Why Nuclear Power in Scotland is not Needed, Economic, Wanted or Safe
John Drummond in conversation with Energy Scotland’s John Proctor and Leah Gunn Barrett
Leah Gunn Barrett, Dear Scotland, Jul 24, 2025
Last evening, John Proctor of Energy Scotland and I were guests on The Nation Talks podcast with John Drummond. We discussed why more nuclear power in Scotland should be a non-starter. It’s notNeeded, Economic, Wanted or Safe. And yet English Labour – from Kid Starver to Viceroy Murray to Anus Sarwar – are rabidly pro-nuclear, pushing this costly and dangerous energy source onto Scotland without our consent.
The video link to the programme is below. I’ve also provided notes below that I used to prepare, many taken from my previous posts.
Why Nuclear power is being pushed onto Scotland
The Corporate Nuclear Lobby has conducted one of the most aggressive lobbying and public relations campaigns of all energy sources. It pushes politicians and the public to support nuclear based on sketchy information and outright lies which aren’t challenged in the Scottish media.
The nuclear industry is funding lobby group Britain Remade, which launched a campaign to lift the ban on new Scottish nuclear power at a May 1 meeting in Dunbar, near the Torness power plant. English Labour’s Scotland manager Anus Sarwar accused the SNP of depriving Scotland of billions in investment and thousands of jobs, which is a lie. This is the same dude who wouldn’t save Grangemouth and its 500 jobs, after vowing he would.
And Viceroy Murray is pushing nuclear, even removing his name from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) pledge.
English Labour is bankrolled by the nuclear lobby. Tony Blair is one of its biggest beneficiaries and cheerleaders. The Nuclear Energy Association loved his Institute’s 2024 pro-nuclear power report.
Nuclear power subsidises nuclear weapons production
Here’s the dirty little secret – the UK Government needs nuclear power. Without it, there’d be no nuclear weapons programme, the flaccid UK’s national virility symbol.
All the processes of the nuclear fuel cycle – uranium mining, refining and U-235 enrichment – are used for both civilian and military purposes; the UK Capenhurst facility makes nuclear fuel for both reactors and Trident submarines; and nuclear reactors create tritium (the radioactive isotope of hydrogen), which is necessary for nuclear weapons.
A 2017 University of Sussex study found that the costs of the Trident programme would be “unsupportable” without “an effective subsidy, from electricity consumers to military nuclear infrastructure”. Consumers, bearing the costs of uneconomic nuclear power, are also subsidising nuclear weapons that don’t even work! The Trident delivery system has failed two tests in a row, in 2016, and 2024. Despite these fiascos, the UK government insists that Trident “remains the most reliable weapons system in the world.”
Westminster won’t allow the southeast of England to be polluted by these nuclear rustbuckets so has confined them to “north Britain.” Nor will it tell its northern colony how badly they’re polluting the land and water. In 2017, the MoD stopped publishing annual reports from its internal watchdog, after the reports for 2005-2015 flagged “regulatory risks” 86 times. It has also blocked Scotland’s environment agency from releasing information about radioactive pollution from the Clyde nuclear bases at Faslane and Coulport for the last ten years.
Scots are getting the mushroom treatment – kept in the dark and fed a load of shite.
I. Nuclear is Not Needed – Renewables are far cheaper and safer………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
So, English Labour is trying to force onto Scotland plants that aren’t even commercially viable. It’s regurgitating the marketing hot air from a desperate industry that’s frantically funding pathetic careerists like Sarwar, Starmer and the Viceroy who are pushing this crap.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. • With no solution to nuclear waste, the UK is starting a new nuclear building program which will worsen the waste problem and result in vastly increased radioactivity from spent fuel and other highly radioactive wastes which will have to be stored indefinitely at vulnerable sites scattered around the UK coast.
The UK won’t give up on its never-ending quest to screw Scotland. It has stolen our oil and gas and now our renewables, and now is trying to force us to accept not needed, not economic, not wanted and not safe nuclear power.
Please sign the petition calling on the Scottish Administration to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to give Scots the tools to exercise their sovereignty and the ability to say NO to nuclear. https://dearscotland.substack.com/p/why-nuclear-power-in-scotland-is
Origins of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity lie in a secret deal forged between Richard Nixon and Golda Meir – podcast
Israel has never officially confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons and has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Instead, even as evidence has emerged about its nuclear capabilities, Israel has maintained a policy of nuclear ambiguity.
The origins of this opacity lie in a secret deal forged in a one-on-one meeting between Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, and the US president, Richard Nixon, at the White House in September 1969.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Avner Cohen, professor of non-proliferation studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterrey in the US, about that 1969 deal and why it has endured for more than 50 years. Cohen is the author of Israel and the Bomb, considered the definitive work on Israel’s nuclear programme, and has been interrogated by the Israeli state for his research.
