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The Militarization and Weaponization of Media Literacy-NATO Invades the Classroom

July 10, 2025, Nolan Higdon and Sydney Sullivan, https://www.projectcensored.org/military-weaponization-media-literacy/

This Dispatch is informed by our forthcoming 2025 article, “Media Literacy in the Crosshairs: NATO’s Strategic Goals and the Revival of Protectionist Pedagogy,” from the Journal of Media Literacy Education, Volume 17, Issue 2.

During President Donald Trump’s second term, education has remained a central battleground in American politics. Republicans claim that classrooms have become hotbeds of “woke” indoctrination, accusing educators of promoting progressive agendas and tolerating antisemitism. In contrast, Democrats argue that conservatives are systematically defunding and dismantling public and higher education precisely because it teaches values like diversity, equity, and inclusion. While these partisan skirmishes dominate headlines, they obscure a much deeper and more enduring issue that encompasses all of these issues and more: the influence of corporate and military power on public education.

For decades, scholars have warned that corporations have steadily infiltrated the classroom—not to promote critical thinking or democratic values, but to cultivate ideologies that reinforce capitalism, nationalism, and militarism. Critical media literacy educators, in particular, have called attention to the convergence of tech firms and military entities in education, offering so-called “free” digital tools that double as Trojan horses for data collection and ideological control.

One striking example is the rise of programs like NewsGuard, which uses public fears over fake news to justify increased surveillance of students’ online activity. Relatedly, in 2018, the Atlantic Council partnered with Meta to perform “fact-checking” on platforms such as Facebook.  In 2022, the US Marine Corps discussed developing media literacy trainings. It remains to be seen what training, if any, they will develop. However, what is known is that a large global player has entered the media literacy arena: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While NATO presents its initiatives as supportive of media literacy and democratic education, these efforts appear to be oriented more toward reinforcing alignment with its strategic and political priorities than to fostering critical civic engagement.

NATO was created in 1949, during the Cold War, as a military alliance to contain communism. Although the war officially ended in 1991, NATO has expanded both its mission and membership. Today, it encompasses more than thirty member nations and continues to frame itself as a global force for peace, democracy, and security. But this self-image masks real conflicts of interest.

NATO is deeply intertwined with powerful nation-states and corporate actors. It routinely partners with defense contractors, tech firms, think tanks, and Western governments—all of which have a vested interest in maintaining specific political and economic systems. These relationships raise concerns when NATO extends its reach into education. Can a military alliance—closely linked to the defense industry and state propaganda—credibly serve as a neutral force in media education?

In 2022, NATO associates collaborated with the US-based Center for Media Literacy (CML) to launch a media literacy initiative framed as a strategic defense against misinformation. The initiative included a report titled Building Resiliency: Media Literacy as a Strategic Defense Strategy for the Transatlantic, authored by CML’s Tessa Jolls. It was accompanied by a series of webinars featuring military personnel, policy experts, and academics.

On the surface, the initiative appeared to promote digital literacy and civic engagement. But a closer look reveals a clear ideological agenda. Funded and organized by NATO, the initiative positioned media literacy not as a means of empowering students to think critically about how power shapes media, but as a defense strategy to protect NATO member states from so-called “hostile actors.” The curriculum emphasized surveillance, resilience, and behavior modification over reflection, analysis, and democratic dialogue.

Throughout their webinars, NATO representatives described the media environment as a battlefield, frequently using other war metaphors such as “hostile information activities” and “cognitive warfare.” Panelists argued that citizens in NATO countries were targets of foreign disinformation campaigns—and that media literacy could serve as a tool to inoculate them against ideological threats.

A critical review of NATO’s media literacy initiative reveals several troubling themes. First, it frames media literacy as a protectionist project rather than an educational one. Students are portrayed less as thinkers to be empowered and more as civilians to be monitored, molded, and managed. In this model, education becomes a form of top-down, preemptive defense, relying on expert guidance and military oversight rather than democratic participation.

Second, the initiative advances a distinctly neoliberal worldview. It emphasizes individual responsibility over structural analysis. In other words, misinformation is treated as a user error, rather than the result of flawed systems, corporate algorithms, or media consolidation. This framing conveniently absolves powerful actors, including NATO and Big Tech, , of their role in producing or amplifying disinformation.

Third, the initiative promotes a contradictory definition of empowerment. While the report and webinars often use the language of “citizen empowerment,” they ultimately advocate for surveillance, censorship, and ideological conformity. Panelists call for NATO to “dominate” the information space, and some even propose systems to monitor students’ attitudes and online behaviors. Rather than encouraging students to question power—including NATO itself—this approach rewards obedience and penalizes dissent.

Finally, the initiative erases the influence of corporate power. Although it criticizes authoritarian regimes and “hostile actors,” it fails to examine the role that Western corporations, particularly tech companies, play in shaping media environments. This oversight is especially problematic given that many of these corporations are NATO’s partners. By ignoring the political economy of media, the initiative offers an incomplete and ideologically skewed version of media literacy.

NATO’s foray into media literacy education represents a new frontier in militarized pedagogy. While claiming to promote democracy and resilience, its initiative advances a narrow, protectionist, and neoliberal approach that prioritizes NATO’s geopolitical goals over student empowerment.

This should raise red flags for educators, policymakers, and advocates. Media literacy is not a neutral practice. The organizations that design and fund media literacy programs inevitably shape those programs’ goals and methods. When a military alliance like NATO promotes media education, it brings with it a strategic interest in ideological control.

Educators must ask: What kind of media literacy are we teaching—and whose interests does it serve? If the goal is to produce informed, critically thinking citizens capable of questioning power in all its forms, then NATO’s approach falls short. Instead of inviting students to explore complex media systems, it simplifies them into a binary struggle between “us” and “them,” encouraging loyalty over literacy.

True media literacy must begin with transparency about who and what is behind the curriculum. It must empower students to question all forms of influence—governmental, corporate, and military alike. And it must resist the creeping presence of militarism in our classrooms. As educators, we must defend the right to question, not just the messages we see, but the institutions that shape them.

Nolan Higdon is a political analyst, author, host of The Disinfo Detox Podcast, lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Project Censored Judge. Higdon’s popular Substack includes the bi-weekly Gaslight Gazette, which chronicles important and well-researched examples of disinformation, character assassination, and censorship in the United States.

Sydney Sullivan is an educator, author, and researcher specializing in critical media literacy, student well-being, and digital culture. She is a lecturer in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies department at San Diego State University and a co-host of Disinfo Detox. Her popular Substack series @sydneysullivanphd explores how digital habits shape student mental health, media literacy, and classroom culture.

July 23, 2025 Posted by | Education, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Iran to hold nuclear talks with European powers on Friday

 Iran, Britain, France and Germany will hold nuclear talks in Istanbul on
Friday, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said early on Monday,
following warnings by the three European countries that failure to resume
negotiations would lead to international sanctions being reimposed on Iran.
“The meeting between Iran, Britain, France and Germany will take place at
the deputy foreign minister level,” Esmaeil Baghaei was quoted by Iranian
state media as saying.

