANDU reactors, potentially facilitating the proliferation of nuclear weapons, as happened when Canada gifted reactor technology to India, sparking an arms race in South Asia.

The pressing issue of nuclear waste is sandwiched into the section of the strategy on massive expansion of uranium production, with false reassurances that the problem has been solved by handing management of nuclear waste over to the nuclear industry.

A proposed deep geological repository for high-level waste proposed for northwestern Ontario is assumed, despite major questions and opposition, including legal challenges. Two days after the Nuclear Strategy was released the federal government announced that the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposed DGR was a “Project of National Interest”, meaning that its approval would be guaranteed without an appropriate health, safety and environmental assessment.

July 11, 2026 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Trilateral cooperation agreement on SMR deployment

WNN, 8 July 2026


The USA, Japan and South Korea have signed a memorandum of cooperation to support trilateral cooperation on accelerating small modular reactor deployments in third countries, with an initial focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

The memorandum was signed on Tuesday on the margins of the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Japan’s Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu, and South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun……………………………………………………..

Under the memorandum, the three countries will identify third-party countries that are interested in small modular reactors (SMRs) in the Indo-Pacific region and will support the construction of multiple SMRs through a standard fleet and simplified contracting procedures. For that purpose, the partners will encourage the formation of consortiums by their respective nuclear industries and foster project development through mobilising financing and investment.

In support of this initiative, the USA is committing more than USD10 million in new funding for the Department of State’s Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) programme to provide technical support to countries in the Indo-Pacific region for the deployment of safe, secure, and reliable nuclear energy. It said the funds would advance SMR project development activities and establish an SMR Regional Training Hub for workforce development.

The USA also announced an industry initiative agreed upon by GE Vernova of the USA, Japan’s Hitachi, Samsung C&T of South Korea, and Poland’s SGE to advance deployment of the BWRX-300 SMR design across Europe. “This initiative will help achieve the ambitions set forth in the memorandum signed today and deepen government-industry partnerships to strengthen global energy security,” the Department of State said.

The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation SMR with passive safety systems that leverages the design and licensing basis of GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s (GVH’s) US Nuclear Regulatory Commission-certified ESBWR boiling water reactor design and its existing, licensed GNF2 fuel design. GVH’s first BWRX-300 is under construction at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington site in Canada, with completion expected by the end of the decade.

SGE – part of the MS Galleon Group – is a co-investor in the standard design for the BWRX-300 and is in the process of establishing SMR partnerships and projects in a number of Central and Eastern European countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. Its flagship project is being implemented in Poland in collaboration with Orlen, with work under way at three sites and the first unit expected to be commissioned in 2032.

Last week, SGE and a deployment team including Samsung C&T, Laing O’Rourke, Aecon Group and Google Cloud outlined plans for the privately financed deployment of 14 BWRX-300 SMRs across three sites in the UK. SGE submitted the application under the UK’s Advanced Nuclear Framework for reactors which could provide 4.2 GW of capacity, equivalent to 11% of current UK power demand.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/trilateral-cooperation-agreement-on-smr-deployment

July 11, 2026 Posted by | marketing | Leave a comment

Consultation to strengthen UK nuclear manufacturing

HVM Catapult says more than £100bn of nuclear investment presents a major opportunity for UK manufacturing and supply chains

08/07/2026 , https://www.energylivenews.com/2026/07/08/consultation-to-strengthen-uk-nuclear-manufacturing/

The High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult has launched a national consultation, to help UK industry capture the economic and industrial benefits of more than £100bn of expected investment in the country’s civil and defence nuclear programmes over the next decade.

The organisation is developing a ten-year Nuclear Manufacturing Strategy, arguing that the planned investment represents a “once in a generation” opportunity to strengthen the UK’s manufacturing base, improve energy security and create long-term economic growth.

The consultation will gather views from industry, government, academia and regional partners to identify how HVM Catapult can help accelerate industrial capability, strengthen supply chains and support businesses competing in future nuclear markets.

HVM Catapult Chief Executive Katherine Bennett said countries that succeed in the coming decade will be those that build advanced manufacturing ecosystems alongside new nuclear power stations.

She said: “Nuclear is both fundamental to the UK’s future energy security and one of the biggest industrial opportunities this country has seen in decades.

“It is a once in a generation moment to build a globally competitive manufacturing ecosystem that supports clean energy, strengthens defence, creates high-value jobs and delivers long-term economic prosperity across the country.

“Much of the capability needed to support the next generation of nuclear technologies already exists within UK manufacturing. The challenge is identifying it, connecting it to opportunity and giving businesses the confidence to invest.”

The consultation begins at the National Nuclear Manufacturing Conference on 9 July before continuing through a series of regional engagement events across the UK.

Feedback will inform HVM Catapult’s long-term strategy and wider discussions on strengthening domestic manufacturing capability, accelerating industrial growth and maximising the value of future nuclear investment.

July 11, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment