The War Department Unleashes AI on New GenAI.mil Platform
U.S. Department of War, Dec. 9, 2025
The War Department today announced the launch of Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government as the first of several frontier AI capabilities to be housed on GenAI.mil, the Department’s new bespoke AI platform. This initiative cultivates an “AI-first” workforce, leveraging generative AI capabilities to create a more efficient and battle-ready enterprise. Additional world-class AI models will be available to all civilians, contractors, and military personnel, delivering on the White House’s AI Action Plan announced earlier this year.
This past July, President Donald Trump instituted a mandate to achieve an unprecedented level of AI technological superiority. The War Department is delivering on this mandate, ensuring it is not just ink on paper. In response to this directive, AI capabilities have now reached all desktops in the Pentagon and in American military installations around the world.
The first instance on GenAI.mil, Gemini for Government, empowers intelligent agentic workflows, unleashes experimentation, and ushers in an AI-driven culture change that will dominate the digital battlefield for years to come. Gemini for Government is the embodiment of American AI excellence, placing unmatched analytical and creative power directly into the hands of the world’s most dominant fighting force………………
The launch of GenAI.mil stands as a testament to American ingenuity, driven by the AI Rapid Capabilities Cell within the War Department’s Office of Research & Engineering. Their achievement directly embodies the Department’s core tenets of reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding American military capabilities, and re-establishing deterrence through technological dominance and uncompromising grit.
“We are pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force. The Department is tapping into America’s commercial genius, and we’re embedding generative AI into our daily battle rhythm.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth remarked
“AI tools present boundless opportunities to increase efficiency, and we are thrilled to witness AI’s future positive impact across the War Department.”………………..https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4354916/the-war-department-unleashes-ai-on-new-genaimil-platform/
Iran says bombed nuclear sites present radiation risk
Iran International, Dec 8, 2025,
ran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi says there is a risk of radiation release at nuclear facilities bombed during the 12-day war in June, contradicting earlier assurances from Tehran.
In an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News on Sunday, Araghchi said strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had created serious dangers, including possible radiation exposure and unexploded ordnance.
“We are now facing security threats and safety concerns,” he said.
Following the joint US-Israeli attacks, Iranian authorities refused to evacuate surrounding towns and repeatedly dismissed public fears.
In late June, deputy health minister Alireza Raeisi said enrichment “does not involve nuclear fission” and therefore cannot generate harmful radiation, adding that measurements around Natanz and Fordow showed the areas were completely safe……………………………………………….
………………………………………… Still, Araghchi told Kyodo News that Iran cannot currently allow the resumption of IAEA inspections halted after the war because no protocol or guideline exists for inspectors entering damaged facilities.
IAEA director general Rafael Grossi has said most of Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpile is being kept at sites in Isfahan, Fordow and Natanz where inspectors lack access, and warned in October that monitors had observed activity around storage locations.
US officials under President Trump have demanded zero enrichment, dismantling of proxy forces and limits on Iran’s missile program – terms Tehran calls unacceptable. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202512081602
Trump warns Ukraine is ‘losing’ Russia war, calls for new elections despite wartime prohibition.
Trump occasionally says something sensible, even if by accident.
New York Post, By Richard Pollina, Dec. 9, 2025
President Trump said in an interview Monday that Ukraine should hold new elections despite its ongoing war with Russia — prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to declare he’s “ready” for them to begin when voters can be safe.
“I think it’s time. I think it’s an important time to hold an election,” the president told Politico reporter Dasha Burns. “They’re using war not to hold an election, but, uh, I would think the Ukrainian people would, should have that choice.”
Under Ukraine’s constitution, elections cannot be held during period of martial law — which President Volodymyr Zelensky imposed in response to Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Under normal circumstances, the terms of Zelensky and Ukraine’s parliament would have ended in May and August 2024, respectively.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Zelensky said he has the “will and readiness” to hold elections. But he cited issues in Ukraine’s way, including the security of voters in a war zone at risk of missile strikes and Ukrainian law that prevents elections when the country is under martial law.
Zelensky said he’s seeking a legislative fix, and if he has help from the US on ensuring the safety of voters during a war, Kyiv would be ready to hold elections in “the next 60 to 90 days.”
“Maybe Zelensky would win,” Trump said of the prospect of a wartime election. “I don’t know who would win. But they haven’t had an election in a long time. You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”
The president also responded to a weekend claim by first son Donald Trump Jr. that the commander-in-chief may be willing to walk away from Ukraine, saying: “It’s not correct. But it’s not exactly wrong.”
“We have to, you know, they have to play ball,” the president went on. “If they, if they don’t read agreements, potential agreements, you know, it’s not easy with Russia because Russia has the upper, upper hand. And they always did. They’re much bigger. They’re much stronger in that sense.
The president’s comments came as his administration makes another effort to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War, with Trump telling reporters Sunday that Zelensky had yet to read the latest peace framework hashed out by US and Ukrainian negotiators.
“It would be nice if he would read it,” the president told Politico Monday. “You know, a lot of people are dying. So it would be really good if he’d read it. His people loved the proposal. They really liked it. His lieutenants, his top people, they liked it, but they said he hasn’t read it yet. I think he should find time to read it.”
