When Israelis Call It Out: Finding Genocide in Gaza
29 July 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/when-israelis-call-it-out-finding-genocide-in-gaza/
It’s been almost an article of faith among Israeli officials: the state they represent is incapable of genocide, their actions always spurred by the noblest, necessary motivations of self-defence against satanic enemies who wish genocide upon Jews. Over time, as Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov writes, “Ethical concerns and moral qualms were brushed aside as either marginal or distracting in the face of the ultimate cataclysm that is the genocide of the Jews.”
This form of reasoning, known otherwise as “Holocaust-ism” or “Shoah-tiyut”, is a moral conceit left bare in the war of annihilation being waged in Gaza against the Palestinian populace. Israeli human rights groups have taken note of this, despite the drained reserves of empathy evident in the Israel proper. (A Pew Research Center poll conducted last month found that a mere 16% of Jewish Israelis thought peaceful coexistence with Palestinians was possible.)
In its latest report pointedly titled Our Genocide, the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem offers a blunt assessment: “Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads us to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
The infliction of genocide, the organisation acknowledges, is a matter of “multiple and parallel practices” applied over a period of time, with killing being merely one component. Living conditions can be destroyed, concentration camps and zones created, populations expelled and policies to systematically prevent reproduction enacted. “Accordingly, genocidal acts are various actions intended to bring about the destruction of a distinct group, as part of a deliberate, coordinated effort by a ruling authority.”
Our Genocide suggests that certain conditions often precede the sparking of a genocide. Israel’s relations with Palestinians had been characterised by “broader patterns of settler-colonialism”, with the intention of ensuring “Jewish supremacy over Palestinians – economically, politically, socially, and culturally.”
B’Tselem draws upon three crucial elements centred on ensuring “Jewish supremacy over Palestinians”: “life under an apartheid regime that imposes separation, demographic engineering, and ethnic cleansing; systemic and institutionalized use of violence against Palestinians, while the perpetrators enjoy impunity; and institutionalized mechanisms of dehumanization and framing Palestinians as an existential threat.” The attacks on Israel by Hamas and other militant groups on October 7, 2023 was a violent event that created a “sense of existential threat among the perpetrating group” enabling the “ruling system to carry out genocide.” As B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak notes, this sense of threat was promoted by an “extremist, far-right messianic government” to pursue “an agenda of destruction and expulsion.”
Israeli policy in the Strip since October 2023 could not be rationalised as a focused, targeted attempt to destroy the rule of Hamas or its military efficacy. “Statements by senior Israeli decision-makers about the nature and assault in Gaza have expressed genocidal intent throughout.” Ditto Israeli military officers of all ranks. Gaza’s residents had been dehumanised, with many Jewish-Israelis believing “that their lives are of negligible value compared to Israel’s national goals, if not worthless altogether.”
The report also notes the use of certain terminology that haunts the literature of genocidal euphemism: the creation of “humanitarian zones” that would still be bombed despite supposedly providing protection for displaced civilians; the use of “kill zones” by the Israeli military and the absence of any standardised rules of engagement through the Strip, often “determined at the discretion of commanders on the ground or based on arbitrary criteria.”
Wishing to be comprehensive, the authors of the report do not ignore Israel’s actions in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. Airstrikes regularly take place against refugee camps in the northern part of the territory since October 2023. Even more lethal open-fire policies have been used in the West Bank, with the use of kill zones suggesting “the broader ‘Gazafication’ of Israel’s methods of warfare.”
Another group, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI), has also published a legal-medical appraisal on the intentional destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, finding that the Israeli campaign in Gaza “constitutes genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention.” The evidence examined by the group “shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system and other vital systems necessary for the population’s survival.” The evolving nature of the campaign suggested a “deliberate progression” from the initial bombing and forced evacuation of hospitals in the northern part of the Strip to calculated collapse of the healthcare system across the entire enclave. The dismantling of the health system involved rendering hospitals “non-functional”, the blocking of medical evaluations and the elimination of such vital services as trauma care, surgery, dialysis and maternal health.
Added to this has been the direct targeting of health care workers, involving the death and detention of over 1,800 members “including many senior specialists” and the deliberate restriction of humanitarian relief through militarised distribution points that pose lethal risks to aid recipients. “This coordinated assault has produced a cascading failure of health and humanitarian infrastructure, compounded by policies leading to starvation, disease and the breakdown of sanitation, housing, and education systems.”
PHRI contends that, at the very least, three core elements of Article II of the Genocide Convention are met: the killing of members of a group (identified by nationality, ethnicity, race or religion); causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of that group and deliberately inflicting on the group those conditions of life to bring about its destruction in whole or in part.
In accepting that genocide is being perpetrated against the Palestinians, Our Genocide makes that most pertinent of points: the dry legal analysis of genocide tends to be distanced from a historical perspective. “The legal definition is narrow, having been shaped in large part by the political interests of the states whose representatives drafted it.” The high threshold of identifying genocide, and the international jurisprudence on the subject, had produced a disturbing paradox: genocide tends to be recognised “only after a significant portion of the targeted group has already been destroyed and the group as such has suffered irreparable harm.” The thrust of these clarion calls from B’Tselem and PHRI is urgently clear: end this state of affairs before the Palestinians become yet another historical victim of such harm.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Israel’s denial of starvation in Gaza ‘beyond comprehension’
ABC News, By national affairs correspondent Jane Norman, 29 July 25
In short:
Anthony Albanese has expressed his astonishment at claims made by Israel’s prime minister that “there is no starvation in Gaza”, telling Labor MPs that statement is “beyond comprehension”.
The prime minister made the comments in response to a question from a Labor backbencher about when Australia would move to recognise Palestinian statehood.
What’s next?
Overnight, US President Donald Trump also appeared to dispute Mr Netanyahu’s statement, but Opposition Leader Sussan Ley later declined to say whether she believed starvation was occurring.
Anthony Albanese has expressed his astonishment at claims made by Israel’s prime minister that “there is no starvation in Gaza”, telling Labor MPs that statement is “beyond comprehension”.
The prime minister made the comments in response to a question from a Labor backbencher about when Australia would move to recognise Palestinian statehood.
Mr Albanese — who has been sharpening his criticism of Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip — appeared to directly criticise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who posted a clip to X saying “there is no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza”.
That assertion was repeated in Canberra yesterday by Israeli’s deputy ambassador to Australia, Amir Meron.
“Those claims that there’s no starvation in Gaza are beyond comprehension,” Mr Albanese told the Labor caucus, according to a spokesperson.
The prime minister outlined Australia’s pre-conditions for recognition, including “democratic reforms” in the Palestinian territory, but indicated these obstacles were not insurmountable, referencing a famous quote from Nelson Mandela that “it always seems impossible until it’s done”.
……………………………………………………….. The prime minister’s intervention came amid growing international concern about both the number of deaths at aid centres managed by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the level of hunger in the enclave………………………………………………………………… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-29/pm-criticises-israels-denial-of-starvation-in-gaza/105585494
All energy costs rise but small nuclear most reactive.
Small modular nuclear reactors proved the most expensive technology of the eight options by a large margin, with the report basing its costs on Canada’s Darlington nuclear project, announced in May.
Small modular nuclear reactors proved the most expensive technology of the eight options by a large margin, with the report basing its costs on Canada’s Darlington nuclear project, announced in May.
By Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson, July 29 2025 , https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9027259/all-energy-costs-rise-but-small-nuclear-most-reactive/
Next-generation nuclear reactors are the most expensive of all energy-producing technologies, a report has found, and would significantly increase electricity prices in Australia.
Establishing a large-scale nuclear power plant for the first time would also require more than double the typical costs, and estimates for wind projects had inflated by four per cent due to unforeseen requirements.
The CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, released its GenCost report on Tuesday, revealing rising construction and finance costs would push up prices for energy projects of all kinds in the coming years.
The findings come after a heated debate about introducing nuclear power to Australia and after members of the federal coalition questioned the nation’s reliance on renewable energy projects to achieve net zero by 2050.
The final GenCost report for 2024-2025 analysed the cost of several energy-generating technologies, including variations of coal, gas, nuclear, solar and wind projects.
Renewable technology continued to provide the cheapest energy generation, the report’s lead author and CSIRO chief energy economist Paul Graham said.
“We’re still finding that solar PV and wind with firming is the lowest-cost, new build low-emission technology,” he told AAP.
“In second place is gas with (carbon capture storage) … then large-scale nuclear, black coal with CCS, then the small modular reactors.”
Small modular nuclear reactors proved the most expensive technology of the eight options by a large margin, with the report basing its costs on Canada’s Darlington nuclear project, announced in May.
The 1200-megawatt development is estimated to cost $23.2 billion and will be the first commercial small modular reactor built in a Western country.
The new reactors produce one-third the power of typical nuclear reactors and can be built on sites not suitable for larger plants, but have only been built in China and Russia.
“This is a big deal for Canada – it’s their first nuclear build in 30 years,” Mr Graham said.
“It’s not just about meeting electricity demand … they’ve said a few things that indicate they’re trying to build a nuclear SMR industry and export the technology.”
In addition to the cost of different technologies, the report estimated “premiums” for establishing first-of-a-kind energy projects, with the first large-scale nuclear project expected to command 120 per cent more and the first offshore wind development expected to cost an extra 63 per cent.
The cost of wind projects also grew by four per cent as researchers factored in building work camps to accommodate remote employees, and capital financing costs rose by one per cent.
Developing energy projects was also expected to cost between six and 20 per cent more by 2050, the report found, due to the rising price of materials such as cement and wages, as detailed in a report by Oxford Economics Australia.
Findings from the CSIRO report would help inform the design of future energy infrastructure, Australian Energy Market Operator system design executive general manager Merryn York said.
“We’ll use the capital costs for generation and storage from GenCost in the upcoming Draft Integrated System Plan in December,” she said.
Nuclear technology is banned as an energy source in Australia, which has a target of achieving 82 per cent renewable energy in the national grid by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050.
Zelensky’s end goal is in sight, and so is his end.
Tarik Cyril Amar, 23 July 25, https://www.rt.com/news/621881-zelensky-wont-go-down-quietly/
The Ukrainian leader is not “turning” to authoritarianism – it has always been his goal, and when he has it, he won’t let go.
When the US picks clients, vassals, and proxies, it needs men or women ready to trade in the interests, even the welfare and lives of their compatriots. Vladimir Zelensky is such a man. A look at the elites of EU-NATO Europe shows he is not alone. But he is an especially extreme case.
It is much less than a decade ago that the former media entrepreneur and comedian – often crude instead of witty – advanced from being a pet protégé of one of Ukraine’s most corrupt oligarchs to capturing the country’s presidency. As it turned out, never to let go of it: Zelensky has used the war, which was provoked by the West and escalated in February 2022, not only to make himself an indispensable if very expensive and often obstreperous American puppet but also as a pretext to evade elections.
And yet, now signs are multiplying that his days of being indispensable may be over. For one thing, Seymour Hersh, living legend of American investigative journalism, is reporting that Zelensky is very unpopular where it matters most, in US President Donald Trump’s White House. This is not surprising: Trump’s recent turn against Russia – whatever its real substance or marital reasons – does not mean a turn in favor of Ukraine and even less so in favor of Zelensky, as attentive observers have noted. According to the Financial Times, “Western allies of Ukraine” still believe that Trump keeps seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin “as his main negotiating partner and Zelensky as the primary obstacle to a workable peace deal.”
And according to “knowledgeable officials in Washington” who have talked to Hersh, the US leadership is ready to act on that problem by getting rid of Zelensky. And urgently: Some American officials consider removing the Ukrainian president “feet first” in case he refuses to go. Their reason, according to Hersh’s confidants: to make room for a deal with Russia.
Hersh has to make do with publishing anonymous sources. It is even conceivable that the Trump administration is leaking this threat against Zelensky to pressure him. Yet even if so, that doesn’t mean the threat is empty. Judging by past US behavior, using and then discarding other countries’ leaders is always an option.
Another, also plausible, possibility is that Zelensky will be discarded to facilitate not ending, but continuing the war, so as to keep draining Russian resources. In this scenario, the US would prolong the war by handing it over to its loyally self-harming European vassals. After, that is, seeing to the installation of a new leader in Kiev, one it has under even better control than Zelensky. Just to make sure the Europeans and the Ukrainians do not start understanding each other too well and end up slipping from US control. The Ukrainian replacement candidate everyone whispers about, old Zelensky nemesis General Valery Zaluzhny – currently in de facto exile as ambassador to the UK – might well be available for both options, depending on his marching orders from Washington..
Meanwhile, as if on cue, Western mainstream media have started to notice the obvious: The Financial Times has found out that critics accuse Zelensky of an “authoritarian slide,” which is still putting it very mildly but closer to the truth than past daft hero worship. The Spectator – in fairness, a magazine with a tradition of being somewhat more realistic about Ukraine – has fired a broadside under the title “Ukraine has lost faith in Zelensky.” The Economist has detected an “outrage” in Zelensky’s moves and, more tellingly, used a picture of him making him look like a cross between a Bond villain and Saddam Hussein. Even Deutsche Welle, a German state propaganda outlet, is now reporting on massive human rights infringements under Zelensky, with the impaired systematically targeted for forced mobilization.
Full disclosure: Knowing Ukrainian and Russian – Ukraine’s two languages – well and having written about the realities of Zelensky’s misrule for years already, my immediate response to these sudden revelations is “what took you so long?” My first articles explaining Zelensky’s obvious authoritarian tendencies – and practices, too – date back to 2021, and I have repeatedly pointed out that his popularity was slipping. All it took was to pay attention to Ukrainian polling.
But then, I know the reason for the mainstream’s delay: The bias induced by Western information warfare and media career conformism, which only weakens a little – or is redirected – when the geopolitics of the powerful change. In that sense, the increasingly sharp public criticism of Zelensky is yet another sign that he has fallen – and remains – out of favor with the American leadership that rules the West.
Zelensky’s recent actions may well indicate, as Hersh also suspects, that he knows he is in great danger – and not from Russia but his “friends” in the West. Just over the course of the last two weeks, Zelensky has reshuffled his government and, at the same time, started a devastating campaign against institutions and individuals that have two things in common: the mission to combat corruption and a well-deserved reputation for being particularly open to US influence.
Indeed, it is when Zelensky escalated his attacks on the latter that the Financial Times woke up from years of sweet slumber to discover there’s something authoritarian about the West’s top man in Ukraine. By now, things have only gotten worse: The domestic intelligence – and, of course, repression – service SBU has raided key anti-corruption organizations and made arrests. Simultaneously, Zelensky’s absolutely obedient majority in the Ukrainian parliament has passed a law to completely neuter these institutions by putting them under the president’s control, which the president then signed rapidly. By now, Ukraine is witnessing widespread protests against Zelensky’s attempt to combine maximum greed with unfettered if petty despotism.
For the Ukrainian news site Strana.ua – a media rarity, as it has managed to resist the Zelensky regime’s aggressive attempts to subdue and streamline it – the SBU raids on the anti-corruption agencies alone were a powerplay, designed to consolidate Zelensky’s one-man rule. That is correct, and he wasn’t even done.
