Outrage after footage of Israeli soldiers executing two Palestinians in Jenin goes viral.
Human rights organizations call the killing of two unarmed Palestinians in Jenin by Israeli soldiers an “extrajudicial execution.”
By Qassam Muaddi November 28, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/outrage-after-footage-of-israeli-soldiers-executing-two-palestinians-in-jenin-goes-viral/
The killing of two unarmed Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has provoked international outrage after video footage of the incident went viral on Friday. Credited to the local Palestine TV station, the footage shows two young Palestinian men surrendering to Israeli soldiers and lying on the ground in front of a garage under soldiers’ instructions. They then appear to be directed by the soldiers to go back inside the garage, where one of the troops is seen aiming and shooting at him as he lies on the ground.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the victims as Muntaser Billah Abdallah, 26, and Yousef Asaasah, 37. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the killing in a statement, calling it “a war crime” and a case of “extrajudicial killing.”
The Israeli army and border police said in a joint statement on Friday that Israeli troops “operated to apprehend wanted individuals” allegedly affiliated with a resistance network in the Jenin area, and that after they exited, “fire was directed toward the suspects.”
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, under whose jurisdiction the border police operates, voiced his “total support” for the Israeli soldiers in question, asserting that they “acted exactly as expected of them: terrorists must die.”
The footage has drawn widespread condemnation from rights groups, with Israeli human rights group B’Tselem stating that “the execution documented today is the result of an accelerated dehumanization process of Palestinians” and calling on the international community to “put an end to Israel’s impunity.”
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the killings, saying in a statement that “killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank have been surging, without accountability, even in the rare cases where investigations are announced.”
A pattern of extrajudicial execution
While the latest killing in Jenin was caught on video, Palestinians have remarked that it is not an isolated incident. In 2022, the Palestinian Human Rights Association documented 38 cases of the arbitrary killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces between August 1 and November 4. Yet the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank has sharply risen since October 2023, with at least 1,030 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the past two years in the West Bank.
The killing of the two Palestinians in Jenin comes two days after the Israeli army announced the launch of a new wide-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, which began with a large raid into Tubas. The operation comes almost a year after Israel’s previous “Iron Wall” offensive in the northern West Bank, during which Israeli forces displaced over 40,000 Palestinians from their homes in refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem.
Jenin city and its adjacent refugee camp have been at the center of Israeli military raids since late 2021, as it became the center of Palestinian armed resistance groups such as the Jenin Brigade. After October 2023, Israel launched a protracted military campaign to dismantle them.
Inside the power-hungry data centres taking over Britain.
Our thirst for AI is fuelling a new construction wave: of giant data centres. But can ourelectricity and water systems cope — and what will the neighbours say?
Plants [like the one] run by the company Stellium on the outskirts of
Newcastle upon Tyne, are springing up across the country.
There are already
more than 500 data centres operating in the UK, many of which have been
around since the Nineties and Noughties. They grew in number as businesses and governments digitised their work and stored their data in outsourced “clouds”, while the public switched to shopping, banking and even tracking their bicycle rides online.
But it was in 2022, when a nascent
technology company called OpenAI launched ChatGPT, that the world woke up to the potential of AI and large language models to change the way the planet does, well, just about everything.
It can do this thanks largely to advances in chip design by the US company Nvidia — now the world’s most valuable (and first $5 trillion) business. The trouble is, a typical 4334wChatGPT query needs about ten times as much computing power — and electricity — as a conventional Google search.
This has led to an
explosion in data centres to do the maths. Nearly 100 are currently going
through planning applications in the UK, according to the research group
Barbour ABI. Most will be built in the next five years. More than half of
the new centres are due to be in London and the home counties — many of
them funded by US tech giants such as Google and Microsoft and leading
investment firms. Nine are planned in Wales, five in Greater Manchester,
one in Scotland and a handful elsewhere in the UK.
The boom is so huge that
it has led to concerns about the amount of energy, water and land these
centres will consume, as residents in some areas face the prospect of
seeing attractive countryside paved over with warehouses of tech. Typically
these centres might use 1GW (1,000MW) of electricity — more power than is
needed to supply the cities of London, Birmingham and Manchester put
together.
Times 29th Nov 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/business/technology/article/inside-britains-ai-data-centre-boom-can-the-grid-keep-up-jllzb3b0p
Navy made legal threats to try and keep nuclear pollution secret
Emails reveal that naval chiefs piled pressure on environment watchdog to hide details of radioactive contamination on the Clyde.
Rob Edwards, November 23 2025, https://www.theferret.scot/navy-try-keep-nuclear-pollution-secret/
The Royal Navy threatened legal action as part of a fierce, high-level, behind-the-scenes battle to block publication of information about radioactive pollution at the Coulport nuclear bomb base on the Clyde.
Files released to The Ferret reveal that over nine days in July and August the navy sent 130 emails, held five meetings and made numerous phone calls urging the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) to keep details of the pollution secret.
Naval officials repeatedly warned of legal action, spoke of the need to “calm some nerves” and said they were “deeply uncomfortable” with information proposed for release. One was anxious to avoid “another crazy Friday”, while another complained of becoming a “zombie” after a long week.
Top naval commanders also had an online meeting with the Scottish Information Commissioner, David Hamilton, late one evening to try and persuade him to reverse his decision to reject most of their pleas for secrecy.
But all these eleventh-hour efforts failed. As The Ferret reported on 9 August, Sepa released 33 files revealing that Coulport had polluted Loch Long on the Clyde with radioactive waste after old water pipes burst and caused a flood in 2019.
Campaigners accused the navy of “harassing” Sepa, and praised Hamilton for refusing to be “intimidated”. Politicians demanded less secrecy from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The MoD said it had to “balance” the public’s right to know with releasing information which would compromise national security. Sepa insisted it was firmly committed to transparency.
