Bangladesh nuclear plant draws hope — and worry
Daily Mail, By AFP, 7 October 2026
Bangladesh is preparing to switch on its first nuclear power plant, a long-delayed project promising relief from chronic electricity shortages — even as some fear living beside it.
The 2.4-gigawatt Rooppur nuclear plant, a $13-billion project more than a decade in the making, has transformed the once sleepy nearby village of the same name, bringing Russian workers, new businesses and jobs.
Once fully operational, its two reactors are expected to supply more than 10 percent of electricity demand in the South Asian nation of 170 million people, which has been hit hard by the fuel crisis sparked by the conflict in the Middle East.
For Md Zahedul Hasan, managing director of state-owned Nuclear Power Plant Company Bangladesh, the giant complex represents the culmination of a decades-old ambition to bring nuclear power to the country.
The plant’s first reactor is scheduled to be turned on by the end of this year, and the second unit “will be operational within a year”, Hasan said at the site on the banks of the Padma River, 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Dhaka.
Bangladesh’s power sector is dominated by fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, with coal, oil and renewables making up the rest.
The project, built with Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, has also brought an unlikely Russian enclave to rural Bangladesh.
Thousands of Russian workers have spent years building and installing equipment, with a residential complex, shops and restaurants springing up around them.
Shop signs appear in Bangla, English and Russian, while some restaurants serve borscht soup alongside local dishes.
Alexander Vladimirovich Skvortsov, a Russian installation technician, said he had a choice between working in Turkey or Bangladesh. He chose Rooppur, moving there with his family in 2024.
“When I first saw the construction site at Rooppur, I realized how much work lay ahead on this project… honestly, Rooppur changed me and my life,” he told AFP………………………………………….
Md Yunus Ali, 80, whose home is a 15-minute walk from the plant, said opposition to building a nuclear facility in the densely populated area dates back decades.
“A few days ago, they ran a compressor test with a big bang… even the children who were asleep woke up in fear,” said Ali, a retired paper mill worker.
“I am old now, and I am not afraid for my life… but I have children and grandchildren, and I want safety for them.”
The ambition to build a nuclear power plant at Rooppur dates back to the 1960s.
Several attempts came after independence, including approaches to Saudi Arabia and France, and talks with China and South Korea. No deals materialised.
Bangladesh finally signed an agreement with Moscow in 2015, with the Russian state offering a loan covering about 90 percent of the project’s original cost.
Construction began in 2017.
The project has since faced delays, including disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic and sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, which complicated equipment deliveries and payments.
There have also been corruption allegations surrounding the project, including against ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and members of her family. They have rejected the accusations……………… https://www.dailymail.com/wires/afp/article-16188867/Bangladesh-nuclear-plant-draws-hope–worry.html
How much longer can the world absorb the Iran shock?
The war that was intended to deliver a swift overthrow of the Iranian
regime is now in its eighth month, with no end in sight. So, what might
happen next?
My preliminary conclusion is that one should never
underestimate human stupidity or human ingenuity. So far it is a rough draw
between the two. How long will this last?
That is the question. In a
devastating analysis, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago
describes the war on Iran as “The Mother of All Strategic Blunders”.
Among other things, he notes, the US went into the war on the false claim
that Iran was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon; it thought air
power alone would produce regime change, which has never worked; it had no
contingency plan for dealing with Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
It has also failed to achieve any of its four principal objectives —
regime change, ending Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability, ending its
long-range missile capability and ending its support for Hamas, Hizbollah
and the Houthis.
The closure of the strait has done significant damage to
the international economy and may do much more; and the US alliance
structure (in the Gulf and elsewhere) has been damaged. All this, moreover,
is only about half of the full charge sheet.
But the economic damage has
been surprisingly modest. As Johannes Urpelainen of the Johns Hopkins
School of Advanced International Studies noted in August, “Many experts
initially thought that this supply disruption would send oil prices to USD
200 per barrel, causing massive inflation and a global recession. Instead,
oil prices peaked at USD 126 per barrel in April 2026.”
First, the energy
transition has reduced the global economy’s dependence on oil. Second,
supply chains have proven resilient and adaptive. Third, producers outside
the Middle East have acted fast to produce more oil and natural gas.
Finally, drawdowns of global oil inventories have filled the remaining gap.
FT 7th Oct 2026, https://www.ft.com/content/37e12a42-d473-4b1b-8fc5-4ea5f06d3bfb
Training campus expansion to support Sizewell C project
The expansion of a construction and engineering training campus in Suffolk
has been backed to train up to 3,000 people over five years. Phase two of
the Lound Civil Campus at East Coast College will provide training linked
to the Sizewell C nuclear power station and other Nationally Significant
Infrastructure Projects, according to East Suffolk Council.
