Senate wants to force US to share sensitive intel with Israel
A measure in a must-pass bill would dramatically increase Israeli access to American secrets
Paul R. Pillar, Responsible Statecraft, Jun 10, 2026
Buried deep inside a 192-page intelligence authorization bill is Section 622, titled “United States-Israel Intelligence Sharing Enhancement.” It would require the president, acting through the director of national intelligence and as necessary the secretary of defense, to “expand and enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel” on a list of subjects that encompasses almost every topic of intelligence interest in the Middle East.
The bill, put forward by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, would prohibit any suspension, reduction, or limitation of such sharing “except on the basis of a specific and identifiable national security concern determined by the President.” Any such exception would require a report to Congress within fifteen days detailing not only the reason for the change but also the categories of information involved. The same report would require an assessment of the anticipated impact on regional security and various other matters.
This proposal is one of several recent moves by those in Washington who carry the Israeli government’s water to keep the United States tied to Israel despite plummeting support for the country among the American public. The most salient form of U.S. support to Israel has been more than $300 billion in economic and especially military assistance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried to get ahead of the declining public support and avoid embarrassing losses by suggesting it would be fine with him to phase out the military aid.
Israel’s strategy and that of its U.S. supporters is now to rely on ties with, and support from, the United States that are not as salient as the military aid with its prominent price tag. The strategy includes forms of military integration that are less visible than congressionally appropriated grant aid and therefore less publicly accountable. Section 224 of a defense authorization bill currently in the House of Representatives embodies this form of integration.
The mandating of intelligence sharing carries this strategy further by moving it into the shadowy world of relations between intelligence agencies. That world is even farther removed from public visibility and accountability than the defense integration, and even less likely to stimulate thoughts about American taxpayers’ money going to a foreign country. So far, Section 622 of the intelligence bill has received less attention than Section 224 of the defense bill.
The notion of legislating an intelligence liaison relationship in this way, with any foreign country, is bizarre……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The current ill-advised war with Iran demonstrates the sharp divergence of U.S. and Israeli interests. After being the principal influence on President Donald Trump’s decision to launch the war, Netanyahu’s government has been sabotaging efforts to end it.
It currently is doing so mainly with relentless attacks in Lebanon that have killed thousands and displaced over a million people. The divergence of objectives was reflected in an expletive-laden phone call last week between Trump and Netanyahu that was mainly about those attacks.
Attacks that sabotage diplomacy are among the Israeli operations that might use shared U.S. intelligence. The United States also will be blamed for aiding other violent Israeli operations because of the “enhanced” intelligence sharing, even if it were no longer paying for Israeli arms.
The supposed escape clause in Section 622 of the intelligence bill would in practice be so cumbersome as to be useless. The required report to Congress would dump the issue on Capitol Hill, where the Israel lobby would quickly depict it as a question of being for or against the security of Israel. The mandated intelligence sharing in the bill thus would tie the president’s hands and prevent any administration from using management of the intelligence liaison relationship as leverage to deter destructive conduct by Israel. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-intelligence-israel/
Most Israelis oppose Netanyahu’s re-election as Trump says PM ‘may quit politics’
Trump continues to call the premier a ‘wartime prime minister’ as Netanyahu faces ongoing internal opposition and a long-delayed corruption trial
News Desk, JUN 10, 2026, https://thecradle.co/articles/most-israelis-oppose-netanyahus-re-election-as-trump-says-pm-may-quit-politics
A poll published by an Israeli research center on 9 June has revealed that most Israelis do not want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to run in the upcoming election.
The poll was released by the Viterbi Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute, based in occupied Jerusalem.
It was conducted between 31 May and 5 June.
According to the results, 61 percent of Israelis believe Netanyahu should not run in the elections. Thirty-five percent were in favor of the premier running.
The number of Israeli Jews who are opposed to his running stood at 57 percent, while 39.5 percent of Jewish Israelis believe he should run.
Among the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship living in the territories ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba, 83 percent are against Netanyahu running in the election, according to the poll.
Eleven percent of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship support his candidacy, the poll added. A recent poll revealed a significant deterioration in the global reputation of Netanyahu and Israel.
The survey was published amid growing uncertainty over Netanyahu’s political future following comments by US President Donald Trump, who claimed the premier may want to step back from politics.
Trump told ABC News on Tuesday that he was unsure “if Bibi even wants to continue.”
“I don’t know, he’s had an amazing career. Does he want to continue? Because, you know, he’s a wartime prime minister. We will very shortly win the war one way or the other, and you know he’s a wartime prime minister,” Trump added.
Likud has since responded, saying that Netanyahu will run in the upcoming election.
Netanyahu is mired in a years-long criminal trial over corruption and other scandals. The trial has seen near-constant delays.
The prime minister has also failed to resolve the Haredi draft crisis plaguing Israel, with ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) still avoiding conscription and opposition parties criticizing the ruling coalition for placing secular reservists at the forefront of the conflict.
Israeli army leadership has warned of a collapse in the reserve forces, and troops are taking heavy losses in battles against Hezbollah in south Lebanon.
Since Netanyahu’s government came to power in late 2022, illegal West Bank settlements and annexation plans have expanded dramatically, and a genocide in Gaza has taken place.
Tel Aviv has also continued to wage brutal wars on multiple fronts, including Lebanon and Iran.
The draft crisis and other long-standing issues between Netanyahu and the opposition have prompted former premiers Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid to merge parties in a bid to challenge the prime minister politically.
ROSATOM report
Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has profoundly altered the
political and strategic environment in which the Russian state nuclear
corporation Rosatom operates. Not only has the war intensified scrutiny of
the corporation’s role in nuclear safety, energy security, and
international governance, but it has also highlighted the extent to which
Rosatom functions today at the intersection of technology, state policy,
and geopolitical influence.
In this report, we at Bellona continue to
analyze Rosatom during wartime. We argue that Rosatom can no longer be
understood solely through the traditional framework of a civilian nuclear
operator or global technology supplier. Rather, it has increasingly emerged
as a multifunctional state instrument—combining industrial, strategic,
and political roles both within Russia and internationally.
Several broader
conclusions emerge from the report: Rosatom’s wartime role has deepened
institutionally and politically, reinforcing its function not only as a
nuclear corporation, but as a strategic component of Russian state policy;
The occupation of the Zaporizhzhia NPP represents a challenge to
established assumptions in nuclear governance, exposing gaps in
international mechanisms designed to respond to conflict involving nuclear
infrastructure; Despite sanctions pressure and geopolitical disruption,
Rosatom has maintained significant external reach, particularly through
long-term projects in the Global South and through forms of nuclear
diplomacy that remain politically resilient.
Bellona 11th June 2026, https://network.bellona.org/content/uploads/sites/4/2026/06/ROSATOM_report_2026_ENG.pdf
Chas Freeman: The Greater Israel Project Is Collapsing Under the Weight of Endless War
the greatest threat to the Greater Israel project may not be Iran, Hezbollah, or any external adversary. It may be the political consequences of the project itself.