Naval commanders ‘getting concerned’
The Ferret first made a freedom of information request for files on radioactive problems at Coulport and Faslane in 2019, and then again in 2023 and 2024. But despite multiple reviews, most files were kept secret for national security reasons, after Sepa consulted the MoD.
The secrecy was overturned, however, after we appealed to Hamilton. In June 2025 he ordered Sepa to release most of the files by 28 July, saying they threatened “reputations” not national security.
But the release was delayed to 4 August after the MoD pleaded for more time to assess “additional national security considerations”. Sepa eventually released the 33 files to The Ferret late on 5 August.
Now emails released by Sepa and Hamilton in response to further freedom of information requests from The Ferret have disclosed what was happening behind the scenes.
On working days between 24 July and 5 August the Royal Navy sent an average of more than 14 emails a day to Sepa, to try and limit the amount of information released. Naval officials also frequently phoned and met with Sepa.
On 30 July the MoD proposed a series of redactions to the documents that were scheduled to be released. They “represent the minimal changes which are required in order to protect national security,” it argued.
The MoD tried to add to their shameful history of nuclear cover-ups by harassing officials with false claims of national security, hoping we’d never know radioactivity was negligently leaked from Coulport.
Early on 31 July a naval official asked Sepa to forward the MoD’s proposed redactions to Hamilton, apologising for failing to make that clearer earlier. “It’s been a long week and I resemble a zombie!” the official wrote.
Sepa assured the MoD it had included “all MoD redactions” in a submission to Hamilton.
But then an email from a naval official later on 31 July said the “chain of command are getting concerned” about “timelines” if Hamilton rejected the redactions. The official warned of legal action, adding: “Grateful for your advice to calm some nerves.”
The kind of legal action the navy was considering is unclear, as key text has been redacted. But the only way of challenging Hamilton’s decisions is by appealing to the Court of Session in Edinburgh on a point of law.
Another email on 1 August again warned Sepa that the MoD was “likely to challenge” the release of information that “adversely prejudiced” national security. It asked Sepa to “withhold release of the relevant documents while we follow due process”.
On 4 August Hamilton rejected the majority of the MoD’s proposed redactions. The MoD again told Sepa that it was considering action “to prevent disclosure of the documents”, and asked Sepa not to release them “until this decision has been made”.
But Sepa responded saying that it was planning to release the information as ordered by Hamilton. It was not “tenable” to further delay the release “from a reputational risk perspective”, Sepa said.
MoD meetings with Hamilton
The MoD also requested an “urgent” meeting with Hamilton and his staff on 25 July to consider MoD “concerns”. Another meeting was requested by the MoD on Thursday 31 July, with one official keen to “prevent another crazy Friday”.
On 1 August the navy’s director of submarines, Rear Admiral Andy Perks, told Hamilton that he had spoken directly to Sepa’s chief executive, Nicole Paterson, to try and find “a pragmatic way forward”. He stressed the need to “maintain national security backstops throughout”.
Perks praised Hamilton’s “continued support and pragmatism”, adding that it had been “greatly appreciated” by the First Sea Lord, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins.
On 4 August, after learning that Hamilton had rejected most of the MoD proposed redactions, Perks emailed again asking for another meeting that evening “to find a pragmatic way forward”.
In reply Hamilton said he was legally not allowed to discuss the case with third parties. “Much of the information that the Royal Navy would like to withhold is already in the public domain,” he said.
“As a courtesy I am happy to speak later tonight but with the understanding that I can’t discuss the case in detail.” A meeting took place just after 8pm that evening, after Hamilton had returned from a karate class.
After Sepa released files to The Ferret on 5 August, Hamilton pointed out that a few details had been wrongly redacted. Sepa then had to re-release the files with those redactions removed.
When this was flagged to the MoD on 8 August, it said it was “deeply uncomfortable”. But it added: “We have objections but we won’t appeal further.”
Aggressive manoeuvres
The Campaign for Freedom of Information in Scotland was pleased that Hamilton “refused to be intimidated” by the MoD’s “aggressive manoeuvres”. The public interest had finally been served by disclosure, said campaign director, Carole Ewart.
She thought the MoD might have “overlooked” the fact that Scotland’s environmental information law is tougher than that south of the border. Details can only be kept secret in Scotland if they “prejudice substantially” national security, but UK law says they can remain hidden if they just “adversely affect” national security.
The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament thanked Hamilton for acting “without fear or favour” in the public interest. “The MoD tried to add to their shameful history of nuclear cover-ups by harassing officials with false claims of national security, hoping we’d never know radioactivity was negligently leaked from Coulport,” said campaign chair, Lynn Jamieson.
The SNP MSP and chair of the cross-party group on nuclear disarmament, Bill Kidd, said that the Scottish Parliament’s net zero and energy committee would be investigating transparency over pollution at Coulport and the neighbouring Faslane nuclear submarine base.
There were “worrying undercurrents of MoD behaviour in relation to secrecy over radioactive pollution” that needed to be investigated, he added.
The former Scottish Green leader, Patrick Harvie MSP, accused the MoD of making a “totally inappropriate intervention” in an attempt “to cover up and distract from what were very serious failures.”
We must balance the public’s right to know with releasing information which would compromise national security into the possession of our adversaries.
The MoD defended its intervention as “legitimate”, pointing out that it was “voluntarily” regulated by Sepa and welcomed the scrutiny. “We must balance the public’s right to know with releasing information which would compromise national security into the possession of our adversaries,” said an MoD spokesperson.
“We explored in a professional way a range of options to ensure we struck the right balance while maintaining the security of the British people which is imperative. The redaction of certain information highlights the importance of consulting us to ensure the protection of national security-sensitive information.”
Sepa stressed that it was “firmly committed” to transparency. “Our approach is always that publication is the default and withholding information is the exception, only when it is necessary, proportionate and legally justified,” said the agency’s chief officer, Kirsty-Louise Campbell.
