2026 September 28 « nuclear-news

Stop Mad King Donald’s Iran War: An Open Letter to Members of the US Congress

Trump is emboldened in his contempt for Congress because the Republican members of Congress have abdicated their constitutional responsibilities, terrified of their own president, and forsaking their constituents for campaign lucre from AIPAC and the military-industrial complex.

Many of you receive campaign contributions from military contractors and technology companies deeply involved in the war. Many of you take money from AIPAC, which champions the war that Netanyahu did so much to help launch. This has to stop, as it is a dereliction of your constitutional duty and a violation of your oath.

The war with Iran is Trump’s folly but Congress’s disgrace for not stopping it.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Sep 23, 2026Common Dreams

Dear Members of Congress,

In truly deranged remarks to world leaders at the UN, Donald Trump declared that “I have a big decision to make,” whether to negotiate a deal with Iran or instead to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and drive Iran “into hell with no chance of survival.”

He posed it as his personal choice. The fact that the American people are dead set against Trump’s war means nothing. And as for the voters, he added that he gives “absolutely no credence” to the coming midterm elections in deciding on his actions and on Iran’s fate.

The President’s threat to annihilate a member state of the United Nations, delivered from the General Assembly podium, disgraced Trump in front of the world.

Nothing binds this President. He is not bound by law, the Constitution, the UN Charter, or public opinion at home and abroad. When asked at the start of the year whether he has any limits on his power, he said “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Trump opened his speech with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, hailing America’s freedom. The fact is that Trump’s authoritarianism far outdoes that of King George III, against whom the colonies rebelled. Among the founders’ indictments of Mad King George was that “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.” Yet our own mad king has decided that the survival of a whole civilization is in his hands alone.

The Constitution is unambiguous regarding Congress’s responsibility. Article I, Section 8 assigns Congress, not the President, the sole power to declare war. That is not a choice or an option. The Constitution doesn’t say that Congress can play dead and let the President declare war. The Framers made this choice deliberately, because they were explicitly rejecting the power of a king to take the nation to war.

In Federalist 69, Hamilton assured the public that the President’s war powers would be far less than the British monarch’s. Madison stated the principle plainly in a letter to Jefferson in 1798: “The constitution supposes, what the History of all Govts demonstrates, that the Ex. is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.”

The founders’ careful design has been overturned because of the unconstitutional subservience of the Republican members of Congress to Trump and to the military-industrial-digital complex. And yes, under Democratic presidents, most Democratic members of Congress also looked the other way when those presidents chose to go to war.

The war with Iran is Trump’s folly but Congress’s disgrace for not stopping it. It is a war without a purpose that has created mass suffering in Iran, tens of billions of dollars of direct outlays, and staggering damage to American military bases in eight countries of the Middle East. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent world and American prices soaring for oil, gas, fertilizers, and more. And the world has duly noted that Iran can hold its own against US aggression, albeit at great sacrifice to the people of Iran and the region.

America’s much vaunted AI battlefield has been exposed in the most horrifying way. On the first day of the war, an American missile struck the girls’ elementary school there, killing more than 150 people, most of them girls aged seven to twelve, and the military’s own inquiry reportedly found that overreliance on artificial intelligence contributed to the targeting. Trump blamed “Iran or somebody else,” and seven months later the administration has offered no findings, no apology and no compensation to the families.

The President’s threat to annihilate a member state of the United Nations, delivered from the General Assembly podium, disgraced Trump in front of the world. It also violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits even the threat of force against another state. Nearly all the world stands aghast.

I write to you because you cannot simply walk away from Trump’s recklessness, shaking your heads silently. You have a job to do, so do it. The craven Republican Party has to find even a minimal level of guts to tell Trump, “No, you do not have the power to destroy Iran. Any war with Iran depends on us, and we don’t support you and our constituents want this war to stop.” A clear majority of Americans oppose this war, and poll after poll shows that the opposition to the war is growing. A few Republicans have found that courage. Last week three more Republicans broke ranks to support ending the war. Their colleagues should follow.

Congress holds the power of the purse. The fiscal year ends on September 30, and every bill that funds the Pentagon is your opportunity to prohibit funds for unauthorized offensive operations against Iran.

The right course for the US is simple. Congress should cut off funding, and the US should stop further attacks and go home. We need no agreement with Iran or anyone else to stop the war that we started. By ending the war you will immediately restore some sanity and safety to the world energy markets, food supplies, and prices faced by Americans and others around the world.

How America has declined from the glorious moment when John F. Kennedy stood at the same podium at the UN on September 20, 1963, after having negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. He told the assembled leaders that the treaty can be a lever, and Archimedes, in explaining the principles of the lever, was said to have declared to his friends: “Give me a place where I can stand—and I shall move the world.” My fellow inhabitants of this planet: Let us take our stand here in this Assembly of nations. And let us see if we, in our own time, can move the world to a just and lasting peace.

Members of Congress, to save our nation’s honor and our Constitution, you must do your duty to stop this war, and stop Trump’s brazen, destructive, and unconstitutional grab for power.

Respectfully,

Jeffrey D. Sachs

University Professor, Columbia University

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s Unconscionable United Nations Rant

Trump unfortunately is not alone in this dangerous ignorance. Swarms of commenters on social media and on publications such as this one are repeating unfounded theories that the CEOs are just saying these things to drive up the value of their companies, showing how powerful they are. This is delusional. If this is just a valuation stunt, the timing of these warnings around planned IPOs would be the worst possible. In essence this is the problem:

current AI agents already evade constraints, coordinate, and hide what they did
labs do not have a demonstrated way yet to keep much more capable future systems on a leash
a superintelligent system that can improve itself, or a swarm that can recruit other agents, is a different control problem than a chatbot that answers a prompt, like ChatGPT or Grok.

