Ukraine targeting Russian nuclear power plants amid frontline losses – Rosatom head.
14 Nov, 2025 https://www.rt.com/russia/627793-ukraine-russian-nuclear-plants-attacks/
Kiev’s drones have once again hit the Novovoronezh NPP in Western Russia, Aleksey Likhachev has said.
Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russian nuclear power plants (NPPs) in response to its mounting battlefield losses, Rosatom head Aleksey Likhachev said on Friday.
Likhachev said that earlier this week, Ukrainian drones had once again targeted the Novovoronezh NPP in Western Russia’s Voronezh Region. He relayed that eight of the unmanned aircraft were intercepted and destroyed, but falling debris damaged a power distribution unit, forcing three reactor blocks to temporarily reduce output to below half capacity.
“We are seeing growing aggressiveness from the Kiev regime, directed deliberately against facilities of Russia’s nuclear energy sector,” Likhachev said.
“It is clear that this is a response to the successes and advances of our troops along almost the entire line of contact,” he added, stressing that Russia will provide an “adequate response” to such attacks.
Likhachev made the remarks after meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi in Kaliningrad on Friday, where the two discussed the situation at the Zaporozhye NPP and Kiev’s repeated attacks on other Russian nuclear sites.
The safety of the Zaporozhye NPP, Europe’s largest facility of its kind, had been fully ensured during the restoration of its external power supply, according to Likhachev. The plant had relied on backup diesel generators for 30 days after a Ukrainian strike severed its last high-voltage transmission line in September.
The coordination with the IAEA helped Russia “get through a very difficult month from September 23 to October 23,” Rosatom’s CEO told reporters.
Located in Zaporozhye Region, which voted to join Russia in 2022 in a move rejected by Kiev and its Western backers, the facility has repeatedly come under Ukrainian fire, according to Russian officials, who describe the attacks as reckless and highly dangerous. The IAEA maintains observers at the site but has stopped short of assigning blame, a stance Moscow says only encourages further provocations by Kiev.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported continued advances across several sectors of the front over the past week, saying on Friday that troops had improved their tactical positions and made gains along the front line while inflicting heavy losses on Ukrainian forces.
US and Russia ‘actively discussing’ settlement of Ukraine conflict – Moscow
16 Nov, 2025, https://www.rt.com/russia/627862-russia-us-discuss-ukraine-settlement/
The understanding reached at the Alaska summit is still in force, President Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov has said.
Moscow and Washington are continuing their dialogue on resolving the Ukraine conflict in line with the understanding reached during the Alaska meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in August, Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov has said.
Although the summit failed to yield a breakthrough, Moscow has praised what it called Washington’s willingness to mediate and consider the conflict’s underlying causes.
Russian officials also maintain that continued dialogue creates opportunities for trade and economic cooperation despite the US decision to sanction the oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil last month.
Russia is receiving “many signals” from the US, with the Anchorage meeting still acting as a basis for the talks, Ushakov told journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday. “We do believe it is a good way forward,” he said. According to the official, the understandings are still relevant since Washington has never explicitly stated that they are no longer valid.
The presidential aide admitted that the peace process and agreements reached in Alaska do not sit well with Kiev and some of its European backers, adding that it only indicates they want to continue the bloodshed. “The Anchorage [meeting] is only disliked by those who does not want a peaceful resolution [to the Ukraine conflict],” he said.
Bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington sank to an all-time low under former US President Joe Biden, amid the Ukraine conflict, but have shown signs of improvement since Trump’s return to the White House. US and Russian officials have held several rounds of talks this year, including the Alaska summit.
The US and Russia also announced the next planned Trump-Putin summit in Budapest in the fall, but it was then postponed indefinitely. Washington is still determined to continue contacts with Moscow, according to US Vice President J.D. Vance. Earlier in November, he called direct dialogue with Russia part of the “Trump doctrine.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed this month that Moscow was ready to resume contacts and rejected media reports claiming otherwise as false.
IDF Kills Two 15-Year-Old Boys in the West Bank, Israeli Settlers Torch Mosque
by Dave DeCamp | November 13, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/11/13/idf-kills-two-15-year-old-boys-in-the-west-bank-israeli-settlers-torch-mosque/
The Israeli military killed two 15-year-old boys in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Authority, as Jewish settlers in the territory continued their attacks on Palestinian communities.
The PA said the two boys, Bilal Bahaa Ali Baaran and Muhammad Mahmud Abu Ayash, were killed “by bullets from the occupation this afternoon, Thursday, near Beit Omar, north of Hebron.”
The Israeli military said that it killed two Palestinians, whom it claimed were on their way to “carry out a terror attack,” but offered no evidence to back up the claim or any other details about the slaying. Earlier this year, the IDF expanded its “open fire” policy in the West Bank, which led to an increase in the killing of civilians.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that three Palestinians, including a 14-year-old, were wounded by Israeli military gunfire in the town of Eizariya, southeast of Jerusalem.
