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Can Pro-Israel Billionaires Succeed, by Buying More US Media Platforms?

October 14, 2025 Posted by | media, USA | Leave a comment

Labour investing in nuclear due to fear of Scottish independence.

 LABOUR may be investing hard in nuclear energy due to the fear of Scottish
independence, Stephen Flynn has suggested.

The SNP Westminster was speaking
at an event at SNP conference and took aim at the amount of cash the UK
Government has diverted from funding GB Energy to nuclear projects in
England.

Labour’s General Election manifesto in 2024 pledged £8.3
billion to GB Energy but Rachel Reeves effectively cut billions in funding
from the energy company — which is officially headquartered in Aberdeen,
although most jobs so far are in England – in June.

The Chancellor’s
spending review said a new body tasked with spearheading Britain’s
nuclear renaissance would receive £2.5bn of that funding for small modular
reactors (SMRs). She also confirmed a further £14.2 billion UK Government
investment in the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Sussex.

“I understand from a UK Government perspective why they might seek to go down that route because of the lack of indigenous energy production that they have,” Flynn told delegates. “And maybe there’s a fear in the back of their mind that if Scotland goes, they’re going to have to find some
electricity tonto to meet their own energy security requirements.”

In 2024, renewable energy accounted for about 70% of Scotland’s electricity
generation, which is significantly higher than England – which relies
more heavily on a mix that includes fossil fuels and nuclear power. Swinney
also hit out at the amount of Scottish families who are living in fuel
poverty despite Scotland being energy rich. “Scotland produces 6 times
more gas than it consumes, and 70% of our electricity comes from renewable sources,” he said. “So, I think all of us should be should be
questioning why we are such an energy originator and so many of our people are living in fuel poverty and why we’re not able to maximise that energy production in order to attract businesses and then, therefore, grow our economy.”

 The National 12th Oct 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25536897.labour-investing-nuclear-due-fear-scottish-independence/

October 14, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Will Trump’s ceasefire plan really lead to lasting peace in the Middle East? There’s still a long way to go

Andrew Thomas, Lecturer in Middle East Studies, Deakin University October 12, 2025, https://theconversation.com/will-trumps-ceasefire-plan-really-lead-to-lasting-peace-in-the-middle-east-theres-still-a-long-way-to-go-267112?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2013%202025%20-%203547436165&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2013%202025%20-%203547436165+CID_bcade8c9c4dad1f5a754fd2f23566c83&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Will%20Trumps%20ceasefire%20plan%20really%20lead%20to%20lasting%20peace%20in%20the%20Middle%20East%20Theres%20still%20a%20long%20way%20to%20go

The first steps of the peace plan for Gaza are underway. Now both parties have agreed to terms, Hamas is obligated to release all hostages within 72 hours and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) will withdraw to an agreed-upon line within the strip.

Hopes are high, particularly on the ground in Gaza and in Israel after two years of brutal conflict. Some argue the parties are now closer than ever to an end to hostilities, and US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan may be an effective road-map.

But the truth is we have been here before. Hamas and Israel have now agreed to a road-map to peace in principle, but what is in place today is very similar to ceasefire deals in the past, and a ceasefire is not the same as a peace deal or an armistice.

The plan is also very light on specifics, and the devil is definitely in the detail. Will the IDF completely withdraw from Gaza and rule out annexation? Who will take on governance of the strip? Is Hamas going to be involved in this governance? There were signs of disagreement on these issues even before the fighting stopped.

So if the ceasefire steps hold in the short term – then what? What would it take for the peace plan to be successful?

First, the political pressures to refrain from resuming hostilities will need to hold. Once all the hostages are returned, which is expected to take place by Tuesday Australian time, Hamas effectively loses any remaining leverage for future negotiations if hostilities were to resume.

Once the hostage exchange is complete, it’s likely Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will see some pressure from his right to resume hostilities.

With Hamas relinquishing this leverage, it will be essential for the Israeli government to see these negotiations and the end of the war as fundamental to its long term interests and security for peace to hold. There must be a sincere desire to return to dialogue and compromise, not the pre-October 7 2023 complacency.

Second, Hamas will likely have to relinquish its arms and any political power in Gaza. Previously, Hamas has said it would only do this on the condition of recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state. As recently as October 10, factions in Gaza have said they would not accept foreign guardianship, a key part of the peace plan, with governance to be determined “by the national component of our people directly”.

Related to this, any interim governance or authority that takes shape in Gaza must reflect local needs. The proposed “body of peace” headed by Trump and former UK prime minister Tony Blair, could risk repeating previous mistakes of cutting Palestinians out of discussions over their own future.

Part of the peace deal is the resumption of humanitarian aid flows, but the fate of the Gaza blockade that has been effectively in place since 2007 is unclear. The land, sea and air blockade, which was imposed by Egypt and Israel following Hamas’ political takeover of Gaza, heavily restricts imports and the movement of Gazans.

Prior to October 2023, unemployment in the strip sat at 46%, and 62% of Gazans required food assistance as a result of the limits placed on imports, including basic food and agricultural items such as fertiliser.

Should the blockade continue, at best Israel will create the same humanitarian conditions in Gaza of food, medical and financial insecurity that existed prior to the October 7 attacks. While conditions and restrictions are orders of magnitude worse in Gaza today, NGOs called early incarnations of the blockade “collective punishment”. For peace to hold in the strip, security policy needs to be in line with global humanitarian principles and international law.

Most importantly, however, all parties involved must see peace in Gaza as fundamentally connected to broader peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Seeing the Gaza conflict as discrete and separate from the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be a mistake. Discussions of Palestinian national self-determination in Gaza and the West Bank must be taken seriously and be a central part of the plan for peace to last.

While the 20-point plan mentions a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”“, history tells us these pathways struggle to get past the rhetoric stage.

Many challenges stand in the way, including Israeli settlement and annexation, the status of Jerusalem and the question of demilitarisation.

A meaningful step would be for the US to refrain from using its veto power at the UN Security Council (UNSC) against votes supporting Palestinian statehood. While several states recognised a Palestinian state at the recent UN General Assembly, the US has blocked formal status at the UNSC every time.

Despite all these concerns, any pause in hostilities is undeniably a good thing. Deaths from October 7 2023 number nearly 70,000 in total, with 11% of Gaza’s population killed or injured and 465 Israeli soldiers killed. The resumption of aid delivery alone will go far in addressing the growing famine in the strip.

However, peace deals are incredibly difficult to negotiate at the best of times, requiring good faith, sustained commitment and trust. The roots of this conflict reach back decades, and mutual mistrust has been institutionalised and weaponised. Difficulties in negotiating the Oslo Accords in the 1990s showed just how deep the roots of the conflict are. The situation is now much worse.

It is not clear if any party involved in negotiation possesses the political will needed to reach an accord. However, an opportunity exists to reach one, and it should not be taken for granted.

October 14, 2025 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Mainers: you have a chance to nip this Wiscasset data center idea in the bud

12 Oct 25

Scroll down for details on the next hearing, which will be October 21.

All these data centers are being fast-tracked to secure global fascism. I don’t even distinguish anymore between military or domestic control. It’s the same foe (Silicon Valley) with the same infrastructure: AI, data centers, nuclear power, mining, land theft, water theft, skyrocketing power bills, etc. 

They can’t do AI and create a fascist surveillance planet with automated warfare unless they have these data centers. Stopping data centers is the most effective way of thwarting militarism in the 21st century. AI fascism is NOT a done deal (until they get the data centers up, get rid of physical cash, and make sure we continue scrolling on the internet.)

