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Time to stop propping up mentally and physically disintegrating president.

Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn IL 1 Oct 25

Last year a President Biden tepidly approached the podium at his presidential debate and verbally self-destructed before a feisty Donald Trump. At that moment everyone in America knew Biden was unfit to remain in the election. Everyone that is except Biden’s wife Jill, son Hunter and likely the entire Biden family. They remained in denial till the horrified Democratic elite forced Biden to drop out.

Why the Biden family persevered to hasten Joe’s inevitable self-destruction trying to stay in power will forever remain a mystery.

But here we are just a year later and we’re facing the same horrifying situation as a physically and mentally disintegrating President Trump is self-destructing in public with no family intervention is sight.

Within a few days his disintegration was on display at two high profile events followed worldwide: the UN General Assembly meeting in New York and the bizarre, valueless US generals summit in Quantico, VR. The clips going viral are a sad testament to the unfitness of Trump to continue even one more day as President and Commander In Chief.

Since they are near totally silent in public, we have no idea what goes on in the minds of Melania, Don Jr., Eric, Tiffany, Baron and the extended Trump family. What is truly inexplicable is how any family members can allow a clearly failing 79 year old patriarch remain in an office now far beyond his mental and physical powers to manage.

This is not a partisan viewpoint. Every American, whether right, left or center should demand Trump resign to allow a physically and mentally capable successor handle the vast, critical issues of war and peace, economic prosperity, climate change, domestic uplift, among others.

It may be too early for Vice President Vance and a majority of the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from the presidency. But it’s long overdue for the Trump family to stage an intervention to force Trump’s resignation. Maybe Jill and Hunter Biden, hopefully chastened by their cruel enabling of debilitated Joe’s refusal to step down, can lend first-hand experience to the Trumps of what truly constitutes familial love.

There is not a day to lose. As disastrous as delay will be for the Trump family, it pales to that facing America and the world.

October 2, 2025 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, USA | Leave a comment

Russian nuclear submarine surfaces near UK territory in ‘explosive hazard’

A Russian nuclear-powered submarine has been forced to surface in the Strait of Gibraltar after suffering a serious leak in its fuel system, with the vessel becoming an explosive hazard

William Morgan Reporter, Mirror, UK, 30 Sep 2025

International naval forces have been put on high alert following a ‘serious accident’ involving a Russian nuclear submarine, which was compelled to surface near UK waters over the weekend.

Further details have come to light about the incident in the Strait of Gibraltar, where the 74-metre missile-laden Novorossiysk became an “explosive hazard” after suffering a significant leak in its fuel system. Russian Telegram channels painted a grim picture of the situation on board as the stealth sub’s hull filled with diesel.

Despite the critical nature of the diesel-electric powered ship’s fuel delivery system, military bloggers alleged that no one on board had the training to rectify the problem and that there were no spare parts available. With the potentially nuclear-armed sub at risk of exploding in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, concerns were raised that the crew might start discharging diesel into the Mediterranean.

While the Russian Navy has yet to confirm the incident, open source ship-tracking software and eyewitnesses on the ground have observed a concerted effort from various military powers to keep tabs on the struggling submarine, which has moved west towards the Atlantic in the days since it was forced to surface………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russian-nuclear-submarine-surfaces-near-35986816

October 2, 2025 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

Trump’s 20-Point Gamble: A bold bid to end the Gaza War – or a recipe for stalemate?

30 September 2025 Roswell AIM Extra, https://theaimn.net/trumps-20-point-gamble-a-bold-bid-to-end-the-gaza-war-or-a-recipe-for-stalemate/

In the sweltering corridors of power at the White House, where deals are struck and destinies rewritten over Diet Cokes and classified briefings, President Trump has once again thrust himself into the heart of the Middle East maelstrom. On September 29, 2025, flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump unveiled a sweeping 20-point plan aimed at halting Israel’s relentless war on Gaza – a conflict that has claimed over 66,000 Palestinian lives and left the enclave in rubble since October 2023.

With characteristic bombast, Trump declared the proposal “tremendous,” a “game-changer” that could usher in “greatness in the Middle East,” while Netanyahu nodded in apparent agreement, vowing Israel’s full backing if Hamas balks.

Here is the full text of the peace proposal:

  • Gaza will be a deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours.
  • Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough.
  • If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.
  • Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.
  • Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after October 7th 2023, including all women and children detained in that context. For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.
  • Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.
  • Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip. At a minimum, aid quantities will be consistent with what was included in the January 19, 2025, agreement regarding humanitarian aid, including rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.
  • Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent, in addition to other international institutions not associated in any manner with either party. Opening the Rafah crossing in both directions will be subject to the same mechanism implemented under the January 19, 2025, agreement.
  • Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair. This body will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program, as outlined in various proposals, including President Trump’s peace plan in 2020 and the Saudi-French proposal, and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza. This body will call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment.

  • A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East. Many thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas have been crafted by well-meaning international groups, and will be considered to synthesize the security and governance frameworks to attract and facilitate these investments that will create jobs, opportunity, and hope for future Gaza.
  • A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.
  • No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.
  • Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors.
  • A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbors or its people.
  • The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) to immediately deploy in Gaza. The ISF will train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, and will consult with Jordan and Egypt who have extensive experience in this field. This force will be the long-term internal security solution. The ISF will work with Israel and Egypt to help secure border areas, along with newly trained Palestinian police forces. It is critical to prevent munitions from entering Gaza and to facilitate the rapid and secure flow of goods to rebuild and revitalize Gaza. A deconfliction mechanism will be agreed upon by the parties.
  • Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. As the ISF establishes control and stability, the [Israeli military] will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the [Israeli military], ISF, the guarantors, and the Unites States, with the objective of a secure Gaza that no longer poses a threat to Israel, Egypt, or its citizens. Practically, the [Israeli military] will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.
  • In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above, including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the [Israeli military] to the ISF.
  • An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.
  • While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.
  • The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.

Yet, as the ink dries on this audacious blueprint – floated last week to leaders from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and beyond at the UN General Assembly – the devil lurks in the details, and Hamas has yet to even receive a written copy. The plan nods to Palestinian aspirations for statehood, a pathway Netanyahu has long scorned, while offering amnesty to Hamas fighters who swear off violence and exile for the rest – echoing Trump’s first-term Abraham Accords but with a sharper edge of coercion.

Trump’s optimism is infectious: “Everyone else has accepted it,” he boasted, hinting at full U.S. support for Israel to “do what you have to do” if talks falter. But with Gaza City under fresh bombardment and over 700,000 displaced in recent escalations, the question hangs heavy: Is this a genuine olive branch, or another high-stakes poker game where the Palestinians hold the weakest hand? As the world watches, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

October 2, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Does the fight against climate change need nuclear power?