At the same time, it is, obviously, also very convenient to remove the last feeble restraints on Ukraine’s fabulously pervasive graft, since whatever the West – that is, the Europeans – will now spend on Ukraine will be misappropriated even more wildly than before. That could come in handy especially if there should be a need to stay rich in exile.
This gangster-economic aspect of Zelensky’s fresh power grab has not escaped even his Western friends: the OECD has already warned the Ukrainian regime that the stifling of the anti-corruption agencies will harm Western investment in Ukraine’s reconstruction in general and its arms industry in particular. Likewise, the International Renaissance Foundation, a Soros power structure that has been all too active in Ukraine for more than three decades now, has also called for a repeal of the new law.
In essence, these and similar Western complaints all mean the same: We know you are robbing us blind already but we’ve made our peace with that because you serve our geopolitics. But if you try to take an even larger cut, we may reconsider.
Taken together, Zelensky’s government reshuffle and his assault on the anti-corruption agencies seem to reflect a double strategy: On one side, the endangered puppet is signaling submission to the US in at least some of his recent personnel moves, but on the other, he is also consolidating his power at home by insulating it from too much direct American influence. It is as if he were sending a message to Washington: “I really am your man. But if you try to choose another, I’ll fight.”
The historic irony is that, with Zelensky succeeding in finally razing the last pitiful remnants of pluralism in Ukraine, he – the once hysterically idolized darling of the “value-based” West – will be the president achieving a complete authoritarianism like no Ukrainian leader before him. And all that while propped up with hundreds of billions from the West.
Any displays of surprise or shock by Ukrainian and Western politicians or mainstream media betray either that they have been dozing under a rock for years or that they are being disingenuous. Because today’s Zelensky is not “turning” to authoritarianism. On the contrary, authoritarianism has always been his default disposition and his aim. Zelensky has been working on his personal assent to unchecked power – and, of course, its material spoils as well – since he became Ukraine’s president. That means, long before the conflict between Russia and Ukraine (and behind and through it the West) escalated in early 2022.
How do we know? Because it was already obvious, including to many Ukrainians, by 2021 at the very latest. It was then that Zelensky’s Ukrainian critics – not Russians or those with sympathy for Russia – attacked him and his political party “Servant of the People” for erecting a “mono-vlada,” that is, in essence, an authoritarian political machine to control not only the state but the public sphere as well.
By 2021, Zelensky had already engaged in all of the following: vicious lawfare against Ukraine’s opposition and his personal political rivals, such as former president Petro Poroshenko; massive media censorship and streamlining, while targeting with repression and chicanery any outlets, editors, and journalists daring to resist, for instance Strana.ua; systematically and illegally abusing emergency powers and unaccountable but powerful institutions (most of all, the National Security Council) to stifle criticism; and, last but not least, the fostering of a dictatorial personality cult which was boosted by the West.
Since then, things have only gotten worse. Zelensky has steadily fastened his hold over Ukraine, while prolonging and losing an avoidable and catastrophic war for a Western strategy to demote Russia. Ukraine has been bled dry for a cynical and (predictably) failing Western scheme; Russia, meanwhile is not only winning but has greatly increased its autonomy from the West.
The war may end soon or it may drag on. For the sake of Ukraine we have to hope it will be over soon. Zelensky, if he were a decent man, would then have to hand himself over to postwar Ukrainian justice or be his own judge, the old-fashioned way. But Zelensky is no decent man. If rumors now swirling are not only plausible but truthful, then his masters in Washington may be the ones preparing an appropriately indecent end for him. If the protests against him accelerate, Zelensky may even end up “color-revolution-ed.” How ironic.
French nuclear weapons, 2025
Bulletin, By Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight-Boyle | July 15, 2025
France’s nuclear weapons stockpile has remained stable over the past decade and contains approximately 290 warheads for delivery by ballistic missile submarines and aircraft. Nearly all of France’s stockpiled warheads are deployed or operationally available for deployment on short notice. In addition, up to 80 warheads—the older TN75 warheads assumed to have been recently removed from the Le Vigilant submarine—are believed to be in the dismantlement queue and are likely no longer considered part of France’s stockpile.
The current force level is the result of adjustments made to France’s nuclear posture following former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s announcement on March 21, 2008, that the arsenal would be reduced to fewer than 300 warheads (Sarkozy 2008). As Sarkozy said in 2008, the 300-warhead stockpile is “half the maximum number of warheads [France] had during the Cold War” (Sarkozy 2008). By our estimate, the French warhead inventory peaked in 1991-1992 at around 540 warheads, and the size of today’s stockpile is about the same as it was in 1984, although the composition is significantly different.
President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed the Sarkozy formulation of “under 300 nuclear weapons” in a speech on February 7, 2020 (Élysée 2020) (see Table 1 –on original). Under President Macron, France has engaged in a long-term modernization and strengthening of its nuclear forces, which have included significant budget increases to the deterrent force in recent years (Assemblée Nationale 2024). It is possible but unclear if the decision to add another nuclear air base will increase the stockpile.
Research methodology and confidence
The analyses and estimates made in this Nuclear Notebook are derived from a combination of open sources: (1) state-originating data (e.g. government statements, declassified documents, budgetary information, and military operations and exercises); (2) non-state-originating data (e.g. media reports, think tank analyses, and industry publications); and (3) commercial satellite imagery. Because each of these sources provides different and limited information that is subject to varying degrees of uncertainty, we crosscheck each data point by using multiple sources and supplementing them with private conversations with officials whenever possible.
As a democracy with an active civil society and media landscape, it is possible to obtain relatively higher-quality information about France’s nuclear arsenal compared to many other nuclear-armed countries. France is one of only two countries (the other being the United States) that have publicly disclosed the size of their nuclear stockpile. French policy and military officials also offer regular statements on France’s nuclear doctrine and associated modernization programs.
Despite these positive steps, some challenges persist in obtaining reliable information about France’s nuclear arsenal. France’s freedom of information laws are more restrictive than in the United States and United Kingdom, and since 2008, a law initially designed to limit proliferation of French nuclear information has in practice been implemented on such a broad scale that it has restricted the ability of researchers and journalists to effectively analyze and disseminate data about discrete elements of France’s nuclear stockpile (Cooper 2022; Légifrance 2008). As a result, it is highly challenging to verify information presented by official sources, particularly as such statements rarely contain technical details………………………………………………….
……………………………………The role of French nuclear weapons
Successive heads of state, including Presidents Sarkozy, Hollande, and now Macron, have periodically described the role of French nuclear weapons. The Defense Ministry’s 2017 Defense and National Security Strategic Review reiterated that the nuclear doctrine is “strictly defensive,” and that using nuclear weapons “would only be conceivable in extreme circumstances of legitimate self-defense,” involving France’s vital interests. What exactly these “vital interests” are, however, remains unclear. During and after the Cold War, French leaders considered France’s “vital interests” to extend beyond its national boundaries; this discourse has been revived in earnest with the presidency of Emmanuel Macron. In February 2020, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France’s “vital interests now have a European dimension,” and sought to engage the European Union on the “role played by France’s nuclear deterrence in [its] collective security” (Élysée 2020).
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the heightened possibility of nuclear use in Europe, this discourse came under greater scrutiny and analysis. In October 2022, Macron clarified that France’s vital interests “would not be at stake if there was a nuclear ballistic attack in Ukraine or in the region,” apparently attempting to avoid being seen as expanding French nuclear doctrine (France TV 2022). Explicitly ruling out a nuclear role in case of Russian nuclear escalation in Ukraine appeared to contradict France’s statement at the August 2022 Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which explained that “for deterrence to work, the circumstances under which nuclear weapons would [or would not] be used are not, and should not be, precisely defined, so as not to enable a potential aggressor to calculate the risk inherent in a potential attack” (2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 2022).