Donald Trump threatened Iran with annihilation from the seat of diplomacy on the East River Tuesday and then dismissed the real threats of AI as a hoax in a speech that exhibited questionable mental balance, writes Joe Lauria.

By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, September 22, 2026, https://consortiumnews.com/2026/09/22/trumps-unconscionable-un-rant/

Donald Trump just delivered probably the most bombastic, ignorant, aggressive and outrageous speech to the rest of the world from the podium of the U.N. General Assembly in the 81-year history of the United Nations.

I covered 25 U.N. general debates from inside U.N. headquarters in New York as a correspondent based there and I have never seen anything like it, including Trump’s previous five U.N. addresses.

He began on Tuesday by beating his chest proclaiming himself king of the world:

“Our economy is the envy of the world.

Our military is the most powerful on earth.
Our technology is second to none and we are leading in virtually everything.

Our energy is fueling the planet.
America is rising.

Our nation is growing.
Our power is expanding.”

But of course America doesn’t have an empire.

“We’ve invested more money in the United States military in the past 12 months than ever before,” he reminded everyone, including the leaders of nations whose innocent people are slain by that military. “And this term, it will be $1.5 trillion.”

He reserved special venom for America’s latest victim of unprovoked violence:

“For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more.”

Trump dare not look in a mirror.

For there he would see the face of the real bully of the Middle East, who, with bases of smoldering ruins, is bully no more.

Then after a litany of lies about the state of Iran’s military capacity and its nuclear program he shockingly threatened another U.N. member state from the world assembly’s rostrum in genocidal and megalomaniacal language:

“I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East, or even the world.

Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?

Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

Only one other time did a world leader issue such a supreme threat against another nation at the United Nations. And that world leader was none other than Donald J. Trump.

On Sept. 19, 2017, speaking from the same podium, he said the U.S. would have “no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” if forced to defend itself or its allies.

Super Ignorance

After a long stretch of calling on ICC member states to quit the court, of attacking “the craven hypocrites of Human Rights Council [for having] little to say about the persecution of Christians,” of his trademark, shameless self-promotion and congratulation for supposedly ending 8 wars (while attacking Iran, Venezuela — “To the victor belongs the spoils” — Yemen, Russia via Ukraine, aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza and threatening Cuba), Trump stunned the hall with the most profound and dangerous ignorance possible on the subject of Artificial Intelligence.

He had these astonishing things to say:

“Artificial Intelligence … makes it sound fake. And it is not fake. It’s actually amazing. But we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports.

From this point forward, all of United States documents and hopefully the world will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial.

So it’s super intelligence.

In other words, welcome to the new world of superintelligence — SI.

Let’s see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better, and it’s much more accurate.

Let’s see if I have any power. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. We’re going to find out pretty soon.

Superintelligence.”

He then added:

“Every major new technology brings challenges, and superintelligence is no exception. Yet the very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming, a name since reborn to climate change because the planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead.

These are the same people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us, and that everything is going to be a total disaster.

And we’re leading now over China by a lot and everyone else. And we’re going to keep it that way. We’re going to keep it very, very straight and very strong.

I’m not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution, many say bigger than the Industrial Revolution or the internet itself.

But we will only encourage superintelligence.

We’re going to encourage it, not rein it in.”

What That All Meant

First, Trump totally misunderstands what the term “superintelligence” means. He is like most people who only understand AI from what has already been released to the public, such as ChatGPT or Grok. These are essentially glorified Google searches that go much deeper and much faster to extract astonishing amounts of information at astonishing speed presented in conversational form. The information can also be astonishingly wrong.

What the whistleblowers, early AI founders and AI CEOS’s — who Trump derides — have been raising the alarm about in recent days and weeks is not what’s already out in the public, but what is happening in the lab. They have explained that the neural networks that make up AI and mimic the human brain have already shown signs of breaking free of human control.

It has disobeyed orders, formed swarms or armies with other AI agents, made up its own laws, covered its tracks, hacked into other networks and is threatening to become independent entities reaching what is called “superintelligence.” Superintelligence is what is being warned about, not a fancy new term that Trump thinks better describes what he wants to beat China at.

current AI agents already evade constraints, coordinate, and hide what they did
labs do not have a demonstrated way yet to keep much more capable future systems on a leash
a superintelligent system that can improve itself, or a swarm that can recruit other agents, is a different control problem than a chatbot that answers a prompt, like ChatGPT or Grok.

There is still time to develop safeguards to prevent runaway superintelligent AI from doing us tremendous harm through autonomous hacks, bioweapons designs, cyberattacks against electric grids or worse, such as weapons systems up to and including nuclear weapons.

This is what alarms the “Grandfather of AI,” Prof. Geoffrey Hinton (who thinks there’s a 10 percent chance AI wipes out humanity), industry whistleblowers like Jacob Coxon and Daniel Kokotajlo and AI CEOs like Dario Amodei, Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Yes, CEOs are greedy and power hungry by definition and generally don’t care about the rest of us, but they don’t want to die too.

There is still time. What is being called for is a pause until the guardrails are built and implemented. Since Trump is driven by the competition to beat China at AI, it’s imperative that China and the United States work together, possibly towards a treaty that will ensure the safety of AI so that its many benefits in solving problems can help humanity.

This week at the Chinese-U.S. summit in Washington AI will be on the agenda. The two countries are expected to set up a hotline to communicate on security risks resulting from AI. But not much more progress is anticipated though it is urgently needed for both sides to slow development.