Cohen tells us that the understanding between Meir and Nixon meant the US accepted Israel as a special kind of nuclear weapon state. In turn, Israel committed to restraint, not to test nuclear weapons, and not to be the first to introduce them to the region. Neither side has confirmed the existence of a deal, and there are only hints at it in the historical record. Cohen explains:
Once you realise that there is actually a deal, it explains a great deal of the situation. Why the US [is] looking the other way, why the issue is determined to be removed from the diplomatic agenda, and why many other countries, especially in the west, prefer not to see the Israeli nuclear issue.
Listen to the conversation with Avner Cohen on The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Iran holds ‘frank’ nuclear talks with European powers amid sanctions threat
Diplomatic meeting in Istanbul between Tehran and E3 countries is first since Israel and US attacked Iran in mid-June.
25 Jul 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/25/iran-is-meeting-european-powers-amid-threats-of-renewed-nuclear-sanctions
Iranian diplomats say they held “frank” nuclear talks with their counterparts from Germany, the United Kingdom and France, as Tehran faces warnings that the three European nations could trigger “snapback” United Nations sanctions against the country.
The meeting in the Turkish capital, Istanbul, on Friday was the first since Israel’s mid-June attack on Iran, which led to an intensive 12-day conflict that saw the United States launch strikes against key Iranian nuclear sites.
Israel’s offensive also derailed US-Iran nuclear talks that began in April.
Since then, the European powers, known as the E3, have threatened to trigger a so-called “snapback mechanism” under a moribund 2015 nuclear deal that would reinstate UN sanctions on Iran by the end of August.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who attended Friday’s talks alongside senior Iranian diplomat Majid Takht-Ravanchi, said after the meeting that the parties held a “serious, frank and detailed” discussion about sanctions relief and the nuclear issue.
“While seriously criticising their stances regarding the recent war of aggression against our people, we explained our principled positions, including on the so-called snapback mechanism,” Gharibabadi said.
“It was agreed that consultations on this matter will continue.”
The European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to the 2015 deal, from which the US unilaterally withdrew in 2018.
Under the pact, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran had agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for global sanctions relief.
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in an earlier interview with state news agency IRNA that Tehran considers talk of extending the UN resolution governing the deal – Security Council Resolution 2231 – to be doubly “meaningless and baseless”.
The resolution enshrines the major powers’ prerogative to restore UN sanctions. The option to trigger the snapback expires in October, and Tehran has warned of consequences should the E3 opt to activate it.
Separately, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi said on Friday that Iran has indicated it will be ready to restart technical-level discussions on its nuclear programme with the UN nuclear watchdog.
Grossi said in Singapore that Iran must be transparent about its facilities and activities.
He told reporters that the IAEA had proposed that Iran start discussions on “the modalities as to how to restart or begin [inspections] again”.
“So this is what we are planning to do, perhaps starting on technical details and, later on, moving on to high-level consultations. So this will not include inspections yet.”
In late June, after the Israeli and US attacks on the country, Iran took an unequivocal stance against the IAEA, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi summarily dismissing Grossi’s request to visit nuclear facilities that were bombed during the conflict.
“Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent,” Araghchi said at the time.
Uranium enrichment
Iranian diplomats have previously warned that Tehran could withdraw from the global nuclear non-proliferation treaty if UN sanctions are reimposed.
Restoring the sanctions would deepen Iran’s international isolation and place further pressure on its already strained economy.
Before the June conflict, Washington and Tehran were divided over uranium enrichment, which Iran has described as a “non-negotiable” right for civilian purposes but the US calls a “red line”.
The IAEA says Iran is enriching uranium to 60 percent purity – far above the 3.67 percent cap under the 2015 deal, but well below the 90 percent needed for weapons-grade levels.
Tehran has said it is open to discussing the rate and level of enrichment, but not the right to enrich uranium.
Iran also says it will not abandon its nuclear programme, which Araghchi has called a source of “national pride”.
‘One Meal Every Three Days’: Journalist & Aid Worker Back from Gaza on Stark Reality on the Ground
By DemocracyNow! 25July 25
The BBC, Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse have all called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza as starvation there becomes imminent. In a statement, the news outlets said, “We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families.” We speak with Afeef Nessouli, a journalist who just returned from Gaza, where he volunteered as an aid worker. “It has been an incredibly awful experience to see people sort of become sicker and sicker from hunger,” says Nessouli, who describes visiting community kitchens in Gaza that have run out of food. “Many of us would just have one meal a day,” he says of his seven weeks in Gaza. Now his colleagues who remain in Gaza “are having one meal every three days.”
Transcript………………………………………………………………………..https://scheerpost.com/2025/07/25/one-meal-every-three-days-journalist-aid-worker-back-from-gaza-on-stark-reality-on-the-ground/
How civil nuclear power funds nuclear weapons – video
Civil nuclear power is thought to be about providing a low carbon energy
alternative to fossil fuels and is seldom connected to nuclear weapons. But
the closer you look these two industries are intrinsically linked for
nuclear-armed countries. Josh Toussaint-Strauss investigates how the
connection between civil nuclear power and nuclear weapons spans decades
and continents as well as exposes siphoning of public money and the origins
of the Iran nuclear program.