The discussion around the role of France’s deterrent in Europe has intensified after the election of Donald Trump as US President, and even more so given the Trump administration’s open disdain for the United States’ European allies, overtures toward Russia, and threats to stop supporting Ukraine. While the broad contours of France’s nuclear posture will likely remain largely unchanged for the near future, how it is communicated and demonstrated appear to be evolving (Maitre 2025).
In addition to statements about France’s vital interests in Europe, Macron announced in March 2025 the addition of a nuclear air base at Luxeuil in eastern France, which will become the first base to house France’s new hypersonic nuclear cruise missile by 2035 (Élysée 2025). And when French jets (including Rafale jets from the nuclear base at Saint Dizier) deployed to northern Sweden in April 2025, France’s ambassador to Sweden explicitly stated: “As President Macron has said, it is of course the case that our French vital interests also include the interests of our allies. In that perspective, the nuclear umbrella also applies to our allies and of course Sweden is among them” (Granlund 2025)…………………….
………………..France does not have a no-first-use policy and reserves the right to conduct a “final warning” limited nuclear strike to signal to an adversary that they have crossed a line—or to signal the French resolve to conduct further nuclear strikes if necessary—in an attempt to “reestablish deterrence” (Élysée 2020; Tertrais 2020). Although France is a member of NATO, its nuclear forces are not part of the alliance’s integrated military command structure. …………………………..
……………………………………………………………………….. Command, control, and communication
France maintains strict and centralized control over its nuclear arsenal, with the president having sole and final authority as to the decision to use nuclear weapons. However, in practice, the implementation of such a decision would involve additional military personnel—namely the highest- and second-highest-ranking military officers: the Chef d’État-Major des Armées (CEMA) and the Chef de l’État-Major Particulier du Président de la République (CEMP), who is the president’s top military advisor.
Only one of those officials—the CEMA—is enshrined in the French defense code as the responsible official for ensuring that the president’s order is executed (Légifrance 2025). However, conflicting accounts appear to exist regarding the CEMP’s role, with testimony reportedly indicating that under previous administrations, the president and the CEMP each carried one half of the nuclear codes (Pelopidas 2019; Wellerstein 2019).
The primary command post for the president to transmit nuclear orders is called “Jupiter” and is located underneath the Élysée Palace ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles
The French force of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) constitutes the backbone of the French nuclear deterrent. Under the command of the Strategic Ocean Force (Force Océanique Stratégique, or FOST), the French Navy (Marine Nationale) operates four Triomphant-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) equipped with nuclear-armed long-range ballistic missiles—Le Triomphant (hull number S616), Le Téméraire (S617), Le Vigilant (S618), and Le Terrible (S619)…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Air-launched cruise missiles
The second leg of France’s nuclear arsenal consists of nuclear ASMPA (air-sol moyenne portée-amélioré) air-launched cruise missiles for delivery by fighter-bombers operated by the Strategic Air Forces and the Naval Nuclear Aviation Force………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The nuclear weapons complex
France’s nuclear weapons complex is managed by the Direction des Applications Militaires (DAM), a department within the Nuclear Energy Commission (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies renouvelables, or CEA). DAM is responsible for research, design, manufacture, operational maintenance, and dismantlement of nuclear warheads………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-07/french-nuclear-weapons-2025/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=French%20nuclear%20arsenal%20today&utm_campaign=20250724%20Thursday%20Newsletter%20%28Copy%29
“Release Israeli hostages? Get serious. We’ve got a genocide to complete”
28 July 2025 AIMN Editorial By Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, https://theaimn.net/release-israeli-hostages-get-serious-weve-got-a-genocide-to-complete/
As reported in The Times of Israel July 24, far-right Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu told Haredi radio station Kol Barama that:
“The government is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out. Thank God, we are wiping out this evil. We are pushing this population that has been educated on ‘Mein Kampf’.
“All Gaza will be Jewish. We aren’t racists… We are fighting those who fight us.”
Tho one of the most explicit Israeli public statements admitting Israel’s Gaza genocide, it’s just one of many from Israeli government officials and pundits thruout this 22 month long atrocity. America remains fully committed to the genocide with tens of billions in weapons, intel, logistics, vetoes of UN ceasefire resolutions. That would be like FDR sending the Nazis Zylon B gas to finish off European Jewry and other Nazi undesirables during WWII.
The US just withdrew from ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas because Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire, ending the genocide before releasing remaining Israeli hostages.
Neither Israel nor America prioritizes the hostages’ release. That goal is a distant second to wiping out the remaining starving Palestinians so Gaza can be rebuilt, possibly by Trump Inc., as a waterfront showplace of Greater Israel.
More on Amichay Eliyahu here. He’s nasty.
We’re having a heatwave -and nuclear power can’t cope.
Nuclear power ……….is a sitting technological duck when extreme temperatures strike.
by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/07/27/were-having-a-heatwave/
And nuclear power can’t cope. Worse still, it’s actually a liability under ever more extreme climate conditions, write Karl Grossman and Harvey Wasserman
At the core of the latest attempted “renaissance” of nuclear power is the Big Lie that atomic reactors are an answer to global warming. In fact, they are significant sources of heat.
There are more than 400 nuclear power plants in the world today that fission atoms at 300 degrees Centigrade, (572 degrees Fahrenheit). More are under construction or proposed. As the International Atomic Energy Agency states, “water-cooled reactors offer heat up to 300 degrees Celsius. These types of reactors include pressurized water reactors (PWRs), boiling-water reactors (BWRs), pressurized heavy-water reactors, and light-water-cooled graphite-moderated reactors (LWGRs).”
Some heat is absorbed in the water—drawn from water bodies—used to cool these nuclear power plants and then returned, still with considerable heat, to rivers or seas.
The heatwave going on in recent weeks in Europe, in combination with this discharge of heated water from nuclear plants, has caused nuclear plants there to shut down.
Consider these headlines from recent days:
“France and Switzerland shut down nuclear power plants amid scorching heatwave,” was the July 3rd headline on Euronews. As the piece explained: “To cool down, nuclear power plants pump water from local rivers or the sea, which they then release back into water bodies at a high temperature. However, Europe’s ongoing heatwave means that the water pumped by nuclear sites is already very hot, impacting the ability of nuclear plants to use it to cool down. On top of this, nuclear sites run the risk of posing a dangerous threat to local biodiversity, by releasing water which is too hot into rivers and seas.”
A New York Times article, also dated July 3rd, related how in Europe, “operators shut down one of the two reactors at the Golfech nuclear power plant in southern France after forecasts that the Garonne River, from which it draws water and then discharges it after it is used in the plant as coolant, “could top…82 degrees Fahrenheit.” The Times continued: “The Beznau Nuclear Power Plant in Switzerland, built along the Aare River followed suit, shutting down one of its reactors on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday.”
It quoted its European program director, Pawel Czyzak, saying: “Heatwaves will not go away—they will only get more severe in the future…Luckily, there is no lack of sunshine during heatwaves. The biggest opportunity is to store solar electricity…”
“The French nuclear fleet has been impacted the most, with all but one of the 18 facilities experiencing some type of capacity reduction,” said the report.
It continued: “While heatwaves bring major changes, these are partially offset by the large volumes of solar energy available during daytime. In fact, June 2025 was the highest European Union solar electricity production month on record.” And this “kept the grid well-supplied during daytime hours.”
The Ember report also pointed out, “Solar power is one of the cheapest forms of electricity that Europe has.”