JSCHEERPOST, June 7, 2026 ScheerPost Staff
For decades, the dream of a “Greater Israel” has been treated by its advocates as an inevitable project of regional dominance, sustained by military superiority and unwavering support from Washington. But according to former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman, that project may now be colliding with the limits of power itself. In a wide-ranging conversation with political scientist Glenn Diesen, Freeman argues that Israel’s wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran have not strengthened its strategic position but instead accelerated its diplomatic isolation, strained its military capacity and eroded the international support on which its ambitions depend.
Freeman’s assessment is stark: what was once presented as a vision of security has produced growing insecurity across the region, while leaving Israel increasingly at odds with allies, neighbors and much of the world. From the collapse of diplomacy to the widening regional fallout of war, he contends that the greatest threat facing the project of expansion may no longer be external resistance alone, but the political and moral consequences of its own actions. Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, Freeman offers a sobering warning that the Middle East is entering a new phase—one in which old assumptions about power, alliances and American influence are rapidly unraveling.
Chas Freeman: The Greater Israel Project Is Collapsing
Decades of Expansion Have Reached a Breaking Point
For generations, advocates of a “Greater Israel” envisioned a regional order secured through overwhelming military power, territorial expansion, and unwavering American support. Today, according to former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman, that vision is colliding with reality.
In a wide-ranging discussion with political scientist Glenn Diesen, Freeman argued that Israel’s military campaigns across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran have not delivered lasting security. Instead, they have accelerated Israel’s diplomatic isolation, exhausted military resources, and triggered a regional backlash that is reshaping the Middle East.
His conclusion was striking: the greatest threat to the Greater Israel project may not be Iran, Hezbollah, or any external adversary. It may be the political consequences of the project itself.
A Project Losing International Support
Freeman argues that what was once quietly tolerated by Western governments is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
The devastation in Gaza, the continued expansion of settlements in the occupied territories, military operations in Lebanon and Syria, and the widening regional conflict have dramatically altered global perceptions.
“Israel is at odds with the entire world,” Freeman observed, pointing to growing criticism across Europe, increasing public opposition in the United States, and mounting international scrutiny of Israeli policies.
For decades, Israel relied heavily on diplomatic cover from Washington and its Western allies. Freeman believes that support is eroding faster than many policymakers realize.
The result is a paradox: at the very moment Israel seeks greater regional dominance, it finds itself increasingly isolated.
Security Through Dominance Creates Insecurity for Everyone Else
One of the most important insights from the interview was Freeman’s discussion of what he described as Israel’s pursuit of “absolute security.”
The logic is simple but dangerous.
If one state seeks complete military dominance over all potential rivals, neighboring states inevitably become less secure. Those neighbors then seek new alliances, new military capabilities, and new forms of resistance.
The result is not peace but perpetual conflict.
Freeman echoed a principle often associated with Henry Kissinger: one nation’s quest for total security often creates total insecurity for everyone around it.
This dynamic helps explain why Israeli military operations have increasingly produced regional resistance rather than regional acceptance.
The Iran War Changed the Strategic Landscape…………………………………….
A New Regional Order Is Emerging
Perhaps the most overlooked portion of Freeman’s analysis concerns the changing geopolitical landscape beyond Israel itself.
He described an emerging regional architecture involving countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran……………………………………………………………..
Netanyahu Is Not the Cause—He Is the Symptom
One of Freeman’s most provocative observations concerned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Many critics view Netanyahu as the central architect of Israel’s current trajectory. Freeman disagrees.
Netanyahu, he argued, is not the cause of the crisis but its most visible expression.
The deeper issue is the broad political consensus that has developed around militarized solutions and territorial expansion.
Even if Netanyahu leaves power, many of the underlying assumptions driving Israeli policy would remain.
Removing one leader does not automatically change the direction of a state.
The Failure of Diplomacy
Throughout the discussion, Freeman repeatedly returned to one theme: diplomacy has been abandoned.
Israel, he noted, has relied overwhelmingly on military solutions while offering few meaningful political initiatives capable of resolving regional conflicts.
At the same time, Washington’s credibility as a mediator has steadily deteriorated…………………………………….
A Moment of Reckoning
The interview ultimately posed a larger question than the future of Israel alone.
Can any state maintain security indefinitely through military force while ignoring political reconciliation?
Freeman’s answer is clear.
History suggests otherwise……………………………………………
Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, his warning deserves attention: the future of the Middle East may be determined less by battlefield victories than by the willingness—or inability—of regional powers to replace domination with diplomacy.
If that transformation does not occur, the conflicts now engulfing Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and the wider region may prove not to be the culmination of a long struggle, but merely the beginning of a far larger one.
Chas Freeman’s substack: https://substack.com/@chasfreeman662157 Books by Prof. Glenn Diesen: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/… Follow Prof. Glenn Diesen: Substack: https://glenndiesen.substack.com/ X/Twitter: https://x.com/Glenn_Diesen Patreon: / glenndiesen
Trump’s Sedition Act for Israel
“you can’t be an American if you don’t love Israel.”
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, May 25, 2026, https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-sedition-act-israel/5927389
At all times and places it has been difficult to speak freely.
Even the founding fathers had their Sedition Act of 1798 that criminalized statements against the US government. Shortly afterward President Thomas Jefferson got most of it repealed.
President Abraham Lincoln during his 1861-1865 invasion of the Confederate States of America had a de facto sedition act. Lincoln used executive orders, military directives, martial law, and the suspension of habeas corpus to shut down free speech. At one time Lincoln had 300 Northern newspaper editors in prison.
In 1918, Congress passed a new Sedition Act that applied when the US government was at war. The law prohibited speech and opinion that put the US government and its war effort in a bad light. The bad light was that US President Woodrow Wilson promised Germany no territorial loss and no reparations in exchange for an armistice, and betrayed the promise. The result was the Treaty of Versailles that as British economist John Maynard Keynes correctly predicted led to World War II.
President Donald Trump has declared his own Sedition Act issued not by Congress, increasingly an irrelevant government institution, but by Trump’s personal defense lawyer currently serving as US Attorney General. Trump’s Sedition Act is unique. It protects from criticism not the US government, but a foreign one — Israel. The May 19 press release of the US Department of Justice (sic) says:
“President Trump has made clear that this administration will not tolerate antisemitism, and the Department of justice is committed to implementing that directive.” (See this)
Understand that the US Department of Justice is now the protector of Israel, as is the US military and US taxpayers, and antisemitism means any criticism of Israel. For example, Israel’s genocide of Palestine and its people, Israel’s interference in tenure decisions of US universities, the hiring and contracting policies of state governments such as Texas and Florida, Israel’s funding of the primary defeat of US Republican Representative Thomas Massie, Israel’s assassinations of foreign leaders, Israel’s suspected assassination of Charlie Kirk, suspicion that Epstein was a Mossad agent collecting blackmail information against Americans in a position to influence US foreign party in the Middle East, and on and on. Every thought, question, statement of fact that can be interpreted as hostile to Israel has become anti-semitism and will not be tolerated by the US Department of Justice (sic).
Clearly, the Trump regime, essentially a Zionist regime, has no intention of permitting any correct information to be aired. If you challenge or taunt the Regime, you are shut down like Colbert, Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and so many others.
The Washington Post published an article on May 21 about President Trump’s efforts to silence late night TV hosts. Apparently, Trump succeeded in intimidating CBS to cancel Stephen Colbert. NBC’s Seth Meyers and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel believe they are on the hit list. See this.