The project
received £2.1m from the Asset Skills Enhancement and Capability Fund,
which is managed by Suffolk County Council, East Suffolk Council and the
client Sizewell C Ltd. The expanded campus is designed to provide training
for “up to 3,000” new entrants, career changers and existing workers
seeking additional construction and engineering skills, East Suffolk
Council said. Courses will focus on civil engineering and construction
trades, with the college working alongside regional employers to identify
workforce requirements.
Construction News 6th Oct 2026,
https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/skills/training-campus-expansion-to-support-sizewell-c-project-06-10-2026/
Plans to reduce armed Civil Nuclear Constabulary escorts
“I think it’s a bad idea, it really is. The reason you’ve got to guard this stuff in the first place is because of how dangerous it is.
“Anyone who gets hold of this material can use it for anything they want, they can use it for a dirty bomb, they can use it for a poisoning device.
“That’s why you need to have a strong deterrence force around the material in transit.”
7th October, By Gareth Cavanagh
NUCLEAR industry plans to reduce armed police escorts for some movements of radioactive material have raised concerns about security.
Removing “mandatory Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) armed escorts where they do not provide a proportionate security benefit,” is the proposal from Nuclear Transport Solutions, in response to a Government review.
Proposals for reducing unnecessary armed escorts were included in a collective NDA (Nuclear Decommissioning Authority) Group response to the review.
The Government’s Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce Review called for an end to the regulatory red tape that it believes is frustrating progress in the nuclear industry.
Sellafield Limited and Nuclear Waste Services had its own ideas in response to the review but NTS wants risk-based security requirements for certain nuclear material movements.
Rail movements of hazardous waste occur regularly to and from Sellafield site near Seascale.
Reprocessed waste is also returned to overseas customers by sea from Barrow Docks, after being taken there from Sellafield by train.
NTS says the change could reduce the cost and complexity of transport while maintaining safety and security.
It’s response estimates cost
savings of 10 to 20 per cent, if security controls were optimised rather than removed.
It also predicts time savings of four to eight weeks from the planning process.
However, concerns have been expressed about the possible effect of reducing armed protection during transport.
CNC carries out armed escorts for NTS movements of hazardous material.
It also guards the gates of Sellafield and has a police headquarters on the site.
Matt Okuhara, who served with the force from 2006 to 2012 has criticised the proposal in The i Paper.
He said: “I think it’s a bad idea, it really is. The reason you’ve got to guard this stuff in the first place is because of how dangerous it is.
“Anyone who gets hold of this material can use it for anything they want, they can use it for a dirty bomb, they can use it for a poisoning device.
“That’s why you need to have a strong deterrence force around the material in transit.”
A spokesperson for the NDA Group said the proposed changes would not remove the need for security arrangements.
Instead, NTS would be able to choose measures according to the circumstances of each shipment, while meeting regulatory requirements……………………………………………..
NDA bosses say some transport arrangements remain prescribed by the regulator, meaning some shipments must use armed police escorts even where routes and materials are considered lower risk. https://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/26611260.plans-reduce-armed-civil-nuclear-constabulary-escorts/
Israel is rewriting the Palestinian curriculum in East Jerusalem to erase Palestinian identity
Now, these tens of thousands of Palestinian children, for the first time since Israel illegally annexed and occupied the city in 1967, are using the Israeli curriculum as part of an effort to “Israelize” the schools.
Nearly 38 percent of Palestinian students in East Jerusalem now study the Israeli curriculum, while the rest of the students’ textbooks are being censored line by line, stripping mention of Jerusalem, prisoners, the Nakba, and freedom fighters.
By Aseel Mafarjeh Mondoweiss, October 5, 2026
Sally Assi, 34, recalled watching her 11-year-old daughter, Aline, a third-grader at Nour al-Huda School in the town of Beit Hanina in occupied East Jerusalem, arrange her drawing supplies before asking her, “Do you know why we draw Jerusalem?”
“Because it’s beautiful… right?” Aline answered.
Assi smiled, but her question to her daughter wasn’t really about drawing. “Jerusalem isn’t just walls and the Dome of the Rock,” Assi told Mondoweiss. “Jerusalem, to our generation and the generations before us, is a living history. It has cities, people, prisoners, stories, dreams.”
What Assi is describing from her kitchen in the town of Betunia, adjacent to Ramallah, is not an isolated worry among Palestinian parents whose children attend schools in East Jerusalem, under the control of the Israeli Ministry of Education. It is the front line of a rapid, Israeli-driven transformation of Palestinian education in the occupied city, where the Israeli curriculum has become mandatory for every first- and seventh-grade class as of this school year, affecting well over a third of Palestinian students in East Jerusalem.
Now, these tens of thousands of Palestinian children, for the first time since Israel illegally annexed and occupied the city in 1967, are using the Israeli curriculum as part of an effort to “Israelize” the schools. In addition, the remaining two-thirds of the Palestinian student body have been subjected to invasive Israeli alterations to the existing Palestinian curriculum, which has included the wholesale deletion of phrases, images, and symbols that denote Palestinian national identity, most significantly references to the Nakba of 1948 and altered phrasings around themes such as Jerusalem, prisoners, and Palestinian heritage.