Here’s how to nip this in the bud:

When they wanted to build a space port in Hawaii and the company was in the early stages of building community trust (like the stage this data center is now in), we showed up in full force with a PA system and guitar and songs about how we didn’t want the spaceport. I also passed out hundreds of information sheets that talked about the devastation that the spaceport would bring. Basically, WE OWNED THE SPACE. It scared the shit out of them and they never came back. Hell, they didn’t want to deal with rowdies like us! See if you can get a gang together to do the same at the Oct. 21 hearing!

Westport, Wiscasset Residents Share Dissent on Possible Data Center

October 11, 2025 , Ali Juell

In a continuation of debate on a potential data center, the Wiscasset Select Board heard several public comments related to the possible development at their Tuesday, Oct. 7 meeting.

Wiscasset town officials told the county commissioners they were in early talks to turn the former Maine Yankee site on Old Ferry Road into a data center at a Sept. 16 commissioners meeting. At the time, Wiscasset Economic Development Director Aaron Chrostowsky said the project could strengthen Wiscasset’s tax base and provide jobs for construction and tech workers.

During the Oct. 7 meeting, Westport Island and Wiscasset residents expressed concerns about a data center’s potential long-term impacts to the environment and community.

“I would ask yourselves not only what is good for Wiscasset but … what’s good for Midcoast Maine,” Westport island resident Parkinson Pino said at the meeting.

Before opening the floor for public comment, Wiscasset Select Board Chair Sarah Whitfield said no formal proposal for a data center has been submitted. She said the town and the project assessor are asking questions of each other to ensure there is a complete understanding of the possible development.

If a completed application does come to the table, she said there will be ample opportunity for public involvement and input.

“We will absolutely do our due diligence,” Whitfield said. “Everything from environmental concerns to traffic to sound, light, water community, all of that will be addressed … if this moves forward, and we don’t even know if it will.”

Attendees raised a number of concerns such as the power demands, water capacity, and environmental effects brought on by a data center. Above all, people said they hope Wiscasset will consider the impacts of the data center both within and beyond town lines.

“There are questions here that could have huge consequences not just for Wiscasset but for Westport, Edgecomb, Georgetown, Boothbay, and Southport,” Westport Island resident Sam Godin said, calling on the board to keep the public informed if the process continues.

Comparing the data center to the Maine Yankee nuclear plant, Pino said the town should consider the potential aftermath of buying into corporate interest in the site.

“There are many consequences with this technology,” he said. “I would be very concerned about making sure you know as much as you can know about that (proposal).”

The next Wiscasset Select Board meeting is at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21 in the meeting room at the town municipal building. For more information, go to wiscasset.gov or call 882-8200.

October 14, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

The play’s the thing

12 Oct 25, Beyond Nuclear

Atomic Bill and the Payment Due, Libbe HaLevy’s new play, uncovers a shocking secret of journalistic malpractice and more, writes Karl Grossman

Can a play influence public perception of our shared atomic history enough to shift the conversation away from a presumed nuclear “renaissance” and into a more critical, life-protective examination of what this technology is and could do to us all?

Playwright and podcaster Libbe HaLevy believes it can. She spent 13 years researching and writing that play—Atomic Bill and the Payment Due—which had its premiere staged reading on September 9th as a featured presentation of the 50th anniversary celebration of the establishment of the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College in Ohio.

For 14 years, HaLevy has hosted the podcast Nuclear Hotseat, aired on 20 Pacifica affiliate radio stations throughout the United States and, as its website (NuclearHotseat.com) says, has been tuned into and downloaded by audiences in over 124 countries around the world.

It was while working on a 2012 episode focusing on the Trinity atomic bomb test in New Mexico that she became aware of journalistic irregularities around that event that piqued her interest.

The play is “a true story about media manipulation at the dawn of the Atomic Age and the New York Times reporter who sold his soul to get the story.”

That reporter is William Laurence, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter at the Times. In 1945, General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, arranged with Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and Edwin James, its managing editor, to have Laurence secretly inserted into the Manhattan Project. He was the only journalist embedded in the crash program to build the first atomic bombs– a position he relished.

Before World War II broke out and the splitting of the atom first occurred, Laurence wrote in the Times about how atomic energy could for mankind “return the Earth to the Eden he had lost.”  He witnessed the Trinity test in New Mexico in July 1945, and wrote the Manhattan Project press release that was distributed afterwards, which claimed only that an ammunition dump exploded and no one was hurt.  He had arranged a seat on the Enola Gay for its dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, but missed getting on—a bitter disappointment.  But he did fly on an airplane that followed the B-29 that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.  When the war ended, he wrote articles in the Times glorifying the Manhattan Project and for many years promoted nuclear energy in his stories— ignoring the lethal impacts of radioactivity.

HaLevy sensed a play lurking in the story.

HaLevy has a long background in theatre and playwriting, with more than 50 presentations of her plays and musicals, and multiple awards—most under her previous name, Loretta Lotman.

And she was exposed to the dangers of nuclear energy, having been in a house in Pennsylvania one mile away from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant when it underwent a meltdown in 1979. She had been staying with friends on a badly timed vacation.

HaLevy authored a book about her experience, Yes, I Glow in the Dark! One Mile from Three Mile Island to Fukushima and Nuclear Hotseat, published in 2018.  Dr. Helen Caldicott, author of Nuclear Madness and many other books on nuclear technology, has said of HaLevy’s book that it “must be read by all people who care about the future of the planet and their children.”

Of her book, HaLevy has said: “It’s the story of what happened when I found myself trapped one mile from an out-of-control, radiation-spewing nuclear reactor—how it impacted my life, health, sense of self—and what it took to recover. It’s a personal memoir, a guidebook on what the nuclear industry gets away with and how they get away with it, and a directory of resources and strategies with which to fight back.  The information ranges from 1950’s Duck and Cover and Disney’s Our Friend the Atom to how I learned to fight nuclear with facts, sarcasm… and a podcast.”

HaLevy recounted in an interview last week that in 2012, with Nuclear Hotseat having begun in the aftermath of Fukushima a year earlier, she read that more than one press release was written about the Trinity Test before the blast, when no one knew exactly what it would do.  She called me for more information. She was right: there had been four press releases written by Laurence in advance to cover every eventuality from “nothing to see here” to “martial law, evacuate the state”—a clear violation of journalistic ethics.   I referred her to Beverly Ann Deepe Keever, who had written the book News Zero: The New York Times and the Bomb, published in 2004. Laurence is a main figure in it.

Keever was a journalist writing for publications including Newsweek, The New York Herald Tribune and the Christian Science Monitor, and for seven years reported on the Vietnam War from the front lines. At the time she wrote News Zero she was a professor of journalism at the University of Hawaii.

In News Zero Keever detailed “the arrangements” made by Groves with Sulzberger and James at the Times; how Laurence “was hired by the U.S. War Department in April 1945 to work for the Manhattan Project;” and how his four months of writing “provided most of the material” used by the Times “in devoting ten of its 38 pages on August 7, 1945 to the development of the atomic bomb and its first use on Hiroshima. Laurence was thus a major player in providing many text-based images, language and knowledge that first fixed and molded the meanings and perceptions of the emerging atomic age. But this major player served as a scribe writing government propaganda on a historic issue, rather than as a watchdog adhering to those high principles traditionally espoused by the press in general and the Times in particular.”