A discredited media unable to hold Trump to account has replaced a former biased media.
During my professional lifetime the print and TV media had a liberal bias, coming down hard on conservatives and Republicans and lightly, if at all, on the leftwing and Democrats. The liberal media was more or less at the beck and call of the CIA, but the New York Times did finally decide to publish the leaked Pentagon Papers, an act that contributed to the end of the Vietnam War.
During the 1980s and I think the 1990s the New York Times asked me twice a year for an op-ed article addressing a specified subject. If memory serves, two was the annual limit for outside contributors, although perhaps not for liberal-left ones. As I had been a presidential appointee in the Reagan administration, a trustee of the Committee on the Present Danger, a Wall Street Journal editor and columnist, and a contributing editor of National Review, the liberal media regarded me as a conservative instead of a person who thought for himself.
The Washington Post was also friendly in a limited way. The Post’s editorial page editor was pleased to occasionally have me on her page and once took me to lunch with some of her colleagues. When at the end of the 20th century I could no longer stomach the corruption and backstabbing of the Washington snake pit and departed to the beach in Florida, the Washington Post sent a star reporter and camera team to my Florida home for a full-fledged interview and expressed regret that an honest voice had forsaken the nation’s capital. The fact that the Washington Post thought that I was honest did not mean that the Post thought I was correct.
In those days large newspapers like the Times and Post comfortably existed on advertising revenues so varied that no advertiser could, very often, influence the newspaper. Media had a liberal bias, but that was their own decision. It wasn’t imposed on them. Unlike today, there was enough belief left in the media in debate in place of silencing critics, resulting in occasional presentation of alternative explanations to the official narratives.
In the 21st century the media for whatever reasons has become censorious, demonizing those in opposition to official narratives. The result has been to discredit the media as a source of information.
Today we don’t have, as existed in my 25 years in Washington, a media even partially open to different explanations.
With the traditional TV and print media discredited, and the lack of transparency of most of the Internet media, to whom do we turn for credible explanations? My own attempts to deliver truth are compromised by invalid accusations against me by Zionist organizations, the political left, and liberals who still believe that more government is the answer. The assaults on me are intended to limit my readership, and the assaults have had a partial success. I suspect that I am now read more abroad than in the United States.
Perhaps I have failed in my approach to insouciant Americans who, despite the high stakes, are unaware of the demands on them of our time. If so, my failure is small compared to that of the media, which by destroying its own credibility, has destroyed the media’s checkmate on the rise of a Caesar.
America now has a president who goes to war at the request of his most important campaign contributors without authorization of the US Congress as long as the request is in Israel’s behalf. The legal advisor to the US Department of State, Reed Rubinstein, has penned a justification for Trump’s military attack on Iran which states the United States initiated its military campaign against Iran (Operation Epic Fury) “at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally”. Note that the State Department defines aggression as self-defense. Clearly Under President Trump, the United States of America now commits its resources and lives of its military personnel to the achievement of the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. Americans are now taxed and die for Israel’s domination of the Middle East. If you dissent, you are punished as an “anti-semite.”
Until the 21std century, I cannot imagine the American media allowing this to happen. The digital revolution by putting the power of money over the media in a few hands has cancelled even a biased free press. In its place there is a propaganda ministry.
President Trump’s anti-semitism policy cancels the First Amendment if it is used by Americans for criticism of Israeli government policies, such as the genocide in Palestine.
When the Israel Lobby can cancel the First Amendment, you know that the United States is no longer a sovereign country.
A country at Israel’s beck and call is America today, thanks to Donald Trump. Yet, a significant percentage of Trump’s supporters conflates MAGA with MIGA. American patriotism now requires patriotism to Israel. As the latest mantra goes, “you can’t be an American if you don’t love Israel.” You have to hand it to the Zionists. They have even stolen our patriotism.
Fusing the US Military and the IDF
A bill’s provision to integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries will go to a U.S. House vote after an effort to stop it failed Thursday. Passage will make it nearly impossible to end the U.S.-Israel special relationship, writes Alan MacLeod.
Alan MacLeod for MintPress News, June 6, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/06/06/fusing-the-us-military-and-the-idf/
Amid widespread and growing public opposition to the Israeli genocide of Gaza and South Lebanon, a controversial new bill seeks to formally integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries like never before, making it difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Section 224 of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) proposes to join the two forces together at the hip, laying the groundwork for extensive cooperation into “seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation,” according to the Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
This includes the research, development and production of modern, hi-tech arms, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, drones, directed energy, cyber and autonomous weapons systems. It would compel the United States to integrate Israeli arms and technologies into its defense supply chain, and fuse the countries’ data-capturing and storage facilities together, meaning that Israel could have access to essentially all the U.S. military’s data.
The bill also requires the creation of a new position within the Department of Defense: an executive agent whose role is to coordinate cooperation and integration between the two parties.
In essence, then, it would dramatically change the relationship between the two states, from one where Washington supplies Tel Aviv with money, weapons, and diplomatic support, to a situation where the two are fundamentally intertwined.
It would also make the relationship far less transparent, as aid to Israel currently requires an annual public debate and vote. However, by moving it away from the political realm into that of defense acquisition, oversight and accountability mechanisms will be removed, and the public will have little right to know the details going forward.
Judging by its sponsors, Section 224 has strong support on Capitol Hill. It was put forward by Mike Rogers (R-AL), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Adam Smith (D-WA), the panel’s highest-ranking Democrat.
[On Thursday Rep. Ro Khanna’s effort to revoke the provision from the massive military funding bill failed, paving the way for the NDAA to advance to a full House vote.]
The news that a new bill could essentially fuse together the U.S. and Israeli militaries has been met with pushback online, but provoked little comment in Washington, D.C.
One lawmaker who has spoken up is Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, who has promised to offer an amendment to strip Section 224 from the bill on the House floor. “We are a sovereign country,” he said on Saturday.
Massie, a strong critic of U.S. support for Israel, recently lost his primary to challenger Ed Gallrein, after AIPAC and other Israel Lobby groups flooded the race with tens of millions of dollars, making it the most expensive contest in American history.
Massie at a speaking event in Las Vegas in 2024. (Gage Skidmore/ Flickr/ Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0)
Analysts have noted that, if passed, the bill will “extraordinarily” expand Israeli influence in domestic American politics, giving Tel Aviv the opportunity to pull powerful political levers through the tried and tested method of offering jobs.
As the Institute for Responsible Statecraft warns, by expanding or starting new arms production facilities like they already have in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could use the influence of bringing jobs to districts to buy the support of American members of Congress.
The U.S. already provides Israel with enormous amounts of military aid, having sent hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons since 1948.
Since 2008, it is required by law to protect Israel’s “qualitative military edge,” by supplying it with advanced weaponry.
Section 224, however, would transform and deepen this relationship, making it all-but-impossible to democratically break the U.S.-Israel special relationship.
That alliance is under increased scrutiny, as support for Israel is collapsing across the United States. A new poll published by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies found that 60 percent of Americans (including 75 percent of respondents under 30 years old) hold a negative view of the country. When asked, a large plurality says that Israel holds too much sway over American politics and politicians.