Guardian 24th July 2025,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2025/jul/24/how-civil-nuclear-power-funds-nuclear-weapons-video
EDF shifts nuclear strategy to focus on domestic projects
The company will
reduce its international sales team by 60, including ten managerial roles.
France’s state-run utility EDF is planning to reduce its overseas workforce
and withdraw from certain international nuclear projects to concentrate on
a domestic construction programme under its new CEO Bernard Fontana, as
reported by Reuters. Once a global leader in nuclear power, France is
retreating amid rising global demand, allowing new competitors to emerge as
high costs and design challenges hinder its international competitiveness.
Power Technology 23rd July 2025, https://www.power-technology.com/news/edf-nuclear-strategy-focus-domestic/
Time to Step Up – Campaigner calls on MP to challenge decision to give fusion indemnity over accident liabilities
Renowned nuclear campaigner, and friend to the Nuclear Free Local
Authorities, Dr David Lowry has just written to his local Member of
Parliament calling on her to challenge ministers over their pledge to
provide an absolute indemnity over costs incurred by a nuclear fusion pilot
plant being built in the Midlands should there be ‘incidents involving
nuclear matter or emissions of ionising radiation arising from fusion
activities relating to the STEP programme.’
In a written statement issued
to Parliament just prior to MPs leaving for the summer recess, Minister for
Climate – and seemingly defacto Nuclear Minister – Kerry McCarthy –
announced that this latest financial ‘get out of jail free’ card for the
nuclear industry would be ‘remote and uncapped’. The assumption by the
Treasury – and therefore by taxpayers – of any liability is Ms McCarthy
insists necessary to ‘address the gap in the insurance market’ which
rather suggests that no-one in the commercial insurance market is prepared
to take on the risks associated with this nascent technology.
NFLA 22nd July 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/time-to-step-up-campaigner-calls-on-mp-to-challenge-decision-to-give-fusion-indemnity-over-accident-liabilities/
AUKUS Submarine Regulations: Friends of the Earth Adelaide submission
Friends of the Earth Adelaide > Publications > Adelaide FoE Notes > AUKUS Submarine Regulations: FoE Adelaide submission
Philip White July 24, 2025, https://adelaidefoe.org/aukus-submarine-regulations-foe-adelaide-submission/
Friends of the Earth Adelaide today (24 July 2025) sent a submission in response to the government’s call for public comments on draft Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulations. These Regulations were drafted under the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Act, which was passed in October last year. Our submission can be accessed here.
The consultation is open until 30 July 2025. Details can be found on the following web site: https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/australian-naval-nuclear-power-safety-regulations-public-consultation
FoE Adelaide’s submission can be summarised as follows:
— AUKUS should be cancelled. It compromises Australia’s sovereignty and is not in our strategic, economic, or environmental interests.
— If it is not cancelled, there should be a proper consultation about the Stirling and Osborne designated zones, which were declared in the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Act without consultation.
— The principles of “free, prior and informed consent” should be followed in siting any site for storage and disposal of radioactive waste.
— That includes respecting laws of State and Territory governments that restrict or prohibit siting of nuclear waste facilities.
— The Regulator must be completely independent of the Defence portfolio. In the current proposal it will be answerable to the Minister for Defence.
— All submissions should be published in full, unless the submitter specifically requests otherwise. Government representatives informed us on 17 July at a public forum in Port Adelaide that they only intend to publish a summary put together by bureaucrats.
Belgian court bans military shipments to Israel in activist victory
Anti-armament activists in Belgium celebrated a major victory as a judge ordered the Flemish government to halt military shipments to Israel.
July 23, 2025 by Ana Vračar, https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/07/23/belgian-court-bans-military-shipments-to-israel-in-activist-victory/
In what could become a landmark ruling, a Belgian judge recently ordered the Flemish government to halt the transit of goods that could be used to continue or expand the genocide in Gaza. The decision follows a joint campaign by four organizations – Intal, Vredesactie (Peace Action), 11.11.11, and the Human Rights League – which was triggered by the discovery of containers in the port of Antwerp addressed to Israeli company Ashot Ashkelon Industries. The containers included materials used for the assembly of Merkava tanks, the same model implicated in the attack that killed six-year-old Hind Rajab.
The presence of these containers was brought to the attention of the organizations through links with investigative media outlets, Isabelle Vanbrabant, national coordinator of Intal, told Peoples Dispatch. Based on these alerts, Vredesactie initiated a formal inspection request and succeeded in detaining one container, though another was allowed to proceed. “We were doubtful about the effectiveness of a single inspection,” Vanbrabant says, noting activists feared the shipment might go unnoticed or that the inspection would impact only one case – despite knowing that Antwerp had previously been used to transport ammunition, and that similar cargo was en route aboard new vessels.