Inspired by Keever’s book, HaLevy launched into extensive research on Laurence—a quest made more difficult because he destroyed all his files, papers, correspondence, and calendars, leaving behind only his published articles, four nuclear-themed books, and two carefully manipulated oral histories recorded for Columbia University.  But she was looking beyond the known facts to the human, emotional underpinnings of the story. “These events did not happen by themselves,” she said. “There were people, agendas, money and psychology behind the decisions made, and I saw Laurence as the lynchpin in conveying the earliest atomic story. I needed to know: who was this man and how could he do that?”

A play is different than a book— it focuses on human emotions, on drama.

And there is much drama in Atomic Bill and the Payment Due…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

A key scene takes place at a press conference at the Trinity site a month after the test bomb was exploded.  It pinpoints Laurence’s decision that betrayed not only Burchett and himself, but all of humanity by steering the public away from the truth about radiation while obliterating Burchett’s story. For HaLevy, this highlights the moment where Laurence—if he ever had a soul —lost it.

But the rewards were immediate. Jessie says: “Laurence is front page in the Times for two full weeks in September 1945: Ten articles, 20,000 words. He coins the term ‘Atomic Age’ but uses the word ‘radiation’ only four times, not once mentioning its dangers.” And he wins a Pulitzer……………………………………………………………………………………….. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/10/12/the-plays-the-thing/

October 14, 2025 Posted by | culture and arts | Leave a comment

Antarctica may have crossed a tipping point that leads to rising seas

Scientists are beginning to understand the sudden loss of sea ice in
Antarctica – and there is growing evidence that it represents a permanent
shift with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Antarctica may have
passed a climate tipping point of no return, scientists are warning, with
mounting evidence that a sudden slump in sea ice formation since 2016 is
linked to human-induced ocean warming. For decades, Antarctic sea ice
levels remained relatively stable despite rising global temperatures. But
that shifted suddenly in 2016, when the extent of sea ice began to sharply
fall.

The consequences of this recent shift could be catastrophic.
Antarctica’s sea ice helps to stabilise glaciers and ice sheets on the
land. Without adequate sea ice formation, their melting rates will
accelerate, with the potential to cause extreme global sea level rise. It
is estimated that the Antarctic ice sheet contains enough water to raise
global sea levels by 58 metres.

 New Scientist 2nd Oct 2025 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2498509-antarctica-may-have-crossed-a-tipping-point-that-leads-to-rising-seas/

October 14, 2025 Posted by | ANTARCTICA, climate change | Leave a comment

Italy’s Second General Strike for Gaza Brought 2 Million Workers into the Streets

The next day, one million people joined a demonstration in Rome, which highlighted Italy’s complicity in the genocide.

By Laura Montanari , Truthout, October 11, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/italys-second-general-strike-for-gaza-brought-2m-workers-into-the-streets/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=b6b31995af-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_10_11_04_35&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-b6b31995af-650192793

It seemed impossible for Italy to strike for Palestine more successfully than it did the first time, yet it happened: 2 million people returned to the streets on October 3, blocking everything again. The second general strike was called by Si Cobas labor union on September 18, and circulated broadly after September 22, the date of the first strike.

After Israel attacked the Global Sumud Flotilla on the evening of October 1, CGIL (the biggest Italian union) and USB (the union that called the earlier general strike) joined the call. This landmark event marked the first time that all the leftist labor unions in the country decided to go on strike together.

The days preceding the strike were filled with constant mobilization. People took to the streets as soon as the attack on the flotilla was reported through media channels. A spontaneous rage and a will to act took over, with people rushing to the main squares in different Italian cities. After two years of genocide witnessed through phone and laptop screens, people of all ages gathered together physically in continuous and heterogeneous demonstrations. On October 2, the day after the attacks, people were in the streets again, in a diffuse vibrant and electric atmosphere that foreshadowed what would happen over the next two days.

As Marika Giati — a PhD student at the University of Pisa and part of the Women’s Assembly of the Migrants Coordination in Bologna — told Truthout, “In these demonstrations, a new consciousness could be felt — one that exploded and connected with the massive mobilizations stretching from Spain to France, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Tunisia, Mexico, and Morocco.”

People were enraged by the Italian government as well. Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking about Israel’s illegal control of the international waters adjacent to Gaza, said that international law is important, “but does not always matter” — justifying both the Israeli blockade, and the fact that the Italian frigate accompanying the flotilla abandoned the flotilla while it was being attacked and while Italian citizens were being illegally arrested by Israel.

October 14, 2025 Posted by | employment, Italy | Leave a comment

Chris Hedges: Trump’s Sham Peace Plan

 October 11, 2025, By Chris Hedges ScheerPost , https://scheerpost.com/2025/10/11/chris-hedges-trumps-sham-peace-plan/

There is no shortage of failed peace plans in occupied Palestine, all of them incorporating detailed phases and timelines, going back to the presidency of Jimmy Carter. They end the same way. Israel gets what it wants initially — in the latest case the release of the remaining Israeli hostages — while it ignores and violates every other phase until it resumes its attacks on the Palestinian people.

It is a sadistic game. A merry-go-round of death. This ceasefire, like those of the past, is a commercial break. A moment when the condemned man is allowed to smoke a cigarette before being gunned down in a fusillade of bullets.

Once Israeli hostages are released, the genocide will continue. I do not know how soon. Let’s hope the mass slaughter is delayed for at least a few weeks. But a pause in the genocide is the best we can anticipate. Israel is on the cusp of emptying Gaza, which has been all but obliterated under two years of relentless bombing. It is not about to be stopped. This is the culmination of the Zionist dream. The United States, which has given Israel a staggering $22 billion in military aid since Oct, 7, 2023, will not shut down its pipeline, the only tool that might halt the genocide.

Israel, as it always does, will blame Hamas and the Palestinians for failing to abide by the agreement, most probably a refusal — true or not — to disarm, as the proposal demands. Washington, condemning Hamas’s supposed violation, will give Israel the green light to continue its genocide to create Trump’s fantasy of a Gaza Riviera and “special economic zone” with its “voluntary”relocation of Palestinians in exchange for digital tokens.

Of the myriads of peace plans over the decades, the current one is the least serious. Aside from a demand that Hamas release the hostages within 72-hours after the ceasefire begins, it lacks specifics and imposed timetables. It is filled with caveats that allow Israel to abrogate the agreement. And that is the point. It is not designed to be a viable path to peace, which most Israeli leaders understand. Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Israel Hayom, established by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to serve as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to be concerned about the Trump plan because it is only “rhetoric.”

Israel, in one example from the proposal, will “not return to areas that have been withdrawn from, as long as Hamas fully implements the agreement.”

Who decides if Hamas has “fully implemented” the agreement? Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an objective arbitrator of the agreement? If Hamas — demonized as a terrorist group — objects, will anyone listen?

How is it possible that a peace proposal ignores the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, which reiterated that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end?

How can it fail to mention the Palestinian’s right to self-determination?

Why are Palestinians, who have a right under international law to armed struggle against an occupying power, expected to disarm while Israel, the illegally occupying force, is not?

By what authority can the U.S. establish a “temporary transitional government,” — Trump’s and Tony Blair’s so-called “Board of Peace” — sidelining the Palestinian right to self-determination?

Who gave the U.S. the authority to send to Gaza an “International Stabilization Force,” a polite term for foreign occupation?

How are Palestinians supposed to reconcile themselves to the acceptance of an Israeli “security barrier” on Gaza’s borders, confirmation that the occupation will continue?

How can any proposal ignore the slow-motion genocide and annexation of the West Bank?

Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?

What are Palestinians supposed to make of the demand in the proposal for a “deradicalized” Gazan population? How is this expected to be accomplished? Re-education camps? Wholesale censorship? The rewriting of the school curriculum? Arresting offending Imams in mosques?