Nuclear power, beyond being subject to catastrophic accidents such as those that occurred at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, extreme cost, substantial carbon emissions during the nuclear “lifecycle”—mining of uranium, milling it, enrichment of the uranium fuel and other operations—is a sitting technological duck when extreme temperatures strike.
Ember, an independent London-based global energy think tank, on July 4th issued a report headed: “Heat and power: Impacts of the 2025 heatwave in Europe.” It noted: “Heatwaves are becoming more frequent in Europe, putting electricity grids under severe stress.”
“Europe embraces its new reality with heatwaves: ‘They are no longer an exception,’” was the headline of a July 3rd El Mundo article. “Heatwaves in Southern Europe are becoming increasingly early and intense,” it reported.
It quoted Meto-France climatologist Christine Berne saying: “Heatwaves are no longer an exception. They are now more frequent, longer, and spread over larger geographical areas…The phenomenon is directly related to global warming, which is profoundly altering weather patterns, both in France and elsewhere.”
In California, a “bait and switch” to continue operation of the Diablo Canyon atomic reactors is super-heating the Pacific Ocean. In 2018, Pacific Gas & Electric was being forced to stop violating state and federal water protection laws with its massive heat emissions from the twin nuclear power plants. Facing the expensive requirement to build cooling towers, the company agreed to shut down Diablo in 2024 and 2025, ushering in a transition to cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable and more job-producing renewables. But in 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom killed the phase-out agreement he had signed as Lieutenant-Governor. So, Diablo still pours billions of gallons of irradiated super-heated water into the Pacific, joining the billions of gallons of irradiated liquid that are pouring in from the site of the Fukushima catastrophe.
In addition to that heat, all nukes emit radioactive fallout, including a radioactive form of carbon, Carbon 14, along with other lethal pollutants, while costing ratepayers up to 10 times more than solar, wind, geothermal and battery backup.
Solar energy, its cost having plummeted in recent years, is now 90 percent cheaper per watt than nuclear power. Further, its efficiency level — its efficiency in converting sunlight to electricity — has dramatically increased. Safe, clean, renewable energy sources — primarily in the form of solar panels and wind turbines — now account for more than 80 percent of the world’s new electric generating capacity.
What’s gone on in the last several weeks in Europe is no exception. The heat is on all over the globe. But there’s solar (and wind) power continuing to function well, while adding no heat, radiation or carbon of its own — unlike the planet’s hyper-lethal nuke reactors.
Meanwhile, the nuclear industry is pushing a new kind of reactor — a fusion reactor that would operate at an astronomical level of heat. It would utilize, instead of fission, the fusion of atoms — the process that happens on the sun, and notes the World Economic Forum: “Temperatures in excess of 150 million degrees Celsius — 10 times hotter than the center of the sun — re required for fusion to occur on Earth.”
“Unsurprisingly,” says the Geneva, Switzerland-based organization, “achieving and controlling these enormous temperatures is a substantial technological challenge. This usually requires using incredibly powerful magnets to contain a hot plasma, preventing it from touching and melting the sides of vessels. Fusion research reactors have achieved temperatures in excess of 300 million degrees Celsius.”
The World Economic Forum’s 2020 analysis is headed: “What is fusion energy, and what will it take for it to go mainstream?”
What does 150 million degrees Celsius convert to in Fahrenheit: 270 million degrees!
To fantasize that Earth-threatening global warming happening now and gaining in intensity can be dealt with by fission nuclear power plants operating at 572 degrees Fahrenheit or fusion nuclear power plants operating at 270 million degrees Fahrenheit is among the great follies in human history.
Harvey Wasserman wrote the books Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth and The Peoples Spiral of US History and co-convenes the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition . Karl Grossman is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and Power Crazy. He the host of the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman.
They Intend To Keep Lying About Gaza Until They’ve Emptied It Out
Caitlin Johnstone, Jul 27, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/they-intend-to-keep-lying-about-gaza?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=169369626&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
We’re back at the part of the news cycle where Israel tells the world it’s going to allow a bit more aid into Gaza in order to mollify its allies and reduce the public outcry as images of starving children draw objections from the west.
This is just Israel giving the Kier Starmers and Anthony Albaneses of the western world just enough of an excuse to go silent about the starvation of Gaza again. They will then continue starving Gaza. This psychopathic python-like suffocation tactic is how Israel has gotten Gaza to the point it’s at now.
And of course it’s worth noting that Israel’s announcement that it will allow more food into Gaza so people don’t starve completely debunks all its claims these last few days that people in Gaza are starving because of Hamas and the UN. They’re starving because Israel is starving them.
Israeli officials have told The New York Times that there has never been any evidence of Hamas stealing aid from UN trucks in any significant way, a claim Israel and its apologists have been falsely asserting for two years. They lie about everything. They never stop lying.
We’ve been asked to believe a lot of intensely stupid narratives throughout this genocide, but “it’s actually HAMAS who’s starving Gaza” has got to be the dumbest one yet. The fact that Israel and its supporters tried to blame the UN and Hamas for Israel’s extensively documented starvation campaign makes it clear that these freaks intend to keep lying about this thing until the last dying gasp of the last Palestinian.
Gideon Levy has a new article out titled “Denying Gaza’s Starvation Is No Less Vile Than Denying the Holocaust”. Personally I’d take it much further and say it’s vastly worse than denying the Holocaust, because it’s helping to kill people right this very moment.
I’m sorry if this is antisemitic but I think it’s wrong to deliberately starve thousands of children to death.
If you found out someone was trapping small children in a confined space and then intentionally starving them to death, what words would you use to describe that person?
Think about how fucked up you’d need to be inside to starve a baby, or to support someone who is doing so. Think how many millennia of evolutionary conditioning you’d have to override as a human, as a primate, as a mammal, to stifle the screaming you feel inside when you see a skeletal infant. You’d have to make yourself less of a human inside to support the inhumanity.
The worst thing Donald Trump has ever done is commit genocide in Gaza. Everything else pales in comparison. He could end the Gaza holocaust with a phone call just like Biden could have, and he hasn’t. For that reason alone he deserves to die in a cage.
Children’s Youtube star Ms Rachel has announced that she won’t be working with anyone who doesn’t publicly oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The thing I love about Ms Rachel is that nobody was pushing her to speak out about Gaza. Not one person was out here saying “Ms Rachel’s silence on Rafah is deafening!” She could’ve gotten away with being silent on Gaza forever and suffered no professional consequences, but she spoke out anyway because she’s a genuinely good person.
Today I got my first comment telling me I was wrong to oppose Israel in October 2023 but now I’m right because things have changed. I expect to receive many more such comments going forward as people navigate the difficult cognitive dissonance terrain of realizing they’ve been wrong this entire time.
Israel apologists love using circular reasoning to dismiss outlets and organizations which criticize Israel. If you’ve ever argued with them online you know what I’m talking about.
It’s basically this —
Normal person: Here’s evidence of Israel doing bad things.
Israel apologist: You can’t cite THAT outlet! That outlet is Hamas propaganda!
Normal person: What? What makes them Hamas propaganda?
Israel apologist: They’re always saying Israel does bad things!
Or this —
Normal person: Israel is committing genocide.
Israel apologist: Nuh-uh, that’s blood libel.
Normal person: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and UN human rights experts all say it’s genocide.
Israel apologist: Those groups are antisemitic!
Normal person: What? Why do you say that?
Israel apologist: They’re always spreading antisemitic lies about Israel!
Normal person: Such as?
Israel apologist: Such as saying Israel is committing genocide!
Everyone spreading lies today to help Israel carry out the final stages of its final solution knows exactly what they’re doing. We see you, you sick fucks. We’ll remember you forever.