 Reuters 20th July 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-hold-nuclear-talks-with-european-powers-friday-2025-07-20/

July 23, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Gaza Isn’t Starving, It Is Being Starved

Caitlin Johnstone Jul 21, 2025 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/gaza-isnt-starving-it-is-being-starved?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=168826710&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza are beginning to climb, with the health ministry reporting 18 in a single 24-hour period. Doctors report that people are “collapsing” in the street, and Gaza journalist Nahed Hajjaj is warning the world not to be surprised if the remaining reporters in the enclave are soon silenced by starvation.

Unless something drastically changes, things can be expected to get much worse very rapidly.

Meanwhile Israeli forces are setting new records with their massacres of starving civilians seeking aid, with 85 killed in a single day on Sunday.

If this isn’t evil, then nothing is evil. If Israel isn’t evil, then nothing is.

So what’s the plan here? Do we just sit and watch Israel starve Gaza to death with the support of our own governments?

And then what? We just go along with our lives, knowing that that happened? That this is what we are as a society? That our civilization is comfortable allowing something like that to happen? And that our rulers could do the same thing to another inconvenient population at any time?

We’re just meant to be cool with that? And go on living like it’s normal?

I’m genuinely curious. How exactly is everyone planning to go about living their lives after that point? How does that work, exactly?

I’m asking because I don’t know. I mean, I know what my own government and its allies should do, but I don’t know what we as ordinary members of the public are supposed to do.

You’ll see western pundits and politicians asking “How do we get a ceasefire in Gaza?” or “How do we end hunger in Gaza?” as though it’s some kind of ineffable mystery, which is kind of like a man strangling a child to death while saying “The child is being strangled, but HOW do we stop the child strangulation from occurring?”

It’s not some mystery how to get a ceasefire in Gaza; the empire is the fire. It simply needs to cease firing. Israel’s holocaust in Gaza is made possible only by the support of its western backers, primarily the United States. Numerous Israeli military insiders have acknowledged that none of this would be possible without US support. If the United States and its western allies ceased backing Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, a ceasefire would have to occur.

Likewise, it is not a mystery how to get food into Gaza. You just drive the food on in and give it to people. They’ve got roads and gates right there. The only reason people in Gaza are starving is because western governments (including my own Australia) conspired to pretend to believe that UNRWA is a terrorist organization to justify cutting off critical aid, while doing nothing to pressure Israel into allowing aid to flow freely.

And now Israel and the US empire are monopolizing the delivery of “aid” through the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose facilities now see civilians massacred every day for the crime of attempting to obtain food.

The organizations, funding and delivery systems to feed Gaza are all 100 percent fully available (at no cost to Israel, by the way). They’re just not being allowed to provide aid because the goal is to remove all Palestinians from Gaza via death or displacement. The people of Gaza are starving because the west is helping Israel starve Gaza. It really is that simple.

This isn’t some kind of unfortunate famine caused by a drought or natural disaster. It is a deliberately manufactured starvation campaign, implemented with genocidal intent.

To paraphrase Utah Phillips, Gaza isn’t starving, it is being starved. And the people who are starving it have names and addresses.

July 22, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Rotten Apple: Dozens of Former Israeli Spies Hired by Silicon Valley Giant

July 18th, 2025, Alan Macleod

Apple has made headlines in recent weeks for touting its commitment to privacy and human rights, rolling out tools to limit surveillance and spyware. But behind the corporate messaging lies a much darker reality.

The company has quietly brought in dozens of veterans from Unit 8200, Israel’s shadowy military intelligence unit known for blackmail, mass surveillance, and targeted killings.

Many of these hires took place as Israel escalated its war on Gaza, and as CEO Tim Cook publicly expressed support for Israel while disciplining employees for pro-Palestinian expressions. Apple’s deepening ties to Israel’s most controversial intelligence raise uncomfortable questions, not only about the company’s political loyalties, but also about how it handles vast troves of personal user data.

A MintPress News investigation has identified dozens of Unit 8200 operatives now working at Apple. The company’s hiring spree coincides with growing scrutiny of its ties to the Israeli government, including its policy of matching employee donations to groups such as Friends of the IDF and the Jewish National Fund, both of which play a role in the displacement of the Palestinian people. The intense pro-Israel bias at the corporation has led many former and current employees to speak out.

This investigation is part of a series examining the close collaboration between Unit 8200 and Western tech and media companies. Previous investigations examined the links between Unit 8200 and social media giants like TikTok, Facebook and Google, and how former Unit 8200 spies are now responsible for writing much of America’s news about Israel/Palestine, holding top jobs at outlets like CNN and Axios.

A Few (Dozen) Bad Apples

Israel’s international reputation has taken a severe hit amid multiple spying scandals and ongoing attacks against its neighbors. During this same period, Apple has ramped up its recruitment of former Israeli intelligence personnel.

The Silicon Valley giant has hired dozens of former agents from the controversial Israeli intelligence outfit, Unit 8200, raising questions about the corporation’s political direction.

Nir Shkedi is among the most prominent examples. From 2008 to 2015, he served as a commander and Chief of Learning at Unit 8200, leading a team of approximately 120 operatives who developed new artificial intelligence tools to perform rapid data analysis.

Unit 8200 is at the forefront of this technology, and is known to have used AI to auto-generate kill lists of tens of thousands of Gazans, including children. These tools helped the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) bypass what it called human targeting, “bottlenecks,” and strike huge numbers of Palestinians.

Shkedi has been a physical design engineer at Apple’s Bay Area campus since 2022.

Noa Goor is another senior Unit 8200 figure turned Apple employee. From 2015 to 2020, Goor rose to become a project manager and head of cybersecurity and big data development team at Unit 8200, where she, in her own words, “invent[ed] creative technological solutions for high priority intelligence goals” and “manag[ed] two strategically important cyber projects” for the IDF.

One of the most important cyber projects Unit 8200 has launched in recent times is the September pager attack on Lebanon, an act that injured thousands of civilians and was widely condemned as an act of international terrorism, including by former CIA Director Leon Panetta. While Goor was not personally involved in that operation, Unit 8200 has spearheaded similarly nefarious actions for decades.

In 2022, Goor was hired by Apple as a system-on-chip design engineer.

Eli Yazovitsky, meanwhile, was directly recruited from Unit 8200. In 2015, he left a high-powered nine-year career as a manager in the military unit to join Apple, where he rose to become an engineering manager. He has since moved on to tech giant Qualcomm.

Unit 8200 is Israel’s most elite—and most controversial—military intelligence unit. It serves as the backbone of both Israel’s burgeoning tech sector and its repressive surveillance apparatus. The unit has developed cutting-edge technology like facial recognition and voice-to-text software to surveil, repress, and target Palestinians.

The vast amounts of data gathered on the Palestinian population, including their medical history, sex lives, and search histories, have been used for coercion and extortion. If a certain individual needed to travel across checkpoints for crucial medical treatment, permission could be suspended until they complied. Information about extramarital affairs or sexual orientation, especially homosexuality, is exploited as blackmail material. One former Unit 8200 agent recalled that he was instructed during his training to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that he could listen out for them in intercepted conversations.