“This includes careful consideration of national security and public safety – particularly for sites handling radioactive substances, whether military or civilian.”
The Scottish Information Commissioner, David Hamilton, pointed out it was Sepa’s responsibility to make representations to him on The Ferret’s FoI appeal. “In the unusual circumstances of this case, however, and, as a responsible regulator, I also spoke with Royal Navy commanders to ensure I was fully aware of any relevant national security issues,” he said.
“After these discussions, I advised Sepa that I was agreeable to a small number of minor redactions in the interests of national security. I should note that, throughout this process, I felt under no pressure to review my decision or make redactions – all of which were founded in Scotland’s environmental transparency laws.”
The 109 files released by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency can be accessed on its disclosure log by searching for F0199867. The 13 files released by the Scottish Information Commissioner are available here.
British military trained in Israel amid Gaza genocide
Armed forces personnel have ‘studied on educational staff courses’ since October 2023, Ministry of Defence discloses
JOHN McEVOY, DECLASSIFIED UK, 26 November 2025
British military personnel trained in Israel amid the Gaza genocide, Declassified can reveal.
The information comes in response to a parliamentary question tabled by Zarah Sultana MP.
On 18 November, Sultana asked the Ministry of Defence “whether any British armed forces officers have studied or trained at Israeli military colleges since October 2023”.
Defence minister Al Carns responded earlier today, saying: “Fewer than five British Armed Forces personnel have studied on educational staff courses in Israel since October 2023”.
It remains unclear where the troops studied or which branches of the military they came from.
But the revelation exposes a new layer of British military collaboration with Israel amid what the UN commission of inquiry has described as a genocide.
Charlie Herbert, a retired British army general, told Declassified: “It is absolutely extraordinary to think that UK military personnel have been undertaking military education or training courses in Israel over the past two years.
“Given the credible allegations of war crimes against the political and military leadership of the IDF, all such exchanges should have immediately ceased.
“It does our armed forces a huge disservice to be associated with the IDF, given the conduct of the IDF in Gaza since late 2023 and to think that we are training in Israel only adds to the accusations of UK complicity in this genocide”…………………….
Military training
The disclosure about British military officers training in Israel comes after Declassified revealed how Israeli soldiers have trained in Britain over the past two years…………………………………………………………………….. https://www.declassifieduk.org/british-military-trained-in-israel-amid-gaza-genocide/
Iranian nuclear scientists sell products with Croydon-made parts.
Iranian military scientists that the US accuses of leading research that
could be applicable to nuclear weapons say their products incorporate
UK-made radiation-detection equipment from a company based in the south London borough of Croydon, a Financial Times investigation has found.
A Tehran-based nuclear-testing and diagnostics company run by senior figures in Iran’s Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), which is subject to US sanctions, and the Revolutionary Guards advertises that it uses radiation-detection tubes made by Centronic in equipment it offers for sale.
FT 25th Nov 2025. https://www.ft.com/content/47acd6de-df7a-420a-b8f4-587008bfe7ef
Navy’s legal threats in bid to keep nuclear pollution secret.
THE Royal Navy threatened legal action as part of a fierce, high-level,
behind-the-scenes battle to block publication of information about
radioactive pollution at the Coulport nuclear bomb base on the Clyde.
Files released to The Ferret reveal that over nine days in July and August, the navy sent 130 emails, held five meetings and made numerous phone calls urging the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) to keep details of the pollution secret. Naval officials repeatedly warned of legal action, spoke of the need to “calm some nerves” and said they were “deeply uncomfortable” with information proposed for release.
The National 23rd Nov 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25642969.navys-legal-threats-bid-keep-nuclear-pollution-secret/
Zelensky covering up ‘dire’ frontline situation – Moscow
RT, Fri, 21 Nov 2025, https://www.rt.com/russia/628091-un-nebenzia-zelensky-ukraine/
Vladimir Zelensky has barred the Ukrainian military from admitting the loss of key towns to Russia, Moscow’s envoy to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, has said. This is being done to hide the actual situation on the ground in the hopes that the flow of Western aid to Kiev remains unhindered, he suggested.
On Thursday, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov,told President Vladimir Putin that Russian forces have liberated the key logistics hub of Kupyansk in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region.
The Ukrainian General Staff, however, has claimed that the city remains under the control of Kiev’s troops.
Zelensky had previously denied the encirclement of Ukrainian forces in Kupyansk and as well as in Dmitrov-Krasnoarmeysk (Mirnograd-Pokrovsk), an urban area in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), accusing Moscow of exaggerating its gains on the battlefield.
During his speech at a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, Nebenzia insisted:
“The situation on the front line for Ukraine “remains dire, if not catastrophic. Russian troops are successfully advancing on essentially all fronts.
“Despite the encirclement of a significant number of Ukrainian troops, massive losses, forced mobilization, and threats to civilians, the head of the Kiev regime forbids acknowledging the loss of cities, orders his troops to hold their positions ‘until the last soldier,’ and bans retreat.
“The policy pursued by the Kiev government has nothing to do with military reality and is purely political in nature. Zelensky wants to show his Western sponsors that the front is holding, because he counts on continued funding for his war with Russia. He needs billions of dollars to keep the war going for him and his cronies to line their pockets and stay in power.“
Last week, the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced a probe into a “high-level criminal organization” allegedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky. Its members are suspected of siphoning around $100 million in kickbacks from state-owned nuclear operator Energoatom.
The graft scandal has led to the sacking of Ukraine’s energy and justice ministers, with other prominent figures such as Zelensky’s right-hand man, Andrey Yermak, and the head of the National Security Council Rustem Umerov also being linked to the scheme.