“We formed a coalition and contacted a lawyer. We had a solid case, so we decided to push further,” Vanbrabant explains. What followed was a swift but well-prepared legal campaign, which moved beyond a single shipment to challenge the broader conduct of Flemish authorities regarding military and dual-use exports to Israel. “We chose to argue that this wasn’t about one container, but about a wider pattern of the government allowing such cargo to pass through,” she said.
In a separate statement, Intal emphasized that facilitating the transit of military equipment to a country committing war crimes makes a government complicit. In this case, legal accountability involves both local and international law. Pledges made in 2009 explicitly state the region would not “issue arms export licenses that would strengthen the military capabilities of the warring parties” in occupied Palestine. Yet, as Vanbrabant describes, Flemish authorities have been, put mildly, pretty lax about implementing this line of policy towards Israel. “One of the key things this case proves is that having good-sounding legislation on paper isn’t enough,” she says. “You need to ensure it’s applied in practice, with proper oversight of the agencies involved.”
Implications for ongoing and future campaigns
While the judge criticized the government’s failure to follow domestic law, the ruling also leaned heavily on international legal standards. “That’s something new – and a very good development,” Vanbrabant stresses. “The government made no reference to international law. We did. This could set a real precedent for future arms transfer cases.”
Activists praised the court’s ruling as both thorough and principled. In addition to requiring the Flemish government to comply with its own regulations, the judge imposed financial penalties for possible violations: if similar cargo bound for Israel is discovered, the government will be fined €50,000 per container. Vanbrabant points out that, in the context of Europe’s push for rearmament and renewed austerity, the ruling might force the government to allocate additional resources to inspection agencies, currently underfunded and thus undercapacitated.
The ruling is also expected to influence ongoing and future campaigns in Belgium. There are already efforts underway challenging the country’s stance on arms shipments via its maritime and airspace. The organizations behind the Flemish case are also mobilizing against domestic and EU-level plans to weaken export controls under the ReArm Europe agenda. “What we achieved locally can be expanded,” Vanbrabant says. “This isn’t only about Palestine, it’s also about the broader arms export system.”
A tool that extends beyond the courts
The implications of the case are wide-ranging. “Legal action is becoming a growing tool [in the Palestine solidarity and anti-armament movements],” Vanbrabant notes. “But it goes beyond that.”
This is particularly relevant in the context of intensifying anti-militarization efforts across Europe and Intal’s wider work. “As a strong BDS partner and an organization that works on militarization more broadly, the issue of arms embargoes is central to us,” Vanbrabant adds. “In a way, it’s part of our DNA as an anti-imperialist group, the BDS campaign and the knowledge that genocide is only possible because of our governments’ complicity.”
The case is also expected to give a boost to the Palestine solidarity movement, which has faced constant repression in much of Europe. While the role of Antwerp port workers wasn’t as visible as that of logistics workers in Greece or France, who have repeatedly refused to load military cargo, this campaign provided an important opportunity for labor collectives to raise awareness and consult their members. Ultimately, as Vanbrabant emphasizes, the ruling proves that even without major resources, it’s possible to take on authorities – and win. The entire case was funded through small donations, showing widespread public support for the cause.
“There’s this belief that you have to be big and powerful to win,” she says. “But this proves it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Anti-Genocide Protesters Block Hundreds of Israeli Tourists From Disembarking in Greek Port
A group of residents on the island of Syros organized the protest and said it was ‘unacceptable’ that Israeli tourists be welcomed as Palestinians suffer from starvation and war in Gaza
News Desk, JUL 22, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles/anti-genocide-protesters-block-hundreds-of-israeli-tourists-from-disembarking-in-greek-port
Israeli passengers on a cruise ship arriving in Greece on 22 July were unable to disembark the vessel due to a large crowd of pro-Palestine protesters demonstrating against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The MS Crown Iris, owned by Israeli cruise line Mano Maritime, arrived on Tuesday at the Greek island of Syros in the Aegean Sea. The passengers were supposed to disembark for six hours.
However, they were forced to remain on board due to the protests in support of Palestine.
“The demonstrators posed no danger to us,” an Israeli on board the ship told Hebrew news site Walla.
Between 120 and 300 protesters waved Palestinian flags and held banners reading “stop the genocide” as the ship arrived.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar spoke with his Greek counterpart, Giorgos Gerapetritis, to request intervention to resolve the issue.
Yet the cruise ship ended up being redirected to Limassol, Cyprus. Around 1,600 Israelis were traveling on the MS Crown Iris, according to Israel’s Channel 12.
A group of the Greek island’s residents organized the protest and posted on social media that they “raise their fists in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza,” adding that “it is unacceptable that tourists from Israel continue to be welcomed here while the Palestinians are suffering in the Strip.”