Pete Dickenson, Tower Hamlets Socialist Party, 01/10/2025


As the major capitalist powers’ refusal to seriously invest to tackle climate change becomes ever clearer, some are looking again to nuclear energy as an alternative because it does not emit carbon dioxide, the main driver of global warming.

Rising costs and public opposition after a series of disasters has meant that the total energy produced by nuclear has largely flatlined globally since the turn of the millennium. Now several states, including Britain, are turning again to nuclear fission – harnessing the energy released by splitting the atom, the basis of all presently operational reactors.

In desperation at the pressing need to phase out fossil fuel production, prominent environment writer George Monbiot, changed his position on nuclear power fifteen years ago, thinking that capitalist governments would be more willing to adopt nuclear than wind, solar or other renewables. He can now point to Britain’s pro-nuclear change in policy, and that of other governments, to support his case. China for instance, has significantly stepped up its nuclear programme.

Direct action groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, do not take a position on the nuclear question, they have members who are both for and against. Also, support for nuclear appears to be spreading to some extent among activists on the socialist left, in particular among younger activists.

It is claimed that, because global warming is correctly seen as the major threat facing the planet, risks associated with nuclear power can be justified, since they are significantly less than those linked to climate inaction – and it is a tried and tested technology.

Risks from nuclear power and climate inaction cannot be balanced in abstract against each other without considering in absolute terms just how dangerous nuclear is. Prolonged climate inaction for a significant period could be truly catastrophic. Nuclear risks, although relatively smaller, nevertheless still pose a major threat.

Nuclear safety

Nuclear power generation has two major sources of risk: from future accidents and from storing spent radioactive material, a by-product of the nuclear reaction, for the indefinite future. 

The 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, although the worst, was just one of a series of nuclear accidents going back to the 1950s. The first was at Sellafield in Britain, then called Windscale, where there was a large leak of radioactivity, then in 1979 at Three Mile Island in the USA, where a meltdown of the reactor core, with potentially disastrous consequences, was only very narrowly avoided. This was followed by Chernobyl in 1986 where a series of explosions in the reactor building sent a massive radioactive cloud around the world and forced the long-term evacuation of land for hundreds of square miles around the site. The most recent disaster was at Fukushima in Japan in 2011 when, following an earthquake and tsunami, the cooling system failed, leading to a meltdown of the reactor core followed by explosions that contaminated surrounding land and sea…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

An even bigger long-term danger than a nuclear accident is safely storing spent radioactive nuclear material for the indefinite future, at least 100,000 years while it remains dangerously radioactive. No safe method has yet been devised to do this. If the radioactive waste is stored deep underground or at the bottom of the ocean, it could be vulnerable to earthquakes, undersea volcanic activity, major meteorite strikes or changes in geological conditions over such a long time scale, possibly caused by climate change. The materials used to store waste could deteriorate over 100,000 years. All these factors could cause leakage of radioactivity.

In Britain, existing very radioactive ‘high-level’ waste is stored in the nuclear plants themselves and less dangerous ‘low-level’ waste at Sellafield in Cumbria. The quantities involved are large. The Sizewell C nuclear station in Suffolk, recently given the go-ahead by climate secretary Ed Milliband, will generate an estimated 26,880 tonnes of radioactive waste over its 60-year lifecycle. Also, the plutonium used in making nuclear bombs creates further toxic waste.

In 2023, 88,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel was stored in the USA alone.

Considering the nearly 600 plants around the world operational, under construction and planned, some already accumulating waste for up to 60 years, the size of the problem is clear. A solution will have to be found, it would be irresponsible to add to it further.

Does nuclear expansion meet the urgency for climate action?

In its latest report, the IPCC, the UN body that advises on climate change correctly stresses the need for rapid action if the worst effects of global warming are to be avoided. If nothing meaningful is done in the next 20 years, current extreme weather will get far worse and tipping points, where there is an uncontrollable rise in temperature, will become more likely.  However, if a massive expansion of nuclear is contemplated to address the situation, experience has shown that very little would be operational within 20 years. For example, planning began in 2007 on the Hinkley Point C reactor in Somerset, construction started in 2016 and it is expected to be operational in 2031, although some observers put it at 2033. It is true there have been particular problems with Hinkley but, even without construction delays, it would still have taken nearly 20 years from inception to completion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Not just because of the unacceptable danger but also due to the long delay before it can be operational on the scale needed, the use of fission-based nuclear power to tackle climate change should be opposed. Viable alternatives are available. None of the capitalist powers can be trusted to put the need to tackle global warming at the top of their agendas, since, for them, profit and increasingly ‘national energy security’ in the era of trade wars and growing international tensions comes first. Through democratic planning internationally, possible only on the basis of socialist change, with the energy industry, big business and the banks brought into public ownership, investment into a ‘green transition’ can bring an end to deepening climate disaster. https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/143357/01-10-2025/does-the-fight-against-climate-change-need-nuclear-power/

October 2, 2025 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

Palestinian Subordination: Donald Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan

2 October 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/palestinian-subordination-donald-trumps-gaza-peace-plan/

He had moments of discomfort and embarrassment – pressed into calling the Qatari Prime Minister by his host to apologise for striking Doha and made to pay lip service to the prospect of a Palestinian state – but Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu had many reasons to be pleased. On September 29, President Donald Trump advanced a peace proposal that essentially preservesIsraeli pre-eminence regarding the fate of Palestinians, though it entails a cessation of hostilities, an affirmation that Gazans would not be expelled (those leaving would have the right to return), and an injunction against Israeli annexation of the Strip. But Hamas, militarily and politically, would have to surrender all claims, with the Palestinian Authority shepherded and supervised by foreign powers.

Trump’s peace proposal comprises twenty points. They include a “deradicalized terror-free zone,” Gaza’s redevelopment for the benefit of its people aided by “a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving miracle cities in the Middle East,” and an immediate end to the war on its acceptance by the parties. Israel would withdraw to an agreed upon line in anticipation of a hostage release, during which all military operations would cease pending complete withdrawal. All hostages, dead and alive, would be returned within 72 hours, to be followed by the release of 250 Palestinian life sentence prisoners and Gazans detained since October 7, 2023.  

Hamas and militant factions will forfeit any role in governing Gaza, with any offensive infrastructure and equipment destroyed, but any of its members wishing to commit to “peaceful co-existence” and decommissioning of weapons will be granted amnesty, with those wishing to leave given safe passage to receiving countries. Compliance by the militant group will be overseen by “regional partners.” Full aid would resume, with the UN and Red Crescent restored to their role as chief distributors.

