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India’s Parliament approves bill to open civil nuclear power sector to private firms

DailyMail, By ASSOCIATED PRESS, 19 December 2025

NEW DELHI (AP) – India´s Parliament approved new legislation Thursday that enables opening the tightly controlled civil nuclear power sector to private companies.

The government termed it a major policy shift to speed up [?] clean energy expansion while the opposition political parties argued that it dilutes safety and liability safeguards.

The lower house of parliament passed the legislation Wednesday and the upper house on Thursday. It now needs the assent from the Indian president, which is a formality, to come into force.

………….. critics say it opens the door to risks, mainly health hazards, that could have long term consequences…………..

 some are skeptical about India´s ambitions as the country´s nuclear sector is still very small, and negative public perceptions about the industry remain.

Opposition parties flagged concerns related to several provisions of the bill and urged the government to refer it to a parliamentary panel for examination. The government didn´t adhere to the request.

“The bill doesn´t have sufficient safeguards when it comes to mitigating the bad health of those impacted by living in areas closer to nuclear plants,” Ashok Mittal, a lawmaker from the opposition Aam Admi Party, told The Associated Press.

G. Sundarrajan, an anti-nuclear energy activist, called the bill a “disastrous law,” saying it takes away essential safeguards that are needed to make sure companies invest in safety and reduce the chances of a major disaster that can impact millions from occurring.

“It also provides little recourse for any Indian citizen to claim damages from nuclear companies even if they are affected by radiation leaks or suffer from any other health impact as a result of a nuclear plant in their region,” he said. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-15396015/Indias-Parliament-approves-bill-open-civil-nuclear-power-sector-private-firms.html

December 22, 2025 Posted by | India, politics | Leave a comment

Israeli Ministers Wear Noose Pins to Symbolize Support for Killing Palestinians

The pins resemble the hostage pins that Israeli leaders have worn throughout the Gaza genocide.

By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, December 8, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-ministers-wear-noose-pins-to-symbolize-support-for-killing-palestinians/

Ultranationalist Israeli politicians, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, wore golden noose-shaped lapel pins to a meeting on Monday in order to show their “commitment” to advancing a widely condemned bill to mandate the death penalty for “terrorists” who kill Israelis.

The pins resemble the yellow ribbon pins that Israeli leaders have worn throughout their genocide to to acknowledge the Israeli captives held in Gaza.

Ben-Gvir boasted about the pins, worn by members of his Otzma Yehudit party, saying that they show the politicians’ “commitment to the demand for the death penalty for terrorists.”

The politicians were attending a hearing on a bill advancing through the Israeli Knesset that would ensure that those who kill Israelis “with the aim of harming the State of Israel” would be given the death penalty. Critics have noted that the bill is worded in such a way that it would effectively exclusively target Palestinians, in the latest instance of Israeli politicians advancing policies to further entrench Israel’s apartheid.

Ben-Gvir boasted that the nooses are “one of the options by which the law will enforce a death penalty for terrorists.” He seemed to relish in the idea of the death penalty, saying, “of course, there is the option of the gallows, the electric chair, and there is also the option of lethal injection,” Israeli media reported.

The bill, which passed a first reading last month, has been roundly condemned by human rights experts.

“Knesset members should be working to abolish the death penalty, not broadening its application. The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment, and an irreversible denial of the right to life. It should not be imposed in any circumstances, let alone weaponized as a blatantly discriminatory tool of state-sanctioned killing, domination and oppression,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns director.

The bill comes amid “a drastic increase in the number of unlawful killings of Palestinians, including acts that amount to extrajudicial executions” since October 2023 and “a climate of incitement to violence against Palestinians as evidenced by the surge in state-backed settler attacks in the occupied West Bank,” Guevara Rosas said.

Indeed, Ben-Gvir also boasted about the deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody under his watch. According to Israeli media, 110 Palestinians have died under his prison policies in the past two and a half years — a “record high,” Israeli outlet Walla reported. This is compared to 187 Palestinian detainees recorded killed in Israeli prisons between 1967 and 2007. The true toll may be far higher, as Israel obscures statistics on Palestinian prisoners and captives.

“This morning, I saw that it was published that under Itamar Ben-Gvir, 110 terrorists have died. They said there has never been anything like this since the state’s founding,” Ben Gvir boasted, while also denying that his policies were related to the killings.

Last month, the Israeli Medical Association said that its doctors would not participate in the executions, as that would force them to go back on their oath as doctors. “Our knowledge must not be used for purposes that do not promote health and welfare,” a representative of the group said.

Ben-Gvir claimed on Monday, however, that since that statement, “I have received a hundred calls from doctors saying, ‘Itamar, just tell me when.’”

December 21, 2025 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Wait, What?!

Racket cartoons, by Daniel Medina, https://racketcartoons.substack.com/p/wait-what?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=549592&post_id=181841928&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email, Dec 17, 2025

After the devastating massacre at Bondi Beach on Sunday, Australia’s PM and leaders promised to tighten gun laws to help make sure it never happens again. As an American reading this, and hearing more than just “thoughts and prayers,” I sat at my desk and felt deeply sad. Our country is so dysfunctional that we cannot handle even the basics of governing, let alone face the leading cause of death for American children: firearms.

What stood out to me was how quickly Australia’s leaders responded and how they seemed to agree that the government should act after something so terrible. In the United States, mass shootings are often followed by sadness but no action. It can feel like we accept these deaths as normal instead of trying to prevent them. Seeing another country treat gun violence as a problem they can fix makes our inaction even harder to understand.

December 18, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics | Leave a comment

Reeves’s planning overhaul stalls as UK’s senior adviser leaves after four months.

Catherine Howard’s exit comes amid disagreements at top of government about how far to push deregulation agenda

Helena Horton and Kiran Stacey, Guardian, 14 Dec, 25

Rachel Reeves’s attempts to overhaul Britain’s planning laws have been dealt a blow after a senior lawyer whom she appointed as an adviser decided to leave the government after just four months.