Also on Thursday, Jewish settlers set fire to a mosque in the Palestinian village of Deir Istiya, near Salfit in the northern West Bank. Al Jazeera reported that the settlers sprayed racist, anti-Palestinian graffiti, and photos of the scene show burned Qurans.
There’s been a surge in settler attacks in the West Bank, coinciding with the start of the olive harvesting season, as Palestinian olive farmers are frequently targeted. The UN recorded a total of 266 settler attacks in October, the highest in a single month since it began recording in 2006, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Since 2006, OCHA has documented over 9,600 such attacks. About 1,500 of them took place just this year, roughly 15% of the total,” OCHA said earlier this month.
The surge in violence in the West Bank came after a de-escalation in Gaza as a result of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, which Israel has repeatedly violated by launching attacks and killing more than 240 Palestinians since the truce went into effect, according to numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry.
‘The war of tomorrow will begin in space’: Macron
by AFP Staff Writers, Toulouse, France (AFP) Nov 12, 2025, https://www.spacewar.com/reports/The_war_of_tomorrow_will_begin_in_space_Macron_999.html
Modern conflicts are already being fought in space and the next wars will begin there, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday, singling out the threat posed by Russia and announcing a multi-billion euro increase in spending on military activities in space.
“The war of today is already being fought in space, and the war of tomorrow will begin in space,” Macron said in Toulouse, France’s space and aviation hub, which is home to its new space military command centre.
“Space is no longer a sanctuary, it has become a battlefield,” Macron said.
He said that Russia in the wake of its 2022 full scale invasion of Ukraine was carrying out “espionage” activities in space.
Russian space vehicles were monitoring French satellites, there was mass jamming of GPS signals and cyberattacks against space infrastructure, he added.
Macron also pointed to the “particularly shocking Russian threat of nuclear weapons in space, the effects of which would be disastrous for the whole world”.
Without giving specific details, Macron announced an additional 4.2 billion euros ($4.9 billion) in funding for military space activities up to 2030.
In a “fragile” European space sector, he also stressed the need to “encourage our European champions to be competitive on the global market”.
The priorities outlined for France’s space strategy included “developing future launchers” that are reusable, have low-cost propulsion and high-thrust engines.
In a nod to the ambitious programmes of American billionaires Elon Musk who leads Space X and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, Macron said: “Depending on a major third-party power or any space magnate is out of the question.
“Let us be ready: this will be a condition for the success of military operations on land, in the air and at sea.”
He also said France was accelerating the development of advanced warning capabilities in cooperation with Germany, strengthening space surveillance with the Aurore radar system to reduce dependence on other states.
“We are investing in means of action from the ground and space while respecting international law, but without any naivety,” he said.
The Censored History of Able Archer 83
Archive Publishes “War Scare” Documents Deleted from State Department History
Newly Declassified Documents Focus on Soviet Military’s Fear of U.S. First Strike During Exercise
Washington, D.C., November 14, 2025 https://nsarchive.salsalabs.org/908?wvpId=753e3bf4-ad6a-4702-8e18-2f0d8d5326e6– The State Department quietly deleted important archival records from an official history detailing how a 1983 NATO war game could have led to a catastrophic nuclear exchange, according to new reporting from The Washington Post. This is the first known instance in which the State Department has removed previously declassified and published documents from one of its Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volumes, according to the report.
Today, the Archive is publishing copies of the records that were censored by the State Department, along with a selection of the most revealing war scare records. Among them are records revealing that the Soviet military leadership genuinely feared that they were vulnerable to a preemptive nuclear strike from the West during the war scare.
The State Department republished the FRUS volume without the records after the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2024 upheld a CIA decision to deny a 2021 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the National Security Archive seeking the declassification of an important retrospective analysis of Able Archer 83 written by U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots, who warned that the exercise could have led to “a potentially disastrous situation.”
Asked why 15 pages on Able Archer had been removed from the history without explanation, the State Department told the Post that “[t]he Department was not required to provide public notice.”
National Security Archive director Tom Blanton said that the unprecedented deletion of declassified historical records from the State Department volume on the war scare echoed similar efforts in the Soviet Union where, as author David Remnick writes, the “censors went through the libraries with razor blades and slashed from the bound copies of Novy Mir.”
“Today, in America,” Blanton said, “the censors just have to press delete.”
| READ THE DOCUMENTS THAT THE STATE DEPARTMENT CENSORED |
| THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals. |
The Mind-Bending Challenge of Warning Future Humans about Nuclear Waste
Designing nuclear-waste repositories is part engineering, part anthropology—and part mythmaking
Scientific American, By Vincent Ialenti edited by Seth Fletcher, 17 Nov 25
“……………………………………………………………………………………………………. In 2024 NWMO announced that Canada’s deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel would be built in the granite formations of northwestern Ontario, near the Township of Ignace and the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation. The decision capped off a 14-year siting effort that solicited volunteer host communities and guaranteed them the right to withdraw at any stage of the process. NWMO is now preparing for a comprehensive regulatory review, which will include a licensing process conducted by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. This means the development of impact assessments that will be specific to the Ignace site. NWMO has also pledged an Indigenous-led regulatory process alongside federal oversight, with the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation conducting its own assessments to ensure the project reflects Anishinaabe principles of ecological stewardship. If approvals proceed, construction could begin in the 2030s, and the repository could go into operation in the 2040s.
