Further charges on health and safety offences at a nuclear construction site
Following a pre-trial review hearing held today at Bristol Crown Court, a
trial date has been set in the prosecution of two companies charged with
health and safety offences at a nuclear construction site. Two further
charges were added to the indictment at today’s court hearing, bringing the
total of charges to four.
The organisations face a charge of failing to
plan, manage and monitor construction work without risks to health and
safety contravening Regulation 15(2) of the Construction (Design and
Management) Regulations 2015, and previously entered not guilty pleas at a
hearing held in December 2025. An additional charge that Laing O’Rourke
Delivery Limited and Bouygues Travaux Publics SAS both failed to conduct a
suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the risks to the health and
safety of their employees, under Regulation 3 (1) (a) of the Management of
Health and Safety At Work Regulations 1999, contravening Section 33(1)(c)
of the Act has now also been added. Both organisations have pleaded not
guilty to these charges.
ONR 17th Feb 2026, https://www.onr.org.uk/news/all-news/2026/02/new-charges-added-in-rebar-mesh-wall-incident-at-hinkley-point-c
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Submissions to the Federal Court of Appeal about UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
Raven Trust, By Levin Chamberlain, February 10, 2026
Gitxaała Nation’s recent decision in the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) in Gitxaala v. British Columbia (Chief Gold Commissioner), 2025 BCCA 430 that incorporates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into positive law is getting attention. While media outlets are focused on David Eby’s commitment to amending the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) — undermining the rule of law and potentially reversing decades of reconciliation — behind the scenes, there’s a company trying to further undermine Indigenous rights – Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL).
CNL recently filed a submission in Kebaowek First Nation’s case over the proposed nuclear waste facility on their territory, a legal case that RAVEN has supported for almost two years. If built in its current location, the facility would hold over one million cubic metres of nuclear waste just one kilometre from the Kichi Sibi (Ottawa river), which provides millions of people with clean drinking water.
Kebaowek recently went to the Federal Court of Appeal with CNL, who is seeking to overturn the need for the First Nation’s free, prior, and informed consent over the consultation process to build the nuclear waste facility. You can read more about the decision and why Kebaowek cross-appealed here.
With the BCCA decision in Gitxaała’s case being such a powerful precedent that incorporates UNDRIP, the Federal Court judges gave CNL and Kebaowek the opportunity to make new submissions specifically about this decision. Not only does this show how interconnected Indigenous-led litigation is (which RAVEN is integral to in supporting both cases), but it also allows for both sides to share new perspectives.
The Submissions
CNL’s response with a new submission to the courts argues that Gitxaała’s case is “wholly distinguishable” from their case, and that it doesn’t alter the one sole point that CNL is relying on: consultation with Kebaowek was fulfilled. They comb through the specific differences between DRIPA and Canada’s own United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UNDA) in attempts to show how UNDA shouldn’t be taken the same way as DRIPA. CNL also criticizes two aspects of the BCCA’s decision in Gitxaala v. British Columbia as “unsupported statements of law.”
Is that fear we are picking up on in CNL’s submission? Or is it just pure hypocrisy……………………………………..
The Reality
Unfortunately, instead of navigating toward reconciliation between the Crown, industry, and Indigenous Peoples, we are witnessing more conflict and tension than before. UNDRIP and its incorporation into positive law in Canada should be something to celebrate with clear pathways toward long-term economic development and environmental protections while honouring Indigenous rights and their territories. Working in a good way with First Nations, like Kebaowek, is crucial for getting decisions right, especially in a world with a rapidly accelerating climate, sincere threats to democratic processes, and a troubling shift of public support away from reconciliation.
In 2007, Canada and three other nation-states initially opposed the ratification of UNDRIP. They opposed enshrining the human rights of Indigenous Peoples on an international stage. That – and much, much worse – will always be a part of our dark history in Canada. Unless we see a real shift in accountability and action, future generations will view this time period and the responses by industry and the Crown as another era of oppression.
But, even if the decision is overturned and Kebaowek doesn’t have their day at the Supreme Court of Canada; even if David Eby is successful in reducing the legal teeth of UNDRIP for Indigenous Peoples to use in B.C.’s courtrooms; even if something similar happens to UNDA; there will be no end to pursuits for justice. UNDRIP rights are fundamental human rights of Indigenous Peoples that are just now being recognized through colonial doctrines. These rights have existed since time immemorial in their own beautiful and unique ways, and although injustice is present, the people will continue to resist, and justice shall persist. https://raventrust.com/articles/the-law-is-connected-new-submissions-to-the-federal-court-of-appeal-about-undrip/
Sizewell C opponents to appeal High Court decision.
Mariam Issimdar, BBC. Suffolk, 8 Feb 26
Opponents of Sizewell C nuclear power station have submitted an appeal against the High Court’s decision to refuse an application for a judicial review of the plant’s flood defences.
Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) launched an action in June on the basis the power station could add extra coastal defences which were not outlined in the original planning application, and they would “disrupt nearby protected areas of wildlife”.
The group appealed for the judicial review, but it was refused by a High Court judge in December.
At the time, Sizewell C said it was pleased the legal claims had been dismissed.
In a statement on Monday, the pressure group said: “TASC is determined to use every avenue open to us to ensure public scrutiny and environmental assessment of the two additional huge sea defences that Sizewell C have committed to install in an extreme sea level rise scenario.”
Development consent for the new plant near Leiston was granted in July 2022 before the government committed £14.2bn towards it last June.
In the approved plans, Sizewell C said the power station would be built on a platform 7m above the current sea level and protected by a “sea defence structure which will be more than 14m above mean sea level”.
Chris Wilson, of TASC, said: “It is a scandal if it is deemed legal that a developer, in this case Sizewell C, is allowed to pick and choose which parts of a project it wants to include in its development consent order application.”
He added that the developer, EDF Energy, knew “as far back as 2015 that two additional huge sea defences would be needed to keep the site and its 3,900 tonnes of spent fuel safe from flooding in an extreme sea level rise scenario, yet chose not to include them in their 2020 planning application – a classic example of ‘salami-slicing’.”
Sizewell C said its “sea defence will be adaptable and could be raised in future if sea level rise turns out to be greater than current predictions”.
TASC claimed the power station wanted to build two more flood barriers, 9m and 10m high, further inland.
Sizewell C previously declined to comment on the extra details of how the flood defences could be changed.
TASC argued there should be a consultation on the defences, and it approached Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, asking him to revoke or change the development consent order.
That was not accepted, so the group opted for a judicial review and argued that Miliband had breached his obligations and duties…………………. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98q5z1jez5o
Palestine Action protesters found not guilty of Elbit burglary
“It shows how out of step this government is with public opinion, which is revulsed by the Government and Elbit’s complicity in genocide.”
Campaigners claim ‘huge blow’ to government after landmark prosecution of direct action group fails.
PHIL MILLER and DANIA AKKAD, 4 February 2026, https://www.declassifieduk.org/palestine-action-protesters-found-not-guilty-of-elbit-burglary/
- Update: Five out of the six defendants were granted bail late on Wednesday; a sixth defendant, Sam Corner, was not granted bail
- Defendants had to apply for bail because the prosecution will seek a retrial on charges where jury were unable to reach a verdict
Six Palestine Action protesters have been found not guilty of aggravated burglary at an Elbit weapons site near Bristol.
Zoe Rogers, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio and Jordan Devlin were also not convicted of any other charges by a jury at Woolwich Crown Court on Wednesday.
The group were on trial for a break-in at an Israeli-owned arms factory on 6 August 2024 at the height of the genocide in Gaza.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government only placed partial restrictions on arms exports to Israel the following month.