The Palestine Laboratory: Exporting Occupation Technology (w/ Antony Loewenstein) | The Chris Hedges Report
Gaza has become a testing ground for Israeli and Western weapons and surveillance tools — technologies that will inevitably be used to target populations across the globe.
Chris Hedges, Nov 20, 2025, https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-palestine-laboratory-exporting
This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.
Filmmaker, author and journalist Antony Loewenstein documents how Israel has used Gaza as a weapons showcase. Spyware, killer drones, robot dogs and other weapons are debuted in Gaza and field-tested on the civilian population, demonstrating their effectiveness to regimes around the world that await their chance to purchase them.
Loewenstein joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to chronicle what he has learned from writing The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World and producing The Palestine Laboratory, a documentary based on the book.
“I think the whole idea of what Israel…has been showing the world, I say two things. One, what weapons you can use to murder, kill, target Palestinians but also how to get away with it. I think Israel sells that concept,” Loewenstein explains.
As spyware companies like Pegasus and Paragon and arms companies like Elbit and Rafael see business boom, Loewenstein argues countries have a moral imperative to end trading with Israel. These same technologies perpetuating the genocide in Gaza, Loewenstein explains, will come back to haunt the citizenry of purchasing countries.
“All these governments around the world, whether they’re so-called democratic or repressive, are obsessed with these tools. They can’t give them up. They’re desperate to listen to their opponents, to the journalists, to activists,” Loewenstein remarks.
“It’s very hard for these regimes to give them up because there’s no regulation. There’s just none. It just doesn’t exist.”
Ukraine’s energy sector corruption crisis – what we know so far and who was involved.
Luke Harding, 19 Nov 25,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/19/ukraine-energy-sector-corruption-crisis
Anti-corruption investigators allege high-level kickback scheme involving Energoatom
Ukraine’s national anti-corruption bureau, known as Nabu, says it has uncovered a high-level criminal scheme at the heart of government. It involves Ukraine’s nuclear energy body, Energoatom, that runs three nuclear power plants supplying Ukraine with more than half of its electricity.
What is the scandal?
A group of insiders allegedly received kickbacks of 10-15% from Energoatom’s commercial partners. If these suppliers failed to pay up, they were removed from a list of approved counter-parties or not reimbursed for services already given. About $100m (£76m) was received in this way, Nabu says.
The alleged conspiracy had old-school touches. Its beneficiaries used code names for each other, such as “Professor”, “Karlson” and “Sugarman”. They carried blocks of cash around Kyiv in large and unwieldy bags, sometimes delivering it on foot. On one occasion, a plotter allegedly sent his wife to collect a stash of dollars, which she hid in her car.
Who was involved?
The alleged organiser of the scheme is Timur Mindich, an old friend and business partner of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mindich co-founded Kvartal 95, the media production company set up by Zelenskyy before he went into politics.
Last week he fled his apartment in Kyiv’s government district hours before Nabu investigators came to arrest him, escaping abroad. He is now thought to be hiding in Israel.
Other alleged participants include Ukraine’s ex-deputy prime minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, who is already under suspicion in a separate case; the justice minster, Herman Halushchenko, and his protege, the energy minister, Svitlana Hrynchuk, who were both fired. All deny wrongdoing. At least three other backroom figures allegedly took part.
How have the public reacted?
With fury. Over the autumn, Russia has destroyed much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leading to widespread and worsening blackouts. The hum of pavement generators has become a feature of everyday life, with electricity and heating supplies frequently interrupted. Meanwhile, Russian troops are advancing in the south and east after nearly four years of full-scale war.
In one conversation collected by Nabu in its 15-month investigation a suspect said it was a “pity” to build a structure to defend power stations from Russian bomb attacks since the money could be stolen instead. Chernyshov allegedly spent some of the illicit cash on four luxury mansions in a new-build riverside plot south of Kyiv.
The investigation, which has 1,000 hours of secretly recorded conversations, has been dubbed Operation Midas. The name seemingly refers to Mindich’s apartment, which features a gold toilet in the bathroom.
How far does the corruption go?
The big unanswered question. Was Mindichgate, as it has been called, a one-off? Or one of many similar insider schemes?
Zelenskyy has condemned the scandal, slapped sanctions on Mindich and stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship. “The president of a country at war cannot have friends,” he said last week after the news broke. He has called for investigations to run their course and for those found guilty to be punished and put behind bars. In July, however – while the Midas investigation was active – Zelenskyy had signed a decree effectively stripping Nabu and the special prosecutor’s office, another anti-corruption agency, of their independence and only backed down after the most serious street protests since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.
Nabu has indicated that the scandal extends to the defence ministry, where Mindich was involved in pursuing lucrative state contracts. And possibly banking, where he also had connections.
What happens next?
The affair is Ukraine’s biggest corruption scandal since Zelenskyy became president six-and-a-half years ago. Civil society activists, opposition MPs and prominent military veterans have urged him to take decisive action, even if that means the sacking and jailing of people who are personally known to him. The former president Petro Poroshenko has called for the current cabinet to be sacked and for a government of national unity to be formed. This is unlikely to happen. Poroshenko was himself embroiled in a defence procurement scandal, which played a role in his 2019 defeat to Zelenskyy, who promised to clean up public life.
Political commentators say corruption is the result of “mono-government”: the fact that Zelenskyy and his allies enjoy sweeping wartime powers under martial law. No elections can be held while fighting continues. The revelations have also dismayed Ukraine’s western partners and emboldened its enemies. Worst of all, there appears to be a connection with Moscow. According to Nabu, the kickbacks were funnelled through a Kyiv back office connected to the family of Andriy Derkach, a former Ukrainian politician who is now a pro-Kremlin Russian senator. Some cash ended up in Russia, the tapes suggest.
Is there an upside?