Catherine Howard will leave the Treasury when her contract ends on 1 January, despite having been asked informally to stay on indefinitely.

Howard is understood to have warned the government against pushing ahead immediately with some of its more radical proposals to sweep aside planning regulations in an effort to encourage more infrastructure projects.

Her decision to leave the post comes amid disagreements at the top of government about how far to push its deregulation agenda, with some senior officials warning that Keir Starmer’s latest attempt to kickstart major building schemes could damage EU relations.

Disquiet is also growing among some Labour MPs, with 30 writing to the prime minister this week urging not to push ahead with some of his more radical planning reforms.

Howard said in a statement: “Over the past four months I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as the chancellor’s infrastructure and planning adviser, and in my time have had the ability to advise HM Treasury and help steer the important steps the government is taking to improve the planning system to support economic growth.

“I look forward to continuing my engagement with HM Treasury and government as I return to the private sector.”

Starmer and Reeves have put planning at the heart of their push for economic growth, which has so far struggled to gain traction, with figures released on Friday showing the economy shrank 0.1% in the three months to October……………………………………….

While in government she is understood to have disagreed with Starmer’s decision to announce he would fully adopt the recommendations of a review into building nuclear power stations more quickly, written by the economist John Fingleton.

Starmer said in a post-budget speech last week: “In addition to accepting the Fingleton recommendations, I am asking the business secretary to apply these lessons across the entire industrial strategy.”

Fingleton made a number of suggestions, including changing rules around protected species and increasing radiation limits for those living near or working in a nuclear power plant.

He suggested that infrastructure projects should pay a large, pre-agreed, upfront sum to government quango Natural England in lieu of protecting or replacing habitats lost to development.

His review also recommended making it more costly for individuals and charities to take judicial reviews against infrastructure projects……..

Howard believed Starmer should not have accepted his recommendations to rip up EU derived habitats laws before taking legal advice on whether they complied with legally binding nature targets and trading arrangements with the EU.

She was bringing forward concerns shared with government departments including the Cabinet Office and the environment department, which said the review could jeopardise trade with the EU and lead to widespread habitat destruction.

Those concerns are also shared by some Labour backbenchers.

Chris Hinchliff, Labour MP for North East Hertfordshire, has been leading a campaign against the review.

He said: “It’s time our Labour government stopped pitching nature as the enemy of a better life for ordinary people in this country and realised that, for the vast majority, it is a measure of it.”…………………….. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/14/reevess-planning-overhaul-stalls-as-senior-adviser-quits-after-four-months

December 18, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Ukraine wants West to pay for election.

Rt.com, 12 Dec, 2025 

Kiev is ready to call a vote once its demands are met, Vladimir Zelensky’s top adviser has said.

Kiev is ready to hold an election, but only if a series of conditions are met, including Western funding of the vote, Mikhail Podoliak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, has said.

Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024, but he has refused to organize elections, citing martial law. Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump said Kiev should no longer use the ongoing conflict as an excuse for the delay.

Moscow has maintained that Zelensky has “lost his legitimate status,” which would undermine the legality of any peace deal signed with him.

Zelensky has claimed he was not trying to “cling to power,” declaring this week readiness for the elections, but insisting that Kiev needs help from the US and European countries “to ensure security” during a vote.

Podoliak expanded on the position on Friday, writing on X that Zelensky had called on parliament to prepare changes to the constitution and laws. Podoliak, however, added that three conditions must be met for a vote to go ahead……………………………………………….. https://www.rt.com/russia/629383-ukraine-elections-western-funding/

December 18, 2025 Posted by | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

University of Michigan report: History shows advanced nuclear likely to have predictable negative consequences

A new University of Michigan report says that despite its promise as a clean, cheap energy source, advanced nuclear technologies could end up fueling—or exacerbating—social and environmental problems.

Michigan Public | By Sarah Cwiek December 14, 2025

The report, titled The Reactor Around the Corner: Understanding Advanced Nuclear Energy Futures, looks at historical examples of what happened when major new technologies touted as game-changers were introduced. It concludes that without “robust governance frameworks” in place, next-generation nuclear is likely to reinforce or even create problems that technology alone can’t fix.

According to the report, advanced nuclear reactors generally use novel fuel types for power generation, higher uranium enrichment levels, and alternative coolants. The most common and increasingly popular form of advanced nuclear reactors are small modular reactors, or SMRs.

SMRs are slightly smaller than conventional nuclear reactors, producing about a third of the electricity output of a conventional reactor. They’re attractive to governments and power providers due to their generally lower upfront construction costs and shorter construction times, and are often seen as a safer alternative to larger traditional nuclear infrastructure. However, the report notes that “the technology is at an early stage, and it is still unclear whether the SMR industry can fulfill its promises.”

Nonetheless, many SMR projects are either planned or about to come online, said Shobita Parthasarathy, a UM professor of public policy specializing in the history of technology, and one of the report’s authors. The planned reactors include two SMRs at the site of West Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant — the first in the country to be revived after being decommissioned. Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced the project, which is backed by a $400 million investment from the U.S. Department of Energy and additional federal support, earlier this month.

“This historic investment will double Palisades’ capacity, provide more clean energy for Michigan homes and businesses, and protect 900 good-paying Michigan jobs,” Whitmer said in a statement. “(It) will lower energy costs, reaffirm Michigan’s clean energy leadership, and show the world that we are the best place to do business.”

Parthasarathy said looking at historical examples of other technologies touted as game-changers can be instructive. She said one concern the report highlights is that while nuclear energy may itself be considered “clean,” it can be used to power other industries or technologies that are far from it. And in the case of SMRs, she said that some tech companies have proposed building them alongside the massive data centers that fuel energy and water-hungry artificial intelligence.