Zelensky disputed the accusation on Thursday, telling reporters he has in fact “read many different versions of this plan.” https://nypost.com/2025/12/09/us-news/trump-says-ukraine-should-hold-elections-despite-wartime-prohibition/
Further delay in Finnish repository licence review
WNN, 5 December 2025
Finland’s Ministry of Employment and the Economy has granted the country’s nuclear regulator a third extension to the deadline to complete its assessment of Posiva Oy’s operating licence application for the world’s first used nuclear fuel repository. The regulator’s statement is now expected by mid-2026.
Radioactive waste management company Posiva submitted its application, together with related information, to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment on 30 December 2021 for an operating licence for the used fuel encapsulation plant and final disposal facility currently under construction at Olkiluoto. The repository is expected to begin operations in the mid-2020s. Posiva is applying for an operating licence for a period from March 2024 to the end of 2070.
The government will make the final decision on Posiva’s application, but a positive opinion by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) is required beforehand. The regulator began its review in May 2022 after concluding Posiva had provided sufficient material. The ministry had requested STUK’s opinion on the application by the end of 2023. However, in January last year, STUK requested the deadline for its opinion be extended until the end of 2024. In December, the ministry extended the deadline for the regulator’s opinion to 31 December 2025.
The ministry has now extended the deadline until the end of June 2026, “if it is possible to do so by then”. According to STUK, the new timetable is possible, but tight, for both the authority and the licence applicant.
Although STUK’s assessment of the application is in the final stages, the statement and safety assessment cannot be completed until it has assessed and approved all of Posiva’s operating licence application materials……………
At the repository, used fuel will be placed in the bedrock, at a depth of about 430 metres. The disposal system consists of a tightly sealed iron-copper canister, a bentonite buffer enclosing the canister, a tunnel backfilling material made of swellable clay, the seal structures of the tunnels and premises, and the enclosing rock
…………… The operation will last for about 100 years before the repository is closed.
….STUK said. “In particular, the demonstration of the performance of the clay material, which acts as one of the barriers to the spread of radioactive substances, is still under way. Posiva replaced the clay material in the original plans with another, and the effects of the new material on the long-term safety of the final disposal still need to be assessed.” https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/further-delay-in-finnish-repository-licence-review#:~:text=Finland’s%20Ministry%20of%20Employment%20and,now%20expected%20by%20mid%2D2026
UN environment report ‘hijacked’ by US and others over fossil fuels, top scientist says.
A key UN report on the state of the global environment has been “hijacked”
by the United States and other countries who were unwilling to go along
with the scientific findings, the co-chair has told the BBC. The Global
Environment Outlook, the result of six years’ work, connects climate
change, nature loss and pollution to unsustainable consumption by people
living in wealthy and emerging economies. It warns of a “dire future” for
millions unless there’s a rapid move away from coal, oil and gas and fossil
fuel subsidies. But at a meeting with government representatives to agree
the findings, the US and allies said they could not go along with a summary
of the report’s conclusions. As the scientists were unwilling to water down
or change their findings, the report has now been published without the
summary and without the support of governments, weakening its impact.
Researchers say the objections to this new report reflect similar concerns
expressed by countries at the recent COP30 talks.
BBC 9th Dec 2025,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w9ge93w9po
Britain’s AI boom is running straight into an energy wall
Nuclear power was supposed to act as its crutch to get around it. Instead, the government has hit pause, just as data centre demand is set to explode, leading investors wondering whether the UK risks talking itself out of its opportunity.
Recent analysis from the Nuclear Industry Association and
Oxford Economics warned that data-centre electricity demand will jump more than fivefold by 2030, swallowing nearly nine per cent of the UK’s total
power use.
The AI labs and hyperscalers behind that surge want plug
in-ready, 24/7 power, all within two years. Britain currently hands out
grid connections on a ten year timetable. This forms the backdrop to Rachel Reeves’ decision to stall a sweeping package of planning reforms that had promised to finally streamline nuclear development. Fingleton’s review, which coined the now-infamous ‘fish disco’ as a symbol of regulatory overreach, was meant to clear undergrowth.
City AM 9th Dec 2025,
https://www.cityam.com/britains-nuclear-lag-could-cost-its-ai-crown/
Activists fight plans for nuclear power station over threat to rare bird.
Ed Miliband’s plans to build the Sizewell C nuclear power station are facing a High Court legal threat over claims it will destroy a rare bird habitat.
Activists are seeking a judicial review to force the Government to revisit plans for the project, which they say is being built on land occupied by endangered marsh harriers. In a hearing on Tuesday, the Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) campaign group raised concerns over Sizewell C’s plans to build 10-metre-high flood defences on Suffolk marshland.
They argue that this will threaten the marsh harrier, a rare
bird that was almost driven to extinction before enjoying a recovery in recent years, particularly alongside the Suffolk coastline.
The group claims that details of the flood defences were Activists fight plans omitted from the original planning proposals in 2022. This now forms the basis of the group’s
argument, as it claims that work on Sizewell C should be paused while a further environmental assessment is carried out.
Chris Wilson, of TASC, said: “TASC’s legal challenge focuses on two additional sea defences that Sizewell C has committed to installing – but despite EDF, who is building Sizewell, being aware of the potential need for them since 2015,
they were not included in their planning application for the project.