Of sorts. Some observers think the fact the scandal emerged at all is proof that Ukraine is slowly moving in the right direction – towards European norms and away from gloomy Soviet-style kleptocracy. Oleksandr Abakumov, the head of Nabu’s investigating team, acknowledged his colleagues had “faced a lot of obstacles” pursuing the Mindich case. But he stressed: “This isn’t a story about corruption in Ukraine. It’s about how the country is struggling with corruption, fighting with corruption.”
Zelensky remains a creature of the corruption plaguing Ukraine.
A small number of oligarchs still possess outsized power in all spheres of business and politics. But the truth is moving in mysterious ways.
Ian Proud, Nov 18, 2025, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-corruption/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The $100 million corruption scandal around Ukraine’s energy system that broke this past week is critical to ordinary Ukrainians for its timing. Russia has been bombarding the country’s energy infrastructure on a daily basis to deny ordinary citizens heat and electricity during the cold and dark winter months.
In November 2024, a separate scandal broke that $1.6 billion set aside to build protective bunkers around electricity sub-stations had not led to any being built.
With this in mind, many have responded that the highly publicized nature of this latest scandal, which resulted in the resignations of both the energy and justice ministers, offers visible proof that progress is being made in tackling corruption in Ukraine. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) of Ukraine, which is often at the spearhead of such investigations, was first established by Presidential Decree in April 2015. That it continues to function is indeed a positive sign.
It’s not possible, however, to claim that corruption has emerged as a specifically wartime phenomena. This energy scandal is hardly a one-off. In September 2021, with Zelensky having already been in power for two and a half years, the European Court of Auditors reported that state corruption and capture were still widespread in Ukraine. It pointed out that “tens of billions of Euros are lost annually as a result of corruption,” and that EU support delivered over 20 years had not delivered the desired results.
Since Russia invaded in 2022, Ukraine has been flooded with hundreds of billions of dollars of aid, of a much greater value than its yearly economic output. The United States has been unable to accurately account for the billions it has sent there. No country at this point would be able to assure itself that its funds have been spent well.
The scale of each new corruption scandal has seemingly grown over time. In August 2023, Zelensky sacked all the heads of the regional military recruitment offices following widespread complaints about kick-backs, often bribes to let potential recruits escape military service. In September 2023, Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, resigned following a procurement scandal related to the marking up the cost of purchased body armour and helmets by 4-5 times. In January 2024, Ukrainian defense officials were arrested over the theft of $40 million, related to an order for 100,000 artillery shells that were never delivered.
To date, President Volodymyr Zelensky has been able to keep Western donors off his back through a sacking here or a prosecution there. What has changed this year is that the erstwhile NABU investigators have been gradually nudging closer to his inner circle.
In July of this year, as the noose was closing around his close ally former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov because of a large-scale property fraud, Zelensky made a failed attempt to hobble NABU and bring it under his personal control. As it turns out, Chernyshov has also been implicated in the current $100m energy scandal, with NABU detectives documenting the transfer of an estimated $1.3 million in cash to him and an associate. On 14 November, NABU sought an order for pre-trial detention of Chernyshov.
Timur Mindich, the man at the centre of the current scandal, is a close ally of Zelensky and co-founded the TV company ‘Kvartal 95’ with him. He was allowed to flee the country before the NABU raids, which discovered duffel bags stuffed with cash and a golden toilet. It hasn’t been lost on some commentators that, in 2014, the ousted President Yanukovych was also alleged to have possessed a toilet made of gold.
Which provides another reminder that, stepping back from the canvas, not much has really changed in Ukraine over the past decade. I first met an anti-corruption activist in Kyiv in late 2015, at the foot of the postcard perfect Andriivsky descent in the quaint Lviv Handmade Chocolate Café. Approaching two years after the ouster of Yanukovych, she was visibly distressed that little progress had been made in tackling corruption. Within weeks, the government of Arseny Yatseniuk faced a no-confidence vote over a slew of corruption scandals involving figures close to him that led, ultimately, to his resignation in February 2016.
In the midst of that scandal, Vice President Joe Biden visited Kyiv in a bid to shore up the government, anxious that Ukraine might not be able to form a better coalition than the one in power. “Corruption siphons away resources from the people. It blunts economic growth, and it affronts human dignity. We know that. You know that. The Ukrainian people know that,” Biden said.
For many ordinary Ukrainians, who protested peacefully in the Maidan in late 2013, rooting out corruption was at the core of the so-called “revolution of dignity.” Biden’s 2015 visit was an attempt to paper over the cracks, and close down moves to unsettle the pro-western government. Yet the endemic corruption carried on.
When it released its recent report on EU accession states, the European Commission noted Ukraine’s remarkable commitment to its EU path. However, it downgraded its assessment to B grade, expressing concern about progress in tackling corruption. As with the 2015 Biden visit it was, I fear, another example of papering over the cracks of a much bigger problem.
The vertical of power in Ukraine, in which a small number of oligarchs possess outsized power in all spheres of business and politics, remains largely unchanged to this day. Zelensky has emerged as a creature of that system, having both clashed and aligned himself with different oligarchs at different times. With presidential elections paused, there are fewer constitutional checks and balances on his power than before the war. And for all its excellent work, NABU is not yet powerful enough to break the system.
There is a persuasive case to make that ending the war and turning off the gravy train would make it easier for Ukraine’s future leaders to refocus on the path to European membership. This would require real and measurable reform. It’s possibly for this reason that public support for an end to the war continues to grow along with outrage at every new case of graft by cronies close to Zelensky. But it may also help to explain why he is in no hurry to see the war end.
Emails Reveal Epstein’s Ties to Mossad—But Corporate Media Looked Away
Drew Favakeh, FAIR, November 18, 2025
For years, there have been whispers that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who had ties to key officials in the US and foreign governments, was involved with Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.