Israel’s genocidal war has resulted in a significant decline in Tel Aviv’s popularity worldwide.
Israeli soldiers responsible for war crimes, including the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, are regularly pursued and targeted with criminal complaints issued by pro-Palestine organizations in courts around the world.
Two Israeli soldiers were detained at the Tomorrowland festival in Belgium last week. Belgian police released them after conducting an interview.
The legal complaint was filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), which has been leading a global campaign against Israeli soldiers involved in war crimes.
In January, the Israeli army issued restrictions against media coverage of active-duty soldiers due to legal risks they face over war crimes in Gaza while traveling abroad.
This came after an Israeli army reservist’s vacation in Brazil ended abruptly after HRF convinced a federal judge in Brazil to open a war crimes investigation into his participation in the demolition of civilian homes in Gaza.
Dell’s complicity in Israel’s genocide
Omar Zahzah The Electronic Intifada 22 July 2025. https://electronicintifada.net/content/dells-complicity-israels-genocide/50824
In January 2023, Dell Technologies Inc, an American multinational, won a tender from the Israeli defense ministry to provide servers and related services to the Israeli military, other security bodies and the ministry itself.
The deal was valued at over $150 million.
Corporate watchdog WhoProfits.org reported on the tender and revealed that Dell subsidiaries like VMware and EMC Israel Advanced Information Technologies, along with Dell staff, provided technology and training to the Israeli military and partnered in occupation-linked initiatives such as the National Cyber Park in the Naqab, which Israel established after “a government decision to promote national capabilities in the cyber space as part of a concept of combined work between government, academia, industry and the military.”
However, internal documents obtained by The Electronic Intifada suggest Dell is more closely entwined with the Israeli military than previously known, particularly by supplying technology for Israel’s artificial intelligence (AI) -assisted genocide in Gaza.
Dell’s ties to Israel stretch back two decades: In 2006, it won a tender to provide 50,000 computers to the Israeli army and another to supply portable computers to the government.
In 2016, Dell rebranded to Dell Technologies after merging with software firm EMC Corporation, enabling greater focus on emerging cloud technologies.
Dell also absorbed EMC’s extensive Israeli presence – it had been active there since 1996, establishing its first research and development center in Ramat Gan in 2006.
In 2011, after acquiring several Israeli start-ups, the R&D center was rebranded “a center of excellence.”
“Deeply committed”
Michael Dell, founder and CEO of the company that bears his name, told the Dell Future Ready Conference in May 2016 that Dell is “deeply committed to Israel.”
“We want to be here, we want to be a partner in the incredible innovation that occurs here.”
He also met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, at the conference.
In January 2024, months into Israel’s Gaza genocide, Dell shared a photo of himself and Israeli President Isaac Herzog – whose words blaming “an entire nation” in Gaza for 7 October would be cited later that month in the International Court of Justice ruling ordering Israel to cease all genocidal acts in Gaza.
“It’s an honor to stand with @Isaac_Herzog and Israel,” Dell wrote.
As such, the company’s practice of technologically fortifying Israel’s oppressive policies is not exactly a secret. Still, scrutiny tends to focus primarily on how the company bolsters military occupation.
Nearly two years into the Gaza genocide, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have borne the brunt of criticism for their participation in Project Nimbus and Azure – tech projects which provide AI and cloud services that power the Israeli military’s surveillance of Palestinians and potentially help generate kill-lists.
“Mass assassination factory”
A November 2023 report by +972 Magazine and Local Call revealed that the Israeli military was using “The Gospel,” an AI program that generates infrastructure targets, including private residences, for the Israeli military to strike. One source described it as enabling “a mass assassination factory.”
In April 2024, a partner report found that the Israeli army was using another artificial intelligence program, “Lavender,” to generate kill- lists.
Lavender notoriously has a 10 percent margin of error. This is compounded by criteria the Israeli military gives the program to automate the identification of potential targets so broad, the kill lists are essentially arbitrary.
Another automated program, “Where’s Daddy,” allows the Israeli military to track Palestinians with the express purpose of carrying out bombings once the individual has gone home.
Mass casualties are guaranteed by these AI-assisted operations.
With such blatantly murderous applications, it is no surprise that there is growing protest against Big Tech’s role in Israel’s genocide.
A bombshell report from Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, exposes how Israel’s “forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and big tech – providing boundless supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely.”
The report spells out the direct responsibility that corporate entities hold not to engage in potential violations of human rights nor undertake any endeavors that undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination. Corporate entities and executives found to be in violation can potentially be subjected to domestic and international legal action.
“AI is one of today’s weapons of mass destruction and Google is a willing war profiteer,” Mohammad Khatami, Zelda Montes, and Katie Sim, three Google employees fired for taking part in mass civil disobedience against Project Nimbus in April 2024, wrote in The Nation.