The activists spent 18 months on remand before their trial began in November 2025.
Jurors did not convict them of any charges despite the judge trying to limit defences available to the activists.
The jury could not reach verdicts on some charges, opening the door for the prosecution to seek a possible retrial and forcing the defence to apply for bail.
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said the not guilty verdicts for the aggravated burglary charges were “a huge blow to government ministers who have tried to portray Palestine Action as a violent group to justify banning it under badly drafted terrorism legislation.
“Despite government efforts to prejudice this trial, citing the allegations of violence to justify treating Palestine Action as ‘terrorists’, as if they were already proved, the jury which heard the evidence has refused to find the defendants guilty of anything, not even criminal damage.
“It shows how out of step this government is with public opinion, which is revulsed by the Government and Elbit’s complicity in genocide.”
Woolwich Crown Court, hugging and crying.
Inside bail hearings were ongoing for the six with rulings expected before 3pm. Friends said they hoped they would be coming out today.
Moved to a patch of grass outside the court, several in the crowd shared a meal on paper plates and greeted an increasing number supporters who arrived by public transport.
“I’m so happy,” one supporter shouted.
A truck carrying prisoners passed by with an audible banging sound from inside. The crowd welped and started to cheer. One drummed.
A supporter acknowledged the truck probably didn’t hold the defendants. “We’re just excited,” they said.
ISIS vs IDF. Selective justice and the fall of Australian law
by Andrew Brown | Feb 4, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/isis-vs-idf-selective-justice-and-the-collapse-of-australian-law/
Australians who went to fight for ISIS were prosecuted, their families vilified, while former IDF soldiers fighting for Israel walk freely among us. Andrew Brown reports on the double standards.
Australians like to believe our justice system is governed by principle, and crimes judged by what was done, not by who did them. We like a comforting story about ourselves. That justice is served, and accountability painful but even-handed. We tell it often. We believe it when it suits us.
That story collapses the moment it is tested.
After the Brereton Report, Australia demonstrated what accountability looks like when it chooses to take law seriously. Entire Australian Defence Force platoons were investigated. Whole units placed under suspicion. Soldiers interrogated repeatedly. Careers frozen. Medals questioned. Command structures dismantled. Hundreds of millions of public dollars spent. One soldier charged. Many others left suspended indefinitely, their lives stalled in legal limbo.
This pursuit of accountability was not timid or symbolic. It did not flinch at rank, reputation, or heroism. Australia went after its returning heroes, including Victoria Cross recipients, and some of the most decorated units in its military history. It did so publicly and without fear or favour.
“No medal or mythology placed anyone beyond scrutiny.”
Australia wanted the world to see that it would investigate its own forces, not just individuals but units and chains of command, even when it was humiliating and politically costly.
Soldiers going overseas
When Australians travelled to join ISIS, the response was faster and harsher. Passports cancelled. Homes raided. Surveillance expanded. Citizenship stripping powers deployed. Wives treated as accomplices. Children framed as future threats. Suspicion alone was often enough to trigger punishment. Due process became optional.
If Australians fought for Russia against Ukraine, arrests would follow. Prosecutions under foreign incursion and war crimes laws. Media outrage before the luggage carousel stopped turning. The word traitor would appear instantly.
That is the standard Australia claims to uphold.
Gaza
Now consider Gaza. What is occurring is not chaotic warfare. It is a civilian catastrophe with a measurable pattern. Credible casualty analyses based on hospital records, death registries, and independent verification show that approximately 84% of those killed are civilians and around 33% are children. Not combatants miscounted. Not teenagers caught in crossfire. Children.
By comparison, in Ukraine, children account for around 0.3% of casualties. That is a difference of more than one hundredfold.This is not incidental harm. It is demographic concentration.
The destruction follows the same logic. Entire residential districts have been levelled. Homes, schools, universities, bakeries, water infrastructure, and sewage systems have been systematically destroyed. This is not damage caused by fighting around civilians.
“It is the removal of the conditions required for civilian life to continue.”
Hospitals have been a central target. Gaza’s major medical complexes were besieged, raided, and rendered inoperable. Electricity was cut. Fuel was denied. Oxygen supplies ran out. Patients died untreated on floors. Premature infants were left in incubators without power. Medical staff were detained directly from wards and operating theatres, taken without charge, many remaining in detention months later.
This is not collateral damage. It is the dismantling of a healthcare system in real time.
Human rights atrocity
Mass detention has accompanied the physical destruction. Thousands of Palestinians have been taken without charge or access to legal counsel. Human rights organisations have documented beatings, starvation, stress positions, and sexual abuse in detention. Medical professionals and journalists were not spared. They were targeted.
Journalists have been killed at a rate unmatched in any modern conflict. Aid workers have been killed despite operating in clearly marked vehicles and facilities. Among them was Australian humanitarian Zomi Frankcom, killed during a coordinated strike on an aid convoy.
And then there is Hind Rajab.
A six-year-old girl was trapped in a car after her family was shot dead. She called emergency services. Her voice was recorded. An ambulance was dispatched to rescue her. The ambulance was destroyed. Hind was later found dead alongside the paramedics sent to save her.
There was no firefight. No exchange of fire. No ambiguity.
Doctors from Australia, the United States, and Canada who worked in Gaza later testified publicly to treating repeated waves of children with gunshot wounds consistent with sniper fire. Identical entry wounds to heads and chests. These were not anecdotes.
They were clinical observations recorded by trained professionals.
The crime scene
This is why the language of genocide is no longer rhetorical. It is legal. The International Court of Justice has found a plausible risk of genocide and ordered provisional measures. The International Criminal Court is pursuing accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from Israeli actions.
What is unfolding in Gaza is not a tragedy without authorship.
It is a crime scene.
Australia has chosen silence.
That silence is no longer ignorance. At the National Press Club, senior human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti warned that Australians who served in Gaza may face criminal liability if genocide or war crimes are established. He was explicit. Genocide does not require pulling a trigger. Assistance, facilitation, or knowing contribution can be enough.
“The government did not contest the law. It did nothing.”
The government did not contest the law. It did nothing.
No Australian Federal Police task force. No examination of units or command chains. No transparency. No framework for investigating potential complicity in genocide or war crimes under Australian law.
Instead, indulgence.
An estimated 1,000 former or current Israeli Defence Force soldiers now live freely in Australia. They stroll through Caulfield, Bondi, Dover Heights, and Double Bay. They drink lattes in Sydney cafes. They enjoy suburban normality without scrutiny, while Gaza remains a ledger of rubble, amputations, mass graves, and dead children.And the indulgence does not stop at inaction. It now edges toward empowerment.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has publicly canvassed expanding armed community protection roles, including the involvement of current or former Israeli soldiers in guarding Jewish institutions in Australia. The stated aim is protection against antisemitism. That aim is legitimate. The implications are not.
Policing and the authorised use of force are public functions. They exist because weapons in civilian life require training, oversight, accountability, and law. When governments contemplate arming individuals with recent service in a foreign military now under investigation for genocide, the issue becomes immediate and domestic.
Run the test honestly.
ISIS vs IDF
If ISIS returnees sought to bear arms in public under the guise of community protection, the state would answer with handcuffs and prison, not consent. The request itself would be treated as evidence of danger.
That this proposal can be entertained for one category of foreign fighter while unthinkable for another exposes the fiction at the heart of Australia’s claim to equal justice. The law has not changed. Only who it is prepared to protect has.
“This is not neutrality. It’s policy.”