Internationally, Unit 8200 may be best known for its “former” agents who created the notorious Pegasus software, used by repressive governments around the world to spy on tens of thousands of prominent figures, including royals, heads of state, activists, and journalists.

Among them was Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated by Saudi operatives in Türkiye in 2018.

While military service is mandatory for Jewish Israelis, few end up in Unit 8200 by accident. Described as “Israel’s Harvard,” parents spend fortunes on STEM-based extracurricular lessons for their children in the hopes that they will be selected to join the IDF’s most elite and selective unit. Those chosen are rewarded with lucrative careers in the tech industry upon completion of their service.

Given Unit 8200’s documented history of violence, espionage, and surveillance, both domestically and internationally, it is worth asking whether tech giants should be hiring its alumni in such large numbers.

Shkedi, Goor, and Yazovitsky are the most high-profile examples, but they are from alone. A closer look reveals that dozens of other Unit 8200 veterans have also secured key roles at Apple.

Engineering and Hardware Design:

Natanel Nissan, formerly head of data analysis at Unit 8200, joined Apple’s Tel Aviv office in 2022. Ofek Har-Even, a longtime officer and manager in the unit, has been a design verification engineer at Apple since 2022. Gal Sharon, a former intelligence systems operator and data analyst, has also worked as a physical design engineer since that same year.

Mayan Hochler and Shai Buzgalo, both former Unit 8200 analysts and instructors, hold roles in physical design and validation engineering, respectively.

Software and Cybersecurity:

Ofer Tlusty, who served nearly six years in Unit 8200 as a security and intelligence analyst, has worked as a software engineer at Apple since 2021. Ofek Rafaeli, who served between 2012 and 2016 and rose to project manager during Israel’s 2016 assault on Gaza, became a software engineer at Apple in 2023.

Guy Levy, a former intelligence analyst, now also works as a software engineer.

AI, Machine Learning, and Validation:

Avital Kleiman, a six-year veteran of Unit 8200, is now a machine learning algorithm engineer at Apple. Niv Lev Ari, currently a validation engineer, notes in his LinkedIn profile that he received a letter of commendation from Unit 8200 commander Aviv Kochavi for his work in the unit.

Other Technical Roles:

Shahar Moshe, who worked as an intelligence specialist at Unit 8200 from 2012 to 2015, is now a design verification engineer. Gil Avniel, who spent over five years in the unit, currently serves as a network engineer.

An Apple Rots From the Core

The growing number of former Israeli intelligence operatives working at Apple does not seem to concern the company’s senior management. CEO Tim Cook is known to hold strongly pro-Israel views and has spearheaded the Silicon Valley giant’s collaboration with the Israeli state.

Apple has acquired several Israeli tech firms and now operates three centers in the country, employing around 2,000 people. In 2014, Cook invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the company headquarters in Cupertino, CA, where, in front of the cameras, the two openly embraced. The following year, Cook accepted an invitation from President Reuven Rivlin to visit  Israel. “It is a great privilege to host you and your team here,” Rivlin said, “Even for me, as one who prefers to write with a pen and paper, it is clear what a great miracle you have created when I look at my staff, and my grandchildren.”

Effusive praise for the Apple CEO has also come in the form of honors from pro-Israel organizations. In 2018, the Anti-Defamation League presented Cook with its inaugural Courage Against Hate Award at its Never Is Now Summit on anti-Semitism and Hate, where the organization described him as a “visionary leader in the business community.”

In the wake of the October 7, 2023, attacks, Cook sent out a company-wide email expressing his solidarity with Israel. “Like so many of you, I am devastated by the horrific attacks in Israel and the tragic reports coming out of the region,” he wrote, My heart goes out to the victims, those who have lost loved ones, and all of the innocent people who are suffering as a result of this violence.”

Yet, according to Apples4Ceasefire—a group of former and current employees opposing Israeli actions in Gaza—he has yet to say anything publicly about the mass devastation caused by the Israeli response to October 7.

Indeed, the Silicon Valley corporation has a policy of matching employee donations to groups such as Friends of the IDF, which raises money to buy equipment for IDF soldiers, and the Jewish National Fund, an organization that participates in the theft and destruction of Palestinian land.

Under Cook’s leadership, Apple employees have been disciplined or even fired for wearing pins, bracelets, or keffiyehs in support of the Palestinian people. Nevertheless, groups such as Apples4Ceasefire continue to speak out about what they describe as Apple’s complicity in genocide.

The Unit 8200 Tech Takeover


To be fair, Apple is far from the only tech or media company to hire large numbers of former Unit 8200 operatives. A 2022 MintPress exposé revealed hundreds of Israeli intelligence veterans working at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Perhaps the most notable of these is Emi Palmor, a former Israeli justice ministry official who sits on Facebook’s 21-person Oversight Board. Described by Mark Zuckerberg as his platform’s “supreme court,” the board ultimately decides what content is allowed or removed from the world’s largest social network. Facebook has worked closely with the Israeli government to censor or deplatform Palestinian content and accounts.

Even TikTok, often seen as a more open platform, has been hiring former Israeli spies to help manage its operations, according to a November investigation by MintPress. Reut Medalion, for example, served as a Unit 8200 intelligence commander and led its cybersecurity operations team.

In December 2023, during the peak of Israel’s attack on Gaza, Medalion moved to New York City to accept a job as global incident manager for TikTok’s trust and safety division. Considering the events going on in the world at the time, it’s worth asking what sorts of “global incidents” she was brought in to manage.

After MintPress exposed Medalion’s past to a worldwide audience, she deleted her entire digital footprint from the internet.

Former Israeli intelligence operatives have also found their way into American newsrooms, shaping coverage of the Middle East. A recent MintPress investigation uncovered a network of former Unit 8200 operatives working in some of the most influential newsrooms in the United States.

Among them is Axios correspondent Barak Ravid, whose Middle Eastern coverage won him the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award. Until at least 2023, Ravid was a member of Unit 8200. CNN has also hired at least two former agents to produce their news coverage, one of whom, Tal Heinrich, now serves as the official spokesperson for Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Given this pattern, Silicon Valley’s partiality towards Israel should not come as no surprise. From tech giants like Google and Amazon to social media powerhouses like TikTok and Facebook, the field is filled with former Israeli spies. Apple is no exception, having hired dozens, if not more, Unit 8200 operatives to run its platforms and shape the company.

This investigation does not claim that the Israeli state is deliberately infiltrating Silicon Valley. However, what it does unquestionably suggest is that the outlook and general biases of these entities are strongly pro-Israel. What does it say about Silicon Valley’s culture that individuals with well-documented ties to a controversial foreign spy agency are considered ideal hires?

It is unthinkable that former intelligence agents of Hezbollah, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, or Russia’s FSB or GRU would be hired en masse, and trusted with our most sensitive data. Yet, when it comes to Israel (or U.S. surveillance agencies), the answer is different. Many of these employees are not even “former” agents, and are directly recruited from Unit 8200 while still in active service, despite Israeli law explicitly prohibiting the group’s members from identifying themselves or divulging their alliances.

Thus, in this light, it appears that those like Apples4Ceasefire struggling to end the company’s double standards are fighting an uphill battle.