“Systems like The Gospel and Lavender are made possible through the kind of cloud computing infrastructure that companies like Google, [Amazon Web Services,] and Intel provide.”
Now, it seems that Dell is also implicated in this process.
Internal documents shared with The Electronic Intifada reveal that Dell technology is supporting a host of Israeli military operations, including AI used to monitor and target Palestinians. These materials show that Dell hardware is used when running Lavender and The Gospel to automate targeting decisions and minimize human oversight, increasing the speed of military assaults.
Israel’s notorious cyberwarfare force Unit 8200, uses Dell’s AI-powered Pro-Rugged 13 laptops for intelligence gathering, surveillance and military operations.
Dell also provides laptops and servers that enable Israeli AI company AnyVision’s facial recognition systems – which facilitate mass surveillance of Palestinians at checkpoints and other sites.
Paper thin
The technology that Dell provides to AnyVision, as well as to CISCO Israel (laptops, edge servers, VMware, networking solutions) and Cognyte Technologies Israel Ltd. (laptops, servers, networking solutions) all facilitate mass surveillance of Palestinians.
CISCO provides communication infrastructure for surveillance, enabling real-time monitoring of civilian populations and military activities. Cognyte Technologies Ltd. uses Dell tech for cyber-intelligence systems that track people in Gaza and the West Bank.
The documents also reveal that beneficiaries of Dell technologies include the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade – implicated in the murder of 15 paramedics and emergency workers in Rafah in April, the naval unit Flotilla 13 and the Israeli air force.
Elbit Systems Land & C41 – the Israeli arms manufacturer’s military communications technology arm – also reportedly receives laptops, servers and networking solutions from Dell Technologies.
When contacted for comment, Dell initially sent the following statement:
“Dell is committed to the highest standards and complying with local laws and regulations where we do business. Please refer to our Human Rights policy, provided below.”
That policy stipulates how: “Dell respects the human rights of all people as reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
It goes on to say that the company “will not be complicit in human rights violations, and we hold our suppliers and other business partners to this same standard.”
Finally, the policy asserts that the company complies with “local laws and regulations wherever we do business. If local law conflicts with the principles in this policy, within the bounds of local laws we seek ways to honor the principles of internationally recognized human rights and influence progress towards the highest standards.”
Then, bizarrely, the company, which uses Outlook for communications, apparently tried to recall the statement it sent this journalist (but since the message had already been opened, its contents were still available.)
Shortly after notification of the recall attempt, a final message from Dell’s media team was received, asking to “please hold on this statement. We may have an updated one for you.”
This “updated” statement has not come as of time of writing.
Dell’s close association with a state charged with genocide at the International Court of Justice surely undermines the company’s effort to portray itself as an ethical company.
Dell’s website boasts that it was recognized in 2025 as “One of the World’s Most Ethical Companies” for the 13th time by the for-profit Ethisphere Institute.
In May 2024, Dell even announced a partnership with governments around the world to address ethical concerns regarding AI.
But these gestures are paper-thin: Ethisphere charges for company ratings, and other recipients of the “Most Ethical Companies” title have included US weapons manufacturer Leidos and Elbit Systems America, a subsidiary of Israel’s Elbit systems.
Dell’s track record is distinctive, though not in the way it wants to be perceived:
By providing the technologies that power Israel’s racialized surveillance and killing machine from AI programs, Dell belongs right next to Google, Amazon, Intel and Microsoft as a corporate profiteer of occupation, apartheid and the first live-streamed genocide in history.
Omar Zahzah’s book, Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle will be published by The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press on 16 September, 2025.
Trillion dollar AUKUS subs plus nuclear waste in perpetuity?
by Rex Patrick | Jul 22, 2025 , https://michaelwest.com.au/trillion-dollar-aukus-subs-plus-nuclear-waste-in-perpetuity/
Everything about AUKUS nuclear waste is a political secret, including the cost, which will more than double the $368B announced AUKUS price tag. Former submariner Rex Patrick with the story.
Rex Patrick with the story.
If we ever get these subs, the total price tag may well be over $1 trillion. I’m in the Federal Court at present, trying to pry open a November 2023 report into how the Government intends to deal with the high-level nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines.
But there’s already a lot we can deduce by combining what has been extracted from the Government using Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, from Senate testimony and also looking at how the United States does and doesn’t take care of its naval nuclear waste.
Cost explosion
For starters, there was a short but insightful exchange in Senate Estimates last year between Senator Lidia Thorpe and the head of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA), Admiral Jonathon Mead.
After making quick reference to the cost of nuclear waste facilities overseas, Senator Thorpe asked about the waste costs for AUKUS, “There’s no costing as yet; is that right?” Mead responded, “That’s correct”.
For an organisation that is required to cost its capability from cradle to grave, including support facilities, it’s a huge omission. It might be the case that
“they’re too frightened to do the math.”