A 2025 study found that half of American voters believe Israel is carrying out a genocide against its neighbors in West Asia.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, among others, on charges of crimes against humanity.
The United States, however, has refused to accept the ICC’s actions, attempted to shut down proceedings, and imposed sanctions on the court. ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan stated that Senior U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham – one of Netanyahu’s closest allies in Washington – told him that his court is only “for African thugs like [Russian president Vladimir] Putin. It is not for democracies like Israel and the United States of America.”
The response from the governments of Israel and the United States to the increasing opposition to the genocide has been to crack down on dissent and to censor social media.
As Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of pro-Israel pressure group, the Anti-Defamation League stated, “We really have a TikTok problem, a Gen Z problem.” The Trump administration forced through the sale of TikTok to the family of Larry Ellison, a passionately pro-Israel tech billionaire who is the largest private funder of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Ellison, no doubt, will support Section 224. Yet the effective merger between the U.S. military and the IDF will have profound consequences for the future of America, and should provoke stiff opposition nationwide. Whether it passes will depend largely on the nature and scale of that opposition.
Alan MacLeod is senior staff writer for MintPress News. He completed his PhD in 2017 and has since authored two acclaimed books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine and Common Dreams.
Rolls-Royce is turning a quiet Welsh site into a nuclear bet, and the strange part is how many homes three small reactors could power
Public money is carrying the risk
SMRs are often promoted as cheaper and faster than conventional nuclear plants, but the first projects still need heavy financing, regulatory work, supply-chain confidence, and buyers willing to believe the model can scale.
By Indux, June 3, 2026, https://www.vozpopuli.com/indux/en/rolls-royce-is-turning-a-quiet-welsh-site-into-a-nuclear-bet-and-the-strange-part-is-how-many-homes-three-small-reactors-could-power/5488/
Rolls-Royce SMR and Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N) have moved the United Kingdom’s first small modular reactor (SMR) project into a new phase, signing a contract that starts technology design work for three units planned at Wylfa in North Wales.
The project is expected to deliver at least 1.4 gigawatts of electric output, enough to power the equivalent of around 3 million homes for more than 60 years.
This is not a finished power plant, and it is not yet the final investment decision, but it is a big marker for a country trying to cut its exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets, rebuild industrial capacity, and keep the lights on without making the electric bill feel like a monthly shock. The material provided for this story described Wylfa as the centerpiece of a new British nuclear push.
Wylfa gets its second act
Wylfa is not new to nuclear power. The site on Anglesey once hosted a nuclear station that helped feed the British grid for decades before its last reactor shut down in 2015, leaving the area with the familiar question that follows many old industrial sites. What comes next?
The answer, at least for now, is a factory-built nuclear project led by Rolls-Royce SMR. The British government confirmed Wylfa in November 2025 as the home of the first small modular reactor plant in the program, with an initial three units and possible room for up to eight in the future.
That matters because Wylfa has had false starts before. Earlier replacement plans collapsed, and the local community was left waiting for a project big enough to bring jobs, training, and long-term investment back to the coast.
The Rolls-Royce design is called small, but the numbers are not tiny. Each unit is a 470 MWe pressurized water reactor, which means the first three units would add up to roughly 1.4 gigawatts of electric capacity.
The pitch is simple. Build much of the plant in factory conditions, move the pre-tested pieces to the site, and reduce the risk that has made traditional nuclear megaprojects expensive and slow.
World Nuclear News reported that about 90% of the SMR would be built away from the site, with the reactor unit measuring about 52 feet by 13 feet. That modular approach is supposed to make schedules more predictable and limit disruption around Wylfa, although nuclear projects rarely become easy just because the parts are smaller.
Jobs are part of the sell
The government says the first SMR project could support around 3,000 jobs at peak construction, along with thousands more across the national supply chain. Rolls-Royce SMR has put the wider employment impact even higher, saying its Wylfa program will support an average of almost 8,000 skilled jobs across the United Kingdom during the build program.
That difference matters. One figure is centered on peak construction at the project, while the other looks more broadly across the build program and the wider supply chain.
For Anglesey, the local promise is easy to understand. Big energy projects do not just bring engineers in hard hats. They bring apprenticeships, local contracts, traffic on access roads, new pressure on housing, and, ideally, years of steady work rather than a short construction rush.
Public money is carrying the risk
The program is also a test of how much public backing is needed to get new nuclear technology moving. The 2025 Spending Review allocated about $3.5 billion to enable the contract and wider SMR program, while the National Wealth Fund is committing up to about $805 million to support Rolls-Royce SMR’s reactor development.
That public support is not just a footnote. SMRs are often promoted as cheaper and faster than conventional nuclear plants, but the first projects still need heavy financing, regulatory work, supply-chain confidence, and buyers willing to believe the model can scale.
At the end of the day, the government is trying to turn Wylfa into more than one power station. It wants a repeatable British nuclear product that can be built at home and exported abroad.
At the end of the day, the government is trying to turn Wylfa into more than one power station. It wants a repeatable British nuclear product that can be built at home and exported abroad.
The timeline is still long
The contract allows Rolls-Royce SMR to begin site-specific design, regulatory engagement, and planning work ahead of a future final investment decision. That last phrase is important. It means the project has momentum, but it still has key approvals and financial steps ahead.
GBE-N has said work is set to start at the site in 2026, while the government has pointed to the mid-2030s for grid connection. So this is not a quick fix for today’s energy bills.
Still, nuclear power is being pitched as the steady partner for wind and solar. When the wind drops or demand spikes during a cold evening, the grid still needs reliable generation that can run day and night.
Why Rolls-Royce wants this win
For Rolls-Royce, Wylfa is more than a domestic contract. Chris Cholerton, chief executive of Rolls-Royce SMR, said the deal “unlocks the delivery” of the first three units and gives the U.K. program certainty, while also pointing to plans for up to six units in Czechia.
That is the bigger business angle. If Rolls-Royce can prove the model at Wylfa, it could strengthen its case in a global market where governments are looking for cleaner baseload power, industrial heat, and energy security.
Proof, however, is the key word. The SMR promise has been talked about for years. Wylfa is where Britain is trying to show whether the factory-built nuclear idea can move from slide decks into steel, concrete, regulation, and power lines.
Wylfa is now the test case
The United Kingdom is betting that small modular reactors can help solve several problems at once. Cleaner electricity, more energy independence, skilled jobs, and a stronger industrial base are all part of the same package.
That is a lot to ask from one coastal site. BHowever, Wylfa has become the place where those promises will start being measured against deadlines, budgets, and public confidence.
The official statement was published on GOV.UK.
Is Israel planning to reoccupy the Gaza Strip? This is what’s happening behind the ‘yellow line
an occupying power must preserve the demographic composition of the territory it controls. In this specific case, international law prohibits the removal of a population (the Palestinians) and the transfer of another population (Israeli settlers) onto occupied land.
Michelle Burgis-Kasthala, Professor of International Law, La Trobe University, 4 June 26, https://theconversation.com/is-israel-planning-to-reoccupy-the-gaza-strip-this-is-whats-happening-behind-the-yellow-line-284086?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%204%202026%20-%203792338838&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%204%202026%20-%203792338838+CID_84a191247b774c7af7d936d593de2bdf&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Is%20Israel%20planning%20to%20reoccupy%20the%20Gaza%20Strip%20This%20is%20whats%20happening%20behind%20the%20yellow%20line
In recent days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli army to seize 70% of Gaza – a sizeable increase from the 60% it currently controls.