Israeli Navy Seizes Second Gaza-Bound Freedom Flotilla Vessel in 2 Months
“The interception occurred in international waters outside Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza, in violation of international maritime law,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said.
Common Dreams, Olivia Rosane, 26 July 25
The Israeli military intercepted and seized the Gaza Freedom Flotilla vessel The Handala late Saturday night local time as it attempted to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition reported that Israeli forces cut the cameras on board the ship at 11:43 pm local time, when it was around 40 nautical miles from Gaza.
Jul 26, 2025
The Israeli military intercepted and seized the Gaza Freedom Flotilla vessel The Handala late Saturday night local time as it attempted to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition reported that Israeli forces cut the cameras on board the ship at 11:43 pm local time, when it was around 40 nautical miles from Gaza.
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“The unarmed boat was carrying lifesaving supplies when it was boarded by Israeli forces, its passengers abducted, and its cargo seized,” the coalition wrote. “The interception occurred in international waters outside Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza, in violation of international maritime law.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that its navy had intercepted the ship, as Al Jazeera reported……………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-gaza-freedom-flotilla
French submarine-maker targeted by hackers
Cyber attackers claim to have uncovered source code for submarine weapon systems.
A French naval giant is investigating a potential cyber attack after
hackers claimed to have obtained sensitive data about the country’s
nuclear submarines. Naval Group, a state-owned ship maker that traces its
origins back almost 400 years to the reign of Louis XIII, said it had
“immediately launched technical investigations” after cyber criminals
threatened to publish files on the dark web.
Telegraph 27th July 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/27/french-submarine-maker-targeted-by-hackers/
The real story of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history
The Chernobyl Sarcophagus Memorial sculpture was erected in 2006 and is dedicated to the memory of the heroic plant workers and emergency crew who prevented a global catastrophe .
28 July 25,https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-story-of-chernobyl-the-worst-nuclear-disaster-in-history
On 26th April 1986, a routine safety test went catastrophically wrong and triggered the worst nuclear accident of all time. The incident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine led to the release of 400 times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during WW2.
31 people died in the immediate aftermath, whilst the long-term health effects caused by Chernobyl are still a hotly debated subject. Approximately 60,000 square miles around the plant were contaminated and an area nearly twice the city of London remains an exclusion zone to this day.
Background of Chernobyl
Lying just 10 miles from the Belarus-Ukraine border and around 62 miles north of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was commissioned in 1977 as part of the old Soviet Union, with the first reactor supplying power to the grid later that year. By 1984, four reactors had entered commercial operation, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electrical power.
Just under two miles from the plant was the city of Pripyat, founded in 1970 and named after the nearby river. It was built to serve the power plant and at the time of the disaster, its total population was just shy of 50,000.
Nuclear disaster unfolds
Throughout Friday, 25th April 1986, Chernobyl’s engineers lowered power at Reactor No. 4 in preparation for a safety test to be conducted later that evening. The test was supposed to check whether the reactor turbines could continue powering emergency water coolant pumps in the event of a power failure.
Ironically, the safety test was anything but safe as human error and substandard reactor design led to a partial meltdown of the core.
The experiment was poorly conceived and equally badly executed. Firstly, the less-experienced night shift crew carried out the safety test and later claimed they had not received full instructions from the day shift crew on how to properly conduct it. Secondly, the emergency core cooling system for Reactor 4 was disabled along with the emergency shutdown system.
Finally, the reactor’s power level dropped to a dangerously unstable level at which point the engineers removed most of the control rods in violation of safety guidelines. Although power began to return, it was far from under control.
Explosion in Reactor 4
At 1:23am on 26th April, the safety test was given the all-clear by plant supervisors. Almost immediately a power surge occurred, triggering the engineers to re-insert all 211 control rods. The control rods were graphite tipped, a design flaw that would prove fatal as they increased the reaction in the core, instead of lowering it.
The subsequent steam explosions blew off the steel and concrete lid of the reactor as the core suffered a partial meltdown. Two engineers were killed instantly whilst two more suffered severe burns. The explosion, along with the resulting fires, released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere. Blown by the wind, radioactive materials were spread to many parts of Europe over the coming days.
Emergency response begins
Firefighters quickly arrived on the scene but without proper protective clothing, many perished in the coming months from acute radiation syndrome. By dawn, all the fires were suppressed except for the one in the reactor core.
The other three reactors were shut down a short while later. The following day officials ordered helicopters to begin dumping more than 5,000 tonnes of sand, lead, clay, and boron onto the burning reactor to help extinguish the core fire.
A Soviet cover-up
It took nearly 36 hours for Soviet officials to begin evacuating nearby Pripyat. The city’s residents were unaware of the true dangers presented by the previous day’s events. Advised to pack only necessities, the people of Pripyat were loaded onto buses believing their evacuation to be temporary. Little did they know, they would never return to their homes again.
Two days after the catastrophic explosion the rest of the world remained in the dark as the Soviets attempted to cover up the event. However, on 28th April, Swedish radiation monitoring stations 800 miles away began detecting high levels of radiation. With their backs to the wall, the Soviets finally made a statement, with the Kremlin admitting an accident had occurred at Chernobyl, but assuring the world that officials had it under control.
Heroism on display
In the days that followed, hundreds of workers risked their lives to contain radiation leaking from the reactor core.
On 4th May, three divers made their way through the dark flooded basement of Reactor 4 to turn valves and drain the ‘bubbler pools’ sitting below the core. Had they not succeeded in their mission, molten nuclear material would have eventually melted its way down to the pools.
This would have triggered a radiation-contaminated steam explosion and destroyed the entire plant along with its three other reactors, causing unimaginable damage and nuclear fallout that the world would have struggled to recover from.
Radioactive debris also needed to be removed from the roof of the reactor. After robots failed to do the job, workers equipped with heavy protective gear were sent in.
Nicknamed ‘Bio-robots’, these workers were unable to spend more than 90 seconds on the roof due to the extreme levels of radiation. In the end, 5,000 men went up on the irradiated rooftop to successfully clear the radioactive material from it.
Clean-up commences
By mid-May, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had ordered thousands of firefighters, miners, and soldiers to begin the long and arduous task of cleaning up. Known as ‘Liquidators’, 600,000 – 800,000 of them began burying radioactive debris and topsoil, as well as shooting all wildlife (both domestic and wild) within the 19-mile exclusion zone surrounding the power plant.
Nicknamed ‘Bio-robots’, these workers were unable to spend more than 90 seconds on the roof due to the extreme levels of radiation. In the end, 5,000 men went up on the irradiated rooftop to successfully clear the radioactive material from it.
Clean-up commences
By mid-May, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had ordered thousands of firefighters, miners, and soldiers to begin the long and arduous task of cleaning up. Known as ‘Liquidators’, 600,000 – 800,000 of them began burying radioactive debris and topsoil, as well as shooting all wildlife (both domestic and wild) within the 19-mile exclusion zone surrounding the power plant.
Aftermath
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was eventually extended to cover approximately 1,000 square miles, whereby it was declared uninhabitable for over 20,000 years. The other three reactors at Chernobyl remained active until their individual shutdowns in 1991, 1996, and 2000. Gorbachev later wrote that he believed the incident at Chernobyl was the ‘real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union’.
Whilst the lasting health effects of the disaster remain unclear and much debated, various sources have estimated that thousands of cancer deaths can be linked back to Chernobyl.
Greenpeace hails Italian court ruling allowing climate case against energy company Eni to continue
Italy’s highest court has ruled that a lawsuit brought by climate
activists against Italian energy company Eni and its government
shareholders can go ahead, in what Greenpeace said on Tuesday was a victory
for efforts to pursue climate justice in Italy.