A deep-time repository, like a deep-space probe, must endure without maintenance or intervention, independently carrying human intent into the far future.
A deep geological repository can be seen as a reverse ark: a vessel designed not to carry valuables forward in time but to seal dangerous legacies away from historical memory. Or it can be understood as a reverse mine: an effort returning hazardous remnants to the Earth rather than extracting resources from it. Either way it is more than just a feat of engineering. Repository projects weave together scientific reasoning, intergenerational ethics and community preferences in decisions that are meant to endure longer than empires. As messages to future versions of ourselves, they compel their designers to ask: What symbols, stories or institutions might bridge epochs? And what does it mean that we are trying to protect future humans who may exist only in our imaginations?
……………………………..An enduring question for all repository programs is whether—and, if so, how—to mark their sites and archive knowledge about them. There is no guarantee that the languages we speak today will remain intelligible even a few thousand years from now
…………………………………………. As NWMO prepares for construction in Ignace in the 2030s, the question of long-term communication must increasingly shift from theory to practice. Canada has participated in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency’s Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory initiative, which has explored strategies ranging from warning markers to staged transfers of responsibility across generations. In a 2017 safety report, NWMO wisely conceded a limit: “repository records and markers (and passive societal memory) are assumed sufficient to ensure that inadvertent intrusion would not occur for at least 300 … years.” Beyond that horizon, the premise changes. No monument, land-use restriction, monitoring system or archive can be trusted to endure indefinitely………………………………………………………………………… https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-arks-are-a-bold-experiment-in-protecting-future-generations/
This week’s non-corporate nuclear news
Some bits of good news – COP30 won’t save us, but China might. Egypt defeated an ancient disease. New forest fund shows promise at Cop30
TOP STORIES.
One month in, the ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza exists only in name.
Non Government Organisations Warn that Recent Executive Orders Would Harm Public Health, Disproportionately Impacting Women and Children.
Finally Some Accountability for Georgia’s Costly Nuclear Power Mistake.
Trump’s Ploy at the UN Is American Imperialism Masquerading as a Peace Process.
Michael Mann to Bill Gates: You can’t reboot the planet if you crash it.
US conducts its Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) test.
The remnants of Chernobyl are still present in the Black Sea.
Climate. US Oil Executives Flock to COP30. Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber all Cop30 delegations except Brazil, report says.
Noel’s notes. Why my work is clearly biased.
AUSTRALIA. The people and environment of South Australia must be protected from Federal imposed storage of AUKUS High-Level nuclear waste. Call for inquiry Into AUKUS nuclear subs.
Gareth Evans says Australia should lead nuclear arms control talks.
NUCLEAR ITEMS
| CLIMATE. 6 main issues for COP 30 – and nuclear is no climate solution. Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for tackling climate crisis, says Cop30 chief. |
| ECONOMICS.Legalising the theft of Russian assets. Bechtel Chief Says U.S. Must Subsidize Trump’s Nuclear Revival. Sizewell C. – Taxpayers likely to see ‘no return’ on £6.4bn public funds put in as equity Marketing. EDF boss vows to speed up nuclear projects and narrow gap to Asian peers -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/11/13/1-b1-edf-boss-vows-to-speed-up-nuclear-projects-and-narrow-gap-to-asian-peers/ EDUCATION. Manchester launch for Labrats nuclear test education programme, |
ENERGY.
- Could SMRs add supply-side grid flexibility? – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/11/17/3-b1-could-smrs-add-supply-side-grid-flexibility/
- Why should Scotland pay billions for nuclear when renewables exist? – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/11/16/3-b1-why-should-scotland-pay-billions-for-nuclear-when-renewables-exist/
- Proposed solar farm could help make Island ‘centre of excellence’ – minister.