And as for the promised economic boost, Parthasarathy said some skepticism is in order. “What we have found in our work is that those promises, at best, are very short-lived,” she said. “The jobs don’t last very long often. “

After analyzing historical examples of technologies that have parallels to advanced nuclear, the report found that its expansion likely “introduces — and in some cases reinforces — problems that technological solutions alone will not be able to fix.” And it suggests that the only way to head off those problems is to have “robust governance frameworks in place before the widespread implementation of SMRs.”

Parthasarathy noted that currently, those large scale frameworks don’t exist, nor do they seem likely to anytime soon. And she said that because of SMRs’ size — about that of a city block in some cases — they’re likely to show up in many community landscapes. “They’re going to be right next to us,” she said.

But Parthasarathy said that also presents an opportunity: because SMRs are so much smaller than traditional nuclear plants, it could give local residents a real chance to influence how these technologies are deployed. And her hope is that this report can help them do that.

The report “provides a guide to communities on what they should be thinking about intervening in and maybe mobilizing around,” Parthasarathy said. “[It] can empower citizens to ask detailed, sophisticated questions about the implications of nuclear power for them and their communities.”

December 17, 2025 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Elections impossible under Zelensky’s ‘terrorist regime’ – exiled Ukrainian MP


Sat, 13 Dec 2025, https://www.sott.net/article/503481-Elections-impossible-under-Zelenskys-terrorist-regime-exiled-Ukrainian-MP 

Presidential elections in Ukraine are impossible under the “terrorist regime” of Vladimir Zelensky and his cohort, exiled Ukrainian lawmaker Artyom Dmitruk has said.

Zelensky, whose presidential term expired over a year ago, has repeatedly refused to hold a new election, citing martial law – which was imposed after the conflict with Russia escalated in 2022 and has been regularly extended by parliament.

Earlier this week, Zelensky said he would hold an election within 90 days if Kiev’s Western backers can guarantee security. The shift came after US President Donald Trump accused the Ukrainian authorities of using the conflict as an excuse to delay elections, insisting that it’s time.

In a series of Telegram posts on Friday, Dmitruk argued that it is “completely pointless” to discuss elections now, calling Zelensky’s remarks “manipulation and hypocrisy” aimed at clinging to power.

“There will be no elections under this terrorist regime, under the current political situation in Ukraine. Under this regime, elections are impossible,” the exiled lawmaker wrote. “The political situation in Ukraine is vile and deceitful. Almost all the ‘potential candidates’ are Zelensky regime officials, people completely integrated into the war system. And at the head of this march – a parade of blood – is Zelensky himself.”

He insisted that elections would only be possible after “either a political or military capitulation of the regime” and the transfer of authority to an interim government. According to Dmitruk, Trump’s call to Zelensky was not really about elections: “It is a form of diplomatic signal… a polite, diplomatic way to show Zelensky the door.”

Dmitruk fled Ukraine in August 2024, claiming he received death threats from the country’s security services over his opposition to Zelensky’s persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Russia maintains that Zelensky is an illegitimate leader. President Vladimir Putin warned that it is “legally impossible” to conclude a peace deal with the current leadership due to Zelensky’s lack of a valid mandate.

According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, Zelensky’s sudden interest in elections is a ploy to secure a ceasefire – a proposal that Russia has rejected in favor of a permanent peace deal addressing the conflict’s underlying causes. Moscow has warned that Kiev would use any pause in the fighting to rearm and regroup.

Comment: There is more pressure on Zelensky to hold elections from various stakeholders while a peace deal is in the works. One way or another Zelensky will have to hold elections soon.

December 16, 2025 Posted by | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Trump’s ‘End of History’ Moment

History will thankfully go on once we see the end of them and the work of repairing the mess they are making begins. 

 December 13, 2025 , By Patrick Lawrence,  ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/13/patrick-lawrence-trumps-end-of-history-moment/

The Trumpster is not yet finished his first year back in the White House, and I cannot imagine how our crumbling republic will survive three more years of this man-child and the misfits and miscreants with whom he has surrounded himself. And it occurs to me lately that neither I nor anyone else is supposed to imagine any kind of future — good, bad, in the middle — beyond Jan. 20, 2029, when President Trump will no longer be president. The future will not be the point by then. By then we are supposed to be living in an imaginary past that we won’t have to imagine because the imaginary past will be the actual present. 

It is not quite three months since Trump issued an executive order designating “antifa,” the more or less fictitious “organization” of antifascists, a “domestic terrorist organization.” In the Trump White House’s rendering, antifa “explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities and our system of law.” To this end, it organizes and executes vast campaigns of violence. It coordinates all this across the country. It recruits and radicalizes young people, “then employs elaborate means and mechanisms to shield the identities of its operatives, conceal its funding sources and operations in an effort to frustrate law enforcement, and recruit additional members.”

I didn’t take the executive order containing this kind of language the least bit seriously when it was issued Sept. 22. Antifa, so far as I understand it, does not actually exist. It is a state of mind, or it signifies a shared set of political sentiments vaguely in the direction of traditional anarchism — a hyper-individualistic ultra-libertarianism when translated into the American context. 

Trump’s executive order describing antifa as an organized terrorist organization reminded me of nothing so much as those flatfooted fogies back in the Cold War years who, nostalgic for a simpler time but understanding nothing, went on about “outside agitators” as the root of America’s ills. 

I was wrong in one respect, maybe more, about Trump and his adjutants and what they have in mind. These people are not flatfooted. They know exactly what they are doing and they are moving swiftly to get it done. It is time to take seriously, I mean to say, the wall-to-wall unseriousness of the Trump regime’s plans for a nation it would be impossible to live in were it ever to come to be. The saving grace here is they cannot possibly create the America they have in mind. But they will, I have to add, make an unholy mess on their way to failing.   