This follows an updated map sent to aid agencies in Gaza in late March featuring a new “orange line” demarcating the restricted area under military control – about 11% larger than the area agreed to with the “yellow line” in the October ceasefire with Hamas.
Israel’s defence minister has also confirmed in recent days the government’s intention to move large numbers of Palestinians out of Gaza “at the right time and in the right manner”.
All of this is happening in a charged political environment in Israel: the Knesset dissolved itself on May 20, creating the possibility of an early election in September.
Israel’s actions are in clear violation of the 20-point Gaza peace plan, which called for a staged withdrawal of Israeli troops and actively “encouraged” residents to stay. It reads:
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.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has acknowledged as much, telling a congressional hearing this week that the peace plan “doesn’t call for” expanded military control of the strip.
The 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are being squeezed into an ever-smaller pocket of the decimated, overcrowded territory. And it appears the international community is doing little to stop it.
Laws against conquering territory
International law permits militaries to occupy foreign territory in pursuit of war aims, but there are two key limitations here.
First, an occupying force cannot pursue a legal claim to the territory it holds. The UN Charter has clearly outlawed the right to conquest under Article 2(4). Breaches of this article are treated very seriously, as the world’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown. This can be considered a war crime – the crime of aggression.
For Israel, this means its control of Gaza cannot result in a claim to sovereignty over any part of the strip. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) underscored this in its 2024 advisory opinion on Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Second, any occupying military power must comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law in a conflict. This means ensuring the welfare of the population under its control.
This has been the case in Gaza since Israel captured it from Egypt in the Six-Day War in 1967, beginning a decades-long occupation of the strip.
In fact, Israel’s obligations as an occupying power continued even after it pulled out its troops and dismantled its settlements in 2005.
As part of these obligations, an occupying power must preserve the demographic composition of the territory it controls. In this specific case, international law prohibits the removal of a population (the Palestinians) and the transfer of another population (Israeli settlers) onto occupied land.
A flawed peace plan
Despite these clear legal principles, enforcement of Israel’s obligations will be at best difficult, slow and piecemeal.
In its 2024 advisory opinion, for instance, the ICJ ordered Israel to withdraw fully from the occupied Palestinian territories, saying its presence is in breach of two key legal principles – self-determination and the prohibition against conquest. The UN General Assembly endorsed the findings and set a deadline of September 14 2025 for the withdrawal. Israel ignored the deadline.
The general assembly can’t enforce an ICJ ruling, only the security council can. And this avenue is blocked due to the US veto power.
More worrying is that the clarity provided by international law – prohibiting conquest, genocide, settlements and forced displacement – is being blurred by the 20-point peace plan mediated by US President Donald Trump and the so-called Board of Peace overseeing the process.
Last November, the UN Security Council endorsed Trump’s plan to end the conflict, disarm Hamas and establish a new transitional government system under the auspices of the Board of Peace and an International Stabilisation Force to keep the peace.
But the ceasefire agreement was flawed from the start. The text, for instance, did not include any specifications about Israel’s presence in the strip, accountability for alleged crimes or demilitarisation of Palestinian groups.
Since the ceasefire, the entire process has predictably stalled. Israeli strikes have continued, killing more than 900 Palestinians. Aid delivery is far below the needs of a desperate population. And Hamas refuses to disarm without firm guarantees on future Palestinian self-determination.
Behind the ‘yellow line’
This stalemate suits Israel perfectly. Under the map of the ceasefire agreement, Israel was permitted to keep its troops in areas behind a “yellow line” encircling the majority of the population along the coast. This gave Israel military control of just over half of Gaza.
Then, in the area under its control, Israel began two activities that speak to its longer-term political aspirations.
First, it levelled entire neighbourhoods and hundreds of buildings, turning this part of Gaza into a wasteland devoid of inhabitants and any recognisable landmarks.
Second, on this blank canvas, it constructed an impressive array of military roads, outposts and barriers, including permanent earthen berms (walls).
This gives Israel the possibility of perpetual control of a territory devoid of Palestinians. If this status quo continues, it would amount to forced displacement and conquest.
Day by day, Palestinian Gaza is shrinking and a new Gaza is being forged through bulldozers and barriers. Netanyahu has indicated Israel may not stop at 70% depopulation and control. It may seek to preserve a large “buffer” zone in Gaza – as it is doing in Lebanon and Syria – or perhaps revive the project of Israeli settlement of the strip, which is in full swing across the West Bank.
All of this is happening in violation of international law and a “peace” plan that has no clear vision for a long-term solution for the Palestinian people.
First Minister pressed over Welsh Government support for Wylfa small modular reactors
Wrexham.com 3rd June 2026
Wales’ new First Minister has been urged to provide clarity on the Welsh Government’s position on proposed small modular reactors at Wylfa.
During his inaugural First Minister’s Questions, Rhun ap Iorwerth, was asked by interim Welsh Labour Leader Ken Skates to confirm whether the new Plaid Cymru-led administration supports plans for up to eight small modular reactors at the Anglesey site……………………………………………………………………
Mr ap Iorwerth said he had “always taken the approach of fighting for the economic benefits” that could come from any development at Wylfa and stressed that the site remained a reserved matter for the UK Government.
The First Minister stopped short of explicitly backing the construction of eight SMRs, but said the government would “work positively” on proposals because of the potential economic benefits for Anglesey and the wider region…………………………………………………………………………………………… https://wrexham.com/news/first-minister-pressed-over-welsh-government-support-for-wylfa-small-modular-reactors-293228.html
The World Has Rendered Its Verdict on American Power
June 2, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/06/02/the-world-has-rendered-its-verdict-on-american-power/
The World Is Voting With Its Opinion — And Washington Won’t Like the Results
For decades, U.S. leaders spoke as if history had already been settled. The Soviet Union had fallen, American power was unmatched, and the world would eventually follow Washington’s political and economic model. But a remarkable new international survey suggests that era may be ending — and ending far faster than many in the West are willing to admit.
According to the 2026 Democracy Perception Index, which surveyed tens of thousands of people across 84 countries, a majority of respondents now view the United States as the greatest threat to global peace and stability. Even more striking, people in most surveyed nations say they view China more favorably than the United States.
These findings do not come from Beijing or Moscow. The survey was conducted by the Alliance of Democracies, a Western organization backed by European institutions, major corporations, and figures closely associated with NATO. Yet the results paint a picture of a rapidly changing world order in which America’s endless wars, military footprint, economic coercion, and support for controversial foreign interventions have severely damaged its global standing.
As Washington escalates confrontations abroad—from Iran and China to renewed military tensions across multiple regions—the rest of the world appears increasingly skeptical of U.S. claims to moral leadership. The survey also reveals a growing divide between how Western elites define democracy and how much of the world understands it. While American political discourse often emphasizes electoral procedures and individual rights, many respondents defined democracy more simply: a government that improves people’s lives, delivers economic security, and promotes social well-being.