It’s this quiet encroachment on Palestinian textbooks, as much as the wholesale replacement, that worries Assi most. “We don’t want our children to learn hatred, and we don’t want them to carry pain without meaning,” she said in an indirect reference to Israeli claims that Palestinian textbooks teach children to “hate.”
“But we want them to know the truth,” she added.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… A trajectory decades in the making
Israeli affairs analyst Esmat Mansour says this shift didn’t begin this year, nor was it imposed by sudden decree. It’s a trajectory that has accumulated for decades, starting with early attempts to impose the Israeli curriculum after the 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem, which was blocked by parent and teacher resistance, keeping the Jordanian curriculum in place for years.
“When the Palestinian Authority was established, the Palestinian curriculum became the city’s reference text,” Mansour told Mondoweiss. “But it never entered classrooms without passing through Israeli review. Books were revised before approval, so the cover stayed Palestinian while the content was reshaped from within. Today, that has escalated into something bolder: direct expansion of the Israeli curriculum itself, not as a marginal alternative but as a primary track competing for the city’s children”.
That pattern of internal revision is exactly what Hebrew University researcher Samira Alian documented in a recent academic study
What Assi is describing, in her kitchen in the town of Betunia, is not an isolated worry among Palestinian parents whose children attend schools under the control of the Israeli Ministry of Education. It is the front line of a rapid, Israeli-driven transformation of Palestinian education in occupied East Jerusalem, where the Israeli curriculum has become mandatory for every first- and seventh-grade class as of this school year.
Now, thousands of Palestinian children in East Jerusalem, for the first time since Israel illegally annexed and occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, are using the Israeli curriculum, as part of an effort to “Israelize” the schools.
It’s this quiet encroachment, as much as the wholesale replacement, that worries Assi most. “We don’t want our children to learn hatred, and we don’t want them to carry pain without meaning — but we want them to know the truth.”
A conflict that moved inside the classroom
In East Jerusalem, the fight over education is now no longer about the number of schools or classroom seats alone. It has moved into the classroom itself, into the book students open each morning, the terms their eyes land on, the images they study, the history they’re taught, and the narrative that will shape how they understand themselves in their city for years to come.
With the start of the 2026-2027 school year, that shift entered a more decisive phase: the Israeli curriculum has been imposed ………………………………………….. https://mondoweiss.net/2026/10/israel-is-rewriting-the-palestinian-curriculum-in-east-jerusalem-to-erase-palestinian-identity/
The normalising of nuclear
6 October 2026 Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.net/the-normalising-of-nuclear/
The facts on the nuclear industry’s effects on health and environment are now seen through a blur of discussion on climate change, and costs, and connection with military power, and it all seems too hard to grasp. When the UK’s Green Party decides to go sorta kinder pro-nuclear, well, nuclear power and nuclear weapons are beginning to look sort of OK and normal.
We are in a strange period of time, in which things previously agreed on, are now up for doubts and denial. Just as an example, in Australia, free infant vaccinations supplied by the government have pretty much been for many decades considered mandatory (although not legally mandatory). Now infant vaccination rates are falling. This fall reflects a loss of trust in health authorities. Most Australian children still do receive the full schedule of vaccines, but there’s a lessening of understanding of the reasons behind the programme. That’s combined with misinformation about vaccination as the cause of autism, among other false claims.
That’s just one very important example of the atmosphere of doubt and distrust that is becoming more prevalent in society at large, and Australia is not immune from this “fog of disbelief” about public health.
The vaccination issue is particularly misunderstood and dangerous, because that programme depends on “herd immunity.” A century ago, Australian families were all too likely to lose several of their many children to infectious diseases. In any old country cemetery in Victoria, you will find a whole lot of graves of infants, who died 100 years ago, many from the same families. Over the 20th Century a universal programme of infant vaccination revolutionised that, and survival rates for children rocketed up.
Well, I certainly have strayed away from my main theme – which is the growing acceptance of the nuclear industry as probably OK. I do think that social media, with its briefness and lack of fact-checking has contributed to the blurring of information, and the growing distrust of genuine experts.
What is happening in the UK, under a Labour government, is a definite case of the blurring of information about the nuclear industry. This started in 2006, with Tony Blair reversing Labour’s opposition to new nuclear, and it steadily moved on to Keir Starmer’s enthusiasm for it in 2025. Now the UK Labour government has a seemingly more moderate and “leftish” Prime Minister, with a more nuanced approach to things nuclear. Their latest effort is acting on the report of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce Review, which recommends a “radical reset” of the UK’s nuclear regulatory framework to streamline approvals, reduce costs, and support safe, rapid delivery of civil and defence nuclear projects. So, the The UK’s Environment Agency is moving towards treating nuclear energy more like other industries by implementing a Nuclear Transformation Programme. It is an almost imperceptible change.