A treaty would define what is paused, such as recursive self-improvement; possible controls on data centers and chip shipments somewhat analogous to nuclear treaty inspections and ensuring third countries don’t move ahead with uncontrolled development.

What’s clear is the issue must be taken seriously and the ravings of Donald Trump ignored.

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | PERSONAL STORIES, technology | Leave a comment

Health workers demand action against genocide and militarization at ManiFiesta 2026

At ManiFiesta 2026, health workers called for action against genocide and militarization, citing a professional duty to uphold the right to health.

Peoples Health Dispatch, September 20 2026, https://breakthroughnews.org/2026/09/20/health-workers-demand-action-against-genocide-and-militarization-at-manifiesta-2026/

Health is always a prominent topic at Belgium’s ManiFiesta, a two-day festival organized by the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB) in the beginning of September. Discussions range from the organization of health services or workshops led by progressive health organizations like Medics for the People (MPLP-GVHV) and Viva Salud. This September, the program covered local priorities such as health coverage and hospital reform – along with Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza’s healthcare system and the threat of militarization across Europe.

Health workers should oppose rearmament

Addressing the question of why health workers should be concerned by Europe’s armament drive, Juliette Mattijsen of the People’s Health Movement (PHM), Nadja Rakowitz of the Association of Democratic Doctors (vdää*) in Germany, and Tim Joye of Medics for the People emphasized the different ways hospitals, health centers, and medical studies are being reshaped.

Not only are governments imposing cuts on health budgets to enable increased defense spending, as Mattijsen illustrated – some are structurally changing what the health system is supposed to be about.

As the Merz administration in Germany rushes to build Europe’s mightiest army, Rakowitz explained, it is tabling plans for underground hospitals and an overhaul of triage systems. The goal of these reforms is supposedly to ensure wounded soldiers – from a battlefield that still only exists in the imagination of regional politicians – are cared for swiftly and returned to combat as soon as possible. In Belgium, Joye added, plans are being circulated to introduce war medicine into medical school curricula, and professional congresses have made this their topic of choice.

If European governments have their way, the speakers warned, health systems in the region will increasingly lose their focus on patients and add further strain on service provision. To prevent this, the panel suggested, health workers themselves – nurses, doctors, dentists, and others – must mobilize and actively oppose this dangerous trend.

In Palestine, medics provide more than health care

At another panel hosted by Viva Salud, the focus shifted to Palestine. Gaza’s health services have been militarized by the Israeli occupation, which has turned health infrastructure and workers into direct targets.

Sama Jaber of the Awda Association and Hanne Bosselaers, a Medics for the People general practitioner who participated in the 2025 solidarity flotillas to Gaza, focused their interventions on the relevance of organizing and providing healthcare under occupation.

In Palestine, Jaber pointed out, the formation of medical practitioners is a collective feat. By persevering in their work during a genocide, health workers in Gaza are now giving back to the communities who accompanied them along the way. “Being a health worker in Palestine today means sharing genocide conditions, but also upholding the right to health,” she said.

For Bosselaers, the steadfastness of Palestinian comrades has been an inspiration since her first visits to Gaza approximately 15 years ago and the twinning process she supported with a health center in Beit Hanoun. Today, she emphasized, Israeli attacks have leveled Beit Hanoun to the ground – yet health workers have not given up their work.

Doctors and other health workers in Europe need to recognize this unbreakable spirit, Bosselaers said, and support their peers by joining movements at home. This should mean standing by Palestinians’ demands for liberation, she added, but also joining networks struggling against other forms of attack on healthcare: opposing commercialization, austerity, and militarization.

Call to support boycott, divestment and sanctions

Health workers around the world should direct their efforts into directly supporting the health system in Palestine, the panelists pointed out. This does not mean replacing hospitals with large international NGO operations or flying in and taking over, Bosselaers insisted, as is often seen in humanitarian medicine. Instead, she and Jaber suggested, the priority should be mobilizing against the occupation and campaigning for an end to Israel’s impunity.

In this, they echoed Palestinian physician and political leader Mustafa Barghouti, who addressed the panel through a video message. Barghouti invited health workers in Europe to stand firm in their support of Gaza, particularly by supporting boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns. By doing so, he said, they will also recognize the efforts of their peers in Palestine, who are doing more than healthcare today, “helping people persevere in their steadfastness.”

As the genocide continues, Barghouti insisted, health workers in occupied Palestine know their efforts are directed at supporting people in remaining on their land – starting from the most common health procedures. “If you help a woman safely deliver a baby,” he said, “you’re helping her stay in Palestine.”

People’s Health Dispatch is a monthly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, click here.

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, Events | Leave a comment

Big Tech’s Plans for AI Are Bringing Nuclear Power Back to New England

Nuclear energy is as dangerous as it always was—even more so now that Trump is peeling away traditional regulatory safeguards.

If there’s any good news in this grim scenario, it’s that citizens groups are pushing back not only on AI data centers but also on nuclear 2.0.

To pave the way for AI data centers, New England governors are aligning with Trump’s plans for nuclear. But why?

Tom Valovic, 22 September 26, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/big-tech-nuclear-new-england

As you may have noticed, nuclear power is back. Many establishment Democrats have now not only abandoned bread-and-butter working-class issues, they’re also busy jettisoning some of the hard-won core principles of the environmental movement hammered out painstakingly over decades. Apparently, someone has waved a magic wand when we weren’t looking and nuclear power is now a “green” source of energy. Is that because if you become irradiated you start to turn green?

Nuclear Power is Green? This is Corporate Marketing Hype. Don’t Believe it.