On the issue of governance, a temporary technocratic “apolitical Palestinian committee” of qualified Palestinians and “international experts” would form a temporary transitional body, subject to a “Board of Peace” personally chaired by Trump. Most unfortunately, it is likely to include such figures as Sir Tony Blair, the Middle East’s typhoid Mary when it comes to peace. The transitional authority would hold the reins till reforms by the Palestinian Authority had been completed. With immediacy, however, the US would work with Arab and international partners to deploy an “International Stabilisation Force” to Gaza. The ISF will be responsible for training Palestinian police forces and provide support in terms of vetting recruits, with assistance from Jordan and Egypt.

The proposal clearly envisages a significant role for the ISF, though says about who will comprise it. Israel will not, under the plan, occupy or annex Gaza, surrendering what territory it has taken to the ISF. Even if Hamas were to delay or reject the proposal, the Israeli Defense Forces would still hand over occupied territory of “terror-free areas” to the stabilisation force but retain a security perimeter to stem “any resurgent terror threat.”

The plan also envisages the establishment of an interfaith dialogue to promote the values of peace between the parties, and a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” if the programs for Gaza’s redevelopment and PA reform take place as planned. A vague US promise to “establish a dialogue” between Israel and the Palestinians regarding peaceful and prosperous co-existence rounds off the points.

There was palpable grumbling from the Israeli camp. Netanyahu undoubtedly harbours ambitions of finishing “the job”, and there is little to say the war will not resume once the Israeli hostages are returned. Having previously rejected any governing role of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, he now reluctantly accepts the idea subject to a “radical and genuine overhaul” of the body.  

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, one of the right-wing heavies in the Israeli cabinet, is threatening to withdraw his Religious Zionist Party from the coalition. Agreeing with the plan had been “an act of wilful blindness that ignores every lesson of October 7.” It would only “end in tears.” Fellow zealot, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is also likely to be seething.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid is also suspicious of Netanyahu, who tends to say “yes” when visiting Washington, “standing in front of the cameras at the White house, feeling like a breakthrough statesman.” On returning to Israel, however, he always seemed to add a qualifying “but”, his political base always reminding him “who the boss is.”

In keeping with history, the Trump plan, even if it were to be implemented to the letter, enshrines the essential subordination of Palestinian goals to the dictates of other powers. Palestinian military presence is not only to be curtailed but essentially eliminated altogether. Hamas, never consulted regarding the peace terms, is to accept its own effacing. The PA is to accept its own subservience and infantilisation. The Gazans are also to accept an economic and development program dictated and directed from without. Statehood is to be kept in cold storage till appropriate, controlled conditions for its release are approved – and certainly not by the Palestinians themselves. They, it would seem, remain the considered errant children of international relations, mistrusted and requiring permanent, stern invigilation.

October 2, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

DOE can’t pin down costs, schedules for nuclear cleanups — audit

The Government Accountability Office found that cleanups at just eight waste sites could cost roughly $15 billion.

Politico, By: Brian Dabbs | 09/29/2025

ENERGYWIRE | The Department of Energy is unable to outline the precise costs and schedules for waste cleanups at a dozen federal sites that produced nuclear weapons materials during World War II and the Cold War, the Government Accountability Office said in a report published Friday.

At just eight of the 12 sites, cleanup could cost roughly $15 billion over the next 60 years, GAO said.

DOE’s Office of Environmental Management cannot “readily identify the scope, schedule, and cost of soil and legacy landfill cleanup,” the report said, adding that “having information available that is specific to soil and legacy landfill cleanup at EM sites would improve headquarters’ ability to track resources needed to implement remedy decisions.”

The eight sites investigated by GAO include the Hanford Site in Washington state, Los Alamos in New Mexico, Oak Ridge in Tennessee and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. GAO said 12 total sites have “remaining soil or legacy landfill cleanup.”………………………………….(Subscribers only) https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2025/09/29/doe-cant-pin-down-costs-schedules-for-nuclear-cleanups-gao-00582626

October 2, 2025 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Expect A Huge Fuss About The October 7 Anniversary As The World Turns Against Israel

Caitlin Johnstone, Sep 30, 2025

Israel apologists are probably going to make a much, much bigger deal about the second October 7 anniversary than they did about the first anniversary, because they kind of have to. The world is turning against Israel in unprecedented ways in 2025, and yelling about October 7 is all they’ve got left.

They’ve already got a scripted October 7 series coming out on Paramount+, and another, separate scripted October 7 series coming out on HBO Max for the anniversary. There are probably numerous news media segments and articles scheduled. Maybe some new “revelations” about alleged October 7 atrocities which have been just waiting in the wings this whole time for some reason.

The hasbarists are going to be so obnoxious. They’ll be babbling about Hamas beheading babies and then cooking the beheaded babies in the oven and then having sex with the beheaded babies and then eating the beheaded babies and then playing soccer with the baby heads while singing about how much they love Adolf Hitler.

They’ll need to do this, because what else do they have? All the attention has long ago moved from October 7 to the genocide in Gaza, because Israel is the victimizer in literally every news story that’s come out about Palestine since that one day. Every relevant humanitarian institution on earth is saying that Israel is committing genocide and starving civilians, and we’ve been watching the evidence of this on our screens for two years.

In 2023 you had westerners saying “How could Hamas do such a thing??”, but in 2025 everyone’s looking back and going “Ehh, I kinda get it.” There are only so many horrific atrocities you can witness before you stop seeing Israel as the poor widdle Bambi-eyed victim. There are only so many times you can hear Israeli officials stating their plans to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of all Palestinians, only so many Israeli soldiers you can see mockingly dressed in the undergarments of the dead and displaced Palestinian women they’ve been genociding, only so many hospital bombings you can read about, only so many accounts of IDF troops massacring starving civilians at aid sites you can listen to, before you start thinking to yourself that Israel probably had it coming.

So they’ve got to try and reignite that initial shock and horror Israel’s western allies experienced on October 7, using whatever tools of emotional manipulation they can. Try to take us all by the hand and lead us back to that naive time when the mainstream narrative was that Israel had just been attacked by a bunch of hateful savages who wanted to murder Jews simply because they are Jewish.

It won’t work, though. We’ve seen too much. What has been seen cannot be unseen. No matter how much they moan about October 7, no matter how much control they shore up over TikTok and other social media platforms to silence criticism of Israel, no matter how loudly they concern troll about a pretend epidemic of antisemitism, what has been seen will never be unseen.

We see what Israel is. We see what Israel is doing. We see what the western governments who support Israel are. There is nothing anyone can say or do that will cause us to unsee what we have seen and un-know what we now know.