Rowan Smith, the solicitor at Leigh Day representing TASC, said: “The failure to assess these impacts was alarming. “Our client is concerned about the revelation that provisions have been made for further flood defences at Sizewell C, which could harm the environment, yet the impact of this has never been assessed.”
Telegraph 9th Dec 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/12/09/activists-nuclear-power-station-threat-rare-bird/
Perfectly Appropriate: Trump, Infantino and the FIFA Peace Prize
10 December 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/perfectly-appropriate-trump-infantino-and-the-fifa-peace-prize/
He craves it, and, to some extent, his desire was satisfied. President Donald Trump did get a peace prize. Not the peace prize picked out by self-important Norwegian non-entities, but the inaugural curiosity of FIFA, an organisation famed for opacity, corruption and graft. What the critics missed in all of this was its sheer appositeness.
In a two-hour ceremony held on December 5 at Washington’s Kennedy Center, which included the World Cup draw for participants at next year’s games, Trump was presented with a prize few FIFA officials seem to know existed. Last month, FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced the award, expressing the view that Trump also deserved that other coveted gong, the Nobel Peace Prize. One senior FIFA official boldly told BBC Sport that the football organisation’s prize deserved serious attention: “Why can’t this be bigger than the Nobel Peace Prize? Football has huge global support, so it’s right that it recognises extraordinary efforts to bring about peace every year.”
That football – grand sport of sublimated aggression, contest and rivalries – is an agent of peace, is one of those shibboleths sporting administrators feed. Go through the records of any famous club rivalry, and peace is found wanting. Violence and politics, however, can be found in abundance. But Infantino did not become FIFA President on his mastery of such details. His formula was simple if hypocritical: athletes should play and shut up about politics, leaving it to the administrative class to do the rest.
With fawning relish, he heaped high praise on the winner. “This is what we want from a leader; a leader who cares about the people. We want to live in a safe world, in a safe environment. We want to unite – that’s what we do here today, that’s what we’ll do at the (FIFA) World Cup, Mr President.” Trump, in deserving the inaugural award, could count on Infantino’s support and that “of the entire football community – or ‘soccer’ community – to help you make peace and make sure the world prospers all over the world.”
Infantino has never been a strict observer of the dusty ethics clause stating that the organisation maintains neutrality “in matters of politics and religion” and that “all persons bound by the code remain politically neutral … in dealings with government institutions.” He has hobnobbed with the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Russia, ostensibly pursuing the footballing cause. He was the only sports leader present at the Egyptian “Summit for Peace” held in October, when a clutch of significant figures, marshalled by Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, agreed to implement the first phase of the Gaza peace plan. (There was much personal gratitude for Trump, praised as “absolutely fundamental and crucial in the [peace] process.) He has gathered a swag of awards and accolades from governments, hardly an affirmation of neutrality in any strict sense.
In keeping with the mood, Trump spoke about everything other than football. He was in the business of saving lives, and peace prizes did not matter much. (You need to get one in orderto dismiss its merits.) For good measure, he had also “saved a lot [of lives], millions even.”
In keeping with the absurd occasion was the furious criticism of the choice, when its absurdity was most apt. Infantino, derided over his stance on not suspending Israel over its military operations in Gaza, was now receiving rebukes for eschewing neutrality. “Not satisfied with two years of FIFA complicity in genocide in Palestine, Infantino and his cronies have now invented a ‘peace prize’ in order to curry favour with Donald Trump,” fumed former UN official Craig Mokhiber and campaigner against Israeli’s membership of FIFA.
Andrea Florence, Executive Director of the Sports & Rights Alliance, acknowledged that the World Cup had been the political plaything of states in rinsing stained human rights records. “But FIFA is now doing the sportswashing itself. Giving this so-called FIFA ‘Peace Prize’ to US President Donald Trump with no clear criteria or process – and despite his administration’s violent detentions of immigrants, crackdowns on freedom of expression, and militarization of US cities – it’s sportswashing on steroids.”
This grumbling was bound to take a more formal shape, and it came in the form of an eight-page letter of complaint from the non-profit advocacy organisation, FairSquare. Unfortunately for the organisation, it was sent to FIFA. In the letter, the organisation demands that the ethics committee (the joke keeps giving) “investigate the circumstances surrounding the decision to introduce and award a FIFA Peace Prize and their conformity with FIFA’s procedural rules.” It makes reference to various remarks of Infantino’s, including those in an Instagram post from Trump’s inauguration on January 20 declaring that, “Together we will make not only America great again, but also the entire world.”
Studiously referencing FIFA statutes – not that this will get them far – the group goes on to state that awarding such a prize “to a sitting political leader is in and of itself a clear breach of Fifa’s duty of neutrality.” Infantino lacked the power to unilaterally determine “the organisation’s mission, strategic direction, policies and values.”
Identity politics books
As with most things relevant to that organisation, the complaint is unlikely to get far. Politics and sport do mix, as they have always done. Infantino, chief of the world’s foremost unchallenged sporting mafia, may claim otherwise, but his tenure shows that he knows that crude reality all too well.
Making Sense of The Après-Ukraine.
What it might mean and what it might not mean.