And what about addressing the incendiary rhetoric routinely employed by Israeli leaders who describe Palestinians as “human animals” and their children as “little snakes”?

“All of Gaza and every child in Gaza, should starve to death,” the Israeli rabbi Ronen Shaulov announced. “I don’t have mercy for those who, in a few years, will grow up and won’t have mercy for us. Only a stupid fifth column, a hater of Israel has mercy for future terrorists, even though today they are still young and hungry. I hope, may they starve to death, and if anyone has a problem with what I’ve said, that’s their problem.”

Israeli violations of peace agreements have historical precedents.

The Camp David Accords, signed in 1978 by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin — without the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — led to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt.

Subsequent phases of the Camp David Accords, which included a promise by Israel to resolve the Palestinian question along with Jordan and Egypt, permit Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza within five years, and end the building of Israeli colonies in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were never implemented.

The 1993 Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, saw the PLO recognize Israel’s right to exist and Israel recognize the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. Yet, what ensued was the disempowerment of the PLO and its transformation into a colonial police force. Oslo II, signed in 1995, detailed the process towards peace and a Palestinian state. But it too was stillborn. It stipulated that any discussion of illegal Jewish “settlements” were to be delayed until “final” status talks. By then, Israeli military withdrawals from the occupied West Bank were scheduled to have been completed. Governing authority was poised to be transferred from Israel to the supposedly temporary Palestinian Authority. Instead, the West Bank was carved up into Areas A, B and C. The Palestinian Authority had limited authority in Areas A and B while Israel controlled all of Area C, over 60 percent of the West Bank.

The right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands that Jewish settlers seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created — a right enshrined in international law — was given up by the PLO leader Yasser Arafat. This instantly alienated many Palestinians, especially those in Gaza where 75 percent are refugees or the descendants of refugees. As a consequence, many Palestinians abandoned the PLO in favor of Hamas. Edward Said called the Oslo Accords “an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles” and lambasted Arafat as “the Pétain of the Palestinians.”

The scheduled Israeli military withdrawals under Oslo never took place. There were around 250,000 Jewish colonists in the West Bank when the Oslo agreement was signed. Their numbers today have increased to at least 700,000.

The journalist Robert Fisk called Oslo “a sham, a lie, a trick to entangle Arafat and the PLO into abandonment of all that they had sought and struggled for over a quarter of a century, a method of creating false hope in order to emasculate the aspiration of statehood.”

Israel unilaterally broke the last two-month-long ceasefire on March 18 of this year when it launched surprise airstrikes on Gaza. Netanyahu’s office claimed that the resumption of the military campaign was in response to Hamas’s refusal to release hostages, its rejection of proposals to extend the cease-fire and its efforts to rearm. Israel killed more than 400 people in the initial overnight assault and injured over 500, slaughtering and wounding people as they slept. The attack scuttled the second stage of the agreement, which would have seen Hamas release the remaining living male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners and the establishment of a permanent ceasefire along with the eventual lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Israel has carried out murderous assaults on Gaza for decades, cynically calling the bombardment “mowing the lawn.” No peace accord or ceasefire agreement has ever gotten in the way. This one will be no exception.

This bloody saga is not over. Israel’s goals remain unchanged: the dispossession and erasure of Palestinians from their land.

The only peace Israel intends to offer the Palestinians is the peace of the grave.

October 13, 2025 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nobel Peace Prize winner supports Israel’s genocide & Trump’s war on Venezuela

s 12 Oct 2025The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to María Corina Machado, a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter who has long been funded by the US government. She strongly supports Israel as it commits genocide against the Palestinian people, and she is at the center of Donald Trump’s war on Venezuela, pushing for regime change against President Nicolás Maduro. Ben Norton exposes the ugly truth.

October 13, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

‘WHAT WILL JESUS SAY?’ TONY BLAIR, BIG TECH AND THE ISRAEL CONNECTION

On the day after Trump announced a new “peace” plan for Gaza in which Blair will play a key role, the Nerve can reveal exclusive new information about his relationship with key funders and allies of Israel, funders who are directly entwined with the IDF and the Israeli military machine. 

As Trump announces the former British PM as his choice to help govern Gaza, Carole Cadwalladr investigates the opaque workings of Blair’s institute, its funding from friends of Israel – including billionaire Larry Ellison – and an emerging rightwing media takeover of the global information space.

Sep 30, 2025, https://www.thenerve.news/p/tony-blair-institute-big-tech-messiahs-larry-david-ellison-murdoch-israel

At first glance, the event splashed across 18 pages of Hello! magazine could have been an influencer’s wedding. In one of the pictures, a small group, elegantly dressed all in white, gathered on the banks of the River Jordan, a splash of greenery in a stark, desert landscape. 

There was a brace of movie stars, a Queen (of Jordan), the daughter of the now US president, Ivanka Trump, with her husband Jared Kushner, and the couple who had organised the occasion – the media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his then wife, Wendi Deng.

It was the kind of intimate billionaire gathering that, in 2010, was catnip for Hello! The photographer for the celebrity magazine captured the ceremony in which Deng and Murdoch’s two daughters were christened on the exact same spot where St John the Baptist had baptised Jesus Christ.

One guest, however, a godfather to the older child, hovered off to the side. A guest who was absent from every single one of the picture spreads: former prime minister Tony Blair. 

It was more than a year later, in an interview with Vogue, that Deng revealed Blair had been there. And although the photos have never been made public, a source confirms Blair’s presence throughout.

Deng remarked on how handsome Blair looked, the source said. “He looked like Jesus Christ. It was just these extraordinary images of Tony Blair in white robes in the River Jordan. I literally couldn’t believe it.”

It’s also the nickname that Blair has acquired among young political advisers who work for UK government ministers, a shorthand for the power and influence of Blair and his lavishly resourced thinktank, the Tony Blair Institute.

“You hear people all the time asking, ‘What will Jesus Christ say?’” said a former ministerial special adviser. “Jesus is a huge consideration in any policy announcement.” 

And there is a messianic quality to Blair. But in Britain, we tend to see him as a Life of Brian version of the messiah: a Pythonesque caricature, a target to be mocked, a very naughty boy.  

On the day after Trump announced a new “peace” plan for Gaza in which Blair will play a key role, the Nerve can reveal exclusive new information about his relationship with key funders and allies of Israel, funders who are directly entwined with the IDF and the Israeli military machine. 

The friends and funders include – but are not limited to – Larry Ellison, the founder of the tech company Oracle, and a figure who until now has been largely ignored in America and almost completely in Britain. 

That needs to change. Because Ellison, 81, the second richest man in the world, is closely involved with the biggest financial, technological and political players in the world. 

He’s a mentor to the only man who is richer than him, Elon Musk, and an investor in his companies. He’s a key partner of Sam Altman and OpenAI. He is now one of Trump’s closest allies and a personal friend and supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu. 

According to Antony Loewenstein – author of The Palestine Laboratory and an expert on Israel’s relationship with Silicon Valley tech companies and how they are using Gaza to test and train new technology products – Ellison’s company, Oracle, is “an integral part of the Israeli military”. It built Israel’s first cloud services and its partner Rafael Systems is one of Israel’s biggest military companies. It makes the deadly spike missiles that are believed to have killed seven aid workers, including three Britons, in April 2024. It also built Israel’s formidable Iron Dome. 

And Tony Blair is Larry Ellison’s representative on earth. He has given the former British prime minister’s institute – an institute that is advising governments, including Britain’s, around the world – almost half a billion dollars

This is a partnership that has been years in the making. And to understand Tony Blair and his power now in Israel and Gaza – and behind the scenes of the UK government – you have to understand Larry Ellison. 