But it is such a telling change. No other industry has this extraordinary feature – that it involves the highly toxic fuels of uranium and plutonium, that its very essence is in splitting the atom to release ionising radiation As there has not been a nuclear disaster since 2011, it seems to be accepted by the powers that be that there will never be another one. At the same time, today’s warfare of drones and missiles raises a scary idea that a weapon might strike a nuclear facility. No other industry has this unique vulnerability that a great spread of toxic radiation would result from such a hit.
The dangerous effects of ionising radiation have been recognised since 1896, and confirmed more recently in several scientific studies, such as cancer mortality after low dose exposure to ionising radiation in workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States (INWORKS): cohort study. And we all think it’s fine, we don’t think twice, as the radiographer darts out of the room when we have an X-ray.
So the nuclear industry is not like other industries. It has always had exceptional regulations to deal with this unique danger. Now the USA under Trump is denying the danger, and trashing the safety regulations. You might expect a British Labour government to have a more principled approach to health and safety. But, under the pressures of propaganda, of industry lobbying, of determination to stay in power, this process of normalisation of nuclear is underway in the UK.
Who can we turn to, to speak truth to power? Not the UK Greens. They have just voted to end the party’s opposition to nuclear power, dropping a commitment to phase out the technology in a major shift in its energy policy. Matthew Pearce, The Guardian, has explained this – “The Green MP Carla Denyer said the decision recognised there was a role for nuclear while the country moved towards an electricity system based primarily on renewables.” The article quotes Professor Andrew Stirling, who commented that “the motion was “completely irrational”. “Why would a party that pioneered concerns about nuclear power that have been so broadly vindicated by history, choose now to shift its position?”
One does wonder how long it will be, before something happens. We have been extraordinarily lucky in that the big accidents have been relatively few, and not in recent years. Unfortunately, while people are shocked and concerned about big dramatic accidents, the slow insidious spread of “low level” ionising radiation just goes on, unnoticed. It’s “normal”.
I for one am quite saddened at the UK Greens’ decision. You wonder who is left – anyone in politics, in power, in the media, who is not so hell-bent to hang on to their job, that they might stick their head above the parapet and say NO to nuclear.
Flying Scared: The Evacuation of US Bombers from RAF Fairford
From the aggressively pro-American terrain of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Malcom Davis claimed to have identified the crucial lesson: “that in an age of drone warfare, it is no longer sufficient to assume that aircraft parked in the open are invulnerable to attack.”
7 October 2026Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/flying-scared-the-evacuation-of-us-bombers-from-raf-fairford/
The evacuation of a dozen B-1B bombers of the US Air Force from the RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire is another instalment in the latest rippling of the Iran war that began as a pre-emptive, illegal assault by the US and Israel on the Islamic Republic in late February. This, arguably, came in two parts, the first scripted with the detention and arrest of five men on September 27 in the vicinity of the base on suspicion of committing offences under the Explosives Act and suspicion of preparation of a terrorist act. (Another was arrested on October 1.) All were British nationals based in London and speedily released on police bail. At the time, Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, head of Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP), floated the suggestion that “this may be activity committed by proxies, or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state.” The dust had barely settled before the finger pointing at Iran began. The men in question, according to the police, remained under investigation, with their release “subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others.”
On October 4, the Pentagon announced that “all bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have been re-deployed to their home stations in the United States.” The department, wishing to blunt the significance of this hasty decision, added that the US military bomber force of B-1s, B-2s, and B-52s remained “ready to deliver precious global strike capabilities – including through operations that launch and recover from the continental United States.”
Two days later, Counter Terrorism Policing announced that a further arrest had been made of a dual UK-Iranian man regarding “activity that took place close to RAF Fairford.” The arrest was made “on suspicion of terrorist acts under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.” The Senior National Coordinator for CTP, Vicki Evans, reiterated the line that this remained “a live investigation and our specialist teams continue to pursue multiple lines of enquiry into the circumstances surrounding events near RAF Fairford.”
When asked about whether the movement of the bombers was linked to the September 27 incident, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio proved platitudinous and undetailed. “It’s not unusual to see movement of assets to different parts of the world based on exercises, redeployments, people changing out and new people coming in, new planes coming in and old planes going out.” This front of airy meaninglessness did not take long to vanish. The US Vice President JD Vance added salt to the otherwise dull mix in stating that the bombers had exited the base out of an “abundance of caution.” It was felt that Iran was doing what it had “done for 49 years… which is to engage in acts of terrorism against the US and against a lot of other people.”
President Donald Trump, tongue ever loosened, also told reporters when asked if the bomber redeployment had arisen from any “specific threat” did not hesitate: “Yeah, I think we can say that. They didn’t fly out by accident.” What followed was the usual combination of adulterated facts and twisted tales. There had been “some threats. And rather than tempting the enemy, we’ll capture the enemy and beat the enemy. But why should we leave them there? So we moved them around a little bit. Not very far.” Never one to accept the premise that the US security establishment might err on occasion, the president reiterated the familiar, if long fossilized line: Washington “actually knows the people that made the threat.”