Australia destroyed careers investigating its own soldiers. It went after its most decorated units without fear or favour. It acted ruthlessly against ISIS recruits. It would move instantly if Australians fought for Russia.
When Australians fight in Gaza under the Israeli flag, amid credible allegations of genocide now before international courts, the state looks away.
“That is not restraint, but complicity.”
History will remember this as the moment Australia blinded its own law, allowing returning IDF soldiers to pass unexamined and exposing fairness before the law as a deliberate lie.
Rubio Dodges Accountability at Senate Hearing as Deadly Boat Strikes Continue.
As the top official at the State Department, Rubio also appeared to distance himself from the boat strikes and repeatedly deferred questions from members of both parties about the legal justification to the Department of Defense, where Hegseth reportedly ordered the strikes under Trump’s authority
The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, not the president, but this standard has eroded over decades of U.S. imperialism and the “war on drugs.”
The families of two men killed on a small boat targeted by the US military filed a wrongful death lawsuit this week.
By Mike Ludwig , Truthout, January 29, 2026
As former colleagues fumed about the administration’s failure to consult Congress, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended President Donald Trump’s rapid escalation of the “war on drugs” in the Caribbean and Latin America before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 28. Rubio testified for almost three hours in his first congressional hearing since U.S. forces invaded Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a deadly raid on January 3.
“This is the first public hearing we’ve had. Two hundred folks who were on secret designated combatant lists have been killed, U.S. troops have been injured, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, an armada amassed, and the announcement of a new Monroe doctrine which does not land well in the Americas,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), noting operations began nearly five months ago. “Democrats have asked over and over again, can we have a public hearing?”
After months of U.S. military belligerence in international waters without congressional oversight, Rubio claimed the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela but is at war with drug smugglers, which he called “enemy combatants” with advanced weapons. However, Rubio distanced himself from dozens of airstrikes on small boats that have killed at least 126 people since September, deferring questions to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, despite Rubio’s double role as Trump’s national security advisor. Rubio’s prepared remarks did not mention the boat strikes…………………………………………………………………………….
Rubio’s testimony came one day after the families of two Trinidadian men killed in a U.S. boat strike on October 14 filed a landmark wrongful death lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court………………………………………..
Echoing many experts, the lawsuit argues there is no legal justification for the boat strikes, videos of which quickly became content for the Trump administration’s social media propaganda. “These are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group representing the Trinidadian families, in a statement on January 27.
“It is absurd and dangerous for any state to just unilaterally proclaim that a ‘war’ exists in order to deploy lethal military force,” Azmy said.
At the Senate hearing, Kaine said the committee was unable to properly discuss the fatal boat strikes because the administration is keeping the intelligence behind them classified and out of public view — including any evidence that the people on the boats were smuggling drugs rather than fishing or traveling from one place to another as the families of Joseph and Samaroo have said.
“I would like to talk about the complete weakness of the legal rationale about striking boats in international waters, but I can’t, because the administration has only shared it with members in a classified setting,” Kaine said. “I can’t tell you the domestic rationale is hollow and the international rationale is hollow.”…………………………………………………………………………………….
As the top official at the State Department, Rubio also appeared to distance himself from the boat strikes and repeatedly deferred questions from members of both parties about the legal justification to the Department of Defense, where Hegseth reportedly ordered the strikes under Trump’s authority……………………………………………………………………
The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, not the president, but this standard has eroded over decades of U.S. imperialism and the “war on drugs.”…………………..
On January 14, the Senate’s GOP majority narrowly blocked a war powers resolution that would have required the president receive permission from Congress before taking further military action. Republicans also blocked an resolution to prohibit the deadly boat strikes and reign in Trump’s war on drug cartels shortly before breaking for the holidays in December. https://truthout.org/articles/rubio-dodges-accountability-at-senate-hearing-as-deadly-boat-strikes-continue/
Trump’s war on international justice
By Hassan Elbiali | 29 January 2026
When the U.S. sanctions international judges to shield Israel, power decides who is accountable, not law. Hassan Elbiali reports.
SINCE RETURNING to office in January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump has launched an aggressive campaign to dismantle international legal accountability.
His Administration imposed sweeping sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) personnel investigating Israeli conduct in Gaza — not just a policy disagreement, but an assault on the institution itself.
The Trump Administration sanctioned judges, prosecutors and Palestinian human rights organisations that cooperated with ICC investigations. By December 2025, nine ICC staff members faced economic penalties. These sanctions cut them off from banks, credit card companies and platforms like Amazon, treating international judges the same way the U.S. treats Russian oligarchs.
The executive order Trump signed in February 2025 declared the ICC had engaged in actions targeting America and its ally Israel, calling the arrest warrants baseless. The Administration expanded sanctions in June, August and December, each time targeting those involved in the Gaza investigation.
ICC judges reported losing access to credit cards, having purchased e-books vanish from devices and Amazon’s Alexa stopping responses. One sanctioned judge told reporters she now appears on lists with terrorists and organised crime figures — punishment for doing her job.
The Gaza reality
The stakes couldn’t be higher because the underlying facts demand accountability. By January 2025, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported at least 46,645 Palestinians killed, with the vast majority being civilians. Independent research suggests far worse. A Lancet study estimated that total violent deaths by October 2024 exceeded 70,000, with 59% being women, children and the elderly.
A November 2025 Max Planck Institute study estimated total violent deaths between 100,000 and 126,000, of which 27% were children under 15. UNICEF reported that 74 children were killed in just the first week of 2025 alone.
The pattern of destruction meets definitions that scholars and institutions can no longer ignore. Multiple human rights groups and numerous international law scholars have recognised what’s happening as genocide. UN satellite analysis found that nearly 78% of all structures across Gaza had been destroyed.
The starvation component particularly demonstrates intent. For extended periods, humanitarian aid was blocked, with Israeli officials declaring that restricting aid was official policy. When food becomes a weapon against a population of over two million, including one million children, legal frameworks either mean something or they don’t.
Western complicity
Trump’s sanctions represent the most brazen effort to shield Israel from accountability, but complicity runs deeper.
The U.S. has supported Israel’s military campaign by continuing to supply billions in military aid throughout the genocide. The Trump Administration sanctioned three Palestinian human rights organisations – Al-Haq, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – for documenting violations and asking the ICC to investigate, effectively criminalising the documentation of war crimes.
Britain applied similar pressure. Then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron privately warned ICC prosecutor Karim A A Khan in April 2024 that the UK would defund and withdraw from the ICC if it issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. Cameron told Khan that pursuing warrants would be like “dropping a hydrogen bomb.”
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham threatened Khan with sanctions if he applied for the warrants, warning that “if they do this to Israel, we’re next”.
When powerful states actively work to prevent accountability for mass atrocities, they expose the conditional nature of their commitment to international law.
Power always shaped law
International law never existed independently of power. Law and power are constituted together and are therefore interdependent. When the balance of power shifts, the legal order shifts with it.
The post-1945 system reflected American dominance and Western liberal values. As that power wanes and new centres emerge –China, India, the Global South – the legal architecture must change. This isn’t collapse; it’s reconfiguration.
History proves the point. During the 1930s, the League of Nations failed when Nazi Germany rose to power, Italy invaded Ethiopia and the USSR fought Finland. Yet international law survived, adapted and emerged stronger after World War II.
What this means
The Hague Group, founded by Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa in January 2025, responds to growing cracks in international legal enforcement and its politicised, selective application. These states seek to reshape international law around different principles than those that dominated the past 70 years.
If you’re analysing global politics, understand that we’re not witnessing the end of international law — we’re watching its transformation through the crucible of Gaza. But the Gaza genocide and Western efforts to prevent accountability reveal something more troubling.