July 22, 2025 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

EU opens door to funding nuclear energy in next budget

By Kate Abnett, July 18, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/eu-opens-door-funding-nuclear-energy-next-budget-2025-07-17/

BRUSSELS, July 17 (Reuters) – The European Commission wants to open up part of its proposed 2 trillion euro EU budget for 2028-2034 to nuclear energy, a move likely to divide the bloc’s member states, which Germany immediately rejected.

In an annex to its mammoth budget proposal published on Wednesday, the Commission listed nuclear power as an activity countries can fund through their national share of the budget – specifically, “new or additional fission energy capacity installed in GW”.

Around 865 billion euros of EU funding will be available under these national spending plans.

The move would be a sea change for the EU, whose current budget does not fund conventional nuclear power plants – reflecting a long-running conflict between pro-nuclear EU members like France and Sweden and traditionally anti-nuclear countries like Germany and Austria.

“Germany rejects any subsidization of nuclear power from the EU budget,” its environment minister Carsten Schneider said on Thursday, adding that Berlin respected the choice of other countries to build reactors.

“However, respect for national sovereignty in energy matters also means not claiming EU funds for this expensive path, a quarter of which comes from German taxpayers’ money,” Schneider said.

France’s energy ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Swedish energy minister Ebba Busch declined to comment.

The Commission’s budget proposal marks the start of years of intense negotiations among EU nations, which must all approve the final budget.

EU countries have long been at loggerheads over whether to promote atomic power to reduce CO2 emissions, a dispute which has delayed policymaking on climate change and energy in the bloc.

That dynamic had appeared on the cusp of a shift earlier this year, when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signalled Berlin would no longer object to treating nuclear power on a par with renewable energy in EU policies.

Countries including Denmark and Italy had also signalled a shift in their past opposition to nuclear power.

However, some EU diplomats said that this softening of positions had not extended into support for EU funding.

“There is no chance EU money goes to new nuclear,” one EU country diplomat said.

The EU’s current budget explicitly bans member states from building nuclear power plants using their share of hundreds of billions of euros in regional development funds – although the budget offers some limited funds for nuclear research and decommissioning of old reactors.

Reporting by Kate Abnett; additional reporting by Simon Johnson, Holger Hansen, America Hernandez, Riham Alkousaa; Editing by Hugh Lawson

July 22, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Oxford fusion pioneer risks running out of cash within months

First Light scrambles for funding despite Labour promise to invest £2.5bn in nuclear
research. A British nuclear fusion pioneer has warned it risks running out
of cash within six months as it races to raise millions of pounds in
funding to secure its future. First Light Fusion, which is based in Oxford,
is in talks with investors to raise £20m after burning through tens of
millions of pounds to develop its novel fusion technology. The start-up,
founded in 2011, had sought to develop what it called “projectile
fusion”, developing a giant gas-powered gun that would fire a 5p-sized
projectile at extreme speeds into a fuel source, sparking a fusion
reaction. However, the company abandoned plans to build a prototype reactor
earlier this year as it struggled to raise funds.

 Telegraph 20th July 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/20/oxford-fusion-pioneer-running-out-of-cash/

July 22, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, technology, UK | Leave a comment

Pay danger money to communities impacted by nuclear projects, say NFLAs

 The Nuclear Free Local Authorities have called on government ministers to
make the operators of nuclear plants pay their neighbouring communities
‘danger money’ to properly compensate them for living with the risk.

The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero has just concluded a
consultation on plans to introduce a mandatory scheme obliging energy
generators to pay community benefits. The amount of money payable annually
would be based on one of two models, the potential generating capacity of
the plant or the actual amount of electricity generated.

Ministers would make the scheme applicable to nuclear plants, as well as larger renewable
energy projects, but the NFLAs want them to factor in a premium on payments
made by nuclear operators to reflect the potential for accidents, the
environmental contamination caused during their operations, and their
legacy of deadly radioactive waste. We also want nuclear plants to make
payments through their lifecycle, including during the period of
decommissioning and waste management after closure.

 NFLA 18th July 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/pay-danger-money-to-communities-impacted-by-nuclear-projects-say-nflas/

July 22, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear: more than 3,000 radioactive drums discovered off the coast of Brest!

More than 3,000 radioactive drums have been discovered in the waters off Brest. Very old nuclear fuel.

Jean-Baptiste Giraud, July 17, 2025,
https://lenergeek.com/2025/07/17/nucleaire-3-000-futs-radioactifs-brest/

In the nuclear sector, the issue of radioactive waste storage is posing increasing problems. During a mission off the coast of Brest, Ifremer and the CNRS counted more than 3,000 drums deposited on the seabed. They could pose a threat to France.

Nuclear waste is accumulating at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean


The return of a scientific mission off the coast of Brest has shaken the scientific community. After a month of intensive research, a team of experts revealed they had located more than 3,000 radioactive drums submerged in the Atlantic Ocean , a discovery that inevitably raises the question: should we be worried?

Behind this large-scale mission, a specific objective: to understand the fate of nuclear waste dumped between 1946 and 1993 by several European countries . During this period, more than 200,000 drums containing radioactive waste were dumped in international waters, at depths reaching 4,700 meters in the abyssal plain of the northeast Atlantic. The NODSSUM (Nuclear Ocean Dump Site Survey Monitoring) project has mapped an area of 163 km² where these drums are concentrated, some of which are in an advanced state of degradation.

The mission, led by the CNRS and Ifremer with the support of several national and international partners, used cutting-edge technologies to study the abyss. Aboard the ship L’Atalante, scientists deployed an autonomous submarine, UlyX, equipped with a sophisticated sonar system, allowing them to probe the seabed and obtain precise images of the condition of the 3,350 barrels.

No worrying radioactivity… for now

After several weeks of research, the good news is that the mission did not observe any “anomalous radioactivity” in the areas analyzed. For the researchers, there is therefore, as of yet, no reason to panic. However, not everything is that simple. Although the radioactivity does not appear to have crossed any worrying thresholds, some drums have shown signs of advanced corrosion, suggesting that material leaks may be occurring. The mission reveals that these leaks, although still difficult to identify precisely, could be due to the presence of bitumen, a material often used to seal waste in drums.

However, this is only a hypothesis. Future sampling will be necessary to better understand the exact nature of these substances and their impact on the marine environment.
This discovery raises many questions about nuclear waste management. Why were these drums submerged at a time when radioactive waste management was not as strictly regulated? While the practice of dumping waste has been banned since 1993, the question of the environmental impact of these repositories remains open. The results of this mission, still preliminary, underline that special attention will need to be paid in the future.

The next stage of the research will be to analyze the sediment, water and marine organisms in the area to detect possible contamination . In addition, a new mission is already planned for the coming years to study the barrels more closely and take additional samples , particularly of marine fauna that could be affected by this waste.

July 21, 2025 Posted by | France, wastes | Leave a comment

  Ministers set to admit Sizewell C nuclear plant price-tag has soared to £38bn. 