And we will never, ever forgive them.

October 2, 2025 Posted by | Israel, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Israel Launches Major Airstrikes on Yemeni Capital, Killing at Least Nine.

The attack came after a Yemeni drone hit the Israeli city of Eilat

by Dave DeCamp | September 25, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/09/25/israel-launches-major-airstrikes-on-yemeni-capital-killing-at-least-two-and-wounding-dozens/

The Israeli military launched major airstrikes on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Thursday, an assault that came after a Yemeni drone struck the Israeli city of Eilat, as the Houthis have vowed their attacks on Israel won’t stop until there’s an end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Yemeni Health Ministry spokesman Anis al-Asbahi said the Israeli attacks targeted “civilian, service, and residential facilities, causing damage to a number of homes.” He said that at least nine people were killed and 174 were wounded, but it’s a preliminary death toll that’s expected to rise. Among those killed were four children and two women.

Footage and photos from Yemen’s Al Masirah TV show significant damage to a residential area of Sanaa and Yemenis, including children, being treated at a hospital.

September 30, 2025 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel’s Netanyahu addresses Empty UN Chamber with Genocidal Claims after Mass Walkout

INFORMED COMMENT, Juan Cole, 09/27/2025

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even the tiniest detail is litigated in newspaper headlines when it comes to the Israeli government. Many news outlets reported that “some” or “dozens” of delegates walked out of the UN hall where the General Assembly had gathered as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to address them.

The truth is, almost everyone left, so that Netanyahu addressed mostly empty chairs. I don’t know why the editors who write these silly headlines think they can pull the wool over peoples’ eyes. We have video:

He was heckled in the chamber, and then heckled by New Yorkers outside. If Zohran Mamdani wins the mayoral contest in New York, Netanyahu won’t be able to come to the UN because he will be arrested as a war criminal by NYPD.

Moreover, although the press reports what Netanyahu says, no one on the diplomatic circuit seems to take it seriously. He full-throatedly rejected any attempt at a two-state solution, saying that establishing a Palestinian state would be “suicide” for Israel.

The implication for Netanyahu, whose family is from Poland, is that a recognized Palestinian state would somehow destroy Israel.

But how? Not by military action, surely. The Israelis have made short work of their military rivals in the region. With extensive American help they forced countries much larger than themselves, such as Egypt, to conclude a peace treaty. They are constantly bombing Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and have hit Iraq and Iran and Qatar in the past year. They bomb whomever they wish whenever they wish. Why would a Palestinian state be more formidable than Egypt or Iran?

I cannot know for sure, but I think what Netanyahu means by the phrase is that a recognized Palestinian state would rob Israel of its legitimacy.

Again, I can’t see how that would work. International legitimacy is bestowed by the United Nations and the great powers. The establishment of a Palestinian state would not cause Israel to be kicked out of the UN. Actually, what might cause such an expulsion to happen is Netanyahu’s course of genocide against the Palestinians. Legitimacy is at least somewhat a matter of public opinion, and the vast walk-out of delegates at the UN General Assembly demonstrates that it is Netanyahu’s atrocities, not a Palestinian state, that has robbed Israel of legitimacy in the eyes of many.

But if we granted Netanyahu’s premise, then what? It implies that 14 million Palestinians must remain stateless. US Supreme Court justice Earl Warren defined citizenship as the “right to have rights.” Without citizenship in a state, people have no real human rights, as we easily can see in Gaza for the past two years, and in the West Bank if we look. If you’re stateless, you don’t really own your house. Other people can kick you out of it and move in. Or it can be arbitrarily bombed………………………………………………………………………………………….

If the only way Israel can exist is to make the Palestinians stateless forever, to wipe out a people, then it raises questions about whether Israel in this form, as a militant Jewish ethno-state, is worth it. Is Netanyahu saying the quiet part out loud and admitting that Israel’s existence requires a genocide of the Palestinians? https://www.juancole.com/2025/09/netanyahu-addresses-genocidal.html

September 30, 2025 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

The New Nuclear Fever, Debunked

Politicians who push small reactors raise false hopes that splitting atoms can make a real dent in the climate crisis.

Andrew Nikiforuk 22 Sep 2025, The Tyee, https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/09/22/New-Nuclear-Fever-Debunked/?utm_source=national&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=250925&utm_term=builder

Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist whose books and articles focus on epidemics, the energy industry, nature and more.

Premier Danielle Smith proposes that nuclear power could be “Alberta’s next energy frontier.” To that end, she recently created a “nuclear engagement survey panel” to figure out how to propel economic growth in her province.

According to Smith, nuclear generators will not only help power scores of artificial-intelligence data centres in rural Alberta but also help to double oil production from the oilsands.

The promise of nuclear power “means affordable power, reliable supply and low emissions that strengthen our grid while fuelling growth,” said the premier. “It means new jobs and opportunities for Alberta workers and communities.”

The province is specifically betting on small modular reactors, or SMRs, because they, as a United Conservative Party release put it, “have the potential to supply heat and power to the oilsands, simultaneously reducing emissions and supporting Alberta’s energy future.”

Smith’s government has already given the oilsands giant Cenovus Energy $7 million to study the matter.

Smith isn’t the only premier with nuclear ambitions. New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Ontario all think the future lies in splitting atoms. Prime Minister Mark Carney has thrown the weight of the federal government behind Ontario’s Darlington New Nuclear Project. So far the feds have invested nearly $1 billion to advance this experimental small modular reactor.

The industry has new powerful promoters. Tech billionaires are now thirsting for more electricity to feed their data centres and machine intelligence. Everyone from Jeff Bezos to Bill Gates is investing in nuclear reactors.

Unfortunately, these claims that nuclear power can provide cheap energy security or reverse the persistent failure of national and global policies to reduce CO2 emissions are an illusion.

Even the 2024 World Nuclear Status Industry Report offers a reality check. It reports that apart from new reactors built in China (almost all over budget), “the promise of nuclear” has “never materialized.” It adds that there is no global nuclear renaissance and likely won’t be one. Furthermore, the report pours cold water on the ability of SMRs, a nascent technology, to play any significant role in reducing carbon emissions.

That is not to say that nuclear technology won’t play a minor role in our highly problematic energy future. But what nuclear power can’t do is as luminous as a radium dial. Due to its cost and complexity, it will not provide cheap or low-emission electricity in timeframe or scale that matters as climate change continues to broil an indifferent civilization.

“Given the time required to implement small modular reactors,” notes energy analyst David Hughes, “Smith will likely be long gone before SMRs are ever implemented in Alberta to provide power for her dreams of doubling oil production.”