This dramatic decision to move the bombers from a base that hosts the US Air Force’s 501st Combat Support Wing, an important component in the illegal war against Iran, is very much the opposite of what was initially done when a farmer noted the presence of three white vans and a “large group of hooded and masked men” who then attempted to alert the Ministry of Defence police at the airbase. When no response was forthcoming, she made a 999 call to police at 01:36 BST. Within 10 minutes “the village was full of armed police.” She ruminated on the effect of the call: “I believe that my 999 call foiled whatever plans they had.” She was also “absolutely staggered that it was left to me, as a member of the public, to see and report this.” The UK Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, despite thanking the farmer for her call, suggested she only had “a partial picture” of what was unfolding, while Trump, claimed that the men were placed under surveillance “for a long time, and we got them.”
The swift relocation of such costly, vulnerable military hardware in the face of a threat that would, if inflicted, have cost a fraction of any budget, is also a startling reminder of the turns in modern warfare. The Ukrainians demonstrated with formidable efficacy in Operation Spider’s Web how its drones could strike Russian nuclear-capable bombers, allegedly crippling a third of its capacity. Taking place in June last year, it involved the use of 117 modestly priced drones that had been smuggled into Russia via lorries by unwitting drivers. The strikes, taking place across five different time zones with the assistance of the commercial autopilot software ArduPilot and the use of artificial intelligence for targeting purposes, led to an estimated bill amounting to US$7 billion. Some 41 planes were damaged or destroyed.
Operation Spider’s Web drew swooning praise from the cognoscenti. Katja Bego of Chatham House thought it “offered a glimpse into the future of warfare, transformed by access to cheap, widely available technology such as small drones, in which anything, anywhere can become a target.” This, she went on to say, raised “urgent questions” about NATO’s own preparations in the face of such an attack.
Before mighty odds and expensive machinery, new methods of war are proving resourceful, daring and devastating. One palpable absurdity of the Iran War has been the eye-popping costs accruing from the use of heavy weaponry in offence and anti-ballistic missiles such as the THAAD system in defence. This has drained the US inventory, sending Washington’s allies into fits of concern. On a relatively meagre budget, labouring in the face of superior odds and numbers, Tehran has caused mayhem with its drone and missile strikes across the Gulf region. In the case of RAF Fairford, the Iranians, whatever the speculation, did not even need to launch a single drone for an expensive fleet of bombers to be relocated to the continental US.
Despite no official confirmation that Tehran was actually involved, the commentary circuit has been clogged by assessments of a victory for the Islamic Republic. “I think it is hard to conclude anything other than that this will be seen as a success by Iran,” suggests former UK first national security advisor, Lord Peter Ricketts. “Whether it was the intention or whether it’s the inadvertent outcome, it is certainly the outcome that they have now forced the US into a public bring-back of their forces from one of their allies.”
From the aggressively pro-American terrain of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Malcom Davis claimed to have identified the crucial lesson: “that in an age of drone warfare, it is no longer sufficient to assume that aircraft parked in the open are invulnerable to attack.” The US needed “to invest in hardening bases, including developing new hardened aircraft shelters for forward deployed aircraft.” Another, surely cheaper solution would be to refrain from launching criminally foolish wars in the Middle East, or anywhere else, for that matter.
The war against Iran was meant to conclude in a popular insurrection against the theocrats in Tehran and the blooming of various flowers in the Orangerie of democracy. There was no insurrection and certainly no flowering. Instead, the successor regime to those slayed continues to resist with steeliness and wage its battle in the fields of briefings, psychology and economics. So far, it is winning.
Windscale nuclear disaster at Sellafield 69 years ago today
10th October, By Ewan Wishart, https://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/26623785.windscale-nuclear-disaster-sellafield-69-years-ago-today/
TODAY, 69 years ago, a fire broke out on the Cumbrian coast which would become the worst nuclear accident in British history.
On October 10, 1957, workers at Windscale, the site now known as Sellafield, discovered that Pile No. 1, one of two reactors built as part of Britain’s post-war nuclear weapons programme, was on fire.
The reactors had been producing plutonium for Britain’s atomic weapons programme, with the Number One Pile having become operational in 1950.
On October 10, 1957, workers at Windscale, the site now known as Sellafield, discovered that Pile No. 1, one of two reactors built as part of Britain’s post-war nuclear weapons programme, was on fire.
The reactors had been producing plutonium for Britain’s atomic weapons programme, with the Number One Pile having become operational in 1950 10 operators realised something was seriously wrong.
Increasing the airflow in an attempt to cool the reactor instead helped fan the flames, while radioactive material began escaping through its chimney.
Workers eventually saw fuel channels glowing red inside the reactor and battled to bring the unprecedented fire under control.