Aurelien, Dec 11, 2025
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Because I’m not a military specialist, I’m going to skip over very technical questions, where there is anyway a great deal of disagreement. Moreover, the way in which these questions are posed is often not very helpful, and frequently involves weapons fetishists flourishing performance statistics at each other. In the end, whether the planned FX69 or the planned Su141 is a “better” fighter isn’t really the point, unless you take the overall scenario into account. If dogfights (albeit at very long range) will be a feature of future conflicts, and these planned aircraft are involved, then performance characteristics have their place. But we know, for example, that Russian doctrine for air superiority relies very largely on missiles and, even if the FX69 were in some senses “better” when it arrived in service, it might not get near enough to Russian aircraft for that superiority to be useful. The real lessons of crises and conflicts are always at a more general level.
………………………………. let’s turn to Ukraine, repeating the very important provisos that “lessons” are only of value if we can expect future conflicts with at least some of the same features, and if the “lessons” are likely to be reasonably enduring, given the huge cost and time involved in developing and adapting military equipment.
………………….So far as the first is concerned, we have to remember that Ukraine is a very specific type of conflict.
It’s being fought between two advanced technology nations with indigenous defence industries, whose equipment is similar, and in some cases identical, and largely from the same technological tradition.
It’s being fought between countries with a shared military tradition, and a capacity for large-scale land/air operations, (less influenced by the West in the case of Ukraine than is sometimes thought) and between countries where patriotism and a willingness to fight for one’s country are still political forces.
And finally it’s being fought between the largest country in the world, mainly self-sufficient economically, and with the tacit acquiescence of China, and a smaller country backed financially and militarily by the entire western world.
So obviously the chances of exactly the same situation developing elsewhere are zero. The question, as always, is how far, if at all, the particularities of the Ukraine conflict are applicable to potential conflicts elsewhere.
The first question is obviously whether we are going to see any more heavy-metal conflicts of this kind anywhere the world. There are a number of nuances hidden in that question: the war in Ukraine has gone on as long as it has because the two sides are capable of raising and training large armies (Ukraine with more difficulty, certainly) and supplying and equipping them from stocks and new production (transferred in the case of Ukraine.) This means that very large forces can fight each other continuously for years, and, in the Russian case, more than replace losses of personnel and material.
Now the obvious place for such a future war is Europe against NATO forces, but it’s doubtful whether the scenario is very likely. As I’ll explain in a minute, it’s very hard to imagine NATO forces reconfiguring themselves to absorb the lessons of Ukraine, and in any event it’s not necessary for the Russians to attack NATO nations with ground forces. They can destroy NATO forces from a safe distance with missiles and drones. Moreover, NATO forces are small, and are unlikely to get much bigger, and their stocks of ammunition and logistics will be exhausted in a matter of days. (Unlike Russia, and in spite of planned increases in stocks, NATO nations cannot replace their losses and consumption in real time, as Russia can.) So a direct military clash would be, as they say, nasty brutish and short, even if NATO “learned the lessons” of Ukraine
It’s hard to imagine any wars of similar scale and intensity elsewhere in the world. One possibility is a ground war involving the two Koreas, where the level of technology, even on the Northern side, is generally high, although the terrain is very different. Moreover, whilst border clashes here and there in the world are obviously possible (India and Pakistan or China are illustrative examples) it’s hard to imagine a full-scale war of the type we are now seeing.
……………….. one thing that the Ukraine experience has demonstrated is the importance of these boring, mundane things like logistic support, resupply and sheer numbers of weapons………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
It’s worth pointing out that drones did not feature much at the beginning of the conflict, but have now become a significant factor. (This is especially true for Ukraine, which would be in a much worse state without them.)
“drone” (Unmanned Air Vehicle until recently) is a very generic term. It’s clear, for example, that Russian drones that fly beyond Kiev are effectively pilotless aircraft, with significant destructive capability. At the other extreme, footage of a lot of Ukrainian drone attacks shows small, short-range craft dropping grenades onto small groups of soldiers. This leads us to one of the most important conclusions from the war so far: much depends on overall command and control and the ability to use capabilities together, as part of an overall plan.
……………………………………………………….In spite of the current excitement, it seems unlikely that the West will adopt drones in the way that the Russians and Ukrainians have. There are all sorts of reasons for this, but the principal one is that those two countries are fighting a war, and in wartime innovation tends to impose itself as a priority. Both sides, and especially the Russians, were caught unawares by the nature of the war as it developed in 2022, and as a consequence innovation has been very rapid in all areas. There is no chance of this happening in the West: the political urgency is not there.
………………………………….Effectively, either a NATO working group spends ten years trying to develop a concept, by which time the technology will have changed, or dozens of nations just decide to do their own thing……………………
…………………. Drone attacks on tanks are the latest iteration of a struggle between attack and defence which has been going on for fifty years and will no doubt evolve further. Defensive technologies are now being developed which may be able to disrupt and protect against drones to the point where so many would be needed to secure a kill that their use would be uneconomic. It would be unwise to write off the tank yet, and indeed unwise to jump to too many conclusions about drones.