New official estimate reflects surging construction inflation and
contingency costs. Sizewell C nuclear plant will cost £38bn to build, the
UK government is set to admit for the first time next week as it reveals
the terms of an expected deal for private investors to fund a small portion
of the bill,

The new official estimate is a big increase from a £20bn
figure given by French energy giant EDF and the UK government for the
project in 2020, reflecting surging construction inflation and new
contingency costs.

A trio of private companies are set to invest around
£9bn of equity in Sizewell, but the majority of the construction will be
funded by loans underpinned by a levy on consumer bills, according to
people familiar with the matter.

The UK government is expected to remain
the largest investor in the project with a 47.5 per cent stake, the
Financial Times previously reported. The £38bn cost, details of the deal
and how the financial risk of the project will be shared is set to be
announced before the parliamentary summer recess begins on Wednesday, the
people said.

 FT 18th July 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/d4315905-e7b5-4c2c-a0d1-32dd302e7761

July 21, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

“They want to impose a whole nuclear world on us without asking our opinion”: activists fight against the Orano nuclear fuel pools project.

 by Lucas Hobe, 07/20/2025 , https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/normandie/manche/on-veut-nous-imposer-tout-un-monde-nucleaire-sans-demander-notre-avis-des-militants-luttent-contre-le-projet-des-piscines-d-orano-3190563.html

Nearly a thousand people marched on Saturday, July 19, 2025, in Vauville (Manche) to protest against the Aval du Futur project at the Orano La Hague site, which plans to install three new nuclear fuel storage pools.

” FukushiManche, no thanks! “, ” Stop Downstream of the Future ” could be read this Saturday, July 19, 2025 on placards held during the march organized in Vauville (Manche) against the project for new nuclear pools .

Monitored by law enforcement, the 1,000 people present marched to the beach, expressing their anger at the “world’s largest industrial project,” namely the expansion of the Orano site at La Hague to store spent nuclear fuel.

” It’s a project that’s pretty crazy,” laments Gilles, an activist . “We’ve been told for 40 years that scientists will find solutions for waste. And in the end, we haven’t found any solutions. La Manche is a department that’s already heavily nuclearized, so we’re fed up with these malfunctioning power plants and these high-voltage lines that disfigure the landscape .”

“Nuclear power can cause disasters”

Participants in the Vauville demonstration, which was part of the Haro anti-nuclear festival, are concerned about the future of the English Channel coastline if new 6,500-ton swimming pools and nuclear power plants are built. They are also concerned about their safety and health, given the potential for problems at these types of high-risk sites.

We see with the Flamanville EPR that it took years to build, there are still problems, and it cost us a lot of money. Nuclear power can cause disasters. We saw it at Fukushima and Chernobyl. – Gregory , Anti-nuclear activist opposed to the Aval du Futur project on the Orano site

Activists believe that the issue of the new nuclear pools at La Hague ” 
is part of a larger picture. They’re still trying to sell us nuclear power as the energy of the future. They want to impose a whole nuclear world on us without asking our opinion. It’s scary. It’s important to fight against it .”

” We’ve taken up this Norman legend of the little fairies of La Hague who defend themselves when someone offends their land. We’re out in force, determined to show our anger, ” concludes the co-organizer of the anti-nuclear Haro festival.

2027, the calendar date for new factories

Announced in October 2024, the “Downstream of the Future” program has been launched. However, the exact timeline remains to be determined. According to Orano, more clarity should become available within two years, in the summer of 2027.

” The current plants are designed to last until 2040 ,” says Nicolas Ferrand, a specialist in nuclear waste reprocessing 
. “We’re seeing if we can extend them beyond that, until 2050, 2055, 2060. By the end of 2026, we’ll have their lifespan and based on that, we’ll be able to schedule the commissioning of the new plants .”

July 21, 2025 Posted by | France, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme

by Paul Linford , 18 Jul 2025, https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2025/news/local-website-reveals-citys-secret-nuclear-weapons-programme/

A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.

The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.

The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.

Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.

Danie spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.

Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme

by Paul Linford Published 18 Jul 2025

0

DSC01446-1---2-

A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.

The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.

The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.

Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.

Daniel, pictured, spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.

The key breakthrough came when he read a set of minutes from a meeting of Berkshire parish councillors around the AWE’s Aldermaston HQ in November 2023 which was addressed by an AWE director, Andrew McNaughton.

Wrote Daniel: “Unsurprisingly, AWE publishes very little. But they do have occasional meetings with local parish councillors around their Berkshire site. And in the published minutes, I finally find what I’d been searching for.

“It was the 108th meeting of the committee, in November 2023. Andrew McNaughton, the executive director for infrastructure on the fissile programme, explained that AWE had not had to design new warheads for decades, and taking this on will require new buildings and facilities.

“But in the meantime, they were doing some work elsewhere. And this was where the key admission was made.

“‘We already have a secure cell in Sheffield (part of Sheffield University) where we have some of the equipment we have been using… where we are going to be trialling the processes and training some of our employees,” McNaughton said.”

The Tribune gave both the Ministry of Defence and the university the opportunity to dispute its reporting, but they did not.

Added Daniel: “I’ve been working on this story for four months. I have no previous experience with the defence sector, and I assumed it would be an interesting diversion that would ultimately lead nowhere.

“Instead, largely by relying on freely available documents, I’ve been able to reveal where a significant aspect of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is taking place — in a building with apparently minimal security just outside Sheffield.

“It’s possible that others with more of a headstart — and with less benign motives — have been able to do the same. But, given the lack of pushback (we haven’t been asked not to publish) perhaps the parties involved aren’t too concerned.”

A spokesperson for the university told The Tribune: “Our work at the AMRC involves developing and testing new technologies and processes for manufacturing companies and does not involve production of components for deployment.

Local website reveals city’s secret nuclear weapons programme

by Paul Linford Published 18 Jul 2025

0

DSC01446-1---2-

A city news website has revealed a university’s role in a programme to develop a new nuclear warhead.

The Sheffield Tribune, part of Mill Media, found evidence of a secure cell established at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – part of the University of Sheffield.

The unit was set up by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – an MoD body responsible for developing nuclear weapons — with the purpose of helping develop a new warhead for the UK’s nuclear arsenal, known as Astraea.

Data journalist Daniel Timms pieced together the story from documents already in the public domain, including a set of minutes from a meeting of parish councillors in Berkshire.

Daniel, pictured, spent four months working on the story and has written a first-person piece about how he uncovered the scoop.

The key breakthrough came when he read a set of minutes from a meeting of Berkshire parish councillors around the AWE’s Aldermaston HQ in November 2023 which was addressed by an AWE director, Andrew McNaughton.

Wrote Daniel: “Unsurprisingly, AWE publishes very little. But they do have occasional meetings with local parish councillors around their Berkshire site. And in the published minutes, I finally find what I’d been searching for.

“It was the 108th meeting of the committee, in November 2023. Andrew McNaughton, the executive director for infrastructure on the fissile programme, explained that AWE had not had to design new warheads for decades, and taking this on will require new buildings and facilities.

“But in the meantime, they were doing some work elsewhere. And this was where the key admission was made.

“‘We already have a secure cell in Sheffield (part of Sheffield University) where we have some of the equipment we have been using… where we are going to be trialling the processes and training some of our employees,” McNaughton said.”