Vaclav Smil, one of the world’s foremost energy ecologists, no doubt concurs. Whenever anyone asks him about the future of SMRs he says, “Give me a call or send me an email once you see such wonders built on schedule, on budget, and in aggregate capacities large enough to make a real difference.” He is not expecting any calls for at least a decade or two.

The first heyday of hype

The nuclear fixations of Smith and Carney are a telling symptom of our Titanic-like predicament. Every energy solution trotted out to solve a growing matrix of issues such as climate change or, in Alberta’s case, doubling oil production just becomes a source of more problems. Or an opportunity for corporate raiders to deplete the public purse.

Smith and other politicians might consider the brief history of nuclear energy and its rousing propaganda.

Nuclear power, after overpromising and underdelivering during its heyday of the second half of the 20th century, remains what Smil calls a “successful failure.”

Its high priests (now they are nuclear bros) promised “electrical energy too cheap to meter” and “nuplexes” that would power satellites, TV stations and desalinization plants. Atomic energy also promised to replace oil.

But complexity and brutal economics buried the techno-hype in piles of radioactive waste. Almost every large reactor ever built has been plagued by delays, technical difficulties, corruption and enormous cost overruns. A recent study that looked at 180 nuclear projects found that only five met their original cost and time goals. These economic realities explain why you don’t find a lot of nuclear reactors in Canada.

By the 1980s, such realities brought the so-called nuclear revolution to a crawl. Since then, more reactors have been retired than brought online. Global production of nuclear power probably peaked sometime around 2006. Today nuclear power accounts for about two per cent of delivered global energy consumption and that’s not likely to change much through 2050.

U.S. energy analyst Art Berman calculates that it would take the construction of 33 new plants per year for the next 27 years to move nuclear from two to four per cent of total energy supply. Smil has done his own math. To provide 10 per cent of its electrical supply, the U.S. would have to build and regulate some 1300 SMRs capable of putting out 100 megawatts per unit, he says.

And who has got the money, scientists and resources to do that in a period of growing political turmoil and economic corruption?

The new pitch

None of these realities have stopped industry lobbyists from designing a new sales pitch. If large, expensive and accident-prone reactors can’t do the trick, then surely small modular reactors are the agreeable solution. There is a need, they told Canadian politicians, “for smaller, simpler and cheaper nuclear energy in a world that will need to aggressively pursue low-carbon and clean energy technologies.”

The suggestion was that these handy reactors could be churned out by the hundreds from robot-filled factories, like electric cars. And then easily planted at communities’ doorsteps.

But the evidence shows that SMRs are not small (they occupy the area of a city block), cheap or, for that matter, any safer than large reactors.

As for those larger ones, consider the Plant Vogtle Generator in the state of Georgia. Billed as part of the nuclear renaissance, Georgia Power started new construction at this nuclear site in 2009. Where there were two aging reactors the idea was to add two new ones. The initial budget was $14 billion and the reactors were scheduled to go on stream in 2017. Instead, the project will have taken 17 years to finish at a cost of $36 billion, “making it the most expensive power plant ever built on Earth.” Georgians will soon be paying the highest electrical bills in the United States.

The cost overruns had nothing to do with regulation (a constant complaint of nuclear lobbyists) and everything to do with mismanagement and corruption. As one study noted, “inadequate Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulation and streamlining procedures meant to encourage investment in new nuclear projects contributed to excessive costs.” In nearby South Carolina a similar two-reactor project resulted in federal and state criminal investigations due to officials lying about cost of construction. Four executives even went to jail. That state wisely abandoned its nuclear white elephant.

So here’s a good question recently posed by M.V. Ramana, a professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of British Columbia and author of Nuclear Is Not the Solution. “If nuclear power is so expensive and it takes so long to build a reactor, why do corporations get involved in this enterprise at all?”

The answer isn’t complicated. If the public can be convinced “to bear a large fraction of the high costs of building nuclear plants and operating them, either in the form of higher power bills or in the form of taxes… then many companies find nuclear power attractive.” In other words, if the public pays — and that’s what Smith and Carney are proposing — then a corporation can benefit.

A steep path for SMRs

Members of the public, therefore, should be aware of the risks they are being asked to take on by funding the “advanced” technology of SMRs which remains largely untested. And they should know that to achieve an economy of scale would require the production of thousands of SMRs, which is not happening anywhere any time soon.

According to JP Morgan’s annual energy 2025 report, there are only three operating SMRs in the world: two in Russia and one in China and another under construction in Argentina. None came in on budget. “The cost overruns on the China SMR was 300 per cent, on Russian SMRs 400 per cent and on the Argentina SMR (so far) 700 per cent.” All promised to be up and running in three to four years and all took 12 years or more to complete. Argentina’s SMR project began in 2014 and it’s still not finished. That may happen in 2027.

Given these construction time frames, SMR certainly won’t put a dent in climate change in the near future or even decades from now. Certainly not in Russia, which uses its SMRs to mine arctic resources and produce more oil.

And then there is the inconvenient issue of nuclear waste. You’d think something called a small reactor would pump out small volumes of waste. That’s not what researchers discovered in 2022. They concluded, “SMRs will produce more voluminous and chemically/physically reactive waste than Light Water Reactors.” Managing and disposing this waste will be problematic. In fact, they calculated, “water-, molten salt–, and sodium-cooled SMR designs will increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal by factors of two to 30.”

There is another problem with Canada’s enthusiasm for SMRs. And that has to do with regulation. UBC’s Ramana raises two pertinent worries.

The first concerns “evidence of conflicts of interest and institutional bias within Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.” That’s the regulatory body that is supposed to evaluate these complex technologies.

The second is the exclusion of small modular reactors from the Impact Assessment process. That’s right, SMRs don’t have to go through a process that would test any proponent’s claims about risks or harm to the environment. “Given the well-known hazards associated with nuclear power, these legislative gaps are particularly egregious as they expose citizens and communities to significant risks without an accompanying rigorous and participatory assessment process,” notes Ramana.

So Canadian politicians in Alberta and Ottawa are now promoting a largely untested nuclear technology as a solution to growing fossil fuel demand, rising electrical bills and the existential threat that CO2 emissions pose. In the process, they are conning citizens unless they share the facts about the true costs in dollars and to the environment. Those who don’t are promoters for an industry that exists on corporate welfare: your tax dollars.

Citizens should also know that despite being encouraged to place our hopes in a fast-approaching new era of renewable energy, fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions grew again in 2024. Building a renewables-based system that is 100 per cent firm and reliable won’t be cheap. One key reason is that relying on solar and wind power through long periods of cloudy or wind drought weather requires massive overbuilding and an extensive storage system.