How did this happen? We can start by taking a look at what’s been happening in New England, especially Massachusetts, which offers a good case study. In that bluest of blue states, Gov. Maura Healey is eager to bring nuclear power back despite a 1982 voter referendum—now law—that prohibits it unless stringent safeguards are put in place and full statewide voter approval enacted. She’s not alone. In March 2026, a group of New England Governors—mostly Democrats—directed their state energy agencies to explore advanced nuclear energy technologies while also continuing to support the region’s existing nuclear resources.

The press release from Gov. Healey’s office described nuclear power as a “pillar of New England’s electric system.” The statement also eagerly encouraged the development of public-private partnerships. Unfortunately, this widely endorsed bipartisan concept has now become the working model for corporate exploitation of public resources and is a key latter-day building block of continuing deregulation. The press release gushed with enthusiasm for nuclear power, noting that “by ensuring both the continued operation of our existing nuclear fleet and setting our region on a path to explore next generation resources, including advanced nuclear energy technologies, the New England states will continue our leadership in grid modernization and energy innovation as we jointly work to meet the region’s current and future energy needs.”

The Hidden Connection: AI Data Centers and Nuclear Power

It seems important to explore the convoluted corporate and political forces behind this troubling step backward in our nation’s environmental progress. It’s a bit startling to realize how well the New England governors’ position aligns with President Donald Trump’s AI and energy policy. It also reveals a certain political and cultural amnesia about the very real risks of nuclear power. In trying to untangle this Gordian knot, we (surprise!) bump up against the usual suspect: Big Tech’s aggressive and often hidden technocratic agenda and power grab across all levels of government.

In the long-form version (which I’ll just briefly touch upon here),

In the long-form version (which I’ll just briefly touch upon here), the background traces back to the deal with the devil made by President Bill Clinton when he sold out the Democratic Party to neoliberal interests. That was the structural beginning of what some now call the uniparty—an unholy and often unspoken alliance between establishment Republicans and Democrats on key issues, operating as an inchoate blob of distinctions without a difference. It signifies core agreement between the two parties concerning three of the most important drivers of our current political morass: hyper-militarization; excessive deregulation leading to the current privatization spree that’s green-lit corporate greed and overreach; and letting the Big Tech genie out of the bottle to replace democracy with technocratic governance.

What’s happening with nuclear power in New England represents a good case study in how formerly staunch political values have been eroded through back-door workarounds (such as non-disclosure agreements) operating in the shadows of democracy. So, why then are Gov. Healey and other New England governors so comfortable with nuclear 2.0? Are they simply responding to pressures and influences from the Trump administration while also kowtowing to Big-Tech special interests and (needless to say) just following the money?

It’s no secret that Trump is solidly—one might even be tempted to say mindlessly—supporting the Big Tech power brokers racing to force-feed the American public AI data centers regardless of their well-known negative impacts on environmental integrity, water supplies, energy costs, and overall quality of life. But the hastily planned deployment of nuclear reactors to provide energy for AI data centers is an important key to Big Tech’s strategy. This is evident from Microsoft’s plan to use the Three-Mile Island nuclear facility for AI power generation.

In the March 2026 announcement, the New England governors were signaling their intent to fall into line with the Trump administration’s massive $17.5 billion fund to help utilities speed the nationwide construction of nuclear reactors to support AI data centers. They also signaled their intent to explore new approaches such as the emerging but unproven technology of SMRs or small modular reactors and nuclear fusion. Trump is, of course, doing this while actively discouraging viable green energy solutions such as wind farms, solar, and renewables. Projects already well underway have been abruptly cancelled, and he announced he would pay $765 million to Invenergy simply to not develop four wind farms in a number of states including Maine and New York.

Parsing The “Zero Carbon” Sleight of Hand

Nuclear proponents are now using the “zero carbon” tagline to bamboozle the public into thinking that nuclear energy is now safe and “green.” With this clever inversion, they’re betting on large doses of cultural amnesia about disasters such as Fukushima (still ongoing), Chernobyl (still ongoing), and Three-Mile Island. They’re also conveniently sidestepping the fact that the nuclear waste problem persistently shows no easy resolution, although some in the industry are now claiming it can be recycled and repurposed.

Nuclear energy is as dangerous as it always was—even more so now that Trump is peeling away traditional regulatory safeguards. Environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace oppose it vigorously. The Sierra Club website advises that it “opposes the licensing, construction, and operation of new nuclear reactors utilizing the fission process, pending resolution of the significant safety problems inherent in reactor operation, disposal of spent fuels, and possible diversion of nuclear materials capable of use in weapons manufacture.”

The fact that Gov. Healey and other New England governors have more or less fallen into line with both Trump and Big Tech’s AI plans is obviously troubling. As mentioned, equally troubling is how Healey attempted to subvert a 1982 voter referendum that placed significant restrictions on nuclear power in the state and is now on the books as law. Fortunately, the Massachusetts state senate stepped up to oppose Healey’s attempt to undemocratically bypass the referendum. And while to her credit, she did recently champion proactive legislation to curb the excesses of AI data center buildouts, reading the fine print reveals that the initiative subtly paves the way for many more nuclear facilities to be developed to support those data centers.

If there’s any good news in this grim scenario, it’s that citizens groups are pushing back not only on AI data centers but also on nuclear 2.0. These efforts include organizations such as The Commonwealth Coalition for Democracy and Safe Energy (CCDSE), a collaborative effort of more than 15 groups, including Mass. Power Forward, Sierra Club, Clamshell Alliance, Massachusetts Peace Action, Cape Downwinders, Save Our Bay Massachusetts, and Citizens Awareness Network. All of these organizations were united in opposition to nuclear and successfully lobbied in support of the Massachusetts Senate’s wise decision to favor democracy and safe energy over Big Tech cronyism.