Whether one agrees with these conclusions or not, the message is difficult to ignore. The unipolar moment that followed the Cold War is fading. The assumption that the United States would remain the unquestioned center of global power is being challenged not only by rival governments but by public opinion itself.
The real question may no longer be whether the world is changing, but whether Washington is capable of recognizing that change before its credibility erodes even further.
Ukraine’s military has a real Nazi problem
It also desecrates the memory of Nazism’s victims in Ukraine: 1.5 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, along with millions of Slavs, prisoners of war, Roma, the mentally ill, forced laborers, and countless others consumed by the machinery of racial extermination and exploitation.
In their zeal to deconstruct Russian propaganda, Western elites have tried to hide the fact there are Third Reich extremists among Kyiv’s ranks.
Marta Havryshko, Jun 02, 2026, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/nazis-in-ukraine-military/?mc_cid=044f4b8379
When Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he claimed one of his goals was the country’s “denazification.” The Kremlin still uses this narrative as a cornerstone of its war propaganda.
Both Ukraine and the West reacted by dismissing the claim outright as a cynical abuse of Holocaust history. Politicians, media outlets, academics, and educational institutions rushed to prove that Putin’s argument was fraudulent.
But in their zeal to deconstruct Russian propaganda, Western elites created a propaganda myth of their own: there are no Nazis in Ukraine. Or, if there are, they are supposedly isolated cranks with no influence.
This fiction required the whitewashing of Azov, a unit founded in 2014 by the neo-Nazi group Patriot of Ukraine under the leadership of Andriy Biletsky. Azov became notorious for extremist ideology, Nazi symbolism, and allegations of war crimes in the Donbas. In 2018, the U.S. Congress banned the group from receiving American weapons, funding, or training.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion, that stigma vanished almost overnight. Kyiv repackaged Azov, separating the most radical elements into a new formation, the 3rd Assault Brigade. Western media rebranded and whitewashed it. The language of “de-radicalization” and “depoliticization” became mainstream. Questioning this narrative became taboo and labeled as “Russian propaganda.” The result is a culture of deliberate silence.
Neo-Nazi networks are deeply embedded in parts of Ukraine’s military structure. Their presence is visible in units such as Azov, the Third Assault Brigade, the Russian Volunteer Corps, Bratstvo, the German Volunteer Corps, Karpatska Sich, and others. Yet Ukraine’s Western backers continue to arm, fund, and train these units without meaningful scrutiny.
Even more striking is the normalization of Nazi imagery itself. Official Ukrainian military channels and mainstream media regularly publish images of soldiers wearing swastikas, Waffen-SS insignia, and patches linked to neo-Nazi groups like Combat 18 and Misanthropic Division. This is no longer treated as scandalous. It has been normalized.
Most disturbing of all, some Ukrainian military units have incorporated Nazi-linked symbols into their official insignia.
The far right and Ukraine’s military culture
Many Ukrainian military units using Nazi symbols are led by men shaped by Azov and the far-right milieu around it. For example, there is Oleksandr Kravtsov, the well-known commander of the Vedmedi unit, which was part of Azov. His body is covered in Nazi imagery, including 1488 — references to the white supremacist “14 Words” slogan coined by David Lane and the coded salute “Heil Hitler.” (“H” is the eighth letter of the alphabet.) Tattooed across his chest is the SS motto: “My Honor Is Loyalty.” He turned that slogan into the motto of his own unit. SS lightning bolts became part of its official insignia.
After returning from Russian captivity, Kravtsov’s unit was folded into the Ukrainian military structure — first the 36th Brigade, then the 39th Coastal Defense Brigade. Nothing changed. The SS symbols and motto remained.
Many commanders in the 3rd Assault Brigade also came out of Azov and still hold extremist views. Unsurprisingly, they openly embrace the corresponding symbolism. A subunit of the 3rd Assault Brigade adopted a modified insignia (replacing two grenades with three) of the Dirlewanger SS Brigade — one of the most notorious Nazi formations of World War II. In 2025, the brigade unveiled the emblem publicly at a memorial in Kyiv. No scandal followed.
Azov also normalized the Black Sun — a symbol born in Himmler’s SS cult headquarters at Wewelsburg Castle and now used globally by neo-Nazis and white supremacist terrorists, including the 2019 Christchurch mosque terrorist in New Zealand and the recent San Diego Islamic Center shooter.
After 2022, Black Sun spread rapidly through Ukrainian military culture. It appeared in Azov-linked units such as the Decepticons platoon and the Mortars unit of the 3rd Assault Brigade. Soon it migrated further — into units with no openly ideological profile at all — and became part of the insignia of the 156th Zvaha Battalion and the Unmanned Systems Battalion of the 110th Brigade named after Marko Bezruchko.
Azov mainstreamed another Nazi-linked emblem as well: the Wolfsangel, used historically by several Waffen-SS divisions. Rebranded as the “Idea of the Nation,” it became one of the most recognizable symbols in Ukraine’s wartime military culture. The symbol now appears far beyond Azov itself. The newly created Nachtigall Battalion — named after the Nachtigall Battalion formed by German military intelligence in 1941 — uses the same Wolfsangel-inspired insignia.
Some units within Ukraine’s military do not hide their fascination with the Third Reich’s military culture. For example, the 422nd Regiment of Unmanned Systems calls itself “Luftwaffe” and uses virtually the same eagle as Hitler’s air force. Its commander, Mykola Kolesnyk, regularly appears with the symbol on patches and clothing. The unit even sells merchandise featuring the Nazi eagle — hoodies, mugs, T-shirts, caps, keychains — to fundraise for the war.
Not just aesthetic choices
The use of Nazi symbols in Ukraine’s military is not merely an aesthetic problem. It is moral, political, historical, and legal.
First, it represents a form of historical revisionism and the gradual rehabilitation of Nazism itself — a direct challenge to the postwar Western consensus built on the memory of World War II. Within far-right military culture, Nazi imagery is often wrapped in romanticized narratives about anti-Soviet struggle. In practice this trivializes the sacrifice of the seven million Ukrainians who fought Nazism in the ranks of the Red Army alongside the Western allies (in contrast to the 300,000 who served in various military formations and police units on the side of Nazi Germany).
Second, the problem is not only historical. It is profoundly contemporary. Every SS rune, Black Sun, or Wolfsangel displayed by Ukrainian soldiers hands the Kremlin another propaganda victory. Russian propagandists do not need to invent imaginary Nazis in Kyiv. They simply point to the insignia openly worn by some of Ukraine’s most celebrated military units — including formations branded as “elite,” such as the 3rd Assault Brigade.
Third, there is also a glaring legal contradiction. By openly using Nazi imagery, these units violate Ukraine’s own 2015 memory laws, which explicitly ban the propaganda of the Nazi regime and the public use of its symbols. The law describes such acts as an insult to the memory of millions of victims and have penalties of up to five years in prison.
Yet no one is prosecuted.
Why?
Because the Zelensky government — and President Volodymyr Zelensky himself as commander-in-chief — have made a political bargain with the far right. Since 2022, far-right activists and networks have flooded into the security and defense sector. In conditions of total war and chronic manpower shortages, this alliance became politically convenient, perhaps even inevitable. Now it is becoming entrenched.