Three days after the antifa executive order, The White House made public a National Security Presidential Memorandum titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” NSPM–7, as this document is known, is formally addressed to Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary. 

This thing picks up where the one-page executive order leaves off. It cites various assassinations and attempted assassinations — Charlie Kirk, Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare chief executive, the two attempts on Trump’s life during his 2024 campaign — and fair enough, although casting political violence as terrorist violence is a sleight-of-hand too far. It is when NSPM–7 invokes recent protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and “riots in Los Angeles and Portland” that you sense the trouble to come. 

From the first of the document’s five sections:

This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.  A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them — is required.

What is required, it turns out, is an institutionalized surveillance operation that goes considerably beyond the Patriot Act. “This guidance,” Section 2 reads, “shall also include an identification of any behaviors, fact patterns, recurrent motivations, or other indicia common to organizations and entities that coordinate these acts in order to direct efforts to identify and prevent potential violent activity.” 

And then NSPM–7 gets down to what the Trump regime is truly after:

Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.  

I am not letting the liberal wing of the ruling Late–Imperial War Party, commonly known as the Democrats, off the hook in this domestic terrorism business. Joe Biden banged on about this whenever it was politically expedient the whole of his discombobulated term, and we now witness the consequences of all his loose, opportunistic talk. In effect, Biden prefaced what the Trump regime is step-by-step codifying into law.

One of the more pernicious of the many objectionable features of NSPM–7 merits immediate note. This is the vagueness of its language. Whenever I see official documents of this kind my mind goes back to imperial China, whose mandarins were highly legalistic but kept written law purposely ambiguous so as to maximize the prerogatives of imperial power. A surfeit of laws, all of them to be interpreted in whatever way suited the throne.

As of last weekend we know how Pam Bondi, Trump’s patently fascistic AG, intends to interpret NSPM–7. This is by way of a Justice Department memorandum Ken Klippenstein, the exemplary investigative journalist, reported on (but did not actually publish in full) on Saturday, Dec. 6. This is Klippenstein’s exclusive. Here is the top of the piece he published in his Substack newsletter under the headline, “FBI Making List of American ‘Extremists,’ Leaked Memo Reveals:” 

Attorney General Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism”… The target is those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti–Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti–Christianity.”

By way of defining all these domestic terrorism threats, Klippenstein reports, the DoJ memorandum cites “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.” As to enforcement, the memorandum authorizes the FBI to open a hotline by means of which ordinary Americans can report on other ordinary Americans, along with “a cash reward system” to go along with it. The agency is also to develop a legion of informants (“cooperators”); state and local governments are to be funded to develop their own programs in conformity with the DoJ’s directives. What the memorandum calls Joint Terrorism Task Forces are to “map the full network of culpable actors.”

This is more than what we now call an all-of-government surveillance and enforcement program that open-and-shut outlaws a variety of Constitutional rights. It is an all-of-society operation that prompts comparisons with regimes in history I never would have imagined summoning to mind in anything like this context. “Extremist viewpoints” are to be criminalized? I am an outlaw if I am critical of orthodox Christianity, if I am “hostile” to the nuclear family, to traditional morality and so on? Just how close to thought control does the Trump regime plan to sail?  

Continue reading →

December 14, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear Notebook: The changing nuclear landscape in Europe

Bulletin, By Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight-Boyle | December 10, 2025

Evolving nuclear weapons postures in Europe

Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and invaded Ukraine in 2022, the rhetoric, prominence, operations, and infrastructures of nuclear weapons in Europe have changed considerably and, in many cases, increased. This trend is in sharp contrast with the two decades prior that—despite modernization programs—were dominated by efforts to reduce the numbers and role of nuclear weapons.

During this period, Russia has fielded several new nonstrategic nuclear weapons systems, increased military exercises, issued a long list of nuclear signals and threats, and upgraded its nuclear doctrine in a way that gives the impression that it has broadened the role of nuclear weapons and potentially lowered its nuclear threshold.

NATO, for its part, is also modernizing its nuclear forces and has further reacted by increasing its strategic bomber operations and nonstrategic nuclear posture, changing its strategic nuclear ballistic missile submarine operations, and talking more openly and assertively about the role and value of nuclear weapons.

Each side believes it has good reasons for beefing up the nuclear posture, but the combined effect is that the role and presence of nuclear weapons in Europe are increasing again after decades of efforts to curtail them. Unless the governments and parliaments of European countries increase efforts to halt this trend, the region is likely to descend further into growing nuclear weapons competition and posturing over the next decade.

In this Nuclear Notebook, we provide an overview with examples of how the nuclear postures in Europe are evolving, especially the infrastructures and operations. The overview is focused on nonstrategic nuclear weapons but also includes examples of how strategic nuclear forces are operated. The intention is to provide a factual resource for the public debate about the evolving role of nuclear weapons in Europe. As such, this notebook is not intended to be comprehensive but informative.

Nine countries currently operate nuclear forces in Europe: Belarus, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The latter has announced plans to acquire nonstrategic nuclear weapons (see Figure 1), and a tenth country (Türkiye) hosts nuclear weapons on its territory.

Nuclear developments involving the Russian Federation…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Nuclear developments involving NATO………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The United Kingdom…………………………………………………………………………………..

France…………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………….. copious references……………..https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-12/the-changing-nuclear-landscape-in-europe/

December 13, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

US House passes $800mn aid package for Ukraine

New military assistance has been signed off on a month after Kiev was shaken by a major corruption scandal.

The US House of Representatives has passed a defense spending bill that would provide $800 million in military aid to Ukraine through 2027.

The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was approved 312-122 on Wednesday and will now advance to the Senate, where it is expected to receive bipartisan support, according to The Hill.

Some legislators objected to directing more taxpayers’ money to help Ukraine fight Russia. “I thought we were getting out of Ukraine. I don’t know why we still need to spend money there,” Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said.