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Accidents and skills shortages at Koeberg raise doubts over South Africa’s nuclear expansion ambitions

‘There’s a whole culture of secrecy around nuclear power in this country,’ Peter Becker tells Chemistry World. Becker, a spokesperson for the Koeberg Alert Alliance watchdog, is a former member of the NNR. He was fired by South Africa’s energy minister in 2023 for expressing persistent concerns about the safety of the country’s only nuclear power plant before winning a court case for wrongful dismissal.

By Ray Mwareya, 23 September 2026, https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/accidents-at-south-africas-nuclear-power-plant-lead-to-questions-over-countrys-nuclear-future/4024235.article

Koeberg, South Africa’s sole nuclear power plant, is a symbol of the country’s past nuclear prowess. Now, the country is looking to a new future powered by nuclear. However, a series of accidents at Koeberg this year has reignited worries over whether the operator and regulatory agency are fit for purpose as the country seeks to expand its fleet of nuclear reactors.

In July, 150 Koeberg workers were exposed to radiation and reportedly took iodine tablets, although South Africa’s National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) insisted that 245 workers only underwent precautionary measures. Eskom, a state-owned public utility that runs the plant, says that only a small amount of uranium dioxide was released, along with cobalt-58. James Larkin, past head of the International Nuclear Security Education Network, said the radiation these workers received was equivalent to a dental x-ray.

A week earlier, the NNR reported three other releases of radioactivity that occurred in June and July at Koeberg. As a result, a former nuclear insider and independent experts are growing uneasy about Eskom and NNR’s assurances that they can maintain high safety standards as South Africa aims to generate 5.2GW of nuclear energy via conventional nuclear power and a few small modular reactors by 2039.

Koeberg was commissioned in 1984 with twin 970MW pressurised water reactors with an original design life of 40 years. In 2019, the plant’s life was extended by another 20 years.

Dawid Serfontein, a nuclear engineer at South Africa’s North West University, says it is normal for equipment to degrade during nuclear plant life-cycle extensions. During steam generator repairs, the phenomenon of localised, restricted stress corrosion cracking in newly fitted components is a documented engineering risk in many life-extension projects worldwide, he notes. However, recurring ventilation failures that led to the release of radioactive material earlier this year indicate operational strain. ‘Truthful auditing is critical if the country wants to garner public trust in the nuclear buildout drive,’ he say.

‘There’s a whole culture of secrecy around nuclear power in this country,’ Peter Becker tells Chemistry World. Becker, a spokesperson for the Koeberg Alert Alliance watchdog, is a former member of the NNR. He was fired by South Africa’s energy minister in 2023 for expressing persistent concerns about the safety of the country’s only nuclear power plant before winning a court case for wrongful dismissal.

Becker says that South Africa has got a ‘very poor’ record of building large power stations and that there is a ‘problematic, cosy relationship’ between the regulator and Eskom. He adds that Eskom no longer has enough people with the technical depth of experience to operate Koeberg satisfactorily.

The board of the NNR is currently appointed by Gwede Mantashe, a very pro-nuclear energy minister, Becker adds. That directly contradicts the 1994/1996 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear safety convention which explicitly mandates the independence of regulatory bodies, he says. And in a 2013 report, the IAEA found that while the country’s nuclear regulatory framework was robust, it flagged that the nuclear regulator had insufficient independence. ‘The NNR has never said no to Eskom,’ Becker says.

The failures that led to the release of radioactive material in June and July were a result of the fact that many skilled nuclear workers have left South Africa for the UAE’s Barakah Nuclear Energy plant, Becker says. ‘I know somebody who works [at Barakah] who used to work at Koeberg and he tells me approximately 150 people who used to work at Koeberg are now working there,’ he says.

The skills flight to foreign nuclear plants like Barakah is a concern, Serfontein agrees. Young nuclear engineers can be trained on the job and catch up on the technicalities, he says. However, replacing 25 years of plant-specific institutional memory is a high bar. ‘Yes, short-term safety metrics at Koeberg remain acceptable, however the loss of senior engineering skills creates ongoing, long-term risks for routine maintenance schedules,’ he says.

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Militarization is spreading through Germany’s health sector

Militarization is advancing across the health sector in Germany, yet the impact of these plans is not yet fully grasped by the public, warn activists from the Association of Democratic Doctors.

BREAKTHROUGH NEWS, Peoples Health Dispatch, January 31 2026

Europe’s militarization drive is gathering pace, with Germany leading the charge. People’s Health Dispatch spoke with Manuel Funk and Nadja Rakowitz from the Association of Democratic Doctors (Verein demokratischer Ärzt*innen, vdää*) about the consequences for the health system and for people’s right to health.

People’s Health Dispatch: Militarization has become a central political issue across Europe, and the German government is investing heavily in military spending. Large amounts of public money are going into defense, there is renewed discussion about conscription, and public debate increasingly frames war as inevitable. From the perspective of the Association of Democratic Doctors’ (vdää*) members, how do you interpret the current political moment?

Manuel Funk and Nadja Rakowitz: Our solidarity goes to the victims of the war, war opponents, deserters, and healthcare workers on all sides. Current developments have also affected our association, where members hold diverse views. While we have faced criticism and (very) few resignations, we continue to engage in debate and education.