In fact, there is no one technological solution that will enable humanity to continue with what Smil describes as our “stupid, insane and irresponsible” spending of energy. Smil uses those words because the global economy is now using renewable energy not to retire fossil fuels but to add to energy consumption, thereby amplifying the crisis.

An honest and imperfect response to the climate crisis would require a political, behavioural, economic and moral transition that would systematically reduce our energy and material consumption at an unprecedented pace. But that’s not an action any modern politician seems to be able to contemplate, let alone discuss.

Hence the nuclear delusions promoted in Alberta, Ottawa and pretty much everywhere timid leaders opt to sooth citizens with energy fairy tales.

September 30, 2025 Posted by | Canada, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Secrets of the deep, deep tunnels where nuclear waste is buried.

 Almost half a kilometre underground, engineers in Finland are about to seal
radioactive material safely for ever. Britain wants to do the same. If all
goes to plan, spent nuclear fuel will be transported early next year down
dedicated lift shafts before robotic machines bury the 24-tonne copper and
iron canisters in the rock where they will remain for the rest of time.

This is the world’s first deep geological disposal facility for nuclear
fuel, a concept that has been discussed by engineers and politicians for
half a century. More than 20 other countries including the UK, US, France
and Sweden have plans to follow suit. But the Finns have got there first.

Fiona McEvoy, 50, the head of site characterisation and research and
development at the British government agency Nuclear Waste Services, is
here as part of a fact-finding mission to see how a similar feat could be
achieved in the UK. She says: “It’s a watershed moment for the nuclear
sector. Long-lived, dangerous waste will be locked away, safe for eternity.
That is amazing.”

Martin Walsh, 51, head of engineering at Nuclear Waste
Services, also on the visit, says: “Nobody disagrees that for the legacy
for nuclear waste in the UK, geological disposal is necessary.” The most
radioactive nuclear waste produced by Britain’s nuclear power stations will
remain hazardous, Walsh says, “beyond our lifetime, and beyond the
lifetime of our children and our children’s children”.

Burying it deep in
the earth is considered a “final disposal”, a solution that has been
calculated to enable the radioactive waste to remain undisturbed for a
nominal 500,000 years, surviving ice ages, tectonic shifts, earthquakes and
sea level rise.

The two private companies that run these facilities, TVO
and Fortum, jointly founded Posiva in 1995, developing this repository to
dispose of their waste. Every week, for the next 100 years, one canister of
spent nuclear fuel will be transported 433m down into the earth.

In the UK,
plans for a similar geological disposal scheme have experienced false
starts because no council has yet agreed to host a site. In June, the newly
elected Reform leadership of Lincolnshire county council pulled the plug on
long-running discussions to site a geological disposal site near the
coastal village of Theddlethorpe.

The most likely location for a site is
now off the Cumbrian coast, close to Sellafield. Nuclear Waste Services is
in discussions with Mid Copeland and South Copeland community partnerships
for a proposal for an access tunnel to be sunk onshore, and then run ten
miles out below the seabed, where 250 miles of disposal tunnels would be
dug, nearly ten times the size of the Finnish scheme.

Subject to local
approval and the go-ahead of whichever government is then in power,
construction is expected to start in the 2040s and start being filled in
the 2050s. It will be filled with waste for 150 years before it is sealed
in 2200.

The lifetime cost of the UK project is estimated at up to £53
billion, compared with about £5 billion for the Finnish scheme, which at
roughly a tenth of the size, serving a nation with a tenth of the
population, is roughly comparable. The speed at which progress has been
made, however, is not comparable. But Walsh defends the cautious pace the
British experts have taken. “The thought process, particularly around
nuclear, has to be robust. You have to make sure your relationship with
safety and security and the environment is sound.”

Times 28th Sept 2025,
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/nuclear-power-waste-finland-bkq8sq0lj

September 30, 2025 Posted by | Finland, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Netanyahu’s General Assembly Tirade Telegraphs A Resumption of Israel’s War On Iran.

Dimitri Lascaris, Sep 28, 2025, https://reason2resist.substack.com/p/netanyahus-general-assembly-tirade?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2811845&post_id=174714909&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

On September 26, indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a bombastic speech in the UN General Assembly in which he set Israel’s sights squarely upon the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Netanyahu also castigated many of Israel’s few remaining allies for taking the purely cosmetic step of recognizing a Palestinian state.

Shortly before Netanyahu’s speech at the UN, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of senior U.S. military officers from around the world to a highly unusual, emergency meeting in Virginia. The Trump regime is being tight-lipped about the purposes of this meeting.

n this episode of Reason2Resist, I examine these recent developments and argue that we may be mere days away from a resumption of Israel’s criminal war of aggression on Iran.

I also discuss a new poll by Quinnipiac University which confirms that support for Israel continues to plummet in the United States.

September 30, 2025 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Iran angry as sweeping UN sanctions take effect after failure of nuclear talks

Foreign ministry attacks ‘unjustifiable’ return of measures expected to have wide effects on troubled economy

Guardian, Agence France-Presse 28 Sept 25

Widespread UN sanctions against Iran have come back into force for the first time in a decade, prompting anger from Tehran, after last-ditch nuclear talks with western powers failed to produce a breakthrough.

The sanctions, which came into effect late on Saturday and three months after Israel and the US bombed Iran, bar dealings related to Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programme and are also expected to have wider effects on the country’s troubled economy.

In a statement on Sunday, as the Iranian rial plummeted to a record low against the US dollar, the Iranian foreign ministry hit out at the move. “The reactivation of annulled resolutions is legally baseless and unjustifiable,” it said. “All countries must refrain from recognising this illegal situation.”

European and US diplomats stressed immediately after the resumption of sanctions that diplomacy was not over…………………………………

Iran has allowed UN inspectors to return to its nuclear sites, but the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said the US had offered only a short reprieve in return for handing over its whole stockpile of enriched uranium, a proposal he described as unacceptable.

An 11th-hour effort by Iran’s allies Russia and China to postpone the sanctions until April failed to win enough votes in the security council on Friday, leading to the measures taking effect at 1am BST on Sunday…………………………………..

The sanctions are a “snapback” of measures frozen in 2015 when Iran agreed to major restrictions on its nuclear programme under a deal negotiated by the former US president Barack Obama.

The US has already imposed massive sanctions, including trying to force all countries to shun Iranian oil, in steps taken by Donald Trump when he withdrew from the deal in his first presidential term.

Iran and the US had held several rounds of Omani-brokered talks this year before they collapsed in June when first Israel and then the US attacked Iranian nuclear facilities.