When powerful states systematically dismantle legal institutions investigating their allies’ war crimes, they demonstrate that international law applies selectively based on political alignment rather than universal principles.
Trump’s sanctions, combined with continued weapons shipments to Israel, expose the hypocrisy at the heart of the current system. UN experts called the sanctions an attack on the global rule of law that undermines international justice. When the world’s most powerful state treats international judges like criminals for investigating genocide, the pretence that law governs power becomes untenable.
What you’re witnessing isn’t the end of international law — it’s the painful birth of a multipolar legal order. Whether this transition happens through negotiation or conflict will determine if the coming decades bring greater justice or greater chaos.
The difference now is that Gaza has exposed this reality so starkly that denial becomes impossible. When thousands of children die while powerful states actively block accountability, the question becomes whether any international legal system can emerge that commands genuine respect rather than cynical compliance.
The answer will shape not just Palestinian lives but the prospects for justice everywhere.
Tribunal says Swahili ban at nuclear firm was discrimination
An employment tribunal has ordered the taxpayer owned company tasked with
safely decommissioning the UK’s first-generation nuclear power sites pay
more than £10,800 in compensation to a worker who was banned from speaking
Swahili. The Glasgow tribunal found that Nuclear Restoration Services
Limited (NRS) discriminated against Mr K Ruiza after his line manager
instructed him to only speak English while on site. The judge said the
order left him humiliated, distressed and fearful he would lose his job.
The tribunal ruled the company must pay £9,000 for injury to feelings,
plus £1,875.94 in interest, bringing the total award to £10,875.94.
Herald 26th Jan 2026, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25794684.tribunal-says-swahili-ban-nuclear-firm-discrimination/
The end of sovereign immunity: America’s new doctrine of capture.
the United States will act as judge, jury and gaoler.
We are entering a “Legal Wild West”.
By Imran Khalid | 19 January 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-end-of-sovereign-immunity-americas-new-doctrine-of-capture,20584
By seizing a sitting head of state, Washington has replaced international law with a doctrine of unilateral reach, writes Imran Khalid.
FOR NEARLY FOUR centuries, the global order has rested on the foundation of Westphalian sovereignty: the idea that a state has exclusive authority over its territory and that a head of state is shielded from the jurisdiction of foreign courts.
Recently, that principle was not merely challenged; it was dismantled. The capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, by U.S. special forces in Caracas and their transfer to U.S. custody – initially aboard the USS Iwo Jima before being flown to New York – marks the birth of what we might call the “Decapitation Doctrine”. It is a shift that moves the world away from universal law and toward a system where geography determines your level of immunity.
The Trump Administration’s rationale for “Operation Absolute Resolve” is framed as a law enforcement action rather than an act of war. By relying on a narco-terrorism indictment filed in the Southern District of New York, Washington has bypassed the United Nations and the traditional mechanisms of international conflict.
The message is as clear as it is jarring: the United States no longer views the recognition of a foreign leader as a barrier to domestic prosecution. If a leader is deemed a criminal by the Department of Justice, they are subject to the same reach as any common cartel boss.
This development is a logical, if extreme, conclusion to a decade of eroding global norms. We have seen the steady decline of multilateral institutions and the rise of transactional diplomacy. But by “running” Venezuela – as President Trump promised on 3 January – the United States is doing more than pursuing a fugitive. It is declaring a new Monroe Doctrine for the 21st Century.
This updated version suggests that within its own hemisphere, the United States will act as judge, jury and gaoler. It is a return to a “sphere of influence” model where the rules of the road are written by the regional hegemon.
To understand the gravity of this moment, one must look at the history of sovereign immunity. Since the mid-17th Century, the international system has functioned on the “fiction” of equal sovereignty. Whether a nation was a global empire or a tiny principality, its leader was considered the personification of the state and thus beyond the reach of foreign domestic law.
This was not a moral judgment, but a practical one designed to prevent a cycle of endless retributive litigation between nations. By breaking this seal, the United States has effectively signalled that sovereignty is no longer an absolute right, but a privilege granted by the powerful to the compliant.
The legal community is understandably alarmed. If the U.S. can arrest Maduro based on a domestic indictment, what stops other powers from doing the same? We are entering a “Legal Wild West”.
Imagine a future where a court in Tehran issues an arrest warrant for a European defense minister, or a tribunal in Moscow indicts a Baltic leader for “crimes against the Russian state”. By removing the shield of sovereign immunity, the United States has introduced a level of personal vulnerability for world leaders that will inevitably lead to a more paranoid and defensive international climate.
This concern is already manifesting in UN Security Council debates over the operation’s legality, with Russia expelling U.S. diplomats in retaliation and China halting debt talks with Venezuela.
This “judicialisation” of foreign policy also creates a dangerous precedent for domestic politics. When foreign policy is conducted through the lens of criminal law, it becomes harder to engage in the necessary compromises of diplomacy. You cannot negotiate a peace treaty with someone you have labelled a common felon.
In the past, the United States often used “golden bridges” to allow dictators to leave power gracefully — think of Ferdinand Marcos or Jean-Claude Duvalier. By opting for a New York courtroom instead of a quiet exile, the U.S. may find that future dictators will choose to fight to the bitter end rather than risk a life sentence in a Brooklyn cell.
Indeed, on 5 January, Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty in Manhattan’s federal court, with Maduro declaring himself “kidnapped” and a “prisoner of war” while his wife appeared with visible injuries from the raid — a gash over her eye and a forehead welt.
Furthermore, the transitional oversight of Venezuela by American officials – backed by the initial presence of the USS Iwo Jima – creates a political vacuum that may be impossible to fill legitimately.
While Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has been named acting president by the Venezuelan Supreme Court and has received “unconditional support” from Maduro’s son even as she extends an olive branch to Trump, the reality on the ground is one of American leverage. Any successor to Maduro will now face the “proxy problem”.
In an era of intense nationalism, a leader who is seen as being installed or protected by Washington will struggle to gain the internal legitimacy required to govern. This is compounded by Cuba’s report of 32 officers killed in the raid, Venezuela’s nationwide manhunt for Maduro supporters and Switzerland’s freeze on Maduro-linked assets.
We are witnessing the transition from a world of rules to a world of reach. The United States has demonstrated that its reach is unrivalled, but the long-term stability of the international system depends on more than just the ability to snatch a dictator from his bedroom. It depends on a shared understanding of where one state’s power ends and another’s begins.
By blurring that line in Caracas, Washington may have achieved a tactical masterstroke, but it has left the global order in a state of profound and dangerous uncertainty, with oil markets surging and protests rippling across U.S. cities in response.
Trump’s foreign policy: “I don’t need international law because I’m not looking to hurt people”
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL , 16 Jan 26,
Trump’s foreign policy: “I don’t need international law because I’m not looking to hurt people”
In dismissing international law, Trump went further and proclaimed regarding any limit on his authority to engage in military action, “the only limit is my own mind, my own morality…the only thing that can stop me.”
During the past year how has Trump’s own mind, own morality influenced his looking to not hurt people?
Trump supplied Israel with billions in bombs to slaughter tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.
He’s bombed imagine bad guys in Somalia 124 times, doubling his previous record of 63 bombings in 2019.
He fired 12 Tomahawk missiles at imagined bad guys in Nigeria killing unknown Nigerians.
He bombed Syria after 3 US soldiers defiling Syrian sovereignty were killed by unknown attackers. Didn’t matter who Trump killed as long as he retaliated.
He bombed Iran to take out an imaginary nuclear bomb program. He may be on the cusp of bombing Iran again to achieve decades’ long US goal of Iranian regime change.