However, the Epstein/Mossad ties were often labeled by US corporate media as “unfounded” (New York Times, 8/24/25), dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” (New York Times, 7/16/25), or said to have been “largely manufactured by paranoiacs and attention seekers and credulous believers” (New York Times, 9/9/25). Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has claimed that “Epstein’s conduct, both the criminal and the merely despicable, had nothing whatsoever to do with the Mossad or the State of Israel.”
It’s true that far-right antisemites like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have promoted a conspiratorial version of the Epstein/Israel connection as part of their bigoted, attention-seeking narratives. But recent investigations by Drop Site News—the nonprofit investigative outlet founded in July 2024—into a major hack targeting Israel revealed that Epstein did play a significant role in brokering multiple deals for Israeli intelligence. Despite the hack’s significant revelations, US corporate media coverage remains scant.
……………………….Since the hacked information was released, numerous independent media outlets—including Reason (8/27/25), All-Source Intelligence (9/17/25, 9/29/25, 10/13/25), Grayzone (10/6/25, 10/9/25, 10/13/25), the (b)(7)(D) (10/16/25, 10/21/25) and DeClassified UK (9/1/25, 11/3/25)—have published investigations on its contents. Among the independent media outlets, Drop Site’s coverage stands out for its in-depth research and broad scope.
Drop Site’s investigations into the Handala hack have included six major stories since late September, four of which have centered around “Epstein’s work on behalf of Israeli military interests, particularly as it relates to his role in the development of Israel’s cyber warfare industry.”
Drop Site reporters Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim (9/28/25) detailed how Epstein wielded his influence to expand Israel’s cyber warfare industry into Mongolia. Drop Site wrote:
Jeffrey Epstein…exploited his network of political and financial elites to help Barak, and ultimately the Israeli government itself, to increase the penetration of Israel’s spy-tech firms into foreign countries.
…………………………………… Failing to cover the Handala hack
Hacked information must be handled ethically by journalists—including by verifying the files, considering public interest, concealing identities when necessary, and noting its origins. This is what Drop Site has done. And its reporting has significant public interest, revealing the ways in which Epstein served Israel’s interests.
Yet in a search of ProQuest’s US Newsstream collection for “Handala,” as well as a supplementary Google search, the only US corporate media outlet found to have covered the Handala hack is the New York Post (8/31/25). Its single 700-word story, drawing from Reason (8/27/25) and the Times of London (8/30/25), focused on how Prince Andrew stayed in contact with Epstein for five years longer than previously stated—sidestepping the revelations from Drop Site about Epstein’s ties to Mossad.
Hussain, who had not seen the New York Post story, said US corporate media is “deliberately ignoring” the story:
It’s such a goldmine of stories. They’re not going through it, they don’t want to talk about it. I think it’s very difficult for them to conceive what these emails refer to because they’ve spent so much time talking about it as a conspiracy theory. And now contravening evidence is emerging, or well-substantiated evidence, showing that it’s really not a conspiracy theory.
Indeed, recent mentions of Epstein’s ties to Israeli government officials have continued to dismiss them as conspiracy theories, ignoring the hack and Drop Site‘s work………………………………….
While it is of course absurd to blame “everything” on Epstein or Israel—and right-wing conspiracy theories that incorporate antisemitism are very real and dangerous—is it really unreasonable to blame “the war in Gaza” on too much “fealty to Israel”? After all, from October 7, 2023 to September 2025, the US sent $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project—more than a quarter of Israel’s total post–October 7 military expenditures. Epstein’s evident connections to Mossad do raise the question of whether there is more to that “fealty” than the $100 million the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC spent on both parties during the 2024 election cycle (Common Dreams, 8/28/24)………………………………………………………………………………….. https://fair.org/home/emails-reveal-epsteins-ties-to-mossad-but-corporate-media-looked-away/
US senator accuses Trump of ‘silence’ on huge Ukraine corruption scandal.
17 Nov, 2025, https://www.rt.com/news/627874-us-senator-slams-trump-silence/
Rand Paul had long called for oversight on aid to Kiev.
US Senator Rand Paul has accused President Donald Trump of staying silent on a major corruption scandal involving a close associate of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.
Last week, Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies alleged that Timur Mindich, Zelensky’s former longtime business partner, led a scheme that siphoned $100 million in kickbacks from contracts with the country’s nuclear power operator Energoatom, which depends on foreign aid. Two government ministers have since resigned, while Mindich fled the country to evade arrest.
“Remember when the Ukraine first Uniparty opposed my call for an Investigator General for Ukraine? Trump silent on $100M Ukraine corruption scandal resignations,” Paul wrote on X on Saturday, commenting on a news story about the affair.
Paul, who frequently attacks what he calls “wasteful spending” of American taxpayers’ money on foreign projects, has repeatedly pushed for a watchdog to supervise funds directed to Ukraine “in order to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Trump has criticized unconditional aid to Kiev in the past, calling Zelensky “the greatest salesman on earth.” In August, he said the administration of his predecessor, Joe Biden, had “fleeced” America by committing $350 billion to Ukraine. He has since argued that the US is profiting from the conflict by selling Ukraine-bound weapons to NATO.
Kiev’s European backers have also raised concerns about corruption. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the affair “extremely unfortunate,” while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Zelensky to “press ahead with anti-corruption measures and reforms.”
The scandal erupted just months after Zelensky had unsuccessfully tried to strip the country’s anti-corruption bodies, NABU and SAPO, of their independence – relenting only after protests in Kiev and outcry from Western supporters. He has since imposed sanctions on Mindich, who is reportedly hiding in Israel.
Ukraine’s ‘EnergyGate’ scandal explained: Why it spells danger for Vladimir Zelensky.
12 Nov, 2025, https://www.rt.com/russia/627713-energygate-corruption-scandal-ukraine/
What began as an inquiry into kickbacks at the state’s energy company has become a political firestorm circling the Kiev regime itself.