As I will set out below, the price of safely storing AUKUS waste is likely to double the AUKUS price tag. But first, we need to take a look at what radioactive waste AUKUS will produce and what will be done with it.
Low-level waste
We know that Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines will produce small amounts of low-level waste every year (disposable gloves, wipes, reactor coolant and Personal Protective Equipment). ASA Senate Estimates briefs obtained under FOI suggest that this will amount to “roughly the volume of a small skip bin each year.”
This, along with low-level waste from US and UK submarines operating out of Perth, will be stored at HMAS Stirling until the Australian Waste Management Agency builds and commissions the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.
Barely noticed by the national media, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works approved the construction of a ‘Controlled Industrial Facility’ at HMAS Stirling in August 2024.
High-level waste
When each AUKUS submarine decommissions, Australia will need to handle the recovery, transport, storage and disposal of two different types of high-level nuclear waste: spent nuclear fuel, about the size of a small hatchback, and the reactor compartment, about the size of a four-wheel drive.
Noting the total lack of transparency around Australia’s plans, MWM is making a reasonable assessment as to how this waste will be handled by looking to the US.
Fuel rods will be removed from the submarine at a decommissioning yard (possibly Henderson in WA for the Virginia Class and Osborne in SA for the SSN-AUKUS submarines).
The hull is cut open, and a defueling enclosure is installed on the submarine to provide a controlled work area. The fuel is removed into a shielded transfer container and moved to a wharf enclosure. It’s then placed into a specially designed shipping container for transfer to, in the case of the US, an intermediate ‘storage site’ in Idaho. Despite 70 years of nuclear-powered submarine operations (USS Nautilus was commissioned in 1955), the US has not yet sorted out its long-term ‘disposal site’.
It is not clear whether Australia will have an intermediate ‘storage site’ and a ‘disposal site’ or a combined site. Certainly, both storage and disposal are talked about in the information that has been released under FOI.
Australia is not permitted, by the text of the AUKUS Treaty and by commitments made to the International Atomic Energy Agency, to reprocess the fuel. Reprocessing involves separating the plutonium and fissile uranium from the spent fuel to reduce the amount of spent fuel that needs to be stored long term, but doing so raises nuclear weapon proliferation concerns.
For Australia, we have to find a geologically suitable place to bury the fuel in the state it was when it left the submarine. Whilst the Defence Minister has declared this will be on ’Defence land’, the ASA can identify a news site and the Minister can compulsory acquire it – anywhere in Australia.
Reactor compartment
To deal with the reactor compartment, all of the elements of the reactor that will remain in the compartment – the pressure vessel, piping, tanks and fluid system components – are drained to the maximum extent practicable. About 2% of the liquid remains trapped in discrete pockets.
All openings are then sealed.
The reactor compartment is then cut from the submarine, and with the pressure hull remaining as part of the disposal package, the high-strength steel serves as an outer seal.
In the United States, the reactor compartment is transported to “Trench 94” in Washington state.
It is not yet known whether the Australian Government will bury the reactor compartments in a final disposal site.
Looking after high-level nuclear waste is complex. You can’t responsibly just bury it or dump it in a deep mine shaft.
Nuclear waste facility
A waste facility must be carefully located, away from seismic activity, away from flooding and other weather events and generally where geological structure allows for deep, very long-term storage. Geoscience Australia has looked at suitable locations for a high-level radioactive Waste store on occasions between 1976 and 1999 (subject to a National Archives request).
It must also be located with suitable transport pathways from the submarine dismantling yard or possibly several yards.
The site must be prepared and built/bored. It must have access to electricity supplies, water, communications and sewerage. It must allow for the safe receipt and storage of fuel and the reactor compartments, it must be resilient to loss of heating or ventilation, loss of electricity, flow blockages, structural failures, etc.
“It must be resilient for well over a millennium.”
It must also be designed with the necessary security in mind, with access control, constant monitoring, intrusion detection and central alarms in place, and be secure in relation to protest and sabotage and have a co-located response capability. It must provide for safe long-term storage, with multiple barriers in place to prevent release of radioactive material, and be designed to deal with large accidental radioactive releases.
At the same time, the facility will be subject to international non-proliferation safeguards overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will require periodic access and perhaps remote monitoring and surveillance.
It will likely need a level of remoteness, but be able to be staffed by relevantly qualified personnel, and to receive surge responders in the event of an emergency.
Design and construction would take close to ten years.
What will it take?
The Government has committed to consultation as it selects a site for long-term disposal, yet the law does not require it.The decision to locate a National Radioactive Waste Management facility at Kimba in South Australia involved a lot of communication, some consultation, but very little listening. The Federal Court ultimately found that the decision-making process for that site was seriously flawed. The Liberals get a D minus.
Labor got the Parliament to declare both HMAS Stirling in Perth and the shipyard precinct at Osborne in Adelaide a ‘designated zone’ for nuclear activities. There was no consultation, so they get an F.