He obliterated 35 small, unarmed boats off Venezuela, killing over 100 unknown persons. Then he attacked Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro’s compound, killing over 100 guards in the process of kidnapping him back to the US.
He’s threatening to invade and take control of Greenland from Denmark.
He’s threatening to change out Cuba’s communist government that has been America’s goal for 66 years.
Back home, he’s sent thousands of masked, armed, poorly trained ICE thugs onto American streets to arrest, harass, beat up, occasionally shoot innocent persons trying to live the American Dream.
Gee, wonder what Trump’s foreign and domestic policy would be like if his stated goal was to hurt people?
Militant Zionist Group Ceasing Operations In New York Following Settlement with Attorney General.
The far-right Zionist organization has agreed to a $50,000 suspended fine that it will only be forced to pay if it violates the terms of the agreement, which require it to stop engaging in organized harassment campaigns encouraging violence and making direct threats against its political opponents.
Although branded as a fringe group on the outskirts of the American Zionist establishment, evidence of the political influence of Betar U.S. became increasingly evident following the return of President Donald J. Trump to the White House.
Betar U.S. has deemed it cannot continue to operate if it is unable to engage in terroristic tactics.
blueapples, Jan 15, 2026, https://ddgeopolitics.substack.com/p/militant-zionist-group-ceasing-operations?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1769298&post_id=184510757&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
By virtue of its standing as the global center of the Jewish diaspora, New York City emerged as the main battleground in the United States for the fight between American Zionists and their opponents amid the deterioration of public support for Israel accelerated by its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. While critics of the State of Israel participating in widespread protests across the city have been branded as Jihadists by their opponents for protesting against the slaughter of innocent Palestinians at the blood-stained hands of the Israel Defense Forces (”IDF”), it is a pro-Israel group that has been exposed for engaging in a campaign of terrorism in the latest fallout from that ideological conflict. Betar U.S., the American chapter of an international militant organization created by the founder of the Zionist paramilitary the Irgun, has chosen to cease its operations in New York following a settlement with the office of the state’s attorney general after an investigation uncovered systemic campaigns of harassment, intimidation, and political violence led by the group.
In the wake of political unrest across the U.S. beginning in 2024 centered around protests against Israel on the campus of Columbia University, Betar U.S. engaged in organized harassment campaigns of pro-Palestinian protesters and activists, culminating in an investigation against them. The investigation into the organization began in March 2025, following a series of formal complaints made against the group. According to a statement from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James announcing its settlement with Betar, “The Office of the Attorney General investigation determined that Betar U.S. engaged in a pattern of violence and harassment driven by explicit hostility toward protected groups.” The investigation also uncovered that despite registering with the Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit in 2024, Betar U.S. never registered itself with the New York State Charities Bureau, despite soliciting donations while operating in the state.
The far-right Zionist organization has agreed to a $50,000 suspended fine that it will only be forced to pay if it violates the terms of the agreement, which require it to stop engaging in organized harassment campaigns encouraging violence and making direct threats against its political opponents. Betar U.S. will be required to file annual compliance reports for the next three years proving it has not violated the terms of the settlement to avoid paying the suspended fine. As a result of the settlement, Betar U.S. will dissolve its nonprofit status in New York and has told the attorney general’s office that it intends to cease its operations within the state. Despite agreeing to the settlement, a spokesperson from Betar U.S. has denied any wrongdoing.
Although branded as a fringe group on the outskirts of the American Zionist establishment, evidence of the political influence of Betar U.S. became increasingly evident following the return of President Donald J. Trump to the White House. In late January 2025, shortly after Trump was inaugurated, the far-right Zionist group provided his administration with a list of students participating in anti-Israel protests whose identities it uncovered in order to have them deported from the country. Shortly after being sent that list, President Trump signed an executive order creating a task force against antisemitism. In response to continued protests against Israel, Trump signed another executive order to deport college students and other non-permanent U.S. residents in the country on green cards and visas by equating their participation in the demonstrations with support for terrorism. That decision emboldened Betar U.S. to launch what it named Operation Wrath of Zion as a coordinated doxing campaign to leak the personal details of protesters.
Evidence of the harassment campaigns the New York Attorney General’s office found Betar U.S. to have engaged in has been replete across social media since the group was revived in June 2023, just months before the conflict between Israel and Hamas led to full-scale war in the Gaza Strip following the attacks of October 7th, 2023. The group regularly posted threats on X, going as far as to publish videos of its members committing acts of violence against pro-Palestine protesters. Following a Mossad-led operation dubbed Operation Grim Beeper, in which Israeli intelligence targeted Hezbollah officials by detonating thousands of handheld pagers across Lebanon and Syria, leading to thousands of civilian casualties, Betar U.S. posted videos of its members taking to the streets of New York City to hand-deliver beepers to anti-Israel activists as an intimidation tactic. Jewish anti-Zionist activist Norman Finkelstein was one such critic of Israel whom Betar U.S. targeted in this coordinated harassment campaign, calling him a “fucking Holocaust denying piece of shit” when placing a beeper into the front pocket of his jacket.
Although Betar U.S. targeted pro-Palestinian activists with its militant tactics, the extremist ideology of the group also put it at odds with other Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League. The group accused the ADL of being too lenient on opponents of Israel, creating an irreconcilable schism between the two. The animosity it fostered led to the ADL putting Betar U.S. on its database of extremist groups, making it the only Jewish organization to earn that distinction.
In response to the announcement of its settlement with the New York Attorney General, Betar attempted to distance itself from the renewed attention placed on its militant ideology. “Betar is mainstream Zionism, an organization without which the State of Israel would not exist,” a spokesperson told The Times of Israel. Despite this protestation, Betar is impossible to separate from militant Zionist extremism. The organization was originally established by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in Riga, Latvia in 1923 as a fascist youth movement created to advance his ideology of Revisionist Zionism.
The sect of Revisionist Zionism created by Jabotinsky advocated for the reform of the Zionist ideology in opposition to the left-wing Labor Zionism movement led by the eventual first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion. In contrast to Labor Zionism, the ideology of Revisionist Zionism centered around the idea that the Jewish people had the right to sovereignty over the whole of what it saw as the Land of Israel, including the entirety of British Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan. Revisionist Zionism has served as the foundation for the right wing of modern Israeli politics, influencing the creation of the Likud party, now led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the Jewish supremacist Kahanism movement, which the Jewish Power party, led by Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, arose out of.
Jabotinsky was also behind the founding of the Irgun, a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine from 1931 until years after his death in 1940, when it was eventually absorbed into the IDF following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. In its years operating as a Zionist paramilitary, the Irgun was responsible for acts of terrorism against Palestinian Arabs and other groups it labeled as opponents of its Zionist worldview, such as the Deir Yassin Massacre and the King David Hotel Bombing committed against the administrative headquarters of the British authorities of Mandatory Palestine in 1946. Betar served as a recruiting pipeline for the Irgun, in a manner like that in which the Hitler Youth was constructed.
It wasn’t until six years after the Zionist paramilitary was founded by Jabotinsky that the U.S. branch of Betar was established in 1929. Throughout its existence, opposition to its radical ideology and militant tactics had fragmented its operations in America. However, following its latest iteration being established in 2023, support from high-ranking Israeli political leaders has allowed it to flourish. During a visit to the U.S. in September to speak before the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with leaders of Betar U.S. in New York City. Yet, even that tacit support from the Israeli government was not enough to overcome the scrutiny the group has faced due to its militant tactics.