- Zelensky blames ex-energy chief for failure to protect power grid– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/11/13/2-b1-zelensky-blames-ex-energy-chief-for-failure-to-protect-power-grid/
| ENVIRONMENT. Toxic plume from Los Alamos National Laboratory spreads to nearby pueblo.Lab Chromium Contamination Confirmed on San Ildefonso Pueblo Land.. |
| HEALTH. NFLAs welcome Remembrance Day award of medal to nuke test ‘Sniffers’, but fight not over as groundcrews exposed to radiation remain forgotten. |
| HISTORY. Rare US Peace President: Warren G. Harding |
| LEGAL.Beyond Nuclear brings interim storage case back to Supreme Court. Residents outraged as US nuclear plant gets greenlight to dump radioactive waste into major river: ‘Potential long-term consequences’. Three firms to appear in court over Hinkley Point C death and serious injury incidents- (not radialogical) |
| MEDIA. Spoiler alert: deterrence doesn’t work.Golden Rule: The Journey for Peace – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhrSXF74SYo BBC News Has a Long Record of Disinformation– But This Time It Chose the Wrong Target. |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Rosyth councillor doesn’t want Trident submarines at yard. |
| SAFETY. Russia deliberately ‘endangering nuclear safety in Europe’ says Kyiv. Belgium flounders as 5 drones buzz nuclear power plant. 3 drones reportedly spotted flying over Belgian nuclear power plant. Los Alamos National Laboratory Reneges on Active Confinement Ventilation Systems at Plutonium Facility, PF-4. |
| SECRETS and LIES. AI Warlord”+: Eric Schmidt – Money, Media and Maim. The Empire Only De-Escalates In One Area So It Can Escalate In Another, And Other Notes. |
| SPINBUSTER. AI Companies Are Encouraging Users To Believe Chatbots Are People, And It’s Insanely Creepy. On The Rapidly Spreading Delusion That AI Chatbots Are Conscious. |
| TECHNOLOGY. Google on Christmas Island: Data Centres and Imminent Militarisation. |
| URANIUM. Declassified cable reinforces proliferation concerns about high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel (HALEU). |
| WASTES. New U.S. nuclear power boom begins with old, still-unsolved problem: What to do with radioactive waste. Decommissioning. Brian Goodall says no to next stage of submarine dismantling. |
Trump Bets Big on a Nuclear Comeback
critics are not so certain that Westinghouse will be able to deliver on its promises due to the company’s poor track record.
The question now is, just how long will it take to achieve the U.S. nuclear renaissance? ……………………… The projects being funded by tech companies, which focus on the development of SMRs, are not expected to produce power until the next decade, and these are much smaller than conventional reactors.
By Felicity Bradstock , Oil Price- Nov 15, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Trump-Bets-Big-on-a-Nuclear-Comeback.html
- The Trump administration plans to quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050 and deploy 10 new large reactors by 2030, backed by major public funding and tech-sector investment.
- Westinghouse, Cameco, and international partners like Japan and the U.K. are central to the expansion push, though Westinghouse’s troubled track record raises concerns.
- Long development timelines, high costs, regulatory delays, and a diminished skills base make a rapid nuclear renaissance unlikely despite political momentum.
United States President Donald Trump is putting his money where his mouth is as he doubles down on efforts to accelerate the expansion of the country’s nuclear energy sector. The government will spend billions in public funding to reinvigorate U.S. nuclear power, following decades of underinvestment. Unlike renewable energy, Trump views nuclear power as key to expanding the U.S. electricity generation capacity and recently announced the target of quadrupling nuclear capacity by 2050.
In May, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the U.S. to develop 10 new large nuclear reactors by the end of the decade. In addition, several tech companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft, are providing billions in private funding to restart old nuclear plants, upgrade existing ones, and deploy new reactor technology to meet the growing demands from the data centres powering advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) loan office will dedicate significant funds to the nuclear energy industry to support the development of new reactors. This week, the Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated, “We have significant lending authority at the loan programme office… By far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants — to get those first plants built.”
Wright expects the public support for the sector to encourage private actors to invest more heavily in nuclear power in the coming years. “When we leave office three years and three months from now, I want to see hopefully dozens of nuclear plants under construction,” said Wright.
In October, Trump came to an agreement with the owners of Westinghouse – uranium miner Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management – to invest $80 billion to build nuclear plants across the country. Westinghouse plans to construct large nuclear plants to be fitted with its modern AP1000 reactor design, which can power over 750,000 homes, according to the company. Cameco COO Grant Isaac suggested he would look to the DoE’s loans office to fund the development of the Westinghouse reactors.
However, critics are not so certain that Westinghouse will be able to deliver on its promises due to the company’s poor track record. The firm went bankrupt in 2017 after going over budget on large-scale nuclear projects in Georgia and South Carolina. Westinghouse will have to prove its ability to build the AP1000 on time and on budget to attract the investment it requires.
The Trump administration has developed various international partnerships to help develop its nuclear power sector in recent months. In September, Japan committed to investing in the Westinghouse nuclear project. The Asian country also agreed on an investment deal for Hitachi GE Vernova to build small modular reactors (SMRs).
Also in September, the U.S. signed a multibillion-dollar deal with the United Kingdom to expand nuclear power across both countries. The new Atlantic Partnership for Advanced Nuclear Energy is aimed at accelerating the construction of new reactors and providing reliable, low-carbon energy for high-demand sectors, such as data centres.
The question now is, just how long will it take to achieve the U.S. nuclear renaissance? It typically takes a decade or longer to develop a new nuclear power plant, and while adding additional reactors to existing plants can be faster, licensing and approval can take several years. In addition, after decades of stagnation in the sector, developing nuclear reactors in the U.S. can be extremely costly and slow, due to the lack of expertise, compared to rapidly growing nuclear powers, such as China.