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump slammed what he described as a “massive corruption situation” in Kiev, referring to the recently uncovered $100 million kickback scheme in the country’s energy sector, which heavily relies on Western aid.

Prosecutors named Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s longtime associate and former business partner Timur Mindich as the ringleader. Mindich fled the country to evade arrest after apparently being tipped off.

The scandal led to the resignation of two government ministers, and further anti-corruption raids prompted Zelensky to fire chief of staff Andrey Yermak last month.

Ukraine’s military procurement system has also been shaken by several graft and embezzlement scandals, one of which led to the resignation of Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov in 2023.

The bill was approved as Trump has been pressuring Ukraine to sign a peace deal with Russia, with some reports suggesting that he hopes to reach an agreement by Christmas.

Russia considers Western military cooperation with Ukraine one of the root causes of the conflict and has listed ending foreign weapons deliveries as a condition for a ceasefire. President Vladimir Putin has argued that otherwise, Ukraine would use the pause in the fighting to rearm and regroup, as he says happened when Ukraine refused to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk

December 13, 2025 Posted by | politics, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Zelensky resists ceding Donbas, after abandoning it years ago

Zelensky objects to ceding the Donbas region under Trump’s peace plan. But when offered the chance to keep the region under a compromise with Russia, he adamantly refused.

Aaron Maté, Dec 13, 2025

Since the Trump administration began pressuring him to reach a peace deal with Russia last month, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has refused to cede any territory to Moscow. On Thursday, after a new round of salvos from President Trump, Zelensky appeared to leave some wiggle room. “The Russians want the whole of Donbas — we don’t accept that,” Zelensky told reporters. However, for the first time, he floated the idea of putting the issue to a national vote: “I believe that the Ukrainian people will answer this question. Whether in the form of elections or a referendum, the Ukrainian people must have a say.”

Any Ukrainian-administered referendum on the fate of the Donbas would exclude most of its population, who now live under Russian rule. While Zelensky insists that he will not reward what he sees as an illegal Russian land grab, the Ukrainian leader has squandered several opportunities to keep his borders intact. The February 2015 Minsk accords would have left the Donbas within Ukraine by granting it limited autonomy and abandoning Kyiv’s chances of joining NATO. Under the threat of ultra-nationalist violence, successive Ukrainian governments instead opted to retake Donbas by force and demonize the ethnic Russians who live there……………………………………………………………(Subscribers only) https://www.aaronmate.net/p/zelensky-resists-ceding-donbas-after?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=181439166&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

December 13, 2025 Posted by | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Zelensky’s rush to elections is an effort to cling to power and keep the money flowing

Signing a peace deal that takes NATO off the table will kill his chance of re-election

Ian Proud, The Peacemonger, Dec 11, 2025

In a recent interview with Politico, President Trump said, ‘they’re (Ukraine’s government) using the war as an excuse not to hold an election.’

This is not a new criticism. Republican figures who have long opposed open-ended financial aid to Ukraine have often targeted Zelensky’s lack of a democratic mandate. This includes Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, a long-standing critic who once labelled Zelensky an ‘unelected dictator’ in a video prior to the US Presidential elections.

Always a slick media operator, Zelensky has responded to the US President’s criticism by offering to hold a plebiscite while Ukraine remains under martial law, if European states and the US can guarantee security. Mainstream media have, predictably, seized on this as further proof of Zelensky’s democratic credentials and his commitment to deliver peace under the most difficult circumstances of war.

However, only around 20% of Ukrainians favour an election prior to any peace deal, according to an August poll, compared to 75% who believe elections should happen after the war. Until recently, Zelensky used this data to shoot down critics who called him out as anti-democratic. Now, he’s willing to sidestep the will of his people and go to the polls while war is still raging.

Trump’s criticism doesn’t, in my eyes, represent a challenge to hold elections now, but first to sign a peace deal with Russia, paving the way for elections upon the cessation of martial law.

Right now, only, 20.3% of Ukrainians would vote for Zelensky, a drop of 4% since October polling, in the light of collapsing support for the war effort and the ongoing corruption scandal.

That still makes Zelensky the most popular candidate from a long list, his closest rival being former military commander Zaluzhny. Although the same poll suggests that a new political party headed by the current Ukrainian Ambassador to London would defeat Zelensky’s Servant of the People faction.

The New York Times’ recent investigation has shown Zelensky’s government has actively sabotaged oversight, allowing corruption to flourish. This story was eye-opening both for the depth of the investigation and its source – a newspaper that had hitherto backed the Ukrainian President’s endeavours to the hilt. Now, rather than sitting above the issue, blind to the activities of his closest political allies, Zelensky is increasingly viewed as an integral part of Ukraine’s corruption problem.

He may be gambling on running for the polls early to increase his dwindling chance of clinging on to power. Despite the logistical challenges, a vote under martial law might work in his favour.

………………………………………………………………………………. In a country as corrupt as Ukraine, anyone who seriously believes that Zelensky wouldn’t attempt to rig the vote in his favour is, I fear, worryingly naïve.

And holding elections under martial law would also allow the war train to keep rumbling forward, and the billions from Europe to keep flowing in

At no point since he rejected the draft Istanbul peace agreement in April 2022 has Zelensky appeared like he wanted to see the war conclude. High on promises from Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and others to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, greeted as a hero wherever he travelled, Zelensky watched the billions in foreign aid roll into his country, while his closest aides grew rich and purchased Bugattis and other hypercars that tool around Monaco, according to Donald Trump Jr in recent televised remarks.

All of Zelensky’s pronouncements since mid-2022 have sought to position himself as on the side of the angels, to situate President Putin as the aggressor, to keep western leaders at his back every step of the way, and to keep the money flowing.

A natural actor, he has a line for every occasion.