Former Windscale worker David Staton, who later recalled his role in the emergency to the News & Star, was just 27 when he was summoned to the scene with the message: “Come at once. Pile One is on fire.”
Attempts using carbon dioxide and water were unsuccessful before the shutdown fans were switched off, starving the blaze of oxygen and allowing the water to extinguish it, Mr Staton recalled.
The consequences extended far beyond the site.
Radioactive fallout spread across Britain and Europe, while the distribution of milk from around 200 square miles of surrounding countryside was stopped because of contamination by radioactive iodine. No evacuation of the surrounding population took place.
The accident was subsequently rated Level 5 on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale and remains the UK’s most serious nuclear accident.
The disaster also became entwined with the secrecy of Britain’s Cold War nuclear programme.
The government under Harold Macmillan heavily censored information surrounding the accident, with concerns that disclosure could damage Britain’s nuclear relationship with the United States. The inquiry into the accident was not released in full until 1988.
The contemporary reaction in West Cumbria can still be traced through the Whitehaven News archives.
A week after the disaster, on October 17, 1957, the paper reported that local people would take a long time to regard the atomic plants with the same “complacency” they had before the fire.
The archive also records monitoring vans travelling through the area testing vegetation and air, while farmers were woken during the night and instructed not to sell, drink or feed contaminated milk to their animals.
Later scientific
research has complicated estimates of the disaster’s health impact. Historical estimates based on the radiation released suggested there could have been around 190 additional cancers, about 100 fatal, but subsequent epidemiological studies have not found the predicted increase.
Almost seven decades later, the Windscale Fire remains one of the defining events in the history of Britain’s nuclear industry.
The Pentagon’s Secret Budget
The most obvious place where Congress and the executive branch hide military spending is in the Department of Energy’s budget. That’s where taxpayers can find the bill for the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, which cost around $33.5 billion in 2025.
hundreds of billions of dollars are effectively hidden in the budgets of at least 17 other government agencies and entities. In total, each of these additional sums are larger than what Congress appropriates for every non-military agency
David Vine, CounterPunch. October 2, 2026
News reports that next year’s U.S. military budget will top out at $1.5 trillion if President Donald Trump gets his way are misleading at best. The true total, if Trump’s proposal passes, could be at least $1 trillion higher.
Long before Trump took office, U.S. taxpayers have spent far more on the Pentagon — and its wars — than most know. For decades, Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon have hidden the military’s true cost through little-known bureaucratic practices and budgeting tricks. Journalists, academics, and think tank experts have, with rare exceptions, perpetuated the problem by repeating “official” numbers that don’t come close to telling the full story.
Data shows that the budget was already between $1.5 trillion and $1.8 trillion in the last full fiscal year, 2025, as detailed by a recent Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, report I co-authored. Trump’s requests would add another $781 billion, bringing the potential total to at least $2.581 trillion in 2027.
The troubling revelation that the government is misleading the public and effectively hiding hundreds of billions in military spending reflects the out-of-control nature of the Pentagon budget. It’s also the only sector of government spending that seems largely insulated from public scrutiny: Imagine the outrage if news broke that the government was hiding hundreds of billions in spending for public housing, Medicaid, or hunger prevention programs.
People have a right to know how much tax money goes to military spending. This is critical to debating the proper size of the military budget both on its own and compared to other spending priorities, particularly any program related to education or the social safety net. Understanding the military’s true cost means understanding where and how the government has been hiding the money.
Spending Hidden in Other Budgets
It’s difficult to untangle how much the country actually spends on the military in part because Congress pays for the armed forces and wars from many budgets rather than one. Beyond the agency controlling the military branches that Trump calls the “Department of War” (the official name is still the Department of Defense), hundreds of billions of dollars are effectively hidden in the budgets of at least 17 other government agencies and entities. In total, each of these additional sums are larger than what Congress appropriates for every non-military agency.
For years, TomDispatch and a small but mostly ignored group of budget experts have warned that total military spending is far higher than reported. Our new POGO report consolidates this prior work and five different methodologies for calculating the true military budget. The report shows a consensus that military spending was at least $1.5 trillion, with three of five methods reaching similar estimates of $1.7 trillion to $1.8 trillion.
The newest of the five methodologies provides the easiest way for anyone to see the hidden spending. The methodology uses data from a government website, USAspending.gov, the product of a 2006 law requiring the government “to give the American public access to information on how their tax dollars are being spent.” The site includes the closest thing to actual spending receipts, making it easier to identify military spending beyond the Department of War’s budget.
Let’s take a look at where the money’s hiding.
Hidden Nuclear Weapons Costs: $33.8 Billion
The most obvious place where Congress and the executive branch hide military spending is in the Department of Energy’s budget. That’s where taxpayers can find the bill for the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, which cost around $33.5 billion in 2025.