……………………………………………………………………………………….. Finally, the technologies introduced in Ukraine, and those still being developed, will find uses that for the moment no-one can foresee, some good, some bad. (Organised crime may find drone technologies useful for transporting drugs, for example.) https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/making-sense-of-the-apres-ukraine?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=841976&post_id=181176162&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
U.S. Military Budget Bill Would Ramp Up Israel Aid to Fill In ‘Gaps’ When Other Countries Impose Embargoes Over Genocide.
“this means the US would explicitly use federal law to step in and supply weapons to Israel whenever other countries cut off arms to halt Israel’s ongoing violations across the region.”
The House Armed Services Committee said in September that the measure “combats antisemitism.”
Stephen Prager, Dec 09, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-israel-weapons-gap-ndaa
A little-reported provision of the latest military spending bill would direct the US to create a plan to fill the “gaps” for Israel whenever other nations cut off arms shipments in response to its acts of genocide in Gaza.
As Prem Thakker reported Monday for Zeteo, the measure is “buried” more than 1,000 pages into the more than 3,000-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is considered by lawmakers to be “must-pass” legislation and contains a record $901 billion in total spending.
Republicans are shepherding the bill through the US House of Representatives, where—as is the case with most NDAAs—it is expected to pass on Wednesday with Democratic support, even as some conservative budget hardliners refuse to back it, primarily over its $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine.
Since the genocide began following Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, the US has provided more than $21.7 billion to Israel, including hundreds of millions that have been supplied through NDAAs.
The new NDAA includes at least another $650 million to Israel, an increase of $45 million from the previous one, even though this is the first such bill to be introduced since the “ceasefire” that went into effect in October. This aid from the Pentagon comes on top of the $3.3 billion already provided through the State Department budget.
But this NDAA also contains an unprecedented measure. It calls for the “continual assessment of [the] impact of international state arms embargoes on Israel and actions to address defense capability gaps.”
The NDAA directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to assess “the scope, nature, and impact on Israel’s defense capabilities of current and emerging arms embargoes, sanctions, restrictions, or limitations imposed by foreign countries or by international organizations,” and “the resulting gaps or vulnerabilities in Israel’s security posture.”
As Drop Site News explains, “this means the US would explicitly use federal law to step in and supply weapons to Israel whenever other countries cut off arms to halt Israel’s ongoing violations across the region.”
“The point of this assistance, to be clear, is to make up for any identified insufficiencies Israel may have due to other countries’ embargoing it as a result of its ongoing genocide in Palestine,” Thakker wrote.
A similar provision appeared in a September version of the NDAA, which the House Armed Services Committee praised because it supposedly “combats antisemitism”—explicitly conflating a bias against Jewish people with weapons embargoes that countries have imposed to stop Israel from continuing its routine, documented human rights violations in Gaza.
Among the nations that have cut off weapons sales to Israel are Japan, Canada, France, Italy, and Spain. Meanwhile, other major backers, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, have imposed partial freezes on certain weaponry.
While official estimates from the Gaza Ministry of Health place the number of dead from Israel’s military campaign at over 70,000, with more than 170,000 wounded, an independent assessment last month from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany and the Center for Demographic Studies in Spain found that the death toll “likely exceeds 100,000.” This finding mirrored several other studies that have projected the true death toll to be much higher than what official estimates show.
Embargoes against Israel have been called for by a group of experts mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council, including Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, numerous human rights organizations, including the leading Israeli group B’Tselem, have said Israel’s campaign in Gaza has amounted to genocide.
Trump says Ukraine should hold elections
Sometimes, if only by accident, Trump says something sensible
by Julia Manchester – 12/09/25, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5640123-trump-says-ukraine-should-hold-elections/
President Trump said in a new interview that Ukraine should hold elections despite being locked in war with Russia.
“They’re using war not to hold an election. I would think the Ukrainian people should have that choice,” Trump told Politico. “They talk about having a democracy but it gets to the point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has come under political pressure in recent weeks over a corruption scandal that implicated top Ukrainian officials. After the country’s watchdogs concluded that $100 million had been embezzled from the energy sector through kickbacks paid by contractors, Zelensky fired two top officials and slapped sanctions on close associates.
Zelensky has not been accused of any wrongdoing but his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned following an anti-corruption raid on his home last month.
Additionally, Zelensky has found himself and Ukraine on defense as Russia seeks to make advances on Ukrainian territory and Trump administration officials struggle to broker a peace deal between the two countries.
Trump aired his frustrations over Zelensky on Sunday, saying the Ukrainian leader had not read the latest version of the peace proposals that came out of talks between U.S. officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.
Zelensky said Ukraine would not budge from its longstanding opposition to ceding land to Russia after he met with European leaders on Monday.
Trump said in the Politico interview published Tuesday that he believes Russia is in a stronger negotiating position than Ukraine.
“[Zelensky] is going to have to get on the ball and start accepting things,” he said, adding that they are “losing.”
When it all comes crashing down: The aftermath of the AI boom.
Like financial crises of the past, an abrupt end to the AI bubble could inflict considerable economic pain on millions of people worldwide. But the alternative is the prolonging of an AI bubble that is increasingly unsustainable in both the financial and environmental senses, with the winners mainly being some of the wealthiest companies on the planet and their investors.