Ukraine’s anti-corruption detectives have opened Pandora’s Box. What started as a routine audit of the nuclear energy monopoly Energoatom has spiraled into a full-scale probe into embezzlement, implicating ministers, businessmen – and the man long known as Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s personal “wallet.” The affair now raises the question of how much longer the formally acting but no longer legitimate president can maintain control over his own system.
The case that has shaken the Kiev establishment
This week, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) raided the homes of several senior officials and businessmen, including Timur Mindich – a longtime friend and financial backer of Zelensky, whom Ukrainian media openly call the president’s “wallet.” Mindich fled the country before investigators arrived, while several of his associates have been detained.
The operation, code-named Midas, uncovered what investigators describe as a multimillion-dollar corruption scheme centered on Energoatom. According to NABU, officials demanded bribes of between 10% and 15% from private contractors supplying or building protective infrastructure for power facilities. Those who refused allegedly faced blocked payments or exclusion from tenders.
Wiretaps obtained by NABU include over a thousand hours of recorded conversations – excerpts of which have been released. In them, individuals identified by code names Carlson, Professor, Rocket, and Tenor discuss distributing kickbacks, pressuring business partners, and profiting from projects tied to nuclear plant protection during wartime. Ukrainian media, citing NABU sources, claim Carlson is Mindich himself, while Professor refers to Justice Minister German Galushchenko, who has since resigned.
The money trail and the missing “wallet”
NABU investigators allege that about $100 million passed through offshore accounts and shell companies abroad. Part of the funds were laundered through an office in central Kiev linked to state contract proceeds.
Mindich and several partners allegedly oversaw the network via intermediaries: Tenor – a former prosecutor turned Energoatom security chief – and Rocket, a one-time adviser to the energy minister. When the raids began, Mindich fled Ukraine with financier Mikhail Zuckerman, believed to have helped run the scheme.
While five people have been arrested, the alleged mastermind remains at large. NABU officials have hinted that further charges could follow, possibly reaching other ministries – including the Defense Ministry, where Mindich’s firms reportedly obtained lucrative contracts for drones and missile systems.
From energy to defense
At hearings before Kiev’s High Anti-Corruption Court, prosecutors argued that Mindich’s network also extended into military procurement. One company linked to him, Fire Point, manufactures Flamingo rockets and long-range drones, and has received major government contracts. If proven, these allegations would shift the case from financial misconduct to crimes threatening national security – drawing the probe dangerously close to Zelensky’s inner circle.
Rumors persist that among the intercepted recordings are fragments featuring Zelensky’s own voice. None have been released publicly, but NABU’s gradual publication strategy has fueled speculation that the most explosive revelations are still to come.
Imprisoned Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, held in connection with a $5.5 billion hole in his bank’s accounts, has told a court that beyond Mindich there are “bigger forces” in play.
Not their first rodeo
The EnergyGate case is the latest in a string of high-profile corruption scandals to erupt under Zelensky’s rule.
In January 2023, journalists from Ukrainskaya Pravda exposed inflated food procurement contracts at the Defense Ministry, leading to the resignation of Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov and several officials. In May 2023, Supreme Court chairman Vsevolod Knyazev was arrested for allegedly accepting a $2.7 million bribe. In 2024, the State Audit Service found large-scale violations in reconstruction projects financed by Western aid, with billions of hryvnia missing.
The European Court of Auditors, in its 2024 report on EU assistance, concluded that corruption in Ukraine “remains a serious challenge” and that anti-corruption institutions “require greater independence and enforcement capacity.”
Political consequences
The scandal has deepened Ukraine’s internal political crisis. Earlier this year, Zelensky sought to curb the independence of anti-corruption bodies such as NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) through legislation that would have placed them under presidential control. The move triggered protests in Kiev and drew criticism from Brussels and Western donors, who fund much of Ukraine’s wartime budget.
Under EU pressure, lawmakers ultimately reversed the measure, but the episode further strained Zelensky’s relations with Western partners.
Meanwhile, an informal anti-Zelensky coalition has reportedly taken shape, uniting figures connected to Western-funded NGOs, opposition leaders such as ex-President Pyotr Poroshenko and Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, and senior officials in NABU and SAPO. Their shared goal, according to Ukrainian analysts, is to strip Zelensky of real authority and establish a “national unity government.”
The EU steps in
The EU has seized on the case as further evidence that Kiev’s leadership must remain under external oversight. The latest European Commission report on Ukraine’s EU accession progress explicitly demands that anti-corruption bodies stay free of presidential control and that top law-enforcement appointments involve “international experts.”
For Brussels, scrambling to finance Kiev’s $50 billion 2026 deficit, the scandal serves as both a warning to all potential backers that corruption is inevitable, while giving the EU leverage to tighten control over Kiev’s internal governance. For Zelensky it is another reminder that his ability to act independently is slipping away.
The stakes for Zelensky
The revelations of large-scale corruption in the energy sector weeks before winter sets could prove politically devastating for the Ukrainian leader. Public anger is mounting, while Western media have begun publishing increasingly critical coverage of his administration and its shrinking democratic space. Old allies of Zelensky’s such as Donald Tusk have claimed that they warned him of the damage such scandals will do.
With the country still under martial law and elections suspended, Zelensky remains president in name – but his legitimacy is under growing scrutiny. The EnergyGate affair has exposed the fragility of his position. If upcoming NABU disclosures implicate him directly, the fallout could be fatal to his political future.
For now, NABU’s latest video ends with a hint that more revelations are yet to come.
Nuclear waste today; consumer products tomorrow?