The Department of War controls and deploys these weapons, and their costs should properly be part of its budget, not rolled into the Department of Energy. While the Energy Department plays a role in overseeing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, putting nuclear weapons spending in the DOE’s budget is like a city putting the costs of its police department’s bullets in its transportation department budget rather than in the police budget.
Another $300 million in nuclear weapons spending hides in the budgets of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and the Army Corps of Engineers, bringing the total to nearly $34 billion.
Hidden Military Personnel (Veterans) Costs: $393.3 Billion
Taxpayers spend huge sums on the military in the Department of Veterans Affairs and related budgets. The existence of a separate veterans’ agency is a sleight of hand that leads the public to believe this is not military spending. It is. The only difference is the appropriation of money to still another agency……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The True Cost of the Department of War: $1.3 Trillion
The bulk of military expenditures still appear in the Department of War’s budget, which pays for the armed forces and the rest of the Pentagon’s sprawling bureaucracy, including all the weapons, salaries, some benefits, military construction, fuel, maintenance, operational expenses, and much more. USAspending.gov receipts show the Department of War alone spent $1.273 trillion in 2025. The Pentagon controlled another $480 million in spending that hid in the budgets of the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Transportation.
Combined with the $444.8 billion tallied previously, total military spending hits $1.718 trillion. That’s more than double the military budget usually reported for 2025: the $850 billion Congress appropriated to the Department of War.
Still Other Costs
The $1.7 trillion estimate for last year is conservative and still may be too low. While the War Department budget contains classified funding for the CIA, National Security Agency, and other intelligence agencies, the government may hide more intelligence spending elsewhere. NASA space research involves considerable military work, which could add another $10.5 billion, according to USAspending.gov data. Some would also count $1.9 billion in FBI salaries and expenses found in the Department of Justice budget.
Other experts consider much larger expenditures in the DHS budget to be military spending, given that department’s role in protecting the “homeland” and the increasingly militarized nature of Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Border Patrol. This would add at least $216.9 billion after excluding DHS’s Federal Emergency Management Agency spending. Alternate methodologies also include $211.9 billion in interest payments on the more than $40 trillion in national debt stemming from past military spending and wars.
You can add and subtract forms of spending that you think belong or don’t belong in the true total, thanks to the transparency of the POGO report’s methodologies. In total, these excluded sums could add another $441.2 billion to the USAspending.gov method’s prior total of $1.718 trillion for 2025.
Growing Opposition to Unchecked Pentagon Spending
POGO report’s conservative estimates of the FY2025 budget being $1.5 trillion to $1.8 trillion reveal that the true military budget for 2027 could hit $2.6 trillion if Congress gives Trump what he wants. This includes requested increases totaling $781 billion for just the Department of War ($500 billion), the Iran war ($70 billion), veterans ($144.9 billion), nuclear weapons ($53.9 billion), and the Coast Guard ($12.5 billion), let alone other smaller forms of hidden Pentagon spending.
When mind-numbing numbers like these reach the trillions, it can be tempting to think, What does it matter if it’s $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion or $2.6 trillion?
It helps me to remember that every single dollar spent on the Pentagon is a dollar not spent on our children, on healthcare, on affordable housing, on efforts to slow catastrophic climate change, and much more……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/10/02/the-pentagons-secret-budget/
Fukushima N-Plant Starts New Round of Treated Water Release
Tokyo, Oct. 5 (Jiji Press)–The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant began its sixth release of treated water for fiscal 2026 on Monday, its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., said.
The release from the disaster-stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, will involve about 7,800 tons of treated water containing radioactive tritium diluted with large volumes of seawater. The water will be discharged through an undersea tunnel to a point about 1 kilometer offshore by Oct. 23.
This is the 24th release since discharges began in August 2023. In fiscal 2026, which ends in March next year, the plant is set to release 62,400 tons of treated water in eight rounds.
Jiji 5th Oct 2026
https://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=ind&k=2026100500570
Tory plan to cut Scotland’s powers poses a question they cannot dodge.
Andrew Bowie – the shadow energy secretary – who has made crystal clear
what a General Election win for his party would mean: fewer powers for
Scotland.
“We will legislate to ensure that Scotland can host new nuclear
power generation,” Bowie said. The message is this: should the Tories
re-enter No 10, the devolution of planning powers to the Scottish
Government will be stripped back. Bowie did not shy away from this, telling
party faithful at the Tory conference:
“If John Swinney and SNP ministers
want to have a fight over any plans that would deliver thousands of jobs
and protect energy security, then I say bring it on.” The SNP responded
with their own challenge. “Tory politicians proposing to force nuclear
power plants on Scotland should tell us who among them wants one of these
extortionate, wasteful, and unnecessary nuclear plants built in their
constituency,” SNP MSP Laura Mitchell said.
The National 5th Oct 2026,
https://www.thenational.scot/news/26609474.tory-plan-cut-scotlands-powers-poses-question-cannot-dodge/
Tories pledge ‘Britannia Shield’ to protect UK from drone attacks.