“Ultimately, for society’s sake, it would be a wonderful thing the faster this thing goes, because very few people are benefiting from it,”
By Jeremy Hsu, December 5, 2025, https://thebulletin.org/2025/12/when-it-all-comes-crashing-down-the-aftermath-of-the-ai-boom/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=The%20AI%20boom%20s%20aftermath&utm_campaign=20251207%20Monday%20Newsletter
Silicon Valley and its backers have placed a trillion-dollar bet on the idea that generative AI can transform the global economy and possibly pave the way for artificial general intelligence, systems that can exceed human capabilities. But multiple warning signs indicate that the marketing hype surrounding these investments has vastly overrated what current AI technology can achieve, creating an AI bubble with growing societal costs that everyone will pay for regardless of when and how the bubble bursts.
The history of AI development has been punctuated by boom-and-bust cycles (with the busts called AI winters) in the 1970s and 1980s. But there has never been an AI bubble like the one that began inflating around corporate and investor expectations since OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022. Tech companies are now spending between $72 billion and $125 billion per year each on purchasing vast arrays of AI computing chips and constructing massive data centers that can consume as much electricity as entire cities—and private investors continue to pour more money into the tech industry’s AI pursuits, sometimes at the expense of other sectors of the economy.
“What I see as a labor economist is we have starved everything to feed one mouth,” says Ron Hetrick, Principal Economist at Lightcast, a labor market analytics company. “These are now three years that we have foregone development in so many industries as we shove food into a mouth that’s already so full.”
That huge AI bet is increasingly looking like a bubble; it has buoyed both the stock market and a US economy otherwise struggling with rising unemployment, inflation, and the longest government shutdown in history. In September, Deutsche Bank warned that the United States could already be in an economic recession without the tech industry’s AI spending spree and cautioned that such spending cannot continue indefinitely. However it ends, the AI bubble’s most enduring legacy may be the global disruptions from any financial crisis that follows—and the societal costs already incurred from betting so heavily on energy-hungry data centers and AI chips that may suddenly become stranded assets.
Warning signs. Silicon Valley’s focus on developing ever-larger AI models has spurred a buildout of bigger data centers crammed with computing power. The staggering growth in AI compute demand would require tech companies to build $500 billion worth of data centers packed with chips each year—and companies would need to rake in $2 trillion in combined annual revenue to fund that buildout, according to a Bain & Company report. The report also estimates that the tech industry is likely to fall $800 billion short of the required revenue.
That shortfall is less surprising than it might seem. US Census Bureau data show that AI adoption by companies with more than 250 employees may have already peaked and began declining or flattening out this year.
Continue readingCampaigners call for absolute protection for Welsh national parks from nuclear plants.
Nuclear Free Local Authorities and Welsh Anti Nuclear Alliance, 9th December 2025
In response to a consultation by Natural Resources Wales on creating a new Glyndŵr National Park in North East Wales, Welsh anti nuclear groups have joined the Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities in calling for the Welsh Government to provide absolute protection for Welsh National Parks and National Landscapes from the threat of new nuclear development.
After indicating they were undecided on the issue, the groups submitted the following collective response:
‘In responding to this consultation on the creation of a new Glyndŵr National Park in North East Wales, we wish to call upon the Welsh Government to provide for absolute protection in law for Welsh National Parks and National Landscapes from the threat of new nuclear development.
The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 was passed with all party support. The first ten national parks were designated as such in the 1950s, including three in Wales in the Brecon Beacons, on the Pembrokeshire Coast, and in Snowdonia.
In 1974 a National Parks Policy Review Committee established the Sandford Principle that ‘priority must be given to the conservation of natural beauty’. The Environment Act 1995 established in law that the primary duties of National Park Authorities are ‘conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the area comprised in the National Park’.
Nuclear development in a National Park is then completely at odds with these objectives. Consequently, we are disappointed that the new UK Government has not directly specified in its new siting policy for nuclear plants (EN-7) that National Parks and National Landscapes will be exempted from development. This despite a precedent having already been set, as the English Lake District has been rightly excluded from consideration as the location of the Geological Disposal Facility.
If the English Lake District is excluded from such development, then surely the Eryri, Bannau Brycheiniog, Afordir Penfro, and Glyndŵr National Parks are worthy of equal consideration?
For without equal protection, the National Parks and National Landscapes in Wales could be aesthetically blighted and radioactively contaminated from future nuclear development.
This is no idle threat as the situation at Trawsfyndd demonstrates……………………………………………………………………………………………..
We believe that Wales has sufficient natural energy resources (wind, sun, wave, tidal, hydro and geothermal) to provide for its own energy needs and notes that the Welsh Government has already embraced a policy to generate all domestic consumed electricity through renewable technologies.
Any new nuclear plants in Wales will be built at English direction, with Westminster money, to generate electricity for England whilst transferring the risk of accident, the resultant contamination of air, land, rivers, and sea, and responsibility for the immediate management of nuclear waste onto the people of Wales……………………………………………………..
9th December 2025
Campaigners call for absolute protection for Welsh national parks from nuclear plants
Joint media release
In response to a consultation by Natural Resources Wales on creating a new Glyndŵr National Park in North East Wales, Welsh anti nuclear groups have joined the Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities in calling for the Welsh Government to provide absolute protection for Welsh National Parks and National Landscapes from the threat of new nuclear development.