Extract from Trump’s new radiation exposure limits could be ‘catastrophic’ for women and girls, By Lesley M. M. Blume, Chloe Shrager | November 14, 2025
“………………………………………………………..Experts also warn that looser exposure standards might also lead to radioactive materials below a certain level being recycled into consumer products with no labeling or disclosures—effectively reviving a “below regulatory concern” policy revoked by the NRC in 1993 that deregulated low-level radioactive waste. A comparable “very low-level waste” policy was proposed in 2020 and rejected by the NRC. With weaker standards in place, some experts say, government agencies or entities that work with radioactive materials could sell materials that still emit radioactivity, albeit below the threshold newly dictated by the NRC: “There are salvage companies that they sell to. There are some [materials] that are sold at auction. There are some things that will be simply put out into regular trash instead of restricted trash,” Olson fears. If the threshold is loose enough, worries D’Arrigo, the recycling practice may become “so pervasive that it’s not going to be stoppable.”
In their 2007 report “Out of Control – On Purpose: DOE’s Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products,” D’Arrigo and Olson provided a detailed timeline tracing Energy Department and NRC policies—and specific cases—of deregulated or mishandled radioactive waste entering commercial landfills, recycling streams, and consumer markets since the 1960s. The report narrows in on the case of Tennessee: The state licenses private companies to import, process, and “free release” nuclear waste from across the country, and is, the authors say, the nation’s de facto hub for deregulated radioactive waste disposal and recycling.
According to the report, contaminated materials in this state can be sent to ordinary landfills, combined with chemicals at hazardous waste disposal sites, or recycled into consumer markets with minimal public oversight or recordkeeping. Tennessee is an example of how even now, though it is illegal, “nuclear materials have gotten out into the marketplace by accident,” says D’Arrigo.
“We can easily say that deregulating nuclear waste is going to release [more] manmade radioactive materials … into the marketplace, into everyday household items that we consume, that we use every day,” she says. This could present significant health risks, she adds, especially when those materials are repurposed into products designed for populations most vulnerable to radiation harm: “Our frying pans, our IUDs [intrauterine devices used to prevent pregnancy], our belt buckles, our baby toys… It could be plastics. It could be concrete. It could be asphalt. It could be playgrounds. There’s no limit when you send it out into the marketplace unregulated.”
Olson posits additional alarming recycling scenarios, including uranium enrichment site pipes that carried radioactive waste being reused as scrap metal for cars or silverware, and contaminated nickel from NRC sites in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee being used in rechargeable batteries, which can be subject to overheating and the associated risk of fire and explosion.
“Would everyone have laptops with radioactive batteries sitting on their laps?” she asks. Such material could be released into the international marketplace as well, or originate abroad and be legally imported and sold in the United States. Higley of the NCRP cites an example of radioactive material being melted down with other metals to make window panes in Taiwan in 1999—some of which were incorporated in kindergarten classrooms and exposed children to whole-body gamma radiation—and also cites a recent recall of imported shrimp from an Indonesian food company that the Food and Drug Administration said was contaminated with radioactive cesium. She also recalls an incident at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1984 when Mexican-manufactured rebar table bases containing radioactive cobalt 60 set off the Lab’s road radiation detectors when driven through the monitors by a steel delivery truck.
The NRC’s Office of Public Affairs did not respond to a comment request from the Bulletin about expert concerns that loosened radiation exposure standards might allow contaminated materials to enter consumer markets; nor did NRC representatives respond to questions about enforcement protocol when it comes to maintaining safe radioactivity levels in materials being considered for reuse.
Despite the risks, Higley says that there is a valuable conversation to be had about sustainability and recycling reusable materials safely within the nuclear industry. But she concedes that the public is reliant on “good actors and a strong regulator” to properly clean contamination from recyclable materials and maintain the safety of consumer goods. With the Trump administration loosening NRC regulations, some experts and industry observers wonder if consumers will be at the mercy of self-regulating consumer products companies.
“We know that there is no zero risk when you’re exposed to radiation, that there could always be something that goes wrong, even [with] the smallest amounts of exposure,” says Beyond Nuclear’s Cindy Folkers. “One of the things that has struck me about this whole deal with the standards is: who’s minding the store? How are the folks that are supposed to be the regulators actually measuring how much is being released from any of these facilities, including nuclear power facilities or uranium mines, or whatever?”
“And really what they’re doing,” she adds, “is shifting the cost of having to containerize this radioactive material from themselves to us—at the cost of our health.” https://thebulletin.org/2025/11/trumps-new-radiation-exposure-limits-could-be-catastrophic-for-women-and-girls/
‘National Security Threat’? 95-Year-Old Human Rights Scholar Richard Falk Interrogated for Hours by Canada.
“Clearly, the international repression of the Palestinian cause knows no bounds.”
Jon Queally, Common Dreams, Nov 15, 2025
Ninety-five-year-old Richard Falk—world renowned scholar of international law and former UN special rapporteur focused on Palestinian rights—was detained and interrogated for several hours along with his wife, legal scholar Hilal Elver, as the pair entered Canada for a conference focused on that nation’s complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“A security person came and said, ‘We’ve detained you both because we’re concerned that you pose a national security threat to Canada,’” Falk explained to Al-Jazeera in a Saturday interview from Ottawa in the wake of the incident that happened at the international airport in Toronto ahead of the scheduled event.
“It was my first experience of this sort–ever–in my life,” said Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, author or editor of more than 20 books, and formerly the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
Falk, who is American, has been an outspoken critic of the foreign policy of Canada, the United States, and other Western nations on the subject of Israel-Palestine as well as other issues. He told media outlets that he and his wife, also an American, were held for over four hours after their arrival in Toronto. They were in the country to speak and participate at the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility, an event scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Ottawa, the nation’s capital.
The event, according to the program notes on the website, was designed to “document the multiple ways that Canadian entities – including government bodies, corporations, universities, charities, media, and other cultural institutions–have enabled and continue to enable the settler colonization and genocide of Palestinians, and to articulate what justice and reparations would require.”………………………………………………….. https://www.commondreams.org/news/richard-falk-canada-gaza
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