In China, developing a new nuclear reactor now takes between five and six years on average, much faster than the decade-long timeline in most Western countries. This is supported by China’s strong regulatory system and tried-and-tested development methods. Meanwhile, in the U.S., just powering up a disused reactor, such as that of Three Mile Island, can take several years to achieve. The projects being funded by tech companies, which focus on the development of SMRs, are not expected to produce power until the next decade, and these are much smaller than conventional reactors.
The Trump administration hopes to speed up the development process through a range of measures. One executive order calls for the nuclear power industry’s safety regulator to approve applications in no more than 18 months. The recent funding announcement from the DoE’s loan office is expected to help overcome the biggest bottleneck – funding. Congress has also kept its tax breaks in place for nuclear development to attract private funding to the sector.
Thanks to greater political support and public financing, the U.S. nuclear energy sector could rapidly expand its power capacity over the coming decades. However, achieving the level of acceleration in nuclear development expected by the Trump administration is highly unlikely due to a range of challenges hindering development, from expertise to cost and manufacturing capacity. So, while a nuclear renaissance is possible, it is unlikely to be seen within the next decade.
‘Gunboat Diplomacy’: U.S. War in Latin America Feared as Hegseth Launches ‘Operation Southern Spear’
SCHEERPOST, November 15, 2025 By DemocracyNow!
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear to target suspected drug traffickers in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The U.S. now has 15,000 military personnel in the region. Over the past two months the U.S. has blown up at least 20 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. “80 people have been killed in what are extrajudicial executions under international law,” says Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch. The Pentagon claims the boats were carrying drugs but officials have acknowledged they don’t know who has been killed.
“Progressives and people of goodwill — of the U.S. and Puerto Rico — it’s time for those of us here to stand up and say that where we will not support any attempt to bring back the old gunboat diplomacy and to invade another Latin American country, and we need to do it soon, because this stuff is moving very quickly,” says Democracy Now!’s Juan González.
Transcript
………………………..AMY GOODMAN: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear to target suspected drug traffickers, he says. In a post on X, Hegseth wrote, quote, “Today, I’m announcing Operation Southern Spear led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and SOUTHCOM. This mission defends our homeland, removes narcoterrorism from our hemisphere, and secures our homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” unquote.
The announcement comes as the Pentagon continues to amass warships in the Caribbean. The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier arrived earlier this week. The U.S. now has 15,000 military personnel in the region. It’s the largest buildup in the region in decades, according to the New York Times. Over the past two months, the U.S. has blown up at least 20 boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The latest strike killed four people on Thursday.
The Pentagon claims the boats were carrying drugs, but officials have acknowledged they don’t know who’s been killed. Critics have denounced the strikes as illegal extrajudicial killings. We begin today’s show with Juan Pappier, the Americas Deputy Director at Human Rights Watch. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Juan. Begin by talking about Operation Southern Spear and what this means.
JUAN PAPPIER: Amy, thank you for having me. We don’t know what Operation Southern Spear means. The Secretary has not provided details. But we have every reason to be concerned because in the buildup of this announcement, as you mentioned, 80 people have been killed in what are extrajudicial executions under international law…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, well, Amy, I think with the – especially now, not only with these attacks on boats and these killings, but now with the arrival of an unprecedented military force – we’re talking the largest aircraft carrier in the world, the USS Gerald Ford, has just arrived in the Caribbean with another 5,000 troops and several other battleships accompanying it.
We now have 15,000 U.S. troops in the region, thousands of them based in Puerto Rico. The government has reopened Roosevelt Roads Naval Base, which they had closed, and U.S. planes at the old Ramey Air Force Base in Aguadilla. All of these soldiers are not there to hang out. They’re there to take military action. We have to be clear.
Even though the government hasn’t announced it, it’s clear that this is what’s coming. Our government is embarking on a totally unprovoked military assault and regime change operations in Latin America. The Trump administration has openly accused not one but two Latin-American presidents of drug dealing without any proof, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Gustavo Petro of Colombia and threatened to kill Maduro. This is a bizarre return to the gunboat diplomacy of the early 20th century.
And the big prize being not democracy or not stopping drug trafficking, but grabbing the Venezuelan oil fields, the largest oil reserves in the world. The problem is, this is not the old Latin America that the U.S. could bully at will. The countries at the region are today independent sovereign states………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Yes, it’s a clear continued policy of the United States to control oil production as much as it can as the Trump administration continues on this crazy, bizarre attempt to corner as much oil supply as they can as it continues to deny the existence of climate change or the climate catastrophe we face, https://scheerpost.com/2025/11/15/gunboat-diplomacy-u-s-war-in-latin-america-feared-as-hegseth-launches-operation-southern-spear/
Finally Some Accountability for Georgia’s Costly Nuclear Power Mistake
Vogtle stands as the only new nuclear reactor built in the last 30 years, and its fallout offers a bleak prognosis for any supposed “renaissance” and its supporters in statehouses across the country. We can look back to 2017 when the main contractor, Westinghouse, filed for bankruptcy due to the extreme cost overruns at Vogtle. At that critical moment, the Georgia PSC ignored its own staff, energy experts, and public outcry, choosing to burden ratepayers with the project’s continuation.