The Tribune gave both the Ministry of Defence and the university the opportunity to dispute its reporting, but they did not.

Added Daniel: “I’ve been working on this story for four months. I have no previous experience with the defence sector, and I assumed it would be an interesting diversion that would ultimately lead nowhere.

“Instead, largely by relying on freely available documents, I’ve been able to reveal where a significant aspect of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is taking place — in a building with apparently minimal security just outside Sheffield.

“It’s possible that others with more of a headstart — and with less benign motives — have been able to do the same. But, given the lack of pushback (we haven’t been asked not to publish) perhaps the parties involved aren’t too concerned.”

A spokesperson for the university told The Tribune: “Our work at the AMRC involves developing and testing new technologies and processes for manufacturing companies and does not involve production of components for deployment.

“Our collaboration with partners in the defence sector helps them to overcome sustainability and productivity challenges, and support UK security and sovereign capabilities.”

Joshi Hermann, proprietor of Mill Media commented: “This is a fantastic story from Daniel Timms, revealing the existence of a secret nuclear weapons programme in Sheffield.

“If he can work this out from sources and the minutes of a parish council meeting in Berkshire, then the Russians/Chinese can too.”

July 21, 2025 Posted by | Education, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Remembering the radical anti-nuclear Greenham Women’s Peace Camp

 Huck Mag 18th July 2025, https://www.huckmag.com/article/anti-nuclear-greenham-womens-peace-camp-life-fence-janine-wiedel

Life at the Fence — In the early ’80s, a women’s only camp at an RAF site in Berkshire was formed to protest the threat of nuclear arms. Janine Wiedel’s new photobook revisits its anti-establishment setup and people.

Coming of age in the shadow of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Janine Wiedel remembers the ​“duck and cover drills” of her childhood years, where students hid under school desks, head in hands, practicing quiet surrender to nuclear Armageddon. 

By the ​’80s, Wiedel was living and working as a photographer, documenting working-class life in the UK. With Ronald Reagan in the White House, Cold War tensions reached a fevered pitch. Across the pond, Margaret Thatcher, Reagan’s ​“comrade-in-arms”, welcomed the NATO bequest of 96 US-manufactured, nuclear ​“cruise missiles”, which were to begin arriving at RAF Greenham Common in 1983. 

As NATO and the USSR ran up their arsenals, a grassroots resistance movement sprouted in Greenham, in the English county of Berkshire, taking the shape of a ​“women’s only” peace camp in 1982. Despite evictions, fences, and spies organised to bring them down, the resistance stayed the course until the American forces packed up their weapons and went home following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. 

Their struggle made headlines, with even the Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev paying homage to the ​‘Greenham women and the peace movement of Europe’ at the signing of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. But those initial media reports, Wiedel remembers, were ultimately disparaging of the women, so she decided to visit the camp for herself in 1983. 

“I was fascinated by the community that had evolved as a result of it being ​‘all women’ – there were no leaders,” Wiedel says. ​“The women built homes out of wood they collected, and they lit and tended the fires. They attended and spoke at conferences. They represented themselves in court when they were arrested. Everyone had an equal voice. Confidence grew. The actions were spontaneous and flexible; the authorities and police never knew what they would do next.” 

The lesson became clear: don’t stop until the job is done. Now, Wiedel revisits this historic chapter of protest history with Life at the Fence: Greenham Women’s Peace Camp 1983 – 84 (Image & Reality). Through transportive imagery and interviews conducted at the time, the book brings together Wiedel’s masterful reportage as she takes us through the camps, which were built along the nine-mile perimeter of the RAF base, while paratroopers perched in lookout towers, binoculars in hand. Against the backdrop of gnarly barbed wire, the women sorted themselves out among different camp sites, each named for a different colour of the rainbow. It was a world of striking contrasts. 

Drawn to women who had given up everything to live in primitive, volatile conditions, Wiedel listened to the women, recording their testimonies, songs, and remembrances which she weaves alongside documentary, portraits, landscape, still life, and reportage of non-violent direct actions. 

“At the time, as a ​‘women only’ protest, it was subjected to every form of abuse and ridicule by the media,” says Wiedel. ​“Its presence at the base also became an embarrassment to the Thatcher government. The women, however, managed to remain at the base for 19 years. Everyone I spoke with said it had transformed their lives.”

Life at the Fence: Greenham Women’s Peace Camp 1983 – 84 by Janine Wiedel is published by Image & Reality.

July 21, 2025 Posted by | media, opposition to nuclear, UK, Women | Leave a comment

The first US atomic rush was a bust. Will Trump’s big nuclear-for-AI plans fare any better?

Bulletin, By Chloe Shrager | July 18, 2025

As Big Tech turns to nuclear power to solve the artificial intelligence power problem, critics have cast doubt on energy developers’ ability to build new reactors on a timeline that will satisfy data centers’ energy needs.

High costs and lack of commercial economic viability have been persistent obstacles to new nuclear infrastructure development. But on May 23, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders that represent the most explicit government commitment to nuclear power for artificial intelligence yet.

Three of the orders explicitly mention AI as a driver for nuclear energy development and a potential beneficiary. One directive incentivizes the operation of privately funded advanced nuclear reactor technologies on federal sites—mainly national laboratories or military installations—allegedly to power AI infrastructure, labelled as “critical defense facilities,” and mandates the deployment of small modular nuclear reactors on one of these sites within 30 months.

Previously, tech companies were the most vocal advocates pushing for nuclear power to meet AI’s energy demands. Now the US government—heavily influenced by Big Tech’s hand—has made nuclear power for AI a national security priority, setting a goal of quadrupling the United States’ nuclear capacity from 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts by 2050. Whether government intervention can overcome the challenges that have plagued nuclear deployment for decades remains to be seen—and if so, at what cost?

Déjà vu. As with the rise of the nuclear power industry in the 1950s and 60s, the demand for nuclear energy is being created, justified, and incentivized by the government and its national security interests rather than by market forces.

Robert Duffy, a professor of political science at Colorado State University, summarized the history of the US nuclear power industry in a 2004 paper.

“The atomic energy subgovernment was endowed with additional prestige and power because of the program’s identification with national security issues,” Duffy wrote. “The actors in this tightly knit monopoly were united by the conviction that the development of atomic energy, first as a weapon but later as a means of generating electricity, was both necessary and desirable for the nation’s welfare.”

Duffy showed that the government’s rush to create a nuclear industry in the United States ultimately undermined that very industry. The hasty development, government incentives, and ambitious timelines led to cost overruns, safety problems, and public opposition that ultimately killed new nuclear construction for decades.

Today, the Trump administration is repeating history by declaring AI technologies driven by advanced nuclear power generators a key national security interest.

“There seems to be an aspect to the government’s interest in AI which is sort of positing that as the next nuclear weapons race,” Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, observes. “If you expect the most powerful countries in the history of the world, and the wealthiest corporations that have ever existed, which are trying to develop […] ‘digital gods,’ to not do everything they can to win that race, then you don’t understand human nature, and you don’t understand geopolitics.”