After indicating they were undecided on the issue, the groups submitted the following collective response:
‘In responding to this consultation on the creation of a new Glyndŵr National Park in North East Wales, we wish to call upon the Welsh Government to provide for absolute protection in law for Welsh National Parks and National Landscapes from the threat of new nuclear development.
The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 was passed with all party support. The first ten national parks were designated as such in the 1950s, including three in Wales in the Brecon Beacons, on the Pembrokeshire Coast, and in Snowdonia.
In 1974 a National Parks Policy Review Committee established the Sandford Principle that ‘priority must be given to the conservation of natural beauty’. The Environment Act 1995 established in law that the primary duties of National Park Authorities are ‘conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the area comprised in the National Park’.
Nuclear development in a National Park is then completely at odds with these objectives. Consequently, we are disappointed that the new UK Government has not directly specified in its new siting policy for nuclear plants (EN-7) that National Parks and National Landscapes will be exempted from development. This despite a precedent having already been set, as the English Lake District has been rightly excluded from consideration as the location of the Geological Disposal Facility.
If the English Lake District is excluded from such development, then surely the Eryri, Bannau Brycheiniog, Afordir Penfro, and Glyndŵr National Parks are worthy of equal consideration?
For without equal protection, the National Parks and National Landscapes in Wales could be aesthetically blighted and radioactively contaminated from future nuclear development.
This is no idle threat as the situation at Trawsfyndd demonstrates.
Trawsfynydd is located at the heart of Eryri, formerly Snowdonia. Eryri is the largest National Park in Wales with the highest mountain in Wales, Yr Wyddfa, and attracts an estimated four million visitors per year. A Magnox nuclear plant was opened at Trawsfynydd in 1968 and operated until the 1990’s. Built in an ugly brutalist style, the plant jars against the marked beauty of the natural environment. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is now reducing the height of the structure to make it less obtrusive, but it will still look brooding and completely out-of-place in the park. And the redundant plant has a cooling pond complex that leaks radioactive materials into the soil and the nearby lake, and studies by academic Dr Chris Busby identified a heightened cancer risk amongst the local populace who eat fish caught from the lake.
Despite this historic obscenity, the Welsh Government has been so foolhardy as to establish a company, Cwmni Egino, to reindustrialise this pristine landscape with ‘the deployment of small nuclear reactors to generate electricity and also a medical radioisotope research reactor’, completely undermining the work of the National Park Authority which is dedicated to its preservation. [i]
This is a lunatic concept. New nuclear redevelopment at Trawsfynydd would be wholly inappropriate. It would be hugely damaging to the beauty of the locality; would lead to further radioactive contamination of the lake and the local environment; its operations would always be accompanied by a risk of an accident and the generation of further radioactive waste; be massively detrimental to the peace and quiet enjoyed by residents and visitors; and would dilute the historic dominance of the Welsh language in this area by attracting a non-Welsh speaking migrant workforce. Further any new nuclear development of Eryri must also have a significant impact on visitor numbers, and so the tourist economy.
These factors militate against any such redevelopment at Trawsfynydd and represent a set of reasons why nuclear power and national parks are completely incompatible.
The Senedd passed a unique piece of legislation that militates against nuclear development in national parks: the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act 2015. Public bodies in Wales are expected to pull together in achieving the aspirations outlined in the act, amongst them those for a Resilient Wales, defined as “A nation which maintains and enhances a biodiverse natural environment with healthy functioning ecosystems that support social, economic and ecological resilience and the capacity to adapt to change” and a Healthier Wales defined as “A society in which people’s physical and mental well-being is maximised and in which choices and behaviours that benefit future health are understood.”
Creating a new National Park would certainly move Wales forward towards meeting these objectives, but nuclear with its inevitable damage to the natural environment and to human health will most certainly not.
We believe that Wales has sufficient natural energy resources (wind, sun, wave, tidal, hydro and geothermal) to provide for its own energy needs and notes that the Welsh Government has already embraced a policy to generate all domestic consumed electricity through renewable technologies.
Any new nuclear plants in Wales will be built at English direction, with Westminster money, to generate electricity for England whilst transferring the risk of accident, the resultant contamination of air, land, rivers, and sea, and responsibility for the immediate management of nuclear waste onto the people of Wales.
The Glyndŵr National Park is being named after a beloved Welsh freedom fighter who valiantly resisted English military conquest and the usurpation of Welsh sovereignty. In responding to this consultation, we are calling upon the Welsh Government to invoke the spirit of Glyndŵr and use the occasion of the new park’s creation to make clear to Westminster that they will resist to the utmost any attempt to impose nuclear development in any National Park in Wales, including at Trawsfynydd, and in his spirit they should also disestablish Cwmni Egino, which is working in contravention of this policy.
To do otherwise would convey the impression that Wales remains a rank colonial possession, rather than a nation in its own right, whose beautiful National Parks remain vulnerable to exploitation for nuclear development of the most egregious kind…………………….https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/campaigners-call-for-absolute-protection-for-welsh-national-parks-from-nuclear-plants/
‘Genocide is not an Oakland value:’ inside Oakland’s grassroots campaign to end military shipments to Israel
Oakland International Airport has become a key hub for transporting military cargo to Israel during the Gaza genocide. Now, over 30 groups and thousands of Oakland residents have come together in the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo to stop it.