By Kim Scott.15 Nov 25 https://nuclearcosts.org/finally-some-accountability-for-georgias-costly-nuclear-power-mistake/
The story of Plant Vogtle’s two new nuclear reactors in Georgia is not a triumph of a “nuclear renaissance”; it’s a cautionary tale written in soaring electric bills and a growing political fallout. The people of Georgia are paying the price, literally, as their utility bills have skyrocketed by over 40% – and now, following last Tuesday’s Public Service Commission election in Georgia, it seems those that allowed this to happen in the first place are starting to feel the pinch as well. It’s about damn time!
Georgia voters delivered a stunning message by unseating two Republican utility commissioners, Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson, who rubber stamped and championed the costly mistakes leading to a 41% increase in Georgians’ electric bills. This election, which saw Democrats Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard championing fair rates, affordability and renewable energy, was a clear referendum on Plant Vogtle’s enormous price tag and more importantly, nuclear power as a not so clean future power resource both here in Georgia and elsewhere.
The stunning defeat of utility backed incumbents sends a powerful signal to utility regulators nationwide that consumers will not tolerate being forced to pay for multi-billion-dollar nuclear boondoggles. If they aren’t paying attention, Wall Street sure is, downgrading Southern Co.’s stock immediately following the election, citing the increased risk and the new difficulty the company will face in pushing through further rate hikes to pay for Plant Vogtle and other projects in their pipeline. Georgia customers will pay an additional $36 billion to $43 billion over the 60-80 year lifespan of the two Vogtle reactors compared to cheaper alternatives.
Vogtle stands as the only new nuclear reactor built in the last 30 years, and its fallout offers a bleak prognosis for any supposed “renaissance” and its supporters in statehouses across the country. We can look back to 2017 when the main contractor, Westinghouse, filed for bankruptcy due to the extreme cost overruns at Vogtle. At that critical moment, the Georgia PSC ignored its own staff, energy experts, and public outcry, choosing to burden ratepayers with the project’s continuation.
The consequences of those decisions, subsequent rate increases and soaring electric bills are not abstract—they are impacting the most vulnerable among us and the most overlooked i.e. middle class/working class Georgians. Disconnection rates for the inability to pay have soared by 30% in 2024. For retirees on fixed incomes, the rate increases to pay for Plant Vogtle mean the difference between making ends meet and falling into destitution. This summer, when brutal heat waves descended, vulnerable Georgians had their power shut off, creating life-threatening conditions because they could no longer afford to cool their homes.
The ratepayer backlash in Georgia is also being fueled by the projected massive energy demands of AI data centers, which are forcing utilities like Southern Co. to reckon with costly new generation and transmission projects. Instead of aggressively pushing nuclear power—as evidenced by the Trump administration’s recent $80 billion deal to buy reactors from Westinghouse, the same company bankrupted by Vogtle—we must demand that elected politicians focus on fast and affordable energy solutions like solar and battery energy storage systems.
The painful lesson learned in Georgia is that new nuclear power is simply too expensive and takes too long. The reality is that for half the cost and in less than a quarter of the time, we could have built more than twice the capacity using solar, wind, or battery storage technologies. But corruption won out and Vogtle is here for the foreseeable future. Georgians will be paying for this mistake for decades to come… I’m just glad there’s finally some accountability headed our way.
Kim Scott is Executive Director of Georgia WAND, is a native Georgian, and has a Chemical Engineering degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.
Non Government Organisations Warn that Recent Executive Orders Would Harm Public Health, Disproportionately Impacting Women and Children
“Young men like the Reference Man are harmed by radiation, but they’re more resistant to harm than are women and children. Radiation causes cancer in women at twice the rate of adult men, while the same exposure in early childhood, will, across their lifetimes, produce seven times more cancer in young females, and four times more in young males.”
Asheville, North Carolina – November 14, https://www.radiationproject.org/blog/ngos-warn-that-recent-executive-orders-would-harm-public-health-disproportionately-impacting-women-and-children?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=6917d62bc4477007efdd4b63&ss_email_id=6917db9d43e3de1cada92627&ss_campaign_name=Welcome+to+GRIP%E2%80%99s+NEW+Blog&ss_campaign_sent_date=2025-11-15T01%3A47%3A30Z
Over forty citizen’s sector organizations including the national nonprofit Physicians for Social Responsibility have sent a joint letter to federal officials warning of public health consequences of a series of executive orders by President Trump which direct the NRC to dramatically weaken Standards for Protection Against Radiation in the US federal code. The letter points out sharply disproportionate impacts on women and children from weakening existing radiation exposure standards and calls for strengthening them.
The letter is posted here. It was spearheaded by the nonprofit Generational Radiation Impact Project (GRIP) and sent to US Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Surgeon General Denise Hinton, and other key elected and appointed officials.