The state depends on radicalized military formations for manpower and battlefield effectiveness. The far right, in turn, receives legitimacy, weapons, influence, and institutional protection. What emerged from wartime necessity is evolving into mutual dependence.
Ukraine’s Western partners have made their own bargain. They, too, depend on Ukrainian manpower to weaken Russia. And so they tolerate extremists inside Ukraine’s armed forces as long as those extremists continue fighting. More than that, they remain largely silent about the ideology and symbols involved, because acknowledging them would mean admitting an uncomfortable truth — that the neo-Nazi problem in Ukraine is not simply a Kremlin invention.
Marta Havryshko is a U.S.-based author and researcher focused on Ukrainian nationalism, the far right, and the Russo-Ukrainian War. Havryshko holds a PhD in History from the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv in Ukraine.
Around the world, global solidarity and cooperation are remarkably popular
June 1, 2026, by Lawrence Wittner, https://peaceandhealthblog.com/2026/06/01/around-the-world-global-solidarity-and-cooperation-are-remarkably-popular/
One of the curious ironies of our time is that, although many politicians spout heated nationalist rhetoric, rail against foreign nations, and belittle international cooperation, this approach to international affairs is not at all what most people want.
The climate of aggressive nationalism is clear enough. In nations around the globe, demagogues (usually of a rightwing variety) whip up xenophobia, preach superpatriotism, demand vast military buildups, and―if holding public office―often launch invasions of other nations under the banner of restoring an allegedly glorious national past.
But what is often overlooked is that, across the planet, most people favor a very different way of engaging with the world.
In late 2025, Focaldata, a major research company commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, conducted a landmark survey of 36,405 people across 34 countries. The resulting report, Demanding Results: Global Views on International Cooperation, revealed that 55 percent of people worldwide “believe their country should cooperate on global challenges even if it means compromising on national interests.” If international cooperation was proven to solve global problems, public support jumped to 75 percent. Respondents viewed such cooperation as essential for food and water security, jobs, health, trade, and climate.
Other opinion surveys confirm the widespread nature of internationalist sentiment. An Ipsos poll conducted between February and April 2026 found a substantial increase over the previous year in support for global solidarity and cooperation, with net disagreement shifting to net agreement. Among the more than 22,000 adults in the 31 countries surveyed, nearly two-thirds now supported the claim that, “for certain problems, like environmental pollution, international bodies should have the right to enforce solutions.” Some 42 percent (a plurality) agreed with the idea that “my taxes should go towards solving global problems.” And nearly four out of ten respondents (a plurality) endorsed the statement: “I consider myself more a world citizen than a citizen of the country I live in.”
Another measure of the worldwide support for international cooperation is provided by polling on public attitudes toward international organizations. The Rockefeller Foundation-Focaldata study reported that public trust was strong for the United Nations (58 percent) and the World Health Organization (60 percent), although weaker for international financial institutions. The global popularity of the United Nations was also attested to by a Pew Research Center survey that appeared in September 2025. Covering 31,938 adults in 25 countries, it found that a median of 61 percent of adults had a favorable view of the world organization, while only 32 percent had an unfavorable one.
Even proposals for new, avant garde global institutions have attracted more public support than opposition. Commissioned by Democracy Without Borders, Nira Data conducted a global survey in September 2025 of public attitudes toward the election of a citizen-elected world parliament to handle global issues. The survey, released in January 2026, drew upon 117,000 people in 101 countries that held 90 percent of the world’s population. The finding was that 40 percent of respondents approved of the world parliament idea, while only 27 percent opposed it.
But what about the United States? Surely in this flag-waving nation, engulfed in the rabid “America First” rhetoric of the Trump administration and its MAGA acolytes, we might expect that the ideals of global solidarity and cooperation would be supported by no more than a small minority.
But that’s not the case at all.
One of the most striking findings of the Rockefeller Foundation-Focaldata survey is that 61 percent of U.S. respondents believed that the United States should cooperate on global challenges even it meant compromising on some national interests.
When it came to the United Nations, the Pew Research Center report revealed that 57 percent of Americans held a positive view of the world organization, as compared to 41 percent with a negative one. Moreover, it found that positive views of the United Nations had increased by 5 percent over the preceding year.
A study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, issued in September 2025, reported an even more favorable public attitude toward the United Nations. Two-thirds of the Americans surveyed, it noted, said that the United States should be more willing to make decisions within the framework of the United Nations, even if this meant that the country would sometimes have to go along with a policy that was not its first choice.
Admittedly, opinion surveys found that the level of support for international cooperation varied significantly from country to country. Thus, for example, the backing for international cooperation when that meant compromising on some national interests was greater in India (81 percent) and South Korea (73 percent), the countries highest on the scale, than in Argentina (41 percent) and Japan (34 percent), the countries at the bottom of the scale.
Furthermore, there was often a political dimension to worldwide public attitudes toward foreign affairs. According to the Pew Research Center, “people who place themselves on the left of the ideological spectrum are more likely than those on the right to have a positive view of the UN.”
This political division was particularly wide in the United States, where, as the Pew report maintained, “81% of liberals―versus 34% of conservatives―have a favorable opinion” of the United Nations. When it came to the issue of support for cooperation with other nations, the surveys by Rockefeller-Focaldata and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs both found substantial differences between the attitudes of Democrats (quite positive) and Republicans (far more negative).
Even so, in most countries, including the United States, support for international solidarity and cooperation is very substantial, and growing. Consequently, political activists and politicians shouldn’t be reluctant to speak out for them. Indeed, given the popularity of this internationalist approach to global affairs, it might even prove a winning political issue.
Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).
The UK Is Getting Even Crazier In Defense Of Israel
Caitlin Johnstone, Jun 01, 2026
The UK is getting crazier and crazier in its defense of Israel. Now they’re canceling the visas of mainstream normie political pundits for criticizing the state of Israel, and investigating people for antisemitic hate crimes when they denounce Zionists who aren’t even Jewish.
American progressive commentator Cenk Uygur and his nephew Hasan Piker have both been denied visas by the British government, saying they were blocked from entering the country because of their criticism of Israel.
“I’ve been banned from the UK,” Uygur said in a tweet. “I tried to get on a flight to London to attend SXSW London and give a speech at Oxford. I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel. Are we free anymore? This is oppression of Western citizens by our own governments on behalf of a different country!”
“the uk has revoked my visa as well. all at the behest of israel,” said Piker in a repost of his uncle’s statement. “the west is betraying ‘liberal values’ for a genocidal fascist foreign government. soon we will all become israel.”
This is a significant escalation from London, because neither Uygur nor Piker could reasonably be described as politically extremist in any way. They’re essentially just Bernie Sanders progressives who sit well within the mainstream US political Overton window; I personally don’t follow either of them because they are both far too aligned with the Democratic Party for my liking.
This move is yet another win for the UK’s extremely powerful Israel lobby. Two weeks ago the Jewish Chronicle ran a story titled “Social media influencer Hasan Piker must be banned from Britain, say Jewish leaders,” subtitled “Online agitator who said Zionists were like ‘Nazis’ and refused to condemn Hamas poses a threat to British Jews.”
So the pressure campaign appears to have paid off.