‘No one wants peace more than me.’

‘Putin doesn’t want peace.’

‘Putin refuses to talk to Ukraine.’

‘Only pressure on Russia will force Putin to make compromises.’

‘Ukraine can win!’

Yet for over two years, after a failed summer counter-offensive that the UK military helped to plan, it has been clear that Ukraine cannot win.

Even if you gave Ukraine the same amount of foreign funding that was provided in previous years, that would at best allow it to continue to lose slowly on the battlefield.

But fighting to the last Ukrainian appears a better bet politically, for Zelensky. A peace deal in which, at the very least, Ukraine gives up its aspiration to join NATO will be catastrophic politically for Zelensky, almost certainly ruining his chance of re-election. He knows it. Everyone in Ukraine knows it. And, of course, Putin knows it

Meanwhile, Russia can afford to wait it out…………………………………………………………. https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/zelenskys-rush-to-elections-is-an?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=181320366&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

December 12, 2025 Posted by | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Ontario’s Nuclear Folly

Ontario’s nuclear expansion a blunder of epic proportions

David Robertson, Canadian Dimension, December 9, 2025 https://watershedsentinel.ca/article/nuclear-folly/

The last time the nuclear industry got its way in Ontario, the province’s erstwhile publicly-owned electrical utility, Ontario Hydro, spent over two decades building 20 nuclear reactors.

It was a mashup of missed deadlines, cost overruns and a troubling pattern of declining nuclear performance. Even more troubling, the last generation of nuclear reactors forced Ontario Hydro to the edge of bankruptcy. It saddled the province with a mountain of nuclear debt that we are still paying off.

The Ford government is now repeating those costly mistakes in what amounts to the largest expansion of the nuclear industry in Canada’s history – risking a blunder of historic proportions.

Past debt due

In 1999, Ontario Hydro collapsed under the staggering weight of its nuclear debt. At the time, Hydro’s assets were valued at $17.2 billion, but its debt amounted to $38.1 billion. The government was faced with a stranded debt of $20.9 billion.

In response, the Province split Ontario Hydro into five separate organizations. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) took over the generating facilities (hydro, coal, gas, nuclear) and Hydro One (later privatized) the transmission grid. The debt was transferred to Ontario families through special charges on electricity bills and the tax system. It was the world’s largest nuclear bailout – one we are still paying for.

This is a $290 billion nuclear gamble.

Ontario Power Generation is now leading Ontario’s nuclear resurrection, following a series of government directives that put nuclear onto the fast-track while shouldering clean, cost-effective and safe renewables to the side of the road.

It is an astonishing coup. Without putting up their own money, and without bearing the financial risks, the nuclear industry has captured Ontario’s energy policy.

Even a few years ago this would have seemed impossible. Catastrophic accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima had severely tarnished the nuclear safety image. All around the world the cost overruns and lengthy build times of nuclear plants had chilled utility and government interest in new projects. In Europe only one nuclear plant has been built and come online since the late 1990s.

the nuclear industry to deliver electricity on time and on budget. It also demonstrated that nuclear reactors couldn’t provide affordable electricity. In fact, Ontario Hydro’s last public cost comparison (1999) revealed the cost of nuclear energy to be more than six times the cost of hydroelectricity.

Now it seems that all those hard lessons have been forgotten, as the Ford government launches a multipoint nuclear power offensive. It has passed legislation to ensure nuclear is Ontario’s energy priority. It has made commitments to build untested and costly small modular reactors. It has decided to refurbish antiquated nuclear plants when there is no business case to do so. And it has opened the public purse to the appetite of the nuclear industry.

Small modular reactor hype

There will be four new SMRs built at the Darlington nuclear location. Site preparation work is already underway on the first one, for which OPG has convinced the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to forego an environmental assessment.

SMRs are not small and they are not that modular. And they are also not that new. The designs have been kicking around for a long time, but no one wanted to build them and investors were loathe to put up their own money. The fate of SMRs changed when the industry convinced governments in Canada to develop a hype-heavy “SMR Roadmap,” followed by a federal “SMR Action Plan.” The plan includes a wide range of supports, from relaxing regulatory requirements through public relations efforts to absorbing the financial risks of an untried technology.

The Ford government is committing a colossal amount of money to its nuclear gamble

The World Nuclear Industry Status Review is an annual independent assessment of the global nuclear industry. In its 2022 review it concluded: “SMRs continue to hog the headlines in many countries, even though all evidence so far shows that they will likely face major economic challenges and not be competitive on the electricity market. Despite this evidence, nuclear advocates argue that these untested reactor designs are the solution to the nuclear industry’s woes.”

In the 2024 review, analysts note: “The gap between hype about [SMRs] and reality continues to grow. The nuclear industry and multiple governments are doubling down on investments in SMRs, both in monetary and political terms.”

Mortgaging our future

The Ford government is committing a colossal amount of money to its nuclear gamble, including $40 billion for refurbishments at 14 reactors, $20 billion for four SMRs at Darlington, $75 billion for Bruce C, and $156 billion for Port Hope.

That is a $290 billion nuclear gamble. If we add the $26 billion which is the official preliminary estimate for the deep geological repository of nuclear waste, then we are well beyond $300 billion.

Three hundred billion is an almost unthinkable amount of money. For most of us it’s hard to get a sense of what those funds could achieve.

Some examples:
• Provide every dwelling in Ontario with a free $20,000 heat pump and a free $20,000 rooftop solar system
• Replace half of the passenger vehicles in Ontario with a free electric vehicle
• Replace transit fares in Toronto for the next 300 years
• Provide every farm in Ontario with a free 10 kilowatt wind turbine
• Replace all the school buses in Ontario with new electric ones

Expensive nuclear plants produce expensive electricity and those costs are paid for through our taxes and electricity bills. It is already the case that nuclear is one of the most expensive energy options available. The Ontario Clean Air Alliance, using data from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and Lazard, has reported that the mid-point cost of new nuclear will be 24.4 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to solar with storage at 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.