Recent Trump executive orders direct the NRC to “reconsider” the linear no-threshold (LNT) model. The joint letter argues that this “would undermine public trust by falsely claiming that the NRC’s radiation risk models lack scientific basis, despite decades of peer-reviewed evidence and international consensus.” The widely accepted LNT model has no limit “below regulatory concern,” i.e. no level below which radiation exposure can be treated as negligible or zero-risk. Where applied, LNT takes account of proportional cancer and health risks of all tiny exposures no matter how small.
Trump executive orders direct the NRC to undertake new rulemaking and “wholesale revision” of existing radiation regulations, which would likely lead to the NRC abandoning LNT and raising allowable exposure limits.
But past NRC opposition to such changes stands to be reversed by the Trump executive orders. If federal radiation regulations were weakened to permit exposures of 10 Rems a year, scientists estimate that over a 70-year lifetime, four out of five people would develop cancer they would not otherwise get.
Today’s joint letter stresses that health damage would not be evenly distributed across the population, but would disproportionately affect women and children, who are biologically more susceptible to ionizing radiation than men. And an article published today in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists cites several lines of evidence “that women and young girls are significantly more vulnerable to radiation harm than men—in some cases by as much as a ten-fold difference” and that “infants are especially vulnerable to radiation harm.”
A July 2025 Idaho National Laboratory report commissioned by the Department of Energy recommended loosening the public radiation standard fivefold to 500 millirems. In 2021 the NRC roundly rejected a petition to raise allowable radiation exposures for all Americans, including children and pregnant women, to 10 Rems a year, 100 times the current limit.
“[NRC] bases its risk assessments on Reference Man, a model that represents a young adult male and fails to reflect the greater impacts to infants, children, and women—pregnant or not,” the joint letter states. “Newer research has shown that external radiation harms children more than adults and female bodies more than male bodies. Research on internal exposures…has not yet been sufficiently analyzed to discover if there are broad age-based or male/female differences in impact…. Existing standards should therefore be strengthened to account for these life-stage and gender disparities…not weakened. Radiation causes infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth complications and defects, as well as solid tumor cancer, leukemia, non-cancer outcomes including cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of autoimmune disease and ongoing new findings.”
In cases where cancer, heart disease, and vascular degradation including stroke are caused by radiation, they are documented at higher rates in women than in men, according to 2024 UNIDIR report Gender and Ionizing Radiation.
The joint letter urges the NRC to “to stand up to the Executive Order’s marching orders to ‘promote’ nuclear power—a mission outside its legal regulatory mandate,” and adopt “stronger, science-based radiation protections….Contemporary research shows that radiation’s impact is far greater on females, children, and fetuses—the most at-risk postnatal group being girls from birth to age five. A truly protective framework would replace Reference Man with a lifecycle model.”
“All US radiation regulations and most radiation risk assessments are based on outcomes for the Reference Man,” said Mary Olson, CEO of GRIP, the organization which spearheaded the joint letter, and co-author of Gender and Ionizing Radiation. “Young men like the Reference Man are harmed by radiation, but they’re more resistant to harm than are women and children. Radiation causes cancer in women at twice the rate of adult men, while the same exposure in early childhood, will, across their lifetimes, produce seven times more cancer in young females, and four times more in young males.”
“We know that exposure to radiation causes disproportionate harm from both cancer and non-cancer related disease outcomes over the course of the lifetime to women and especially to little girls, but radiation is dangerous for everyone,” said Amanda M. Nichols, Ph.D., lead author of Gender and Ionizing Radiation. “[President Trump’s] executive order will allow the industry to relax the current standards for radiological protection, which are already far from adequate. This will have detrimental health consequences for humans and for our shared environments and puts us all at higher risk for negative health consequences. “
“Living near nuclear power facilities doubles the risk of leukemia in children; and radiation is also associated with numerous reproductive harms including infertility, stillbirths and birth defects.,” said Cindy Folkers, Radiation and Health Hazard Specialist with the NGO Beyond Nuclear, a signatory to the joint letter. “Exposing people to more radiation, as this order would do if implemented, would be tantamount to legitimizing their suffering as the price of nuclear expansion.”
Trump stupidly brags about committing war crimes against Iran
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, Nov 15, 2025, https://theaimn.net/trump-stupidly-brags-about-committing-war-crimes-against-iran/
Rule 1 for leaders committing war crimes is to refrain from bragging about them. President Trump jettisoned that wise rule regarding his criminal involvement in Israel’s 12 day war on Iran last June.
When Israel attacked, Trump trotted his obedient Secretary of State Marco Rubio who issued this lie to America and world. “Israel had taken unilateral action to defend itself. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”
Of course Iran had every right to target US interests and personnel since the US knew about and aided Israel’s crazed war that backfired on Israel. How so? Iran was wise to ignore US perfidy to launch a massive rocket attack on Israel that could not be defended against. After 12 days Israel threw in the towel. Israel now knows Iran will never be a genocidal punching bag like the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
US involvement was overt and covert. The former included refueling Israeli bombers during the entire 12 day war. The covert consisted of holding fake negotiations with Iran about their nuclear program to lull them into false security that no attack, which the US knew about, was imminent. Just 2 days beforehand Trump scheduled another negotiation and proclaimed “I am committed to a “diplomatic solution” with Iran.”