In the wake of the announcement of its settlement with the Office of the New York State Attorney General, Betar U.S. returned to its X account to continue to push propaganda framing itself as a victim of antisemitism. Betar U.S. accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of barring it from operating in the state. In reality, all the attorney general’s office has required of Betar U.S. is to stop targeting its opponents with campaigns of harassment, intimidation, and violence, or face paying a paltry $50,000 fine. That requirement alone was enough for Betar U.S. to voluntarily cease its operations. Given that it postures itself as a mainstream pro-Israel organization, the fact that Betar U.S. has deemed that it cannot continue to operate without engaging in those terroristic tactics is a damning distillation of what Zionism truly stands for.
Challenge to Latest Sellafield Discharges to the Rivers Calder, Ehen and the Irish Sea
By mariannewildart, on behalf of Lakes Against Nuclear Dump, https://lakesagainstnucleardump.com/2026/01/16/still-waiting-for-judge-to-make-decision-on-our-challenge-to-latest-sellafield-discharges/
The hearing on whether our Judicial Review into the challenge of Sellafield’s latest discharges to the rivers Calder and Ehen took place at the end of November. Incredibly we are still waiting for the decision on whether our Judicial Review can go forward. In the meantime here is a lovely photo [on original] of Rowbank Farm.
This is just one of the many farms and grand houses in the once fertile plain between the Lake District mountains and the Irish Sea to be obliterated by Sellafield’s nuclear waste sprawl along the once meandering and braided river Calder. This photo [on original] along with many more can be found on the Calderbridge and Ponsonby Parish Council website (no endorsement of our challenge by the Parish Council is implied – the photos are in the public domain)
Onwards and Upwards
Ushering In the Age of 1A Impunity: Venezuela, Palestine, and the End of International Law.
The UN’s human rights rapporteurs are under a sustained campaign of slander and sanction. And even the UN Security Council has surrendered to the U.S. empire, as evidenced by its resolution 2803 in November of 2025, endorsing the wholly unlawful and baldly colonial plans of the Trump administration for Gaza.
the hand of the Israeli regime in supporting right-wing forces and destabilizing progressive governments in the region is by now well known. Israeli weapons, surveillance technology, intelligence, training, and influence via Israel proxies in the region have been a constant feature of Latin America for decades.
The recent sound of explosions over Venezuela, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Nigeria are not merely the spasms by a declining U.S. empire. They are something much more terrifying — the dawning of the age of impunity.
Mondoweiss, By Craig Mokhiber January 7, 2026
On January 3, 2026, without provocation, cause, or legal justification, the U.S. bombed Venezuela, invaded its capital, killed dozens of people, and violently abducted the President and First Lady of the country, binding, blindfolding, and spiriting them off to the United States.
Surely, such a blatant violation of a whole raft of international laws, indeed, challenging the very centerpiece of the post-World War II legal framework that prohibits acts of aggression, would be met with universal condemnation.
Instead, it has been followed by equivocal whimpers by several Western leaders, a hyper-cautious response from the UN Secretary-General, rhetorical condemnation by members of the Security Council, but no action whatsoever, and enthusiastic cheerleading by U.S. and Western corporate media.
How could this be?
Simply put, we are witnessing the dawning of the age of impunity.
Slouching towards Bethlehem
The recent sound of explosions over Venezuela, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Nigeria, and over the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Caribbean Sea, is not merely the sound of a momentary imperial spasm by a declining U.S. empire.
It heralds something much more terrifying.
A new world is being birthed (or perhaps, reborn, reminiscent as it is of the horrors of the first half of the 20th Century).
A world wholly unconstrained by international law, or even by the most basic and universal moral principles.
A birth that could have been foretold by anyone paying attention to the machinations of the empire and its allies and vassals in recent decades.
From the mass incarceration and police excesses of the “war on drugs,” to the renditions, executions, and torture of the “war on terrorism,” to the systematic immiseration of the many in order to consolidate the wealth and power of the few, the U.S. empire has been on a decades-long warpath culminating with the extermination of the Palestinian people and this week’s assault on Venezuela.
These ever-expanding ripples of oppression, unchecked, threaten us all.
Because, in a world where even genocide is not a red line, there are no red lines.
A child of impunity
This new world is the child of impunity.
For over two years, the world has watched passively as the U.S.-Israel Axis stampeded across Western Asia, Africa, and Latin America in a blood-soaked rampage of conquest and destruction.
The UN Charter, the Rome Statute, the laws of war, human rights law, the law of the sea, laws on the use of force, all have been trampled underfoot and left in ruin by the actions and pronouncements of the Axis, the complicity of its allies and vassals, and the complacency of other states.
For their part, the international institutions put in place in the wake of the Second World War to prevent and respond to such horrors have been systematically corrupted, cowed, or crushed by the Axis. The International Criminal Court is largely frozen in the face of illegal U.S. sanctions. The International Court of Justice faces unprecedented harassment and political pressure.
The UN’s human rights rapporteurs are under a sustained campaign of slander and sanction. And even the UN Security Council has surrendered to the U.S. empire, as evidenced by its resolution 2803 in November of 2025, endorsing the wholly unlawful and baldly colonial plans of the Trump administration for Gaza.
States of the Western world, which have long postured as the defenders of human rights and international law, rather than standing up to the excesses of the Axis, have tripped over each other to obsequiously kiss the ring of the emperor and to bow to the blood-soaked stewards of its colonial project in Palestine.
And any presumed checks within the institutions of the empire itself have shown themselves to be wholly complicit, including the courts, which are both politically driven and generally disdainful of international law, the Congress, itself entirely corrupted by the lobbies, corporations, and billionaires driving U.S. and Israeli crimes in the first place, and the corporate media, which have thoroughly dedicated themselves to running cover for the imperial, extractive, corporate, and Zionist causes at the root of the violence engulfing the world today.
Yes, the people themselves have risen up, and in record numbers, to oppose the crimes of the Axis. But they have been met with systematic and brutal repression inside the empire and across the West, and even within the captured front line states of Western Asia.
As a result, the Axis has enjoyed absolute impunity, encouraging successively more atrocious acts, in a building crescendo of violence that has included aggression against countries across Western Asia and Africa, a chain of assassinations, the targeting of humanitarian boats in the Mediterranean, transnational terror attacks with booby trapped pagers, unlawful occupation of several nations, and a continuing genocide in Palestine.
In this context, no one should be surprised by the blatant criminality of the U.S. in imposing brutal unilateral coercive measures designed to starve the population of Venezuela into submission, several coup attempts, a series of extrajudicial executions of boaters in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, the pirating of the country’s oil tankers and the seizing of their cargo, the bombing and invasion of the country, and the violent abduction of the President and First Lady.
This is how impunity functions. The more you feed it, the hungrier it becomes. And the world has fed this impunity for decades.
The beastly child born of this impunity brings with it the worst genetic traits of its 20th-century progenitors: racism, imperialism, colonialism, fascism, Zionism, aggression, and genocide. But it is now armed with the terrible 21st-century technologies of surveillance, silencing, and murder. The impacts of this deadly combination are now being felt across three continents in the global South, while the rest of the world teeters on the brink.
Imperial crimes in Venezuela………………………………………………………………
The Israeli connection
In her first public address since the U.S. attacks, Venezuelan Vice-President (and now Interim President) Delcy Rodriguez declared that the attack on the country had “Zionist undertones.” While she did not elaborate, the hand of the Israeli regime in supporting right-wing forces and destabilizing progressive governments in the region is by now well known. Israeli weapons, surveillance technology, intelligence, training, and influence via Israel proxies in the region have been a constant feature of Latin America for decades.