In an ordinance released on
Monday, the Court of Cassation rejected the company’s motions to dismiss
the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds and ordered the case to be heard on
its merits by a Rome tribunal. Eni said that it was greatly satisfied with
the decision, and said it expected that the Rome court would ultimately
“dismantle” the climate activists’ claims of responsibility.
Yahoo News 22nd July 2025, https://uk.news.yahoo.com/greenpeace-hails-italy-court-ruling-130205151.html
5 worst nuclear disasters from around the world
Nuclear disasters can be caused by a variety of factors, but they all have the potential to have widespread impacts that can linger for generations.
28 July 25 https://www.history.co.uk/articles/worst-nuclear-disasters
Harnessing the biblical power of nuclear fission was never going to be a risk-free proposition and the world has been shaken by several shocking accidents since the atomic age began. Here are five of the worst.
1. Kyshtym
Decades before the Chernobyl power plant was even built, the Soviet Union experienced a radioactive eruption which irradiated thousands of square miles of the Ural Mountains region. The source of the calamity was the Mayak plutonium-processing plant near the town of Kyshtym – a facility which had been quickly erected to produce essential materials for the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons programme.
The breakneck pace of development meant safety fell by the wayside, to the point where staff failed to fix a malfunctioning cooling system designed to keep tanks of nuclear waste at safe temperature levels. On 29th September 1957, one of these steel tanks finally exploded, blowing off a metre-thick concrete lid and sending out a cloud of nuclear fallout.
The local population was kept in the dark about the explosion and a whole week went by before they were evacuated. It wasn’t until 1976 that the details of the disaster were leaked to the Western press by an exiled Russian scientist. The true health impact is impossible to know for sure, although increased rates of cancer and other medical issues have been associated with the disaster.
2. Windscale
The name ‘Windscale’ isn’t known to many people these days, because this British nuclear site was renamed ‘Sellafield’ in 1981. Windscale was then notorious as the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents and the resulting bad PR was a reason why the authorities decided to rebrand.
Back in 1957, Windscale’s towering reactors were producing weapons-grade plutonium for Britain’s nuclear arsenal, but disaster struck in the form of a fire in one of the reactors on 10th October. Workers had to bravely battle to extinguish the inferno, despite the real risk of being irradiated by the burning uranium.
3. Chernobyl
Ironically, the disaster whose name is a byword for nuclear calamity only occurred because of a safety test.
In the early hours of 26th April 1986, workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant initiated an experiment to assess how the reactor cooling mechanisms would function in the event of a power outage. A combination of design flaws and human error caused the test to go catastrophically wrong, leading to a power surge and a steam explosion which tore the 1,000-ton cover off reactor number four.
Another explosion followed and the reactor was now a terrifying crater expelling radioactive contaminants into the atmosphere. One worker staring directly at the core recounted how the blue, ionised air was ‘flooding up into infinity’ – a spectacle both beautiful and terrifying.
The nearby city of Pripyat was evacuated 36 hours later, abruptly going from a bustling urban centre to an eerie ghost town. Chernobyl workers and firefighters killed by the initial explosions and ensuing radiation poisoning numbered at least 30.
Contrary to popular belief, the three so-called ‘Chernobyl divers’ who were sent in on a ‘suicide mission’ to drain water from the plant, actually survived their excursion. But the consequences of Chernobyl were immense, with a vast Exclusion Zone being enforced, and the disaster thought to be linked with thousands of cancer deaths.
4. Three Mile Island
Prior to Chernobyl, three words were synonymous with nuclear disaster: Three Mile Island. The incident at this power plant in Pennsylvania on 28th March 1979 was made all the more notorious because it took place less than two weeks after the release of The China Syndrome, a star-studded disaster movie about the imminent threat of a nuclear meltdown.
Although Three Mile Island was fortunately ‘only’ a partial meltdown caused by a cooling malfunction, it was enough to release radioactive materials into the environment. The state’s governor advised that pregnant women and young children should evacuate the area. Before long, around 140,000 people had fled.
Though most experts believe the health effects to have been minimal, Three Mile Island galvanised anti-nuclear activists in the US, with Jane Fonda – star of The China Syndrome – giving a speech at an anti-nuclear protest held in the wake of the accident.
5. Fukushima
The disaster at the Fukushima power plant on 11th March 2011 had the most dramatic origin of all nuclear accidents. Namely, a gigantic tsunami which had been in turn triggered by an undersea earthquake off the coast of Japan.
It was the most powerful earthquake in Japan’s history, and the tsunami waves easily crashed over the plant’s seawall, flooding the reactor buildings and knocking out the emergency diesel generators providing backup power for the coolant systems.
The untamed residual heat within the reactors caused three partial meltdowns and subsequent gas explosions, leading to at least 160,000 people evacuating the area after the accident.
Chris Hedges: The Gaza Riviera
July 27, 2025 ,By Chris Hedges / ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/07/27/chris-hedges-the-gaza-riviera/
Israelis do not see the images of skeletal corpses of Palestinian children who they have starved to death as a curse. They do not see the slain families they gun down at food hubs — designed not to deliver aid but lure starving Palestinians into a massive concentration camp in the south of Gaza in preparation for deportation — as a war crime. Israelis do not look at the savage bombing and shelling that kill or wound dozens of Palestinian civilians, where an average of 28 children die daily, as anything extraordinary. They do not see the wasteland of Gaza, pulverized by bombs and methodically being torn down by bulldozers and excavators, leaving virtually the entire population of Gaza homeless, as barbaric. They do not see the destruction of water purification plants, decimation of hospitals and clinics, where doctors and medical staff are often unable to work because they are weak from malnutrition, as savage. They do not blink at the assassinations of doctors as well as journalists, 232 of whom have been murdered for trying to document the horror.
Israelis have blinded themselves morally and intellectually. They view the genocide through the lens of a bankrupt media and political class that tells them only what they want to hear and shows them only what they want to see. They are intoxicated by the power of their industrial weapons and license to kill with impunity. They are drunk on self-adulation and the fantasy that they are the vanguard of civilization. They believe that the extermination of a people, including children, condemned as human contaminants, makes the world, especially their world, a happier and safer place.
They are the heirs of Pol Pot, the killers that carried out the genocides in East Timor, Rwanda and Bosnia and, yes, the Nazis. Israel, like all genocidal states — no population since World War II has been dispossessed and starved with such speed and ruthlessness – has a final solution that would have earned the stamp of approval from Adolf Eichmann.
Starvation was always the plan, the preordained final chapter of the genocide. Israel methodically set out from the beginning of the genocide to destroy sources of food, bombing bakeries and blocking food shipments into Gaza, something it has accelerated since March, when it severed nearly all food supplies. It targeted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — on which most Palestinians depended on for food — for destruction, accusing its employees, without providing evidence, of being involved in the attacks of Oct. 7. This accusation was used to give funders such as the United States, which provided $422 million to the agency in 2023, the excuse to halt financial support. Israel then banned UNRWA.
Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and U.S. mercenaries in the chaotic scramble to get one of the few food packages distributed during the brief blocks of time, usually an hour, at the four aid sites set up by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.
Once Gaza was turned into a moonscape after 21 months of saturation bombing, once Palestinians were forced to live in tents, under crude tarps or in the open air, once clean water, food and medical aid became nearly impossible to find, once civil society was obliterated, Israel began its grim campaign to starve the Palestinians out of Gaza.
One in three people in Gaza are going multiple days without eating, according to the U.N.
Starvation is not a pretty sight. I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took an estimated 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs — scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not.
I watched hundreds of skeletal figures, ghosts of human beings, trudge at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never got up. Many were the remains of entire families.