But by trying to rush nuclear power development again for geopolitical reasons (then the Cold War, now the global AI race), the US government risks creating another failed—or at least costly and insufficiently safe—nuclear program…………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Sticky problems. Even without the economic hurdles, the fundamental problem remains timing, and presidential orders cannot change the laws of physics. As Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear policy analyst and main contributor to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, bluntly states: “I doubt that any SMR would be operating 10 years from now in the Western world.”

Schneider’s skepticism isn’t unfounded. Construction times for nuclear plants average around 10 years, he said, and that’s just the construction phase—which only begins with the pouring of reactor foundations. Even with the Trump administration’s regulatory streamlining and federal site access, the reality of nuclear development timelines clashes directly with AI’s immediate energy needs. “All of these deals with nuclear companies are about future power plants maybe coming online in the 2030s, but all the AI data centers are being built today,” Judson observes.

Small modular reactors have long been promoted by the industry—and now also the government—as a solution to nuclear power’s problems, promising faster construction, lower costs, and standardized designs. The Trump administration’s nuclear orders specifically enable SMR testing and deployment on federal sites, betting that government support can make SMR promises a reality.

But the reality has proven far more complex, even with unprecedented government backing. Canada’s recent approval of the world’s first SMR in a G7 country demonstrates both the promise and the problems. The project’s price tag sits at nearly $21 billion Canadian dollars ($15.1 billion US dollars) for four reactors at Ontario’s Darlington site, roughly $12.5 million US dollars per megawatt—far exceeding the costs of renewable alternatives that can be deployed in a fraction of the time. Even more so, Judson says the energy company GE Vernova-Hitachi chose to pursue its SMR project in Canada because the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission regulations allow construction permit applications to be submitted with much of the design still incomplete. “The jury is very much still out on whether the BWRX-300 [SMR design] will prove feasible to build on time and on budget, but what we know so far is not encouraging,” Judson said.

The long-term management of nuclear waste also poses a sticky issue to new nuclear development, especially the relatively higher waste per gigawatt from SMRs compared to full-scale reactors, which has no permanent solution yet……………………………………………………………. https://thebulletin.org/2025/07/the-first-us-atomic-rush-was-a-bust-will-trumps-big-nuclear-for-ai-plans-fare-any-better/

July 21, 2025 Posted by | spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

Francesca Albanese: “A revolutionary shift is underway”

Remarks of Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, at the Hague Group Emergency Conference of States in Bogotá, Colombia.

By Francesca Albanese / Progressive International, https://progressive.international/wire/2025-07-16-francesca-albanese-a-revolutionary-shift-is-underway/en

Excellencies, Friends, 

I express my appreciation to the government of Colombia and South Africa for convening this group, and to all members of the Hague Group, its founding members for their principled stance, and the others who are joining. May you keep groing and so the strength and effectiveness of your concrete actions. 

Thank you also to the Secretariat for its tireless work, and last but not least, the Palestinian experts—individuals and organisations who travelled to Bogota from occupied Palestine, historical Palestine/Israel and other places of the diaspora/exile, to accompany this process, after providing HG with outstanding, evidence-based briefings.  

And of course all of you who are here today,

It is important to be here today, in a moment that may prove historical indeed. There is hope that these two days will move all present to work together to take concrete measures to end the genocide in Gaza and, hopefully, end the erasure of the 

Palestinian for what remains of Palestine—because this is the testing ground for a system where freedom, rights, and justice are made real for all. This hope, that people like me hold tight, is a discipline. A discipline we all should have.  

The occupied Palestinian territory today is a hellscape. In Gaza, Israel has dismantled even the last UN function—humanitarian aid—in order to deliberately starve, displace time and again, or kill a population they have marked for elimination. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, ethnic cleansing advances through unlawful siege, mass displacement, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, widespread torture. Across all areas under Israeli rule, Palestinians live under the terror of annihilation, broadcast in real time to a watching world. The very few Israeli people who stand against genocide, occupation, and apartheid—while the majority openly cheers and calls for more—remind us that Israeli liberation, too, is inseparable from Palestinian freedom. .

The atrocities of the past 21 months are not a sudden aberration; they are the culmination of decades of policies to displace and replace the Palestinian people.  

Against this backdrop, it is inconceivable that political forums, from Brussels to NY, are still debating recognition of the State of Palestine—not because it’s unimportant, but because for 35 years states have stalled, refused recognition, pretending to “invest in the PA” while abandoning the Palestinian people to Israel’s relentless, rapacious territorial ambitions and unspeakable crimes. Meanwhile political discourse has reduced Palestine to a humanitarian crisis to manage in perpetuity rather than a political issue demanding principled and firm resolution: end permanent occupation, apartheid and today genocide. And it is not the law that has failed or faltered—it is political will that has abdicated. 

But today, we are also witnessing a rupture. Palestine’s immense suffering has cracked open the possibility of transformation. Even if this is not fully reflected into political agendas (yet), a revolutionary shift is underway—one that, if sustained, will be remembered as a moment when history changed course.  

And this is why I came to this meeting with a sense of being at a historical turning point —discursively and politically.  

First, the narrative is shifting: away from Israel’s endlessly invoked “right to self-defence” and toward the long-denied Palestinian right to self-determination—systematically invisibilised, suppressed and delegitimised for decades. The weaponisation of antisemitism applied to Palestinian words, and narratives, and the dehumanising use of the terrorism framework for Palestinian action (from armed resistance to the work of NGOs pursuing justice in international arena), has led to a global political paralysis that has been intentional. It must be redressed. The time is now. 

Second, and consequentially, we are seeing the rise of a new multilateralism: principled, courageous, increasingly led by the Global Majority it pains me that I have yet to see this include European countries. As a European, I fear what the region and its institutions have come to symbolize to many: a sodality of states preaching international law yet guided more by colonial mindset than principle, acting as vassals to the US empire, even as it drags us from war to war, misery to misery and when it comes to Palestine: from silence to complicity. 

But the presence of European countries at this meeting shows that a different path is possible. To them I say: the Hague Group has the potential to signal not just a coalition, but a new moral center in world politics. Please, stand with them.  

Millions are watching—hoping—for leadership that can birth a new global order rooted in justice, humanity, and collective liberation. This is not just about Palestine. This is about all of us. 

Principled states must rise to this moment. It does not need to have a political allegiance, color, political party flags or ideologies: it needs to be upheld by basic human values. Those which Israel has been mercilessly crushing for 21 months now. 

Meanwhile I applaud the calling of this emergency conference in Bogota to address the unrelenting devastation in Gaza. So it is on this, that focus must be directed. The measures adopted in January by the Hague Group were symbolically powerful. It was the signal of the discursive and political shift needed. But they are the absolute bear minimum. I implore you to expand your commitment. And to turn that commitment into concrete actions, legislatively, judicially in each of your jurisdictions. And to consider first and foremost, what must we do to stop the genocidal onslaught. For Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, this question is existential. But it really is applicable to the humanity of all of us.  

In  this context my responsibility here is to recommend to you, uncompromisingly and dispassionately, the cure for the root cause. We are long past dealing with symptoms, the comfort zone of too many these days. And my words will show that what the Hague Group has committed to do and is considering expanding upon, is a small commitment towards what’s just and due based on your obligations under international law. 