The US maintained the ‘not involved’ charade for nearly 5 months. Alas, Trump, an inveterate braggart on everything he maliciously touches from business partners, women wishing to be left alone, political enemies among others, just couldn’t contain his glee in assisting Israel’s unprovoked, murderous attack. ”Israel attacked first. That attack was very, very powerful. I was very much in charge of that. When Israel attacked Iran first, that was a great day for Israel because that attack did more damage than the rest of them put together.”
Iran took note of Trump’s confession of international criminality. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi fired off a letter to UN officials demanding the US be held to account for enabling Israel’s attacks on Iran that killed more than 1,000 people. In the letter Araghchi cited Trump’s recent comments about how he was “in charge” of the Israeli attacks. “The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its full and unimpeachable right to pursue, through all available legal means, the establishment of accountability for the responsible States and individuals and to secure compensation for the damages sustained.”
Araghchi can Faggedaboudit. If the UN and the International Criminal Court can do nothing Trump’s complicity in Israel’s monstrous genocide in Gaza, there is zero chance they will even glance at his war crimes in Iran.
Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber all Cop30 delegations except Brazil, report says
More than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the
Cop30 climate negotiations in Belém, significantly outnumbering every
single country’s delegation apart from the host Brazil, new analysis has
found. One in every 25 participants at this year’s UN climate summit is a
fossil fuel lobbyist, according to the analysis by the Kick Big Polluters
Out (KBPO) coalition, raising serious questions about the corporate capture
and credibility of the annual Cop negotiations.
Guardian 14th Nov 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/14/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-cop30
US, South Korea to ‘move forward’ on building nuclear-powered submarines
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung says the US supports Seoul’s bid to secure uranium enrichment and spent nuclear fuel reprocessing capabilities.
By Kevin Doyle and News Agencies 14 Nov 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/14/us-south-korea-to-move-forward-on-building-nuclear-powered-submarines
The United States and South Korea have released details of a trade agreement that includes a $150bn Korean investment in the US shipbuilding sector, and both countries agree to “move forward” on building nuclear-powered submarines.
Under the agreement, President Lee Jae Myung said on Friday that South Korea will build nuclear-powered submarines as part of a new partnership with Washington on shipbuilding, artificial intelligence and the nuclear industry.
A fact sheet released by the White House said the US gave approval for Seoul to build nuclear-powered submarines and that South Korea will invest an additional $200bn in US industrial sectors in addition to the $150bn in shipbuilding.
South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency said Seoul’s investment was in return for Washington’s lowering of trade tariffs on Korean goods to 15 percent from 25 percent.
“One of the greatest variables for our economy and security – the bilateral negotiations on trade, tariffs and security – has been finalised,” President Lee said at a news conference on Friday, adding the two countries had agreed to “move forward with building nuclear-powered submarines”.
“The United States has given approval for the ROK [Republic of Korea] to build nuclear-powered attack submarines,” Lee said.
Seoul also secured “support for expanding our authority over uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing”, he said.
The joint fact sheet outlining the deal said both sides would “collaborate further through a shipbuilding working group” to “increase the number of US commercial ships and combat-ready US military vessels “.
Yonhap also reported that South Korea is seeking to acquire “four or more 5,000-ton conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines by the mid-2030s “.
South Korea’s development of nuclear-powered vessels would provide a significant boost to its naval and defence industries, allowing Seoul to join a select group of countries with such technological capabilities, analysts say.
China had already voiced concern over a Washington-Seoul deal on nuclear submarine technology.
Such a partnership “goes beyond a purely commercial partnership, directly touching on the global nonproliferation regime and the stability of the Korean Peninsula and the wider region,” China’s Ambassador in Seoul Dai Bing told reporters on Thursday.
North Korea did not immediately comment on the development, but is likely to respond. Pyongyang has consistently accused Washington and Seoul of building up military forces on the North’s borders in preparation for an invasion one day.
Details remain murky on where the nuclear submarines will be built.
US President Donald Trump said on social media last month that “South Korea will be building its Nuclear Powered Submarine in the Philadelphia Shipyards, right here in the good ol’ U.S.A”.
However, Seoul’s national security adviser Wi Sung-lac said on Friday that “from start to finish, the leaders’ discussion proceeded on the premise that construction would take place in South Korea”.
“So the question of where construction will take place can now be considered settled,” Wi said.
UK’s New nuclear siting policy criticised by industry as ‘missed opportunity’
The highly anticipated National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy
Generation EN-7, which will dictate where new nuclear reactors can be
deployed, has been published by the government, but it has been criticised
by the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) as a “missed opportunity”.
New Civil Engineer 14th Nov 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/new-nuclear-siting-policy-criticised-by-industry-as-missed-opportunity-14-11-2025/
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