In the US, where Ellison has mostly flown under the radar until now, people are waking up to his rapidly increasing power and influence. His son, David, is acquiring a vast new media empire in the US at rapid speed: Paramount and CBS News already, Warner Bros – which owns CNN and HBO – maybe next, with reports that Ellison will parachute a controversial pro-Israel journalist, Bari Weiss of the Free Press, into the top job at CBS.

Most consequentially of all, last week Trump signed an executive order that paves the way for Ellison and his newest business partner Rupert Murdoch – and a group of other investors – to own and control what is arguably the most influential social media platform in America: TikTok.

The global scale of what Blair and Ellison are doing has yet to be understood, in either Britain or America. It’s happening too fast. But at the centre are two of Ellison’s key friends and allies: Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu. While most of Silicon Valley was still leaning vaguely left, Ellison was one of the first tech moguls to throw his support and financial backing behind Trump. And he goes back much further with Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has holidayed with him on his Hawaiian island (while Tony Blair vacationed on Ellison’s yacht). According to the Times of Israel, when Netanyahu was fighting corruption charges, Ellison intervened to find him a better lawyer.

And Britain is in the centre of it too. What you can see via the Blair-Ellison relationship, and why it warrants such close scrutiny, is a political and technological transatlantic alliance, an alliance that was formalised in the US-UK tech deal that was announced during Trump’s state visit to the UK earlier this month, including investment from Oracle.

That day on the banks of the River Jordan was not just a celebrity-billionaire mash-up. It was a chink of light into a skein of relationships that now need to be re-evaluated in the light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Not least because all three principals present that day – Murdoch, Blair and Kushner – are playing critical roles in the future fate of Gaza and Palestine. 

It was the mise en scène for events that are now playing out in plain sight. 

IT’S been a momentous month for Blair. Two of his pet projects that have been years – decades! – in the making, took a great leap forward: Keir Starmer announced a plan to introduce a digital identity card for all UK citizens, a foundational Blair policy that he first tried to introduce in the 90s and that his institute has pursued a long-term plan in pushing.

And, even more consequentially, on the same day sources told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Blair was a key part of Trump’s plan for Gaza.

This is the true root of Blair-as-Messiahdom. The goal of bringing peace to the Middle East is something that Blair has seen himself as uniquely positioned to enable. For years, he was the Quartet’s Middle East envoy, an alliance of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia. It has been an abiding obsession during his post-prime-ministerial career. 

And finally, it appeared he would be central to whatever happens next. Haaretz reported that Trump had endorsed a plan in which Blair would become the “governor of Gaza”. 

At the end of September Trump confirmed that plan. Blair would join an administration overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza in which the Palestinian Authority would have no involvement. Talking to the BBC, Dr Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian physician and politician, described Blair’s appointment as “absolutely unacceptable”. 

It’s not just a question of Blair’s history in Iraq. Xavier Abu Eid, a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s diplomatic negotiating team, told the Guardian that “there is already suspicion of Tony Blair because of the Palestinian experience when he was the Quartet representative.”

But those suspicions are just the tip of the iceberg. The Nerve has established evidence that suggests Blair’s institute could be compromised in its relationships with key allies of Israel

Blair’s central involvement in Trump’s plan was masterminded by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and one of the figures in white in the Hello! photographs – but it comes as there has been too little scrutiny of Blair’s global influencing operation, his London-headquartered institute, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI).  

TBI is a vast organisation employing 900-plus employees operating in multiple countries. It’s not even clear what it is. A thinktank? A global consultancy? A lobbyshop? 

Most crucially, given his new appointment, there has been no meaningful attempt to examine the financial and other links between the man who is set to be the “governor of Gaza” and Israel. But those links are extensive.

We can report that in the published accounts of TBI’s finances is a reference to an organisation called the Kirsh Foundation. IN 2022, the foundation was listed as a “donor and funding partner” on TBI’s accounts. The person who established the foundation is South African businessman Natie Kirsh, who made his money via Magal Solutions, a company which has built major Israeli infrastructure, including the West Bank wall and much of the fence around Gaza.

In 2017, when Magal Solutions was touting to build Trump’s border wall, Netanyahu tweeted his encouragement at Trump: “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”

In the same year’s TBI accounts, Len Blavatnik’s foundation is also listed. Blavatnik, a businessman who is a hugely influential figure in the entertainment industry with a controlling stake in Warner Music, is also a prominent investor in both Israeli defence tech and media. He also bought Israel’s Channel 13 and brought in new leadership following a request from Netanyahu, who had complained to him it was too left-leaning. 

These are both significant revelations. The level of funding they have given Blair is not known, and the TBI did not respond to our questions. 

But they pale in the face of the influence of Ellison who has given or pledged between $476m and $538m to TBI. Blair is also centrally involved in his £1bn Ellison Institute for Technology in Oxford.

Staff members at TBI claim that these donations to the institution are “ringfenced” and do not influence policy. That’s a claim that seems preposterous given how crucial the money is to the institute’s finances – a vast chunk of its annual turnover of $145m – and how TBI’s reports include mentions of Oracle as a strategic partner. 

And what cannot be denied is that Ellison and Oracle are deeply entwined with the Israeli government, its occupation of Palestinian territories and now genocide in Gaza. Both Ellison and his longtime CEO, Safra Catz, have been abundantly clear that Oracle backs Netanyahu’s government and its actions in Gaza.  “Anyone who [has] a problem with that,” Catz said recently, has “a problem with us.” 

Ellison is the biggest ever donor to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and Catz – an Israeli citizen who stepped down as CEO last week but is now vice-chair of the board – has said: “For employees, it’s clear: if you’re not for America or Israel, don’t work here.” Last year, she was photographed with Netanyahu’s war cabinet, including the man in charge of IDF operations, Yoav Gallant.

There was an extraordinary incident near the start of Israel’s onslaught in Gaza in which Oracle’s senior leadership praised its employees who volunteered their time to work with Israeli ministries to create “words of iron”. This was a software program that created an army of fake accounts to spread Israeli views across Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, specifically targeting public figures. 

But above all, Oracle’s technology is playing a critical role in the Israeli military’s tech stack. Loewenstein calls Oracle’s backing of Israel “both financial and ideological”.

Oracle did not respond to any questions or requests for comment. 

But it’s Ellison’s involvement in the deal to buy TikTok in the US that may be the biggest gamechanger of all. It’s the cherry on top of what has been an extraordinary media buy-up. His son, David, is leading a rapid charge to acquire US media properties. Earlier this summer, he bought Paramount for $8bn. A deal to buy the Free Press is imminent.

And he’s now in talks to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which as well as bringing him huge franchises like Harry Potter would also give him CNN’s newsroom and HBO Studios.

But the biggest coup of all is Chinese-owned TikTok. Ellison has been pursuing this since at least 2020, and just as Kushner was Blair’s kingmaker for the role in Gaza, he’s also the one who’s smoothed Ellison’s path to this particular deal. 


It’s a move that China hawks in the US have long been pushing for, worried about the Chinese government’s influence and access to data. But it was the unfiltered, unmediated footage of heartbreaking carnage from inside Gaza that has become the overwhelming motivation behind the deal in the last two years. TikTok has fuelled a generational shift in sentiment in the US, with younger news consumers overwhelmingly more sympathetic to Palestine than older ones. (Only 9% of those aged 18 to 34 approve of Israel’s military actions in Gaza compared to 49% aged 55-plus.)