Iran recalled its envoys from the UK, France and Germany for consultations on Saturday, state television reported…………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/28/sweeping-un-sanctions-on-iran-come-into-effect-after-nuclear-talks-fail

September 30, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

When Palestinians Die in Israeli Captivity, US Media Almost Never Take Note

Drew Favakeh, FAIR, September 27, 2025

The different treatment accorded to the plights of Palestinian and Israeli prisoners by US corporate media illustrates a persistent double standard that treats some people as more human than others.

Take 20-year-old Palestinian prisoner Ahmed Saeed Tazaz’a, who died in Israel’s Megiddo Prison after nearly three months of illegal detention, according to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs (CDA), an agency of the Palestinian Authority (8/3/25).

Tazaz’a, who was from Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, was imprisoned on May 6 of this year without a charge or a trial. He was held under Israel’s policy of “administrative detention,” which locks up Palestinians indefinitely “on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future,” according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Tazaz’a did not suffer from prior health problems before his arrest, according to his family (WAFA, 8/7/25).

There are currently some 3,613 Palestinians under administrative detention in Israeli prisons, according to the July 2025 CDA report, and more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody (not including those held in military camps) in total. Even Israel’s own military intelligence only identifies a quarter of its detainees from Gaza as “fighters,” while human rights groups and Israeli soldiers have reported even fewer—roughly 15%—as Hamas members (Guardian, 9/4/25).

The CDA reports that Tazaz’a was the 76th identified Palestinian to die in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023. 

And yet, while the fates of Israelis held captive by Hamas regularly make front-page news, US corporate media have not reported on Tazaz’a’s death—much less investigated it. Among the few news outlets to report his death were the Palestine News & Information Agency (WAFA, 8/7/25), Yemen News Agency (8/3/25), Haaretz (8/6/25), DropSite (8/3/25), Middle East Monitor (8/4/25) and Middle East Eye (8/19/25).

“There is no value for life”

Since January 1, 2025, the CDA and foreign media have recorded at least 13 deaths of Palestinians held captive by Israel:

  • Musab Al-Ayadeh, age 20, at Ofer Prison (died on 8/25/25);
  • Ahmed Saeed Tazaz’a, 20, at Megiddo Prison (reported 8/3/25);
  • Sameer Mohammad Yousif al-Rifai, 53 (7/17/25);
  • Mohyee al-Din Fahmi Najem, 60, at Naqab Prison (5/4/25);
  • Walid Ahmad, 17, at Megiddo Prison (3/22/25);
  • Rafaat Abu Fanouneh, 34, at Ramla Prison (2/26/25);
  • Khaled Mahmoud Qassem Abdullah, 40, at Megiddo Prison (2/23/25);
  • Ali Ashour Ali al-Batsh, 62, at Naqab Prison (2/21/25);
  • Sayel Rajab Abu Nasr, 60 (1/21/25, revealed on 6/30/25);
  • Mutaz Abu Znaid, at Gadot Prison (1/13/25);
  • Musab Haniya, 35 (1/5/25, revealed on 2/24/25);
  • Ibrahim Adnan Ashour, 25 (6/23/24, revealed on 1/29/25);
  • Mohammad Sharif al-Asali, 35 (5/17/24, revealed on 1/29/25).

Of these 13 deaths, only one—that of 17-year-old Brazilian-Palestinian Walid Ahmad—prompted any coverage in US corporate news outlets, according to a FAIR search of the US Newsstream Collection on ProQuest and supplemental Nexis and Google searches.

Ahmad died in Megiddo Prison on March 22, reportedly the youngest Palestinian to die in an Israeli prison since October 7.  The Associated Press ran two original reports about Ahmad’s death (4/1/25, 4/6/25, plus a brief followup at the end of another piece—4/11/25) that a few other outlets republished, and CNN (4/6/25) ran one original report . 

On April 1, the AP published a detailed report by Julia Frankel headlined “A Palestinian From the West Bank Is First Detainee Under 18 to Die in Israeli Prison, Officials Say.” The article reported that Ahmad “was held in an Israeli prison for six months without being charged [and] died after collapsing in unclear circumstances.” …………………………………………………………………………

Palestinian prisoners: not newsworthy?

By all measures, the AP’s stories were well-sourced, humanizing and put into appropriate context—yet few other US outlets picked them up. …………………………………………………………………………………………..

International and independent accounts

It’s not particularly difficult for US journalists to find details about these deaths—including the unlawful conditions and/or abuse causing or coinciding with them—as the details are extensively documented by their overseas counterparts (mainly in the Middle East)……………………………………………………………………………………

Prison abuses continue, coverage doesn’t

In 2024, at least a few deaths of Palestinian prisoners were covered by US corporate media outlets, including those of Dr. Adnan Ahmad Albursh, chief of orthopedics at Al-Shifa hospital (New York Times, 5/3/24) and Iyad al-Rantisi, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia (Washington Post, 7/1/24). The Journal notably published an article (more than 2,500 words) about how the deaths of Albursh and other imprisoned Palestinians “fuel allegations of abuse” (8/8/24).

In 2024, at least a few deaths of Palestinian prisoners were covered by US corporate media outlets, including those of Dr. Adnan Ahmad Albursh, chief of orthopedics at Al-Shifa hospital (New York Times, 5/3/24) and Iyad al-Rantisi, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia (Washington Post, 7/1/24). The Journal notably published an article (more than 2,500 words) about how the deaths of Albursh and other imprisoned Palestinians “fuel allegations of abuse” (8/8/24).

The lack of US media attention in 2025 cannot be attributed to a lack of either abuses or available leads. In July, an exposé by Israeli newspaper Haaretz (7/6/25) showed Megiddo Prison to be one of the more brutal of Israeli prisons. The report revealed “medical neglect,” including the “rampant spread” of scabies and a “high probability of an outbreak of a contagious intestinal disease” leading to diarrhea and weight loss, which was also caused in part by reduced food rations. Routine violence at Megiddo Prison is also prevalent, including gas spray in the prisoners’ faces, baton beatings, kicking and the assault of inmates with fists or clubs.

Haaretz described the deaths of two Palestinian prisoners, one of whom suffered “broken ribs and a broken sternum” and was “severely beaten in the head before his death” and another of whom suffered from “broken ribs, a damaged spleen and severe inflammation in both of his lungs.” Such conditions had previously been documented repeatedly by the CDA (4/13/25, 4/13/25, 5/28/25) and Addameer (3/14/25, 5/12/25).

The Haaretz article expanded on the death of Ahmad, including that he “collapsed in the prison yard and died.” Haaretz included the doctor’s finding that Ahmad “had almost no fatty tissue left in his body, suffered from colon inflammation and was infected with scabies.” 