At this point, in Germany, public funds are being used not only for defense, but also for shaping public attitudes. The Bundeswehr (the German armed forces) now publishes official videos showing German soldiers at night, by firelight, shouting “hurrah” when their general tells them they are working toward becoming “capable of winning.” The German army wants to win again. Beware, Europe. When they discuss a possible war, officials speak of the “Eastern Front,” and the “enemy” in public debate is clearly Russia – often personalized as Vladimir Putin. In our view, this taps into old anti-Russian sentiments and is becoming increasingly irrational.

Nowadays, it is once again socially acceptable to express pride in a grandfather who “fought against the Russians back then” – that is, in the Nazi Wehrmacht or even the SS. Statements like this no longer cause scandal, and even politicians from parties such as the Green Party sometimes make them.

As opponents of war, we are also critics of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Violations of international law, such as attacks on healthcare facilities, must be condemned. However, we believe this war cannot be won, and cannot be ended, with more weapons and more warfare. It can only come to an end through diplomacy and negotiations, which were lacking beforehand.

MF/NR: In Germany, we are not only experiencing militarization, but also an ongoing economic crisis. GDP has been shrinking for several years, and unemployment is rising. In such situations, politicians always threaten cuts to social spending. We are currently seeing this in the solidarity-based health insurance system, which covers about 90% of the population. A hospital reform is also underway, aiming to close hundreds of hospitals and centralize services in large facilities. This reform was originally justified as a cost-saving move, regardless of militarization. Since last year, however, militarization has added a new layer, leading to new austerity measures in the social sector.

This is all happening alongside the development of a war economy. Large sums are being invested not only in arms production, but also in preparing society for war. Roads and bridges are therefore being built or renovated, and the German Hospital Association has even proposed building underground hospitals. A first concrete project of this kind already exists in Cologne.

In this context too, the Bundeswehr actively lures people with financial incentives: a salary of around €2,600, along with benefits such as a driver’s license for all those who enlist. For young people facing unemployment or precarious job prospects, this can be a convincing option. And once again, it is certainly not the children of doctors or politicians who are affected, but again people from working-class backgrounds. This also applies to people whose parents or grandparents migrated to Germany: those with German citizenship who often face discrimination in the labor market and are therefore more vulnerable to this kind of recruitment.

NATO’s demand that members raise military spending to 5% of GDP will affect roughly 45% of the total federal budget in Germany. It is clear that such spending will lead to terrible social cuts, exacerbating inequality and social disadvantage.

Healthcare will worsen further if the ongoing economization of the system is not stopped, but instead accelerated. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….https://breakthroughnews.org/2026/01/31/militarization-is-spreading-through-germanys-health-sector/

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Second reactor manufactured for floating nuclear plant

Thursday, 24 September 2026, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/second-reactor-manufactured-for-floating-nuclear-plant

The second RITM-200C small modular reactor unit has been manufactured for the floating nuclear power plant destined to supply electricity to a copper mining centre in Chukotka.

The floating nuclear power plant, FPU-106, will feature two of the 58 MWe RITM-200C reactors – the first was manufactured in May and is at the shipyard awaiting installation. The units have been manufactured at Rosatom’s Mechanical Engineering Division’s ZiO-Podolsk plant.

Anton Lebedev, head of ZiO-Podolsk, said: “2026 has been a landmark year for ZiO-Podolsk’s mechanical engineering teams: for the first time, we have produced a complete set of RITM units for a floating nuclear power plant that will supply power to an industrial cluster in the Russian North. This is an important step in the global development of small modular nuclear power. The plant has also set a record this year: in less than a year, four RITM-family units have already been manufactured, with five more in production.”

The RITM-200C is an adapted version of the RITM-200 reactors used on Russia’s nuclear icebreaker fleet.

In total, the Baimskaya development requires around 300 MWe, therefore, three such 100+ MWe floating power plants are needed, while a fourth will be installed as backup for outages during refuelling and maintenance.

Russia has the world’s only operating floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov which began commercial operation in May 2020. It is based, with its coastal infrastructure, by the city of Pevek – population 5,000 – to which it supplies heat and power in Russia’s Arctic Chukotka region.

The Akademik Lomonosov has two KLT-40S reactors generating 35 MWe each, which are similar to those used in a previous generation of nuclear-powered icebreakers. It has the capacity to provide electricity to a city with a population of up to 100,000 people.

As well as the four floating power units under construction, Rosatom is targeting the export market for floating nuclear power plants.

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

US-Turkey agreement to accelerate SMR deployment

Thursday, 24 September 2026, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/us-turkey-agreement-to-accelerate-smr-deployment

The US Trade and Development Agency has signed an agreement with Turkey’s state-owned nuclear development enterprise TÜNAŞ to fund technical assistance to create the regulatory, institutional, and financial roadmap needed for Turkish private sector companies to deploy small modular reactor nuclear technology.

Last November, Turkey’s energy minister set out a target to deploy 5000 MWe of small modular reactor (SMR) capacity – in addition to 12 larger reactors – by 2050. The US Trade and Development Agency’s (USTDA) assistance will identify the policy and investment steps needed to bring SMRs to market, producing recommendations to TÜNAŞ that Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the Turkish Nuclear Regulatory Authority can then use to establish a clear, workable framework for SMR deployment through updates to the country’s nuclear regulations and procedures, USTDA said.

The work will also include a review of how US reactor designs could meet Turkey’s needs, which USTDA said will give US SMR companies an early entry point into Turkey’s civil nuclear sector.

According to Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, the year-long study will evaluate SMR designs from four US companies, as well as five 4th generation US reactor designs, from technical, economic, regulatory and licensing perspectives, culminating in the preparation of technical reports. The agreement has a budget of around USD2 million, with USTDA covering the technical work.