Section 10(2)(c) of the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Act 2024 allows the minister to designate more zones. The consultation can be of a ‘tick-the-box’ nature.
While we don’t know what the cost of an underground storage/disposal facility would be, documents released under FOI show that a 2019 cost estimates study by Altus Expert Services placed the cost of an above ground facility at Kimba at $923 million. We could reasonably expect a deep storage facility could cost billions.
Then there are the ongoing operational costs of the facilities, over several hundred years.
Even at an annual cost of only $30 million per annum, that’s close to $4B over 120 years. And if the site is then sealed for 100,000 years, as the Finnish intend to do with their underground facility, there’s even more cost. Even if monitoring of sealed waste only cost 1/10th of the yearly operating cost, say $3million, the cradle-to-grave cost of dealing with AUKUS high level waste will add up to more than $300 billion; $300B that seems to have slipped ASA’s minds.
One thing’s for sure, there’s been too much secrecy around this radioactive hot potato. Maybe things will fall my way in the Federal Court. But it would be much better if the Government was just be up-front with everyone, particularly as we tax-payers have to pay for it.
Rex Patrick
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the “Transparency Warrior.”
The inside story of how America sent nuclear weapons to Britain
Nukewatch UK explains how it tracked the bombs being flown across the Atlantic.
American nuclear weapons with three times the power of the Hiroshima bomb
were transported to England last week, new evidence suggests. The arsenal
is under the control of president Donald Trump and could be used without
British approval.
Our team at Nukewatch UK observed a special flight
carrying the bombs as it landed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk on 17 July,
having tracked its journey and monitored radio messages. The transport
plane, a giant C-17 Globemaster (flight number RCH4574 or Reach 4574) had
taken off from Lewis–McChord base in Washington state two days earlier.
Declassified UK 22nd July 2025, https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-inside-story-of-how-america-sent-nuclear-weapons-to-britain/
EDF not repeating its costly Hinkley nuclear blunder – for Sizewell C, the UK tax-payers will cop the costs.
In response to the Government’s announced funding plan to build new EPR
reactors at Sizewell, Dr Douglas Parr, Policy Director for Greenpeace UK,
said: “The UK’s unswerving loyalty to the one energy source that
consistently increases in price remains undimmed by our cost of living
crisis.
At a time when much cheaper renewables and storage, grid
improvements and a decoupling from gas would do so much more to reduce
energy costs, this announcement is testament to both the lobbying skills of
the nuclear industry, and a blind optimism from the government when it
comes to building atomic infrastructure that actual experience seems
incapable of shifting.
The only significant difference between the slowly
unfolding economic blunder of Hinkley C and the forthcoming economic
disaster of Sizewell C is that Hinkley’s predictable construction
problems, delays and cost overruns were borne by EDF. EDF know they can’t
afford to make that mistake again, and so this time those costs will be
borne by you, the British public.”
Greenpeace 22nd July 2025, https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/press-centre/
Precisely Designed Mass Starvation”: Aid Access as Weapon in Israel’s War on Gaza, Researchers Find
July 21, 2025
The starvation crisis in Gaza is deepening under Israel’s brutal blockade and amid regular massacres of civilians attempting to secure aid at the only officially sanctioned aid sites, run by Israeli troops and American mercenaries. The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the onset of famine are the subjects of a new report by analysts Davide Piscitelli and Alex de Waal for the research organization Forensic Architecture on the “architecture of genocidal starvation” in Gaza. “I’ve been working on this field of famine, food crisis and humanitarian action for more than 40 years, and there is no case, over those four decades, of such minutely engineered, closely monitored, precisely designed mass starvation of a population as is happening in Gaza today,” says de Waal, who is also the author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: In one of the deadliest days yet for aid seekers in Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 115 people on Sunday, including 92 who were killed while seeking aid. In the deadliest attack, at least 79 people at the Zikim crossing in North Gaza were massacred as they gathered near an aid convoy sent by the U.N. World Food Programme in northern Gaza in the hopes of getting flour. In a statement, the U.N. agency said, quote, “As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire,” unquote.
These latest killings come as the starvation crisis in Gaza continues to deepen. UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, has accused Israel of starving civilians, including a million children. The entire population, more than 2 million people, lack access to sufficient food, putting their lives at immediate risk. Health authorities in Gaza say 19 people died of starvation over the last day, including at least one infant. This is the uncle of 3-month-old Yahya Al-Najjar.
ANAN AL-NAJJAR: [translated] He died due to malnutrition and the unavailability of baby formula at the Gaza Strip. We urge the entire world, all Arab countries and everyone with a living consciousness, humanity and dignity, to just stand with the children, just to let baby formula get into the Gaza Strip.
AMY GOODMAN: Since late May, when militarized aid sites run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation were established, nearly 900 Palestinians have been killed while attempting to access aid, and more than 5,700 have been injured……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/21/forensic_architecture
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