And it’s another figure from those Hello! baptism photos who is helping Ellison close the deal, a fellow staunch defender of Israel and another close friend of Netanyahu: Rupert Murdoch. This week, with both Ellison and Murdoch present, Trump signed an executive order authorising the transfer of TikTok to US owners, announcing that he and China’s president, Xi Jinping, had come to an agreement. 

It was an arresting – and shocking – moment: America’s latest media monopolist, Ellison, partnering with its most famous, Murdoch. Between them and their sons, they will own a rightwing monopoly across the US media and now the licence to one of the most influential social media platforms in America, TikTok. It’s a huge upheaval with far-reaching consequences, a new hybrid media power merging mainstream and social media.

One man is in no doubt over the downstream consequences: Netanyahu. This weekend, he spoke to a room full of social media influencers. It was, he said, a hugely “consequential” deal for Israel, with TikTok a key “weapon” in its war.

“Weapons change all the time. You can’t fight today with swords, that doesn’t work very well, OK? … We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we engage, and the most important ones are on social media.

“And the most important purchase that is going on right now is?” he asks the room. “Class? TikTok. Number one, number one. And I hope it goes through, because it can be consequential.” 

And then he tells them that the second most important platform is X. “So we have to talk to Elon [Musk]. He’s not an enemy. He’s a friend.” 

This article only scratches the surface of Tony Blair’s activities and those of his financial master, Larry Ellison. As the name on the steel and glass building in central London states, an institute for global change. And conveying the scope of it, the geopolitical stakes, the big-picture view, while trying to drill down into the details is almost impossible. 

The jokes about Tony Blair being Jesus Christ are funny. But they also reveal a deeper truth.

Ellison has successfully flown under the radar. But it’s his stealth that makes him dangerous, according to Gil Duran, a former political strategist and acerbic tech critic: “He is not trying to tweet his way to the front of human consciousness like Elon or others. But that is what makes him smarter and more dangerous.”

That and his ruthless determination and overweening belief in his own importance. Ellison’s biographer actually used a joke about that as the title for his book, The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison. (The answer, he explains, is that God doesn’t think he’s Larry Ellison.) 

If that is the case, is Blair, in whom he’s invested vast sums of money and time, Ellison’s Jesus Christ? 

Are they father, son, and – making up the trinity – the holy ghost in the machine, AI?

AI and cloud services currently being used inside Israel’s ministries and shortly here in Britain too. The UK government has signed a deal for Oracle to hold the private information of British citizens in a massive centralised database, a “sovereign AI cloud”: a cornerstone of Tony Blair’s other great obsession, digital IDs.

Culture, politics, technology. Larry Ellison is at the global centre of all three. But then in 2025 culture, politics and technology are one and the same, an accelerating convergence of which we are still only at the very beginning.

  • Additional research: Charlie Young

October 13, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

‘It’s going to be really bad’: Fears over AI bubble bursting grow in Silicon Valley

“We’re creating a new man-made ecological disaster: enormous data centres in remote places like deserts, that will be rusting away and leaching bad things into the environment, with no one left to hold accountable because the builders and investors will be long gone,”

He’s especially concerned now given the magnitude of money on the table as compared to the dot-com boom. There’s so much more to lose.

“When [the bubble] breaks, it’s going to be really bad,

BBC, Lily Jamali, Technology correspondent, San Francisco 11 Oct 25

At OpenAI’s DevDaythis week, OpenAI boss Sam Altman did what American tech bosses rarely do these days: he actually answered questions from reporters.

“I know it’s tempting to write the bubble story,” Mr Altman told me as he sat flanked by his top lieutenants. “In fact, there are many parts of AI that I think are kind of bubbly right now.”

In Silicon Valley, the debate over whether AI companies are overvalued has taken on a new urgency.

Sceptics are privately – and some now publicly – asking whether the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be, at least in part, the result of what they call “financial engineering”.

In other words – there are fears these companies are overvalued.

Mr Altman said he expected investors would make some bad calls and silly start-ups would walk away with crazy money.

But with OpenAI, he told me, “there’s something real happening here”.

Not everyone is convinced.

In recent days, warnings of an AI bubble have come from the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, as well as JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon who told the BBC “the level of uncertainty should be higher in most people’s minds”.

And here, in what is often considered the tech capital of the world, concerns are growing.

At a panel discussion at Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum this week, early AI entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan told a packed audience he has lived through four bubbles.

He’s especially concerned now given the magnitude of money on the table as compared to the dot-com boom. There’s so much more to lose.

“When [the bubble] breaks, it’s going to be really bad, and not just for people in AI,” he said.

“It’s going to drag down the rest of the economy.”………………….

AI-related enterprises have accounted for 80% of the stunning gains in the American stock market this year – and Gartner estimates global spending on AI will likely reach a whopping $1.5tn (£1.1tn) before 2025 is out.

Tangled web of deals

OpenAI, which brought AI into the consumer mainstream with ChatGPT in 2022, is at the centre of the tangled web of deals drawing scrutiny…………………………………………………

Then there’s tech giant Microsoft, which is heavily invested, and cloud computing behemoth Oracle has a $300bn deal with OpenAI, too.

OpenAI’s Stargate project in Abilene, Texas, funded with the help of Oracle and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and announced at the White House during President Donald Trump’s first week in office, grows ever larger every few months………………………………………

And as these increasingly complex financing arrangements get more and more common, the experts here in Silicon Valley say they may be clouding perceptions on AI demand.

Some people aren’t mincing their words about it either, calling the deals “circular financing” or even “vendor financing” – where a company invests in or lends to its own customers so they can continue making purchases.

“Yes, the investment loans are unprecedented,” Mr Altman told me on Monday……………………………………………….

OpenAI’s revenue is growing quickly, but it has never turned a profit.

And it is hardly a good sign that the people I’ve spoken to keep bringing up Nortel – the Canadian telecom equipment-maker that borrowed prolifically to help finance deals for their customers (and thereby artificially boost demand for their wares)………………………..

Telltale signs

Mr Kaplan says he seesa couple of telltale signs the AI sector – and therefore the wider economy – could be in trouble.

In frothy times, he says, companies announce major initiatives and product plans that they don’t yet have the capital for.

Meanwhile, retail investors clamour to get in on the start-up action.

The surge in AMD stock this week could indicate investors are trying to get a piece of the ChatGPT wealth machine – and while all this is playing out, real physical infrastructure aimed at satisfying the seemingly insatiable hunger for more AI development is being built.

“We’re creating a new man-made ecological disaster: enormous data centres in remote places like deserts, that will be rusting away and leaching bad things into the environment, with no one left to hold accountable because the builders and investors will be long gone,” Mr Kaplan said. ……………………………………….

There are plenty of believers in AI’s potential to transform society.

The question is whether the money to fund the ambitions of the foremost companies in the sector may be drying up………………………………https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz69qy760weo

October 13, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

From AI to TikTok to TV, This Pro-Israel Billionaire Is Expanding Power in US

One of Trump’s advisers once called megabillionaire Larry Ellison a “shadow president of the United States.” 

By Derek Seidman , Truthout, October 11, 2025

arry Ellison’s name isn’t always mentioned alongside more public-facing megabillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg. But as he vaults to the top of the U.S. power elite after a string of high-profile corporate deals, that’s about to change.

Ellison, the founder of the tech giant Oracle, is quickly emerging as the new face of oligarchic power in the U.S. Oracle has become an AI powerhouse at the same time Ellison and his son David have acquired Paramount and its vast media empire. With Donald Trump’s recent executive order, Ellison and Oracle will also now oversee TikTok’s algorithms, shaping a platform that reaches 150 million U.S. users.