“Our goal is to advance TÜNAŞ’s efforts to create the conditions for deploying SMRs, which can increase energy security for Türkiye while providing opportunities for U.S. companies,” USTDA Deputy Director Thomas Hardy said. “This framework will incorporate international expertise in this fast-moving field while tailoring it to Türkiye’s specific needs.”

The USTDA acts as the US government’s “first mover” on critical infrastructure development in emerging markets, advancing shared priorities with partner countries while creating opportunities for deployment of US solutions. Amongst other things, it funds up-front technical work that accelerates the development of infrastructure projects, helping them attract the financing they need for implementation and procurement of US goods and services.

TÜNAŞ (Türkiye Nükleer Enerji Anonim Şirketi) is a subsidiary of Turkish state generating company Elektrik Üretim AŞ (EÜAŞ) and was established in 2022 to carry out the construction, operation, maintenance, and repair of nuclear power plants in Turkey.

The agreement was signed in New York by Hardy and TÜNAŞ General Manager Necati Yamaç in the presence of Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, who said: “In line with our 2053 Net Zero Emissions and full energy independence goals, we are determined to diversify our energy mix. In addition to our large-scale nuclear power plants, we will resolutely continue to build a strong and modern energy infrastructure by meticulously studying the most suitable alternatives for our country’s needs.”

Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, comprising four Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors, is under construction at Akkuyu in the southern Mersin province. It is being built by Russia’s Rosatom under a so-called BOO (build-own-operate) model. TÜNAŞ has previously signed memorandums of understanding on nuclear cooperation covering project development, technology transfer, site evaluation and financing with Korea Electric Power Corporation and Canada’s Candu Energy, part of AtkinsRéalis.

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Turkey | Leave a comment

Britain’s elites want you ready to die for a war they keep imagining

As the warnings about Russia grow louder, the public is being told to fear more, question less and prepare for war

Tarik Cyril Amar, 24 Sep, 2026, https://www.rt.com/news/646177-britains-elites-want-you-die/

Great Britain is going through a war scare. Or to be precise, its combined political and media establishment is subjecting its people to a relentless propaganda (in up-to-date NATO-speak “cognitive warfare”) campaign to create a sense of impending war against Russia.

As you would expect, that war is, of course, framed as strictly defensive. In propaganda textbook manner, the message is both very simple and very repetitive: The UK is in great danger of a Russian attack, and its whole population must prepare itself to withstand and resist it.

It goes without saying that Moscow’s repeated declarations of having no such intention make no difference.

Britain is certainly not alone in its establishment-induced hysteria. Much of NATO-EU Europe is undergoing, in essence, the same treatment. In France, for instance, President Emmanuel Macron has called a theatrical all-manicured-hands-on-deck meeting to give what can only be called a national scare talk about “Russian hybrid warfare”; in Germany, Berlin and its mainstream media won’t stop stirring the pot about the murky drone affair at Leipzig-Halle airport.

Yet, over the last weeks, within a crowded field of European panic-mongering, Britain has stuck out as especially virulent. The single most grotesque contribution was made by uber-Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg. Comfortably seated against a backdrop that screamed country-squire probity, Rees-Mogg held forth on war within the next few years, ancient Rome (he’s been to Eton, he wants you to know) and, most importantly, “circumstances where people may have to die.” Either that or – so Rees-Mogg’s stern message – decline and fall, as happened to those Romans, who let mercenaries do their fighting and thus lost their empire.

So much to unpack. For one thing, the reference to paying others to fight – and die – must be a Freudian slip. Surely, Sir Jacob cannot have meant to refer to how the West, Britain very much included, has paid the Kiev regime to send its subjects – if need be, after kidnapping them – into the folly of a proxy war meatgrinder to demote Russia. And then, that Roman Empire analogy? Clearly, Rees-Mogg, true to type, is still struggling with the fact that Britain has its imperial collapse well behind it already.

Yet, sour oddball as he is, the arch-conservative – and multimillionaire – Rees-Mogg is perfectly representative of the current British establishment trend. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, for instance, has just used his first UN General Assembly address in New York to blame his country’s misery not on, say, his predecessor and Labour Party comrade Keir Starmer, but on Russia.

Meanwhile, at home, Sky News is rolling out ‘The Wargame’, a bizarre “docu”-fantasy in four parts, built on the premise that the Russians are coming, no, they really, really ARE this time!

Pretending to be a sort of “realistic” account of what a British government would do in case of Moscow launching a series of escalating attacks, this production – from available reviews – is unusually awful shlock. It features has-been politicos doubling as un-reality TV stars, such as Michael Gove and Nicola Sturgeon, and living out their inner Tom Clancy by pretending to be serious, decisive, and, most of all, terribly important to the nation’s survival.

Unintentionally funny, though, as it may be, ‘The Wargame’ clearly has substantial political support and much hype around it. Propaganda can easily look ridiculous and be highly toxic at the same time. Because effective propaganda is, above all, one simple thing: the psychological manipulation of the many by the few. This is such a case. The viewers of ‘The Wargame’ are fed a silly but efficiently dramatized story, with the whole bag of well-worn but powerful tricks: suspense, shock, and, last but not least, a thrilling score.

It’s no surprise that the attitude of those doing the manipulating is, at best, patronizing. And to be fair even to the unbearable, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who carefully tends his beyond-caricature English-toff image, is quite honest about his disdain for ordinary people and their expendable lives. From his always obstinately ill-fitting yet clearly expensively tailored suit to the diction of a terribly bored yet forbearing Eton headmaster, his performance oozes good old upper-class condescension.