Haaretz also reported that, when asked whether the autopsy “led to any action,” the Health Ministry “refused to provide details.” The article included input from a 16-year-old inmate, identified by Haaretz under the pseudonym “Ibrahim,” who said that after Ahmad’s death, “the violence decreased but didn’t stop.”

No corporate US news outlet has covered or followed up on Haaretz‘s report.

Front-page news: ‘Israeli hostages’

By comparison, the US corporate press has put far greater focus on Israeli prisoners held by Hamas—highlighting a long-documented double-standard.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. To be clear, media should be reporting on Israeli captives—not just on their deaths, but when they are released as well, detailing their experiences.

It only serves the interests of the Israeli government, however, for US corporate media to foreground the plight of Israelis held by Hamas while failing to do so for Palestinians in Israeli captivity—especially when the latter are a part of what many nations, politicians, scholars, experts and others deem a “genocide.” https://fair.org/home/when-palestinians-die-in-israeli-captivity-us-media-almost-never-take-note/

September 30, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, media | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste in a landfill?

    by beyondnuclearinternational

Navajo communities want pros and cons delivered in language all can understand, writes Kathy Helms

Explaining the rationale of burying low-level radioactive waste in a solid waste landfill to Navajo elders, especially if English is not their first language, obviously would be a bit daunting. Regulators relish acronyms like one would a yummy bowl of alphabet soup – RCRA, SMCRA, NORM, TENORM. Elders, not so much.

Regulators need to bring the discussion down to the people’s level, Judy Platero, secretary/treasurer of Thoreau Chapter, told federal, state and tribal officials during an August 14 tour of the Red Rock Landfill.

“A lot of our community members are not here because they don’t understand this,” Platero said. “There’s no understanding of this because all of this language, all of this information that’s being disseminated, is all technical. We’ve asked many times, ‘Bring it to us in our own language.’”

Not against cleanup

Platero made it clear that the people of Thoreau are not against cleanup of the former Quivira uranium mine near Church Rock. They understand the need for the removal of 1.1 million cubic yards of radioactive waste rock and sand from within the Red Water Pond Road community. Residents have been saddled with those Cold War remnants for more years than they care to remember.

“What we are trying not to have happen is the transport and the storage here in Thoreau. That’s what we are talking about. “We want everybody, all our people, to be safe,” Platero said.

The proposed removal plan means that an estimated 76,710 truckloads – over 60 truckloads a day – will travel a 44-mile haul route along New Mexico Highway 566 to Interstate 40E, across the Continental Divide to and through downtown Thoreau to the Red Rock Landfill. Another 3,300 truckloads of waste from Sections 32 and 33 mines in Casamero Lake are expected to travel a more rural haul route, including a private toll road, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 9.

If the landfill “test pilot” for the waste is successful, the state of New Mexico could approve the disposal of more waste in other areas of the landfill on a case-by-basis in the future, tour-goers were told.

Another tour, another time

Platero recalled participating in a smaller tour of the landfill within the last couple years. “We were taken to this place over on the other side and told, ‘This is where the proposed site is.’ But now we’re over here on this side. I see it as there is really nothing definite – and I’m glad there’s nothing definite – except for the cleanup,” she said.

During a June 30, 2023, meeting of the Eastern Navajo Land Commission, Jay R. DeGroat, who worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Eastern Navajo Agency for many years, informed land commissioners that back when the landfill first was being proposed, they were talking to the Elkins family which was acquiring land for the Red Rock facilities.

“They assured us that the area with the Indian mineral rights was a buffer zone to the location and they weren’t ever going to put anything on there,” DeGroat said. But upon hearing EPA’s proposal to haul uranium- and radium-contaminated mine waste to the landfill, DeGroat said he was afraid the agency might have a problem with obstructing the mineral rights of Navajo allottees.

“What you’re putting on there, the way it’s going to be, you can’t ever, ever remove it again,” he said. “My understanding is that part of the landfill area included these lands that still had mineral rights that belonged to the allottees.”

Mine waste ‘reality’

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..Keyanna wants a safe place to live. She has been fighting for removal of the waste pretty much all her life. Figuratively speaking, her son basically cut his teeth on Nuclear Regulatory Commission and EPA meetings.

“My kids, unfortunately for them, they have been brought up in the capacity of learning how to be a leader in their community because I had to do that,” she said. “My children have probably gone to more meetings than some of you here because they’re involved.”

Keyanna noted that Platero was correct about the language barrier. “You are completely right. It needs to be explained to you in our Dine´ language,” she said.

………………………………………………………………………Too close for comfort?

Stephen Etsitty, executive director of Navajo Nation EPA, said during the 2023 meeting that it had taken a lot of internal meetings within U.S. EPA and the state of New Mexico to reach possible solutions for disposal of the Quivira wastes. “We have been advocating for the initial position that the Nation took, which is off-site reservation disposal,” he said

The Thoreau community had hoped that “off-site” meant taking the waste to an established repository far away from the reservation, according to Platero “I know it was said, ‘off the Navajo Nation.’ You know what? Navajo Nation is just a skip and a hop away.” She sees it as a continuing pattern of the federal government – regulators “pitting neighbor against neighbor” in the name of money. EPA estimates the pilot project cost at $189 million – about $100 million more than they have currently.

Talia Boyd, a Navajo tribal member, works with communities on environmental issues. She sees regulators’ proposal as an indication of just how much federal agencies, state agencies, and industry don’t listen to the communities.

“From the get-go, our communities have always asked that this waste be removed far from our homelands. Over the years, we haven’t been listened to. They’ve been giving us the bare minimum as far as coming up with solutions on where to take this waste,” she said. “So far, the best thing they’ve come up with is, really, putting it right on the other side of Navajo federal trust land, which is absolutely unacceptable.”

While there is no permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste in the United States, there are four active, licensed low-level waste disposal facilities. Those are located in Barnwell, SC.; Richland, Wash.; Clive, Utah; and Andrews County, Texas.

There are over 520 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation, Boyd said. “We have a lot of waste that we need to be removed … We understand and hear the communities on both parts – the community of Church Rock and Red Water Pond Road who want their waste removed, and the Thoreau community who don’t want this waste housed in their backyard.

“This is how our communities are being pitted against each other by federal agencies, by the industry, and sometimes even our own tribal governments who don’t step in to help advocate for the people and demand transparency and accountability and justice on behalf of their people,” she said.

Kathy Helms is a retired investigative journalist who has spent her career either editing or covering courts, corruption, energy and environmental issues in Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona and New Mexico. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/09/28/nuclear-waste-in-a-landfill/

September 30, 2025 Posted by | wastes | Leave a comment

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