What’s more alarming than Ellison’s sheer wealth — in September, he briefly surpassed Musk as the world’s richest person — is that he’s building his concentrated power and control in collaboration with the Trumpian project of attacking so-called “wokeness,” all while supercharging the corporate expansion of artificial intelligence and tech surveillance.

Moreover, Ellison is a vocal supporter of the Israeli military and a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As Israel looks to repair its image after two years of overseeing a genocide in Gaza, it’ll have a powerful booster in Ellison and his new media kingdom.

The Making of a Megabillionaire

Larry Ellison founded Oracle in 1977 and was its CEO for nearly four decades. The firm ascended by providing database software for business and government agencies. Oracle’s first customer was the CIA, and the company is named after a CIA project.

Over time, Oracle has swelled into a business empire focused on cloud services and, increasingly, artificial intelligence.

Today, Ellison is worth more than $350 billion. He owns more than 40 percent of Oracle’s stock and still serves as the corporation’s executive chairman and chief technology officer. Ellison was also on Tesla’s board of directors from 2018 to 2022 and holds a 1.4 percent stake in the company that’s worth billions…………………………………..

Trump-Tied AI Deals

But far more than wealth and luxury, Ellison has power. Notably, he’s forged a close relationship with Donald Trump, with one Trump adviser calling him a “shadow president of the United States.”

While Ellison hasn’t directly donated to Trump, he personally hosted a major 2020 Trump fundraiser. Ellison also joined a November 2020 call “where Trump staffers and supporters discussed strategies for challenging their candidate’s loss at the ballot box,” according to The Washington Post………………………………..

A huge swath of Oracle’s AI business comes from a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Oracle’s partnership with OpenAI was supercharged by Trump’s announcement in January of the Stargate AI joint venture, which The New York Times called an “early trophy” for Trump.

Indeed, Stargate is just one expression of the mutually beneficial alliance that Ellison has forged with Trump. Oracle’s expanding partnership with OpenAI reflects a new primacy for Ellison within the AI boom that is increasingly driving the entire U.S. economy.

Media Mogul

This should raise alarm bells, especially since Ellison has openly celebrated AI’s ability to surveil people, pronouncing in 2024 that “citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”

Ellison’s alliance with Trump is also transforming him into an unrivaled media mogul…………………………………………………………………………………..

The Ellisons’ quest for media dominance doesn’t end with Paramount. They’re reportedly eying Warner Brothers, the iconic movie studio and owner of CNN and HBO. Such an acquisition, which would need the Trump administration’s approval, would create a media empire transcending even Rupert Murdoch’s conglomerate.

And then came the TikTok deal…………………………………………………………………………………..

For Ellison, all his new acquisitions present the opportunity to forge a truly novel corporate mega-empire that will dominate the U.S. media and attention economy, injecting his agenda like a thread across an AI-powered chain of news outlets, streaming sites, film studios, and social media outlets.

“We Love the Country of Israel”

“These are very smart people, and none of this is accidental,” noted one business professor.

All of this is very good for Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s vast influence operation.

Ellison is a staunch backer of Israel. He is one of the top donors to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), a U.S. nonprofit that effectively subsidizes the Israeli military. Ellison has given the FIDF at least $26.6 million.

“I feel a deep emotional connection to the State of Israel and the Israeli people,” Ellison said at the 2014 FIDF gala. “We love the country of Israel and we’ll do everything we can to support the country of Israel,” he added, with his “we” seeming to refer to Oracle.

Ellison is also extremely close to Netanyahu, who has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court over Israel’s genocide in Gaza………………………………………………………..

Ellison is also a backer of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and has given or pledged at least $348 million to Blair’s Institute for Global Change. Blair could be part of Trump’s “Board of Peace” in Gaza if the current ceasefire deal holds.

…………………………………………………… Netanyahu recently called TikTok “the most important purchase going on right now,” adding that “weapons change over time,” and the most important ones today “are on social media.”

Now Oracle, led by Netanyahu’s friend and staunch ally Larry Ellison, is overseeing TikTok’s U.S. algorithms.

There are already clear signs of Ellison’s intent to take his new media empire in a pro-Israel direction, including his hiring of Weiss as CBS News’s editor-in-chief. The billionaire-courting Weiss is a staunch Zionist whose Free Press has stoked “genocide denial” with an “investigation” into “preexisting health conditions” of starving Palestinian children, notes The Intercept.

Modern-Day Robber Baron

Like the robber barons of the late 19th-century U.S., Ellison is consolidating his control over a vast corporate empire that dominates major sectors, from cloud storage and AI data centers, to iconic movie studios, mass news channels, and social media.

And clearly, Ellison is bringing his politics with him: Trump-aligned, anti-“woke,” and staunchly pro-Israel.

“Everything is consolidating,” media historian Michael Socolow told The New York Times. “What makes these deals different is that they are across multiple platforms.”

“To have the opportunity to establish an editorial line across TikTok, CBS News and CNN — that’s a new world,” Socolow added. https://truthout.org/articles/from-ai-to-tiktok-to-tv-this-pro-israel-billionaire-is-expanding-power-in-us/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=314e14bc07-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_10_11_06_41&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-314e14bc07-650192793

October 13, 2025 Posted by | media, USA | Leave a comment

After robbing EU taxpayers, Zelensky uses blackmail to get inside the Bloc

He is demanding that Ukraine be made a member of the EU, and he wants to change the rules of the bloc to speed up the process.

The racket has laundered hundreds of billions of public money to the Western military industrial complex. The racket has destroyed the economies of Europe

Zelensky’s corrupt dictatorship is just a pale reflection of his patrons in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and London.

Since the United States-led NATO proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022, the European Union has doled out $216 billion in aid to Ukraine. That’s equivalent to €186 billion, according to the EU’s latest official count. The true figure is likely to be even more.

The United States has given a similar amount to Ukraine. All paid for by taxpayers.

That’s about $400 billion total in three years, with the EU promising more over the next few years.

To put this in perspective, the EU aid to Ukraine is multiples more than all of the 27 member nations have received – combined – from the bloc’s collective budget and administration. According to Euronews reporting, some of the biggest recipients of EU subsidies each year are Germany (€14 bn), France (€16.5 bn), and Poland (€14 bn). Some of the smaller recipient countries are Austria, Denmark, and Ireland (around €2 bn).

That means Ukraine has received heaps more than all of the EU members combined.

Get your head around that. Ukraine, which is not a member of the European Union, is receiving manifold what actual member states are receiving. And you wonder why people in France are angrily taking to the streets because their shambolic government wants to cut pensions and other social welfare services to save money. Elsewhere, European governments are collapsing from unsustainable debt. And, at the same time, European citizens are constantly being lectured that their states need to spend more and more money on the NATO alliance, even to the insulting point of having to accept the cutting of social benefits and public services

Ukraine and its corrupt Kiev regime of NeoNazis has bled Europe dry. The so-called president, Vladimir Zelensky (who canceled elections last year, so he’s not really a legitimate president), is reported to be funneling €50 million a month to overseas funds for his retirement while his wife goes luxury shopping in New York and Paris. Other members of the regime, like former prime minister and now “defense” minister Denys Shmyhal, are also reportedly up to their eyes in corruption, siphoning off billions in the military aid that Western taxpayers have paid for.

This week, Zelensky took his brassneckery to new levels – if that’s possible. He is demanding that Ukraine be made a member of the EU, and he wants to change the rules of the bloc to speed up the process. The EU has granted Ukraine (and Moldova) a fast-track path to membership, but, to its credit, Hungary has objected to this.