Mondoweiss, By Joseph Mogul December 8, 2025
Talia Rose starts their shift at Oakland International Airport (OAK) at 3:00 a.m., unloading same-day packages from UPS planes. Across the tarmac, they watch FedEx planes come and go. “I never had any idea what the hell is on those planes besides big metal containers that carry packages,” Rose said.
But that would change in August, when Rose attended a local organizing forum where a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) presented a soon-to-be-public report titled “Exposing Oakland’s Military Cargo Shipments to Israel.”
The report—published by PYM, Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), and U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)—details FedEx’s routine shipments of F-35 Lockheed Martin fighter jet components to Israel’s Nevatim Airbase. The report describes OAK as a “dependable conduit for critical military technologies,” concluding “beyond a reasonable doubt that military cargo being shipped out of OAK has been used by the Israeli Air Force to carry out airstrikes and commit genocide in Gaza.”
Learning about OAK’s role in facilitating genocide disturbed Rose. “After reading the report, knowing there’s a minimum of three [shipments] a week going through the airport that have F-35 parts, it’s a feeling of overwhelming anxiety,” they said. “I’m right there, you know? I’m across a tarmac from it. It feels like I should be able to do something.”
With the launch of the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo campaign, Rose and thousands of Oaklanders would find what they could do.
The campaign was launched shortly before the People’s Conference for Palestine, a weekend-long event aimed at strengthening the movement, where PYM called for a shift towards local arms embargoes. Their theory was that a strong campaign would need the trifecta of a mass local base, organized workers, and progressive elected officials. Oakland has all three.
A central node of the weapons supply chain
Voulette Mansour, a PYM-Bay Area organizer whose grandparents were displaced during the 1948 Nakba, attended the People’s Conference. Behind the scenes, Mansour and PYM had been preparing for the campaign launch for months, eagerly anticipating this moment. “We had been doing a lot of background work on the research and preparing to launch the report,” Mansour said.
Through research infrastructure developed by PYM’s Mask off Maersk campaign—which targeted the largest maritime carrier of U.S. military cargo (including F-35 components) to Israel—PYM uncovered OAK’s role in the F-35 supply chain. “We were shocked that Oakland popped up on the map, not just as a blip, but as a central node,” said Mansour, “When we found this out, we were disgusted that this was happening in our city, but we also saw it as an opportunity.”
The “Exposing Oakland’s Military Cargo Shipments to Israel” report confirmed multiple shipments every week for over a year, making OAK the second most important logistical hub in the U.S. F-35 supply chain to Israel, behind Fort Worth.
The F-35 fighter jet is considered the crown jewel of the Israeli Air Force; Israel has its own modified version, called the F-35I, which is retrofitted specifically for Israeli weapons systems. Each jet costs around $100 million (subsidized by U.S. taxpayers in the form of federal weapons contracts) and can carry up to 18,000 pounds of munitions. Lockheed Martin is the primary manufacturer of the F-35, but over 1,900 contractors are involved in supplying various components, creating a vast and intricate global supply chain that the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) is responsible for coordinating. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
That wave is swelling. On November 22, PYM launched a new global campaign, the People’s Embargo for Palestine, by creating an international arms embargo ecosystem through the coordination of research and strategies across local campaigns.
This is the next phase of our struggle,” said Mansour. “We raise the ceiling of our struggle through pushing for an arms embargo.” https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/genocide-is-not-an-oakland-value-inside-oaklands-grassroots-campaign-to-end-military-shipments-to-israel/
U.S. Nuclear Fusion Industry Asks for Federal Help
By Irina Slav – Dec 09, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Fusion-Industry-Asks-for-Federal-Help.html
The nascent nuclear fusion industry in the United States has asked the Trump administration for billions in financial support in order to advance the technology, which is seen as one of the most promising for the future—but also one of the most challenging.
“Now is the time for the U.S. to make a significant investment, and that means over a billion dollars per year in annual appropriations and a one-time infrastructure investment,” the chief executive of the Fusion Industry Association, Andrew Holland, said this week, as quoted by Reuters. “If they ask for it, we are confident Congress would pass it,” he added, following a meeting between industry representatives and officials from the Department of Energy.
Reuters noted in its report that the Trump administration had just canceled several billion dollars in subsidies for the wind and solar industries. Presumably, some of that money could be redirected towards nuclear fusion. The Department of Energy even set up an Office of Fusion earlier this year as it shut down the wind and solar offices.
Nuclear fusion has long been considered the answer to zero-emission by-product-free energy generation. However, no one has cracked the nuclear fusion code yet because of the challenges associated with the environment in which the process could take place.
Nuclear fusion research and development have gained momentum in recent years after several momentous breakthroughs and achievements. The global race to overcome the engineering challenges to achieving zero-emission power from a nuclear reaction without risking disaster and radiation has heated up.
Earlier this year, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a multinational endeavor to build a system to experiment with nuclear fusion, completed the world’s most powerful electromagnetic system in a landmark moment for fusion research.
There is still a long way to go before nuclear fusion becomes commercially viable; One of the main challenges remains the ratio between input energy and output energy, with the former currently exceeding the latter.
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