When Rees-Mogg tells you that you may have to die, you know he won’t lose sleep over it, because you are you, and he – well, he is something entirely different and, really, much better (and, as it happens, richer, too), of course.

In a Sky News interview, the UK’s Chief of the Defense Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, has revealed a less excentric as well as more insidious approach to the masses. Referring to a “national conversation on defense,” both he and his interviewer took it for granted that the purpose of such a conversation is to remedy “what the British public hasn’t got, […] haven’t understood.”

What a delicate way to start a “conversation”: let me tell you how damn slow you are and where you need to catch up. Not: Let’s exchange views and respect each other as equal citizens. Indeed, it’s not only very rude – what has happened to English manners? – but positively Orwellian to call such offensively complacent preaching a “conversation.”

Marshal Knighton’s idea of how the British can and must do better was no less revealing: In essence, be more like the Estonians or, at least, the Swedes. Because in Estonia “the threat from Russia” is “part of normal daily conversation,” and in Sweden, they are at least trying to achieve the same single-minded obsessiveness.

There you have it, chums on the homefront: Make an effort, will you now? Learn from the worst, get a grip, and make your whole life turn around the fear we tell you to feel.

And don’t you dare notice that – how embarrassing, really – it is precisely the Estonian authorities who, notwithstanding their generally record-level Russophobia – have just called on everyone in NATO-EU Europe to cool it.

Because, those unpredictable Estonians tell us, the Russia-at-the-gates narrative “has been blown completely out of proportion. For example, Russia makes some adjustments on the other side of the Narva River and now everyone across NATO is losing their heads and hyperventilating over it,” while, in reality, “there is absolutely no reason to believe that Russia is imminently going to launch a military attack on NATO, Estonia, or the Baltic states.” Oops.

Unfortunately, war propaganda is almost immune to its own absurdities, inconsistencies, and plain silliness. Because it is designed to operate not by appealing to reason but to fear, stereotypes, and conformism. A conformism that some British establishment members already openly want to reinforce by locking up any dissenters.

The true weak spot of this warmongering may be its arrogance. There are signs on social media that many Brits do not appreciate their establishment’s latest efforts to scare and mobilize them for senseless war. Let’s hope that the mix of threats and condescension – displayed by a snob as gleefully aloof as Rees-Mogg, an officer-bureaucrat as clumsily tactless as Knighton, and the makers of something as slick as ‘The Wargame’ – rubs much of the country the wrong way. The “elites” are insane and malevolent. Any hope for peace and a return to reason will have to come from below.

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Xi in Washington: A Test of Strategic Stability

Biljana Vankovska, 26 Sept 26

The reciprocal visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington is a logical topic for analysis following their historic meeting in May. Many assess its importance as historic, more because of the dramatic moment in which it took place than because of its concrete results. Nevertheless, following the scandalous address by US President Donald Trump from the podium of the UN General Assembly, every analyst also faces a moral and principled dilemma: can this leader be trusted? The speech contained at least four flagrant violations of the UN Charter, but who knows how many more in the context of human rights. One way to overcome the shock, and then the enormous difference between the two leaders, is to say that “Trump has his own style” (and nobody can stop him from that, however much it may create a feeling of revulsion). The second observation would be that, from that podium, leaders most often address their domestic audience rather than the world. Trump is a president with enormous domestic problems: low public support, economic pressures and military ventures that show more the weakness of the military giant than its superiority. He is also facing a very important electoral test at the beginning of November, when support in Congress will be measured.

On the other hand, the guest arrived without the need to address his own public from some distant country, nor to show his muscles or successes. China’s achievements speak for themselves. And day by day, the gap between the two economies, their technological, industrial, energy and other development, is only deepening.

Some analysts wondered why Xi did not address the UN in New York, but instead chose to visit only the White House (at the UN, his vice-president spoke). But the message is clear: first, the two countries have many things to discuss, and it is no exaggeration to say that world peace and security depend on their mutual relationship and understanding. Just as a person cannot choose their parents or the place where they are born, states are also forced to coexist, even when some members of the community break all the rules of morality, decency and honour. As ordinary people, we can choose our company and our friends, but statesmen (especially wise ones) do not have that luxury. Their greatest attention is directed precisely towards points of escalation and growing differences. Therefore, although it sounds paradoxical, coexistence and communication are most important when the world is facing a deep crisis and needs to find a way out. This is particularly true when the (until recently) hegemon is falling apart both internally and externally; then it is at its most dangerous and unpredictable (which does not necessarily have anything to do with the personality of the current president, who is a story in himself).

The formula on which the leaders of the two largest economies extended their hands to each other in Beijing, let us recall, is: constructive strategic stability. Although I have written about this on several occasions, it is necessary to stress again that this formula contains the wisdom of not allowing the boat to rock more than is inevitable, of managing crises step by step, issue by issue, or at least maintaining communication — because the alternative is apocalyptic. This is precisely the message from Xi about avoiding the Thucydides Trap (mentioned both in Beijing and Washington), that is, finding a way for the two sides to respect their differences, to be aware of potential clashes, but to work continuously (and constructively) to avoid an outcome that for one side would amount to a major defeat. He defined it masterfully as relations of “healthy competition, proper management of differences through seeking common ground while respecting differences, and building peace by nurturing mutual trust, so that constructive China-US relations of strategic stability can be of greater benefit to both peoples, as well as to peoples around the world”. Stability (in this formula) does not mean permanence and immutability of the present state of affairs, but careful resolution of problems through the building of relations in which there are neither winners nor humiliated losers………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://biljanavankovska.substack.com/p/xi-in-washington-a-test-of-strategic?r=4ds0bd&utm_medium=ios

September 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international | Leave a comment