The starved lack enough calories to sustain themselves. They eat anything to survive — animal feed, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from constant diarrhea. They have trouble breathing because of respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it in a vain attempt to hold off the gnawing hunger pains.
Starvation reduces the iron needed to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1, which affects heart and brain function. Anemia sets in. The body, in essence, feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands.
It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates. This is the future Israel has preordained for the two million people in Gaza.
But it is not the future Israelis see. They see paradise. They see an ethno-nationalist Jewish state where Palestinians, whose land they stole and occupied and whose people they have subjugated and forced into an apartheid existence, do not exist. They see cafes and hotels rising up where thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of bodies lie buried under the rubble. They see tourists frolicking on the Gaza beachfront, a vision enhanced by an Artificial Intelligence-generated video uploaded to social media by Israeli Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Gila Gamliel. It is what a Gaza devoid of Palestinians would look like, echoing the absurdist AI video posted by Donald Trump.
In the new video, carefree Israelis eat at seaside restaurants. Anchored in the sparkling Mediterranean are luxury yachts. Gleaming hotels and office high rises, including a Trump Tower, dot the beachfront. Attractive residential neighborhoods stand where now there are broken, jagged mounds of concrete. The video shows Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, as well as Trump and Melania, strolling along the seaside.
Gamliel, like other Israeli leaders and Trump, cynically uses the term “voluntary emigration” to describe the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This omits the stark choice Israel actually offers the Palestinians — leave or die.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for a “security annexation” of the northern Gaza Strip and vowed that Gaza will become an “inseparable part of the State of Israel.” He made the remarks at a Knesset conference called “The Gaza Riviera — from vision to reality,” which presented proposals for the building of Jewish colonies in Gaza. Smotrich said Israel would “relocate Gazans to other countries,” and that Trump endorsed the plan.
Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu, who once proposed dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, declared that “All Gaza will be Jewish.” The Israeli government “is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out,” Eliyahu said. He described Palestinians as Nazis. “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil. We are pushing this population that has been educated on ‘Mein Kampf.’”
Genocidal killers embrace fantasies of eradicating a native population and expanding their ethnonationalist state. The Nazis carried out their genocidal assault, which included mass starvation, on Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other indigenous people, dismissed as Untermenschen, or subhumans. Colonists were then to be shipped to Central and Eastern Europe to Germanize the occupied territory.
These killers do not reckon with the darkness they unleash. The upscale beachfront properties dreamt of by Israel will never appear, just as the modern, exclusively Serb capital, with its golden domed cathedral, imposing presidency building, 15-story clock tower, state-of-the-art medical center and national theater with a 72-foot revolving stage was never built on the ruins of Bosnia.
Rather, there will be ugly apartment blocks, populated by the usual miscreants, proto-fascists, racists and mediocrities who live in the Jewish colonies in the West Bank. These ultranationalists, who have formed rogue militias to seize Palestinian land and joined the Israeli army in murdering over 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, will define Israel. They are the Israeli version of the 3-million-strong Pancasila Youth — Indonesia’s equivalent of the Brown Shirts or the Hitler Youth — that in 1965 helped carry out the genocidal mayhem that left half a million to one million dead.
These rogue militias, equipped with automatic weapons provided by the Israeli government, lynched Saifullah Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American, who was attempting to protect his family’s land two weeks ago. He is the fifth U.S. citizen killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7.
Once these Israeli goons and thugs are done with the Palestinians, they will turn on each other.
The genocide in Gaza signals the abolition, for Israelis as well as Palestinians, of the rule of law. It marks the obliteration of even the pretense of an ethical code. Israelis are the barbarians they condemn. If there is any warped justice in this genocide it is that Israelis, once they finish with the Palestinians, will be forced to live together in moral squalor.
The Kyshtym disaster: Russia’s hidden nuclear crisis
The Kyshtym disaster in 1957 was the Soviet Union’s biggest nuclear crisis until Chernobyl. So, why did the Soviets keep quiet about the former for decades?
28 July 25, https://www.history.co.uk/articles/kyshtym-disaster-russia-hidden-nuclear-crisis
What would be considered the worst nuclear disaster in history? Many scholars would say Chernobyl, when an explosion at a nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine released dangerous levels of radiation.
This was on 26th April 1986, when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. Was Chernobyl inevitable? Many historians do believe that Soviet authorities failed to learn lessons from an earlier nuclear crisis on their own soil. Below, we at Sky HISTORY look back at the 1957 Kyshtym disaster — and how the Soviets kept it under wraps for decades.
Was there really a nuclear plant in Kyshtym?
The nuclear plant at the heart of the Kyshtym disaster was not actually in the Russian town of that name. Instead, it was in a secretive ‘closed city’ nearby, called Chelyabinsk-40. Today, it is called Ozyorsk. (Both Kyshtym and Ozyorsk are in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Oblast.)
In the 1940s, the Soviets realised that they were trailing the United States in the development of nuclear weapons. To help themselves catch up, they hastily built what is now commonly known as the Mayak nuclear plant.
This facility, which still stands today, was tasked with processing plutonium needed to make nuclear weapons. However, because the plant was assembled in a rush, many safety risks of the project were not considered sufficiently.
The Kyshtym explosion and its immediate aftermath
Before the Kyshtym disaster, it was routine for Mayak workers to deposit radioactive waste into the Techa River. This bode ill (literally) for villagers along the river who used it as a source of drinking water.
So, Mayak staff later decided to store such waste in an underground storage compartment of the plant itself. This space comprised 14 stainless steel containers attached to a concrete base.
However, in the 1950s, the cooling system in one of these tanks started to malfunction. This led the waste in the container to heat up and eventually, on 29th September 1957, explode. The force sent 20 curies of radioactive material flying a kilometre into the air.
The wind blew the radioactive particles over an area of about 20,000 square kilometres inhabited by approximately 270,000 people. This was generally to the northeast, away from Chelyabinsk-40, which lay upwind from the Mayak plant.
How did authorities initially react?
Residents of nearby areas were not initially notified of what had happened. This was largely due to the Soviet Union’s strong culture of secrecy during the Cold War. The national government didn’t want to let slip that Mayak even existed, let alone that a nuclear explosion had happened there.
It was also around the same time that the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik satellite, a big PR coup. Admitting responsibility for what was the world’s biggest nuclear disaster to date would have been more than an inconvenient fly in the ointment.
Still, the Soviets also knew that doing what they could to limit the radioactive contamination would go some way towards keeping everyone in the dark. So, while about 10,000 local residents were evacuated over the next two years, they weren’t told exactly why.
A cover-up lasting for decades
Almost 17,000 hectares of the contaminated area was turned into East Ural Nature Reserve in 1968. Members of the public were barred from entry, which remains the case to this day. Scientists have studied the reserve to monitor the long-term effects of nuclear radiation on its ecology.
The Kyshtym disaster was kept secret from the public until 1976, when Soviet dissident Zhores Medvedev reported about it in New Scientist magazine. However, the Soviet government still did not openly acknowledge the Kyshtym disaster before accidentally revealing it to the United Nations in the late 1980s.
It is estimated that thousands of cancer cases may have resulted from exposure to radiation caused by the nuclear explosion way back in 1957.
How does Kyshtym compare to Chernobyl?
On the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), Kyshtym is classified as Level 6. Chernobyl, an even bigger catastrophe, is ranked just one level higher (Level 7) on the INES. Kyshtym released about 40% as much radioactivity as Chernobyl.
Chernobyl is thought to have affected a larger population, too, as 335,000 people were evacuated in the wake of the 1986 disaster. Also, while Chernobyl quickly claimed 31 lives, none were lost in the immediate aftermath of Kyshtym.
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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