There is a global energy transition underway. Renewable power generation capacity is expected to rise from 4,250 GW today to nearly 10,000 GW in 2030 – short of the tripling target set at COP28 but more than enough, in aggregate, to cover the growth in global electricity demand.

The Ford government is clearly on the wrong energy pathway.

David Robertson is a climate activist with Seniors for Climate Action Now. Excerpted with permission from the original at www.canadiandimension.com

December 11, 2025 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

The Israel lobby is melting down before our eyes

The American Jewish community is in open crisis over its support for Israel after two years of genocide in Gaza. A key issue in this crisis is a topic once considered too taboo to criticize: the Israel lobby.

By Philip Weiss  December 2, 2025 , https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/the-israel-lobby-is-melting-down-before-our-eyes/

Last month, a top staffer at the Jewish organization J Street who had worked for Obama and Harris explained that Congress’s tradition of backing Israel “no matter what” was imposed by a “well-funded group of… Jews.” 

“A small, organized and well-funded group of American Jews treated the issue as a threshold question in elections, and most candidates decided it wasn’t worth antagonizing them,” Ilan Goldenberg wrote.  

Not long ago, such attacks on the Israel lobby (including my own) were dismissed as antisemitic conspiracy theories. Now, a leading Jewish organization publishes them. 

That’s because the American Jewish community is today in open crisis over its historic support for Israel. Prominent Jews are finally attacking the lobby, a political structure created 60 years ago by leading Jewish groups to make sure there was no daylight between the Israeli and U.S. governments.  

The crisis was catalyzed by the insurgent victory of New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who broke a rule of American politics. You can’t be an anti-Zionist and be taken seriously in American politics. 

The Israel lobby spent tens of millions to defeat Mamdani, led by Bill Ackman and Mike Bloomberg, yet Mamdani still beat Andrew Cuomo twice. After the general election last month, the Jewish establishment spoke with fearful force. Mamdani’s election is “grim” and “ominous,” the Conference of Presidents said. 

“Zohran Mamdani’s elevation to Gracie Mansion reminds us that antisemitism remains a clear and present danger.” 

The ADL announced a “Mamdani-tracker” on the idea that Mamdani will promote antisemitic violence—a claim based on Mamdani’s criticisms of Israel. “Mamdani has promoted antisemitic narratives… and demonstrated intense animosity toward the Jewish state that is counter to the views of the overwhelming majority of Jewish New Yorkers.”

If the lobby thought it was knocking Mamdani down, it failed. Two weeks after the election, Mamdani went to the White House and spoke of Israeli “genocide,” and Trump did nothing to contradict him. It’s about time we heard that word in the White House. 

Mamdani’s courage set off the new Israel-critical discourse, but it has been enabled by a broader social movement. Young Americans are turning against Israel over its anti-Palestinian policies of genocide and apartheid. 

Rahm Emanuel brought the sad news to the largest Jewish organization, the Jewish Federations, last month. Noting that Obama toured Israel before he announced his presidential campaign in 2007, Emanuel, who is running for president, said that in 2028, no Democratic candidate will dare follow the traditional playbook.  

“Nobody is leaving America to travel to Jerusalem. That’s the politics.”

And not only Democrats. Emanuel said that all young people, left and right, are turning on Israel. 

“Look where Israel stands in America with people under 30,” he said. “Forget party. It is a political risk today to take a [pro-Israel] position. Israel is extremely unpopular—I want to drive this point home for all of us who support a Jewish state– today, Israel for a generation under 30, the last two years will be as seminal a definition as what the Six Day War was for [an earlier] generation. But we have to be honest about the task we have here.”

The Israel lobby is melting down before our eyes. At that same conference, Eric Fingerhut, a former Congress member who leads the Federations, said Israel’s bad image was the result of an international conspiracy:

“We have experienced a planned and coordinated attack on Israel’s standing in North America and on the Jewish community that supports Israel. Fueled by billions of dollars in dark money…. [from ] Iran and Qatar and China and Russia and more. Spread by the most advanced communications tools ever invented…”

The conference was devoted to restoring Israel’s good place in the American discourse– “a major long-term rehabilitation of the narrative of what Israel means.”

But it failed, spectacularly. Coverage of the event focused on another meltdown — author Sarah Hurwitz, a former Obama speechwriter, who’s lamented that talking to young people about Israel today means trying to get through a “wall of dead children.” 

The dead children are even getting to American Jews, Hurwitz said: 

“You have tiktok just smashing our young people’s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. This is why so many of us can’t have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything we try to say to them they’re hearing through this wall of carnage. I want to give data, information, facts They’re hearing it through this wall of carnage.” 

Hurwitz said that Holocaust education had failed with young Jews. It caused them to see heavily armed Israelis as Nazis and their emaciated Palestinian targets as the objects of sympathy.   

Hurwitz was savaged on social media for these comments. But she is a hero to the official Jewish community in her insistence that those who deny the right of Jews to a Jewish state are antisemites. 

Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East is inherent in Jewish religion, Hurwitz says, and Israel’s military strength is the necessary response to a 2000-year story of Jewish hatred. By denying these truths, anti-Zionists show that they hate Jews. 

These ideas are wrong and dangerous. The reason that young Americans hate Israel is that it has killed Palestinian civilians indiscriminately and destroyed their means of life for two years in Gaza, with the underwriting of the American government and the Israel lobby. 

The children’s media star Ms. Rachel voiced the moral dimensions of Gaza in November when she welcomed a traumatized girl named Qamar to New York: 

“I’m so sorry to Qamar that the world stood by as her camp was bombed, she was denied medical care for 20 days, and they had to amputate her leg, and she lived in a ripped, flooded, cold tent.”