Aplanned network of radar, command and control systems and interceptor
missiles would strengthen defences against aerial threats. The
Conservatives have pledged to build a £10bn integrated air-defence system
to protect the UK from missile and drone attacks if they win the next
general election. The proposed system, dubbed “Britannia Shield”, would
involve an improved network of radar, command and control systems, and
interceptor missiles to protect critical national infrastructure and
military bases from aerial threats.
FT 5th Oct 2026,
https://www.ft.com/content/f30a1afc-2aa8-4cdd-a6e8-b18523298456
Labour Government will not override Holyrood to bring in new nuclear, says UK energy minister
Labour Government will not override Holyrood to bring in new nuclear, says
UK energy minister. Michael Shanks said that “ripping up the Scotland Act
to force through new nuclear isn’t the right approach”. The Labour
Government will not override Holyrood to bring in new nuclear reactors, a
UK energy minister has said.
Scotsman 6th Oct 2026, https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/labour-government-will-not-override-holyrood-to-bring-in-new-nuclear-says-uk-energy-minister-9268139
Scotland could get large nuclear reactor under Tories, says shadow energy secretary
Conservatives vow to change the law to override SNP ban on new nuclear
The Scotsman, By Andrew J Quinn, Westminster Correspondent, 5th Oct 2026,
cotland could get a large nuclear reactor under the Tories, the shadow energy secretary has said.
Andrew Bowie told the Conservative Party Conference that “no part of Britain will be off limits” when building a third large-scale reactor in the UK.
The Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine MP vowed to change the law to override the SNP’s ban on new nuclear.
He told the conference in Birmingham: “We will need a third large-scale reactor. We will build that reactor, and no part of Britain will be off limits, including Scotland.
“We will legislate to get it done. No more Mr Nice Guy. No more devolve and forget.
“Energy is a reserved power of the sovereign Parliament of our United Kingdom, and I am fed up with the SNP playing games with devolved planning policy to block our nuclear renewal.
“So we will legislate to ensure new nuclear can and will be built in Scotland, and if the Nationalists want to stop us from delivering thousands of jobs, economic growth, and energy security for Britain, I’ve one thing to say: bring it on.”
The UK government wants to build small nuclear reactors in Scotland. But the SNP, which holds control over planning, has so far blocked it.
Torness in East Lothian, Hunterston in Ayrshire, and Dounreay in Caithness have all been cited as potential sites.
But the prospect of a new large nuclear reactor north of the Border has not been seriously considered before.
Hinkley C in Suffolk and Sizewell C in Somerset are two large nuclear power stations which are being built in the UK.
Torness is Scotland’s last remaining active nuclear power plant. The facility is scheduled to close by 2030.
Hunterston A in North Ayrshire shut down in 1990, while Hunterston B shut down in 2022.
Mr Bowie said: “We once led the world in nuclear power, and we can do so again, ensuring that Britain will always have reliable, plentiful electricity. Cheap energy drove the industrial revolution. Abundant nuclear power will drive Britain’s renewal.
“We will supercharge the rollout of new nuclear in Britain. We will deliver at pace and go further. Where there’s a block, we will break it down. Where there’s red tape in the way we will cut it full steam ahead.
“We’ll invest in small modular, advanced modular reactors and open this country to the newest and most exciting technology in the world.
“But to ensure stability and reliability, we need further large-scale reactors, a gigawatt-scale reactor, standing along Hinkley and Sizewell.
“Now, when I was nuclear minister, I was delighted and proud to be able to announce existing new developments that would create jobs and boost Britain’s energy security across the country, from Wales to the southwest, Hartlepool to East Anglia………………………………….. https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scotland-could-get-large-nuclear-reactor-under-tories-says-shadow-energy-secretary-9266799
The Decommissioning Waste Challenge
The IAEA, the European Commission and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency are
working with the World Nuclear Association to consolidate the information
gathered from different initiatives on assessing waste into a single
publication, Status and Trends in Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste
Management.
The publication is an attempt to systematically summarise the
global status and trends of programmes and inventories for spent fuel and
radioactive waste management. Previous reports were published in January
2018 (covering the situation to the end of 2013) and 2022 (covering the
situation to the end of 2016).
The third edition (up to the end of 2019) is
now available in pre-print. The basic information in this publication has
been collected through submissions to the Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste
Information System (SRIS), complemented with openly available Joint
Convention National Reports. Approximately 90% of states with operating
nuclear power plants submitted their data to SRIS or their Joint Convention
National Reports, representing almost 92% of all nuclear power reactors.
Data are not available for every country, but available data provide a
clear representation of the radioactive waste that exists and an indication
of the challenges that will arise in the future as facilities still in
operation, or planned, come to the end of their useful lives.
NS Energy 5th Oct 2026, https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/analysis/the-decommissioning-waste-challenge/
1 This Month
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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