In June, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán cast a veto on continuing access talks for Ukraine. According to EU rules, there must be unanimity among member nations for the approval of new members. Orbán said Ukraine is not eligible because of the current war against Russia. “We would be importing a war,” he said.

Also, Budapest objects to Ukrainian language laws that discriminate against a Hungarian minority in the western Zakarpattia region of Ukraine. (The Russian language has been banned, too, in public offices.)

A referendum held in Hungary in June recorded that 95 percent of voters were against Ukraine becoming a member of the EU.

Zelensky is pushing ahead regardless, with his peevish wheedling. In a joint press conference in Kiev on Monday, with the indulgence of the Dutch PM at his side, Zelensky said: “Ukraine will be in the European Union, with or without Orbán, because it is the choice of the Ukrainian people.”

The little dictator flaunted his insufferable presumptuousness by hinting that the European Union would change its rules to bypass Hungary’s veto – all just to accommodate his scrounging regime. “Changing the procedure is called finding a way without Hungary,” he said. And in a further arrogant dismissal of democratic process, Zelensky asserted that the Hungarian people support his EU ambitions, contradicting the referendum back in June.

Orbán responded firmly by telling Zelensky he could not blackmail his way into the European Union.

Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó added a dose of reality by stating: “The decision on which country is ready to join the European Union and which can join the EU will not be made by the president of Ukraine, but by the European Union itself, where such decisions require unanimity.”

In a further comment, Szijjártó nailed it by saying that Zelensky is “completely detached from reality.” The Hungarian diplomat also reminded that the Kiev regime is blowing up energy infrastructure and jeopardizing the EU members’ vital interests.

Last month, Ukrainian forces exploded the Druzhba oil pipeline from Russia, cutting off energy supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. The Zelensky regime carried out the sabotage as retribution for Budapest’s opposition to Ukraine’s EU application. This is what Orbán was no doubt referring to when he slammed Zelensky this week for using blackmail.

So, there you have it. A corrupt, unelected, Neo-Nazi regime headed up by a Jewish scam-artist who plays piano with his penis while wearing women’s high heels is using terrorist tactics to attack the vital interests of EU members, and is now telling those members that they won’t have a vote in the EU processes, because the regime has decided it will become a member of the bloc. You could not make it up. This, too, after robbing the taxpayers of the bloc of €186 billion to wage a war against Russia – a war that has killed 1.5 million Ukrainian soldiers – which could spiral out of control into a nuclear Third World War.

If this is the kind of ruination that this regime can inflict while not being a member of the EU, one can only imagine the hellscape it will bring after becoming a member……..

 the real culprits in this obscene farce are the American and European elites who have fomented the war against Russia. Together, they have weaned and pampered the Kiev regime with largesse and indulgence, paid for by the taxpayers. The U.S.-EU transatlantic ruling class has cultivated the regime of corruption and war since the 2014 CIA-backed coup in Kiev against an elected president. The racket has laundered hundreds of billions of public money to the Western military industrial complex. The racket has destroyed the economies of Europe and is now destroying the semblance of democracy within Europe. (It’s not clear what Trump’s position in all of this is, but he probably doesn’t count anyway.)

The Western imperialist ruling class is so obsessed with its scheme for  “strategic defeat” of Russia (and China) and for global domination that it is willing to cultivate any scumbag regime it can make use of for its goals, no matter how much that violates international law and its own professed democratic principles.

Zelensky’s corrupt dictatorship is just a pale reflection of his patrons in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and London. They are all detached from reality. https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/10/10/after-robbing-eu-taxpayers-zelensky-uses-blackmail-to-get-inside-the-bloc/

October 13, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Boldness is needed to take on toxicity of nuclear power.

 SCOTLAND’S nuclear facilities, civilian and military, are leaking. Is
this an occasional hazard to bear, as we resolutely defend and power
ourselves? Or another indicator of how much independence has to clean up the modernity of Scotland?

This week’s reports of radioactive water
rushing into the Caithness shore at Dounreay – containing Caesium-137, as
well as alpha- and non-alpha-emitting radionuclides – admittedly came
from a clean-up situation, the decommissioning of the plant itself. But the
context makes you shudder. These “accidental” releases – spewing from
some “underground facility” – were deemed a “very small fraction of
our normal discharges via authorised discharge routes”, says Nuclear
Restoration Services (NRS), the firm responsible. (By the way, according to
the Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory – a chilling vista of our
nation’s industrial filth – the “authorised” routes contain
Strontium-90 and tritium, some of the most dangerous by-products of nuclear generation).

Consider also last year’s leaks. They identified “corroded
steelwork in a building being used to store drums of radioactive sodium,
and leaks from low-level radioactive waste pits”, as reported in this
paper. It’s all a demonstration of the sheer toxicity of nuclear power
– as evident in its disassembly, as in its installation. And I can’t
not mention the 585 cracks in the graphic reactor core of the ageing
Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian, reported by The Ferret earlier this
year. This is a tiny bit less than the amount – counted across two
reactors – that compelled the shutdown of Hunterston B in 2022. Much
technocratic reassurance from the French owner-operators EDF about safety, until some projected cessation in the early 2030s.

But I’m not exactly
consoled. Are you? And if we need investigative reporting to unearth leaks
in the notoriously defensive nuclear energy sector, imagine the digging
required to get the same from our nuclear warfare facilities.

The Ferret again triumphed in August after a six-year battle, releasing proof of a 2019 irradiated spill from burst pipes at Royal Navy’s Coulport nuclear bombstore, pouring deep into Loch Long.

 The National 11th Oct 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25535392.boldness-needed-take-toxicity-nuclear-power/

October 13, 2025 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Chicago Tribune avoids giving Donald Trump “great credit” for enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza for 9 months

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 11 Oct 25

 The Chicago Tribune is correct to praise Donald Trump for brokering a ceasefire in Gaza (Editorial: A remarkable day for peace in the Middle East. Donald Trump deserves great credit.)

 However, good editorial journalism requires fair and thorough analysis and assessment. Alas, the Trib’s editorial is virtually devoid of that.

 Calling it “two years of fighting and killing” is a callous way of describing two years of genocide inflicted by Israel that has largely obliterated Gaza, killing likely over 100,000 Palestinians and putting the remaining 2,200,000 into starvation and degraded health. That will increase the Palestinian death toll for weeks, months, years to come. That is not “fighting and killing”. It’s genocide, largely recognized by the entire world outside of the Israel and US political leadership. By the way….the US electorate views it as genocide.  

An equally egregious Trib omission concerns the Editorial Board’s lavish praise of Trump’s conduct. The Trib likens Trump to the Long Ranger, riding out of the sunset to bring peace to the Palestinians.

If the Trib wants to praise Trump’s role in the ceasefire…fine. But why not include that for nearly 9 months Trump has been funding the genocide with billions in weapons, protecting it with vetoes of UN resolutions condemning the genocide, seeking African countries to take in the Palestinians from Gaza not killed by Trump’s bombs, and excited by the prospect of a Trump real estate project to rebuild Gaza for Greater Israel.

These are not inconvenient facts. They will forever be etched into the history of the worst humanitarian catastrophe the US has ever participated in during its 250 years.

The Chicago Tribune should have balanced its editorial solely praising peacemaker Trump, with condemnation of genocide Trump for enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza for nine long months following his predecessor Biden enabling it during his last 15 months.

October 13, 2025 Posted by | media, USA | Leave a comment

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