It is no wonder that Ms. Rachel has emerged as a leader in the Palestinian solidarity discourse within the U.S., due to her clarity, simplicity, and sense of responsibility. 

The mainstream media are today doing all they can to deny this movement. They deny that attitudes on Palestine had anything to do with Kamala Harris’s defeat in 2024. They deny that they were an important factor in Mamdani’s victory in New York. 

Even as insurgent candidates who are running against Israel are sprouting up in Democratic primaries across the country. 

This political upheaval is now a Jewish crisis, as it should be. The Jewish community is fracturing over its official support for genocide. 

Jews who denounce Israel’s actions were key to Mamdani’s coalition. Some were liberal Zionists. But liberal Zionism is itself in disarray, ditching old dogmas—like, BDS is antisemitic — to align itself with young Jews. 

While Sarah Hurwitz and Eric Fingerhut, and Jonathan Greenblatt are leading the Jewish establishment into a fringe position. Hurwitz’s ultimate argument is exceptionalist. Jews have a special role to play in the world– and that’s why people hate us. 

She’s in a long tradition: The lobby has foisted one lie after another on our political discourse. The refugees have no right to return to their homes. Moving 700,000 settlers into occupied territory is fine. There is no apartheid. There is no genocide.  

Israel’s wars against its neighbors are in the U.S. interest. 

These lies are now failing. Whatever ideals Zionism embraced at its origin as a European liberation movement, it solidified into bigotry in the face of Palestinian resistance. The official Jewish community promoted that bigotry. 

The Israel lobby’s lies were once a taboo subject in America. Today its crisis brings that discussion into the public square. 

December 7, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA, USA election 2024 | Leave a comment

“Kill Everybody”: War Crimes and Pete Hegseth’s Lust for Blood

5 December 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/kill-everybody-war-crimes-and-pete-hegseths-lust-for-blood/

Pete Hegseth, the soap opera styled US Secretary of Defense, sports a questionable sanity. His behaviour before generals is the stuff of low comedy. His mania about sending narco-traffickers making passage on the sea from Venezuela to a watery grave has a millenarian zeal. But psychological coarseness and imperfection have not prevented questions being asked about why he, allegedly, ordered to strike a vessel twice in order to ensure the death of all aboard it.

Some 21 known deadly strikes on such vessels, resulting in the deaths of 83 people, have been orchestrated since September 2, when President Donald Trump stated in a War Powers Resolution notification to Congress that such acts were “self-defense” measures motivated by “the inability or unwillingness of some states in the region to address the continuing threat to United States persons and interests emanating from their territories.” The following month, a presidential notice was issued categorising those killed in alleged drug smuggling as “unlawful combatants,” a dangerously novel interpretation authorising homicide on the high seas.  

The September 2 “double-tap” strike was initially reported as involving an order from the Secretary to “kill everybody” upon an alleged Venezuelan drug boat. Two survivors from the initial attack, desperately clinging to the burning remnants of the vessel, were dispatched in the second strike.

A generally mute Congress was aroused into action. The campaign against alleged narcotics smugglers, typified by an absence of due process and having all the markings of summary execution, had come in for inspection. Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) of the Senate Armed Services Committee demanded an investigation. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–NY) believed that bipartisan investigations would be conducted “in both the  House and the Senate in order to determine whether war crimes were committed, and either US law or international law or both, were violated.”

Certain Republicans even went so far as to contemplate the possibility that a war crime had been committed. Rep. Michael R. Turner of Ohio and the Armed Services Committee, agreed that the killing of survivors would have “be an illegal act,” while Rep. Don Bacon could scarce believe that Hegseth would have been “foolish enough to make this decision to say, ‘kill everybody,’ ‘kill the survivors’ because that’s a clear violation of the law of war.” (Bacon has seemingly not seen Hegseth’s social media splashes.)

In a joint statement from Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and ranking member Jack Reed (D-R.I.), “vigorous oversight” over operations in the Caribbean was promised. “The Committee is aware of recent news reports – and the Department of Defense’s initial response – regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.” The Democrats on the same committee have requested that Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi release the Office of Legal Counsel’s written opinion laying the legal basis for the strikes.

The White House proceeded to pour cold water on the suggestion that Hegseth had given the order. US Special Operations Command chief Admiral Frank Bradley was outed as the figure who ordered the second strike. In doing so, he had, according to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, “worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.” More broadly, both Trump and Hegseth had “made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to legal targeting in accordance with the laws of war.”

Given some exiting wriggle room, Hegseth heaped praise upon Admiral Bradley as “an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made – on the September 2 mission and all others since then.”

The dubious quality of these strikes has enlivened broader concern in the region. On September 15, a Colombian boat involved in fishing activities was struck, resulting in the death of Alejandro Carranza Medina. Its ruthlessness made Colombian President Gustavo Petro accuse the US government of committing murder and violating sovereignty. A complaint has been submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)alleging that Hegseth “was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on such boats.” These orders were given “despite the fact that they did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra-judicial killings”.

The attacks on these vessels in the Caribbean Sea are just another aspect of the Trump reality show. This administration cherishes show before substance, seemingly hoping that the show distracts sufficiently for the substance to change. The withering report by the Pentagon’s inspector general claiming that Hegseth endangered US personnel by sharing details of planned US strikes on Houthi forces in Yemen via a conversation conducted on Signal does just that. (Not only is Signal a commercially available messaging platform: a journalist from The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been unwittingly added to the conversation.)

The substance here is clearly not narcotics. Trump’s outrageous pardon of former Honduran leader Juan Orlando Hernández, serving a 45-year sentence in a West Virginia prison for paving “a cocaine superhighway” to the United States, gave the game away. Regime change in Venezuela, and the world’s largest known oil reserves, await. In the meantime, Hegseth continues to feed his bloodlust.

December 6, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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