This comes as the Metropolitan Police launch an investigation into an incident in which actress Helen Mirren was called an “evil Zionist bitch” by a man on the street last year, saying in a statement that “We are aware of a video circulating online, showing a man and a woman being subjected to antisemitic verbal abuse in Tower Hill.”
To be clear, Helen Mirren is not Jewish, so she can’t have been a victim of “antisemitic verbal abuse”. She is however an avowed supporter of the state of Israel, which makes her a Zionist.
In a 2023 interview with Israeli media, Mirren stirred up controversy with her remarks on her 1967 visit to the Zionist ethnostate, saying, “I saw Arabs being thrown out of their houses in Jerusalem. But it was just the extraordinary magical energy of a country just beginning to put its roots in the ground. It was an amazing time to be here.”
Russia adds four Ukrainian groups and ‘Glory to Ukraine’ salute to register of ‘fascist organizations and associated symbols’
January 19, 2024, Source: Meduza, https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/01/18/russia-adds-four-ukrainian-groups-and-glory-to-ukraine-salute-to-register-of-fascist-organizations-and-associated-symbols
Russia’s Justice Ministry has included four Ukrainian organizations in its register of groups that either collaborated with those condemned by the Nuremberg trials or deny the crimes of Nazism, reports Russian state news agency TASS.
The list appeared on the ministry’s website on January 18 and is officially called the “List of organizations specified in parts three and four of Article 6 of the federal law ‘On Commemorating the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945’, as well as the attributes and symbols of these organizations.”
The list includes the following four organizations:
- The Ukrainian People’s Revolutionary Army (UNRA),
- The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA),
- The Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNSO),
- The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).
The list also features the organizations’ slogans, including the salute “Glory to Ukraine” [Slava Ukraini] and the response “Glory to the Heroes” [Heroiam Slava].
The document also includes the organizations’ symbols, such as the Trident of Prince Volodymyr, depicted on Ukraine’s coat of arms.
Labour’s plans to limit judicial reviews of nuclear projects would ‘harm democracy’
This is disturbingly similar to what Donald Trump did earlier this year when he gutted the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Environmental Protection Agency
This is disturbingly similar to what Donald Trump did earlier this year when he gutted the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Environmental Protection Agency
by Tom Pashby, 28 May 2026, https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2026/05/28/labour-judicial-review-limit-harm-democracy/
Plans by the Labour Government to make it harder for communities to oppose infrastructure projects near them, such as nuclear power plants, have been criticised by campaigners and a legal expert.
The Treasury announced on 20 May that the chancellor was expected to:
use Parliament to drive through power plants and infrastructure [by giving] Parliament the authority to approve critical energy schemes and better protect infrastructure projects from judicial review.
People with concerns about major infrastructure projects – sometimes called nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs), which includes nuclear power plants – are able to request that judges review applications for building NSIPs.
Those judicial reviews have the potential to bring an end to projects if judges agree with arguments put forward by people pursuing the reviews.
Now, the government is proposing to give government proposals for some major projects “the same status as laws passed by elected decision makers,” according to one legal expert who spoke to the Canary, which appears to “have significant constitutional implications”.
Treasury announcement
The announcement by the Treasury said:
The headline proposal would allow Parliament to designate and approve the most important clean energy projects as being of ‘Critical National Importance’ (CNI), reducing the exposure from judicial review on all but human rights grounds.
This would help deliver the government’s commitment to accelerate new infrastructure development and drive growth, including much-needed projects like new power stations and offshore wind farms.
For all other nationally significant infrastructure – including transport and water projects – the government will introduce a fixed legal challenge window, at the end of which the planning consent could be updated to address any legitimate issues.
Plans to give government proposals same status as acts of parliament ‘concerning’ – lawyer
Leigh Day is a law firm “established to combat injustice,” its website says.
The firm has represented a variety of clients who have used judicial reviews to oppose major infrastructure projects.
Leigh Day partner Ricardo Gama told the Canary:
The government appears to be introducing further limits on communities’ ability to have large infrastructure decisions examined by the courts.
The suggestion that projects with political backing should enjoy the same status as acts of parliament, but be spared parliamentary scrutiny, is concerning.
It appears to have significant constitutional implications because it would alter the relationship between government, parliament and judges, giving government proposals the same status as laws passed by elected decision makers.
Limiting legal challenges ‘harms democracy’ and reduces ‘oversight of the nuclear industry’
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament general secretary Sophie Bolt told the Canary:
The government is cynically using the crisis in the Middle East to justify limiting transparency and the ability of local communities and campaign groups to appeal the railroading of costly and dirty nuclear power projects.
Limiting the appeals process harms democracy and much needed oversight of the nuclear industry – but will not change the fact that nuclear power relies on the dirty process of extracting and processing uranium for fuel and leaves a legacy of toxic waste that lasts for generations.
The government’s plan to cut regulations and limit the scope for judicial reviews essentially means this industry will be more dangerous.
This is disturbingly similar to what Donald Trump did earlier this year when he gutted the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Anti-Sizewell C campaigners rail against notion that Sizewell C was delayed by judicial reviews
A Stop Sizewell C spokesperson told the Canary:
If Sizewell C was genuinely delayed by judicial reviews, why did the National Audit Office (NAO), who would have spoken at length to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Sizewell C during their enquiries, not say so?
In October 2025, the Treasury put out a statement saying:
Backing the builders not the blockers, the government will work with the judiciary to cut the amount of time it takes for a judicial review to move through the court system for nationally critical infrastructure projects by around half a year, like Sizewell C.
Then, in May 2026, a National Audit Office (NAO) report about Sizewell C poured cold water on the idea that judicial reviews had delayed the project. It explained reasons for delays and judicial reviews were notably absent from the list.
The NAO report said:
DESNZ started formal negotiations with EDF for SZC in 2021 and initially expected to reach ’financial close’, when contracts take effect, by the end of March 2023. DESNZ and HM Treasury made a final investment decision (FID) in July 2025, having agreed terms with EDF and other private investors.
This was 4.5 years after negotiations started and at least 28 months later than originally planned. The project was delayed several times, including by the 2024 General Election; responding to feedback from potential investors and the government’s internal assurance processes; and longer than expected negotiations with EDF and the other investors. Financial close was reached in November 2025.
The Stop Sizewell C spokesperson continued:
If the Chancellor is going to persist in using such offensive language, she really ought to get her facts right.
A Together Against Sizewell C spokesperson echoed Stop Sizewell C’s perspective, telling the Canary:
Labour still doesn’t get it – we cannot build a sustainable future by weakening our environmental safeguards and legal rights.
Reeves’ draconian policy change is built on the false premise promoted by the nuclear industry and right wing lobbyists that Sizewell C was excessively delayed by judicial review challenges – this does not stand up to scrutiny.
Reeves’ plans will need to be scrutinised by MPs and peers, and the challenge to the Prime Minister’s leadership means it is unclear whether the government will be able to command the confidence of the House of Commons to enable the Chancellor’s plans to make it harder to judicially review some major projects.
1 This Month
of the week – Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Coalition – Working together for the abolition of n\nuclear weapons – https://www.hiroshimadaycoalition.ca/
No Nuclear in Cwm Llynfi! Stop the nuclear power station near Maesteg.
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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