For their part, Israeli regime leaders have been giddy in their celebration of the attacks and of the abduction of the Venezuelan President (and have expressed their hope that the next attacks will be in Iran).
And this is no surprise. Since the election of Hugo Chávez and the launch of the Bolivarian Revolution more than a quarter century ago, Venezuela has asserted its independence, resisted U.S. hegemony, directed its oil and mineral wealth toward improving living conditions within the country, and stood in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for human rights.
Like Iran, Iraq, and Libya before them, that combination of factors has secured Venezuela’s place in the gunsights of the U.S.-Israel axis.
What’s more, the Israeli regime has a long history of attacking progressive forces, supporting right-wing regimes, death squads, and dictators, and seeding conflict across Latin America. Over the decades, its blood-stained fingerprints have been revealed in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela.
This, together with the anti-colonial instincts of the region, explains the disgust with which Latin American governments of the left view the Israeli regime. And it also explains why far-right movements and leaders in the region routinely declare their fanatical support for the regime and for the Zionist project, even in the midst of the genocide in Palestine.
While the progressive governments of the region have condemned the genocide, joined the ICJ genocide case against Israel, and cut off diplomatic relations with the regime, right-wing governments, as well as leaders of Venezuela’s right-wing opposition, have praised the Israeli regime and subserviently pledged even closer cooperation. The regime is, as it has always been, deeply invested in tearing down left-wing governments in Latin America and propping up the right.
At the same time, Venezuela’s opposition to the Israeli regime, while also holding the world’s largest oil reserves, is seen by the U.S.-Israel Axis as a potential obstacle to their nefarious plans for war on Iran. Iran’s own oil capacities, and especially its effective control over the Straits of Hormuz (and therefore world energy markets), make control of Venezuelan oil especially attractive to the Axis as it prepares to renew its attacks on Iran.
Thus, the principal drivers of U.S. aggression against countries of the global South are the possession of mineral wealth coveted by U.S. corporations, a refusal to submit to U.S. hegemony, and opposition to the crimes of the Israeli regime. Venezuela has been guilty of all three. And these are the real “crimes” for which it is being prosecuted.
Life after law
The nascent project of international law has always been both weak and inchoate. But the guardrails established since 1945 offered some hope of a world governed, at least in part, by the rule of law, rather than by force alone.
. And a global consensus had been established whereby the worst crimes- aggression and genocide- were agreed to be beyond the pale. The U.S.-Israel Axis, so often indicted for violating international law, has lost patience with the entire project, and, with genocide in Palestine, the raining down of Axis bombs in countries across the globe, and now aggression in Venezuela, it has declared to the world that a new order is born. One in which all must bow to the empire or perish.
It is not too late for the world to stand up to stop the emergence of this beastly new order. Movements of people within and beyond the empire can challenge it with the urgency and unity of purpose it requires. The global majority, led by the free nations of the South, could unite as it did in the 1960s and 70s to challenge the empire and draw a line of principle, centered on collective action for peace, security, self-determination, and the human rights of peoples everywhere. Sadly, to date, there is little evidence to suggest that this is happening.
In the meantime, the unmistakable, unequivocal message that the U.S. imperial regime, its Israeli attack dog, and its legions of subservient Western vassals are sending to the world, to the nation states in its gunsights, and to all peoples resisting foreign occupation, colonial domination, and racist regimes is this: Diplomacy will not save you. International law will not save you. The United Nations will not save you. And we are coming for you. https://mondoweiss.net/2026/01/ushering-in-the-age-of-impunity-venezuela-palestine-and-the-end-of-international-law/
Trump Abandonment of Global Treaties, Including Landmark Climate Deal, ‘Threatens All Life on Earth’
“Trump cutting ties with the world’s oldest climate treaty is another despicable effort to let corporate fossil fuel interests run our government.”
Jake Johnson, Jan 08, 2026, https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-withdraws-global-treaties
President Donald Trump on Wednesday withdrew the United States from dozens of international treaties and organizations aimed at promoting cooperation on the world’s most pressing issues, including human rights and the worsening climate emergency.
Among the treaties Trump ditched via a legally dubious executive order was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), making the US—the world’s largest historical emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases—the first country to abandon the landmark agreement.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday withdrew the United States from dozens of international treaties and organizations aimed at promoting cooperation on the world’s most pressing issues, including human rights and the worsening climate emergency.
Among the treaties Trump ditched via a legally dubious executive order was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), making the US—the world’s largest historical emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases—the first country to abandon the landmark agreement.
The US Senate ratified the convention in 1992 by unanimous consent, but lawmakers have repeatedly failed to assert their constitutional authority to stop presidents from unilaterally withdrawing from global treaties.
Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that “Trump cutting ties with the world’s oldest climate treaty is another despicable effort to let corporate fossil fuel interests run our government.”
“Given deeply polarized US politics, it’s going to be nearly impossible for the U.S. to rejoin the UNFCCC with a two-thirds majority vote. Letting this lawless move stand could shut the US out of climate diplomacy forever,” Su warned. “Withdrawing from the world’s leading climate, biodiversity, and scientific institutions threatens all life on Earth.”
Trump also pulled the US out of the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the UN International Law Commission, the UN Democracy Fund, UN Oceans, and dozens of other global bodies, deeming them “contrary to the interests of the United States.”
The president’s move came as he continued to steamroll domestic and international law with an illegal assault on Venezuela and threats to seize Greenland with military force, among other grave abuses.
Below is the full list of international organizations that Trump abandoned with the stroke of a pen:
(a) Non-United Nations Organizations:
(i) 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact;
(ii) Colombo Plan Council;
(iii) Commission for Environmental Cooperation;
(iv) Education Cannot Wait;
(v) European Centre of Excellence for Countering
Hybrid Threats;
(vi) Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories;
(vii) Freedom Online Coalition;
(viii) Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund;
(ix) Global Counterterrorism Forum;
(x) Global Forum on Cyber Expertise;
(xi) Global Forum on Migration and Development;
(xii) Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research;
(xiii) Intergovernmental Forum onMining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development;
(xiv) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;
(xv) Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services;
(xvi) International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property;
(xvii) International Cotton Advisory Committee;
(xviii) International Development Law Organization;
(xix) International Energy Forum;
(xx) International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies;
(xxi) International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance;
(xxii) International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law;
(xxiii) International Lead and Zinc Study Group;
(xxiv) InternationalRenewable Energy Agency;
(xxv) International Solar Alliance;
(xxvi) International Tropical Timber Organization;
(xxvii) International Union for Conservation of Nature;
(xxviii) Pan American Institute of Geography and History;
(xxix) Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation;
(xxx) Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia;
(xxxi) Regional Cooperation Council;
(xxxii) Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century;
(xxxiii)Science and Technology Center in Ukraine;
(xxxiv) Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme; and
(xxxv) Venice Commission of the Council of Europe.
(b) United Nations (UN) Organizations:
(i) Department of Economic and Social Affairs;
(ii) UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) — Economic Commission forAfrica;
(iii) ECOSOC — Economic Commission forLatin America and the Caribbean;
(iv) ECOSOC — Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific;
(v) ECOSOC — Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia;
(vi) International Law Commission;
(vii) International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals;
(viii) InternationalTrade Centre;
(ix) Office of the Special Adviser on Africa;
(x) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General forChildren in Armed Conflict;
(xi) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict;
(xii) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children;
(xiii) Peacebuilding Commission;
(xiv) Peacebuilding Fund;
(xv) Permanent Forum on People of African Descent;
(xvi) UN Alliance of Civilizations;
(xvii) UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions fromDeforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries;
(xviii) UN Conference on Trade and Development;
(xix) UN Democracy Fund;
(xx) UN Energy;
(xxi) UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women;
(xxii) UN Framework Convention on Climate Change;
(xxiii) UN Human Settlements Programme;
(xxiv) UN Institute for Training and Research;
(xxv) UN Oceans;
(xxvi) UN Population Fund;
(xxvii) UN Register of Conventional Arms;
(xxviii) UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination;
(xxix) UN System Staff College;
(xxx) UNWater; and
(xxxi) UN University.
Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Trump’s withdrawal from the world’s bedrock climate treaty marks “a new low and yet another sign that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people’s well-being and destabilize global cooperation.”
“Withdrawal from the global climate convention will only serve to further isolate the United States and diminish its standing in the world following a spate of deplorable actions that have already sent our nation’s credibility plummeting, jeopardized ties with some of our closest historical allies, and made the world far more unsafe,” said Cleetus. “This administration remains cruelly indifferent to the unassailable facts on climate while pandering to fossil fuel polluters.”
Report: Nuclear Power Isn’t Viable In Hawaiʻi
Constitutional issues are the basis for the conclusion of the Nuclear Energy Working Group’s final report for the state energy office.
By Lynda Williams, January 6, 2026 , https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/01/nuclear-power-isnt-viable-in-hawaii/
The Hawaiʻi State Energy Office has released the final report of the Nuclear Energy Working Group created by the Legislature under SCR-136. I served on the working group as a representative of 350 Hawaiʻi.
The report concludes that nuclear power is not viable in Hawaiʻi and that the state should not change its laws or constitution to enable it.
The most fundamental obstacle is legal. Hawaiʻi’s Constitution restricts nuclear fission construction, and nuclear power is excluded from the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard. These restrictions apply regardless of reactor size, design, fuel type or branding. Small modular reactors and so-called “advanced” reactors are still nuclear fission reactors. Making nuclear power legal in Hawaiʻi would require amending the constitution — a process that requires a two-thirds legislative vote. The working group did not recommend taking this step.
Beyond the law, the technology itself remains unfeasible. No advanced nuclear reactors are operating commercially in the United States, and none are expected to come online in any timeframe relevant to Hawaiʻi’s energy or climate goals. Projects cited by nuclear advocates remain stuck in licensing pipelines, demonstration phases or heavily subsidized pilot programs.
Without commercially operating reactors, reliable cost estimates, construction schedules, or grid-integration analyses do not exist. Nuclear power cannot meaningfully address climate change when it cannot be deployed at scale.
The report also acknowledges that radioactive waste is a decisive and unresolved problem. There is no permanent disposal repository operating anywhere in the United States. Hawaiʻi has no capacity to store or manage spent nuclear fuel, and no federal facility exists to accept it.
The Hawaiʻi Constitution explicitly bars nuclear waste storage and disposal facilities unless approved by a two-thirds vote of both legislative chambers. Any nuclear project would therefore require indefinite on-island storage of radioactive material in direct conflict with the constitution, creating ongoing risks related to containment failure and transport. For an isolated island state, this reality alone makes nuclear power unrealistic.
The Hawaiʻi State Energy Office has released the final report of the Nuclear Energy Working Group created by the Legislature under SCR-136. I served on the working group as a representative of 350 Hawaiʻi.
The report concludes that nuclear power is not viable in Hawaiʻi and that the state should not change its laws or constitution to enable it.
The most fundamental obstacle is legal. Hawaiʻi’s Constitution restricts nuclear fission construction, and nuclear power is excluded from the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard. These restrictions apply regardless of reactor size, design, fuel type or branding. Small modular reactors and so-called “advanced” reactors are still nuclear fission reactors. Making nuclear power legal in Hawaiʻi would require amending the constitution — a process that requires a two-thirds legislative vote. The working group did not recommend taking this step.
Ideas showcases stories, opinion and analysis about Hawaiʻi, from the state’s sharpest thinkers, to stretch our collective thinking about a problem or an issue. Email news@civilbeat.org to submit an idea or an essay.
Beyond the law, the technology itself remains unfeasible. No advanced nuclear reactors are operating commercially in the United States, and none are expected to come online in any timeframe relevant to Hawaiʻi’s energy or climate goals. Projects cited by nuclear advocates remain stuck in licensing pipelines, demonstration phases or heavily subsidized pilot programs.
Without commercially operating reactors, reliable cost estimates, construction schedules, or grid-integration analyses do not exist. Nuclear power cannot meaningfully address climate change when it cannot be deployed at scale.
The report also acknowledges that radioactive waste is a decisive and unresolved problem. There is no permanent disposal repository operating anywhere in the United States. Hawaiʻi has no capacity to store or manage spent nuclear fuel, and no federal facility exists to accept it.
The Hawaiʻi Constitution explicitly bars nuclear waste storage and disposal facilities unless approved by a two-thirds vote of both legislative chambers. Any nuclear project would therefore require indefinite on-island storage of radioactive material in direct conflict with the constitution, creating ongoing risks related to containment failure and transport. For an isolated island state, this reality alone makes nuclear power unrealistic.
Emergency preparedness and regulatory capacity further reinforce that conclusion. Hawaiʻi does not have a nuclear regulatory agency, a trained nuclear emergency-response workforce, evacuation-planning capacity, or land suitable for exclusion zones. These are not minor administrative gaps. They reflect the absence of the institutional and physical capacity needed to respond to potentially catastrophic nuclear accidents.
The analysis also places nuclear power in the context of Hawaiʻi’s history in the Pacific, including nuclear weapons testing and long-term harm to island and Indigenous communities. Public trust cannot be assumed, and meaningful public evaluation is impossible without concrete information about reactor designs, fuel cycles, waste handling, and accident scenarios — information that does not exist.
Hawaiʻi is not alone in facing industry efforts to dismantle state-level protections. Over the past decade, several states with laws restricting or prohibiting new nuclear plant construction — including Wisconsin, Kentucky, Montana, West Virginia, Connecticut and Illinois — have repealed or weakened those laws to allow so-called advanced nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors, often justified by climate or grid-reliability claims. These rollbacks occurred despite the continued absence of commercially operating advanced reactors, the lack of a permanent nuclear waste repository, and mounting evidence that nuclear power cannot be deployed fast enough to play a meaningful role in addressing climate change.
Now is not the time to weaken Hawaiʻi’s protections against nuclear power. At the federal level, environmental protection and public oversight under the National Environmental Policy Act are being aggressively gutted through executive orders and legislation such as the SPEED Act. These measures are designed to shorten environmental review, eliminate meaningful public participation, restrict judicial oversight, and prevent courts from stopping unlawful projects even when agencies violate the law. As federal safeguards are dismantled, Hawaiʻi’s constitutional and statutory protections against nuclear power become more critical, not less.
The report’s only weak point is its suggestion that the state revisit nuclear power every three to five years. Even under the most optimistic assumptions, advanced nuclear reactors, including SMRs, will not be commercially operating, fully tested, or economically viable within that timeframe. Any nuclear reactor operated in Hawaiʻi would require radioactive waste to remain on island for extended periods to cool before transport, and shifting that waste burden onto other Indigenous lands is not an ethical solution and is inconsistent with the values of aloha ʻāina.
Nuclear power is not viable in Hawaiʻi and never will be; the state should instead focus on renewable energy, storage, efficiency, grid modernization and community-centered planning grounded in reality.
Click here to read the final Nuclear Energy Working Group report. You can read more about the Nuclear Energy Working Group at nuclearfreehawaii.org.
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of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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