Obligations, not sympathy, not charity. 

Each state immediately review and suspend all ties with Israel. Their military, strategic, political, diplomatic, economic,  relations – both imports and exports –  and to make sure that their private sector, insurers, banks, pension funds, universities and other goods, and services providers in the supply chains do the same. Treating the occupation as business as usual translates into supporting or providing aid or assistance to the unlawful presence of Israel in the OPT. These ties must be terminated as a matter of urgency. I will have the opportunity to elaborate on  the technicalities and implications in our further sessions but lets be clear, I mean cutting ties with Israel as a whole. Cutting ties only with the “components” of it in the oPt is not an option. 

This is in line with the duty on all states stemming from the July 2024 Advisory Opinion which confirmed the illegality of Israel’s prolonged occupation, which it declared tantamount to racial segregation and apartheid . The General Assembly adopted that opinion. These findings are more than sufficient for action. Further, it is the state of Israel who is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, so it is the state that must be responsible for its wrongdoings. 

As I argue in my last report to the HRC, the Israeli economy is structured to sustain the occupation, and has now turned genocidal. It is impossible to disentangle Israel’s state policies and economy from its longstanding policies and economy of occupation. It has been inseparable for decades. The longer states and others stay engaged, the more this illegality at its heart is legitimised. This is the complicity. Now that economy has turned genocidal. There is no good Israel, bad Israel. 

I ask you to consider this moment as if we were sitting here in the 1990s, discussing the case of apartheid South Africa. Would you have proposed selective sanctions on SA for its conduct in individual Bantustans? Or would you have recognised the state’s criminal system as a whole? And here, what Israel is doing is worse. This comparison— is a legal and factual assessment supported by international legal proceedings many in this room are part of.  

This is what concrete measures mean. Negotiating with Israel on how to manage what remains of Gaza and West Bank, in Brussels or elsewhere, is an utter dishonor to international law. 

And to the Palestinians and those from all corners of the world standing by them, often at great cost and sacrifice, I say whatever happens, Palestine will have written this tumultuous chapter—not as a footnote in the chronicles of would-be conquerors, but as the newest verse in a centuries-long saga of peoples who have risen against injustice, colonialism, and today more than ever neoliberal tyranny.

July 21, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, Gaza | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is a parasite on AI’s credibility

The IEA expects renewables to add 10–20-fold more electricity supply than data centers raise demand. Renewables and storage are already 93% of US and 95% of world electric capacity expected to be added this year. These cheapest and fastest options can come online sooner than a data center, and they already reliably power critical loads like data centers.

Global nuclear power in a good year adds only as much net capacity as renewables add every two days

  by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/07/20/nuclear-power-is-a-parasite-on-ais-credibility/

The following is the press release announcing a new essay by Stanford University’s Amory Lovins, Artificial Intelligence Meets Natural Stupidity: Managing the Risks.

Claims of soaring electricity needs to power ravenous new AI data centers underpin the energy emergency declared for national security. Yet new research synthesized by a prominent energy expert, Amory Lovins, explains how hidden order-of-magnitude uncertainties in AI’s energy needs are risking major speculative losses and energy-market distortions—and he highlights timely remedies.

In fact, US electricity use fell in 2023, and in 2024, it rose only 2%—less than in three other years of the past ten. Forecasts of future electricity use have lately risen, especially in a few hotspots that promote and subsidize new data centers.

Yet that’s far from a broad trend, and most of the forecast growth is for other or reshored industries, electric vehicles, and electrifying buildings and factories. Data centers used only about 4.5% of US electricity in 2024. Of global electricity growth, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says only 5% in 2024 was for new data centers, rising to 5–10% of growth in 2025–30. Both nationally and globally, most data centers aren’t even made or run for AI; they’re for traditional functions like search engines, e-mail, and e-commerce.

Big Tech firms are indeed investing at least a trillion dollars in new AI data centers. Hundreds are planned, some as power-hungry as a small city. However, only a small fraction of those proposed are likely to be built, and not all those built are certain to thrive. Overforecasting seems endemic, severe, and underrecognized. It’s caused by peculiarities of the current data-center marketplace. But underlying those are many fundamental unknowables—even about the dominant model’s basic validity.

These make future demand for AI services extremely uncertain. Industry leaders and analysts warn of a potential financial bubble. Moreover, the electricity needed to produce a given amount of AI service is durably falling by about fourfold every year. That’s faster than purchases of AI services (costly to produce, but now often given free as bait) seem set to keep growing, yielding the revenue to buy the electricity. 

Assuming explosive growth in power for AI thus looks like a double bubble that can cause toil and trouble for utility investors and for other electricity customers, as Utility Dive reported yesterday. Two precedents counsel caution: widely believed 1999 coal-industry claims that information technology would use half of US electricity by 2020 proved about 2400% too high, and in 2010–18, the world’s data centers did 550% more computing with 6% more electricity. Lovins offers important new precautions and solutions. 

Even ambitious forecasts of AI’s electricity needs could be met by any of three proven methods: running data centers more flexibly on rare occasions without materially compromising service; freeing up supplies that are now largely wasted by other customers; and siting new data centers and clean energy (solar, wind, storage) together near little-used existing gas plants. 

“Both time- and location-based adaptability offer promising pathways to transform data centers from electricity liabilities into grid and regional assets,” according to Stanford’s Amory Lovins. “By aligning compute demand with cleaner energy availability—whether by time-shifting workloads or siting them in regions with surplus renewables—data centers can support grid resilience, reduce carbon intensity and other impacts, save infrastructure, and cut cost, if not distorted by short-term economic incentives such as local tax breaks.

The IEA expects renewables to add 10–20-fold more electricity supply than data centers raise demand. Renewables and storage are already 93% of US and 95% of world electric capacity expected to be added this year. These cheapest and fastest options can come online sooner than a data center, and they already reliably power critical loads like data centers.

Fossil and nuclear plants, both favored by federal policy, would be far slower and costlier: turbines for new gas plants are sold out to at least 2031, and global nuclear power in a good year adds only as much net capacity as renewables add every two days.

“Renewables’ high speed and low cost have run off with the world power market. For anyone who reads the data and respects the market, it’s game over. Nuclear energy is a parasite on AI’s credibility. Pairing them makes them both less investable,” added Lovins. 

Buying slower, costlier power by misunderstanding AI and grids risks higher retail rates and painful investor losses—as occurred when hundreds of unneeded power plants were built in a similar panic a quarter-century ago (part of the dot-com bubble’s $5-trillion losses).

Utility regulators should protect the public from these speculative risks by requiring data-center developers to post a bond or insurance policy guaranteeing full payment for their future power needs. Then the parties seeking profits will bear the independently priced risks that their projects create. Responsible AI use may also reduce the risk that AI-enabling more and cheaper oil and gas production may emit more carbon than AI saves.

Physicist Amory Lovins is a globally recognized expert on energy productivity, renewable energy, and sustainable design based at Stanford University. The full article is available for download.

July 21, 2025 Posted by | ENERGY | Leave a comment

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