Covert NATO initiative turns film into anti-Russia battleground
The Grayzone and Kit Klarenberg, May 10, 2026
A scandal has erupted over covert NATO conferences with the Western entertainment industry. Leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone show how NATO has sought to infiltrate film and TV for decades, with UK intel operatives taking the lead.
On May 3, The Guardian revealed that NATO has held a series of secret meetings with film directors, screenwriters and TV producers in cities from Paris to Los Angeles. The disclosure suggests NATO is seeking to employ the entertainment industry in its propaganda operations as a European war looms.
To date, NATO’s “conversations” with scriptwriters have reportedly “inspired, at least in part” three separate unstated projects, which are already in development. At a forthcoming London summit, NATO operatives are set to meet with screenwriters tied to the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB). In email correspondence, the union told its members the event will focus on the “evolving security situation in Europe and beyond.”
Organizers claim NATO was “built on the belief that cooperation and compromise, the nurturing of friendships and alliances, is the way forward.” The alliance is actively seeking to influence film and TV projects extolling this mantra, stating, “even if something so simple as that message finds its way into a future story,” as a result of the meeting, “that will be enough.”
But collusion between NATO and the entertainment industry has a well-established history. Over recent decades, NATO has covertly sought to employ film and television creatives as psychological operations specialists, while influencing popular culture. A core driver of this push has been Chris Donnelly, a veteran British Ministry of Defence and military intelligence operative, who led alliance expansion into Central and Eastern Europe during the 1990s.
Donnelly later developed the Integrity Initiative to cultivate support for conflict with Russia through covert networks of influential pro-war pundits and operatives. Hidden behind a seemingly legitimate think tank called the Institute for Statecraft, the Integrity Initiative only became known to the public after independent outlets like The Grayzone reported on leaked emails from Donnelly revealing its existence.
In leaked documents discussing NATO expansion, Donnelly stated, “What I needed in the 1990s and did not have” was a major international public relations firm to “scale up successful activities to have real impact,” and achieve “essential behavioural change” in audiences. To address the problem, he proposed “advertising campaigns on TV promoting change, a TV soap opera looking at the problem of corruption” and other innocent-seeming cultural products aimed at enhancing NATO control.
Donnelly expanded NATO – often against significant public opposition – in the former Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and Yugoslavia by penetrating target countries’ governments, militaries and even religious institutions. This ensured a NATO-friendly lobby on the streets, and throughout corridors of power, across the region. This experience was fundamental to Donnelly’s founding of now-defunct ‘charity’ the Institute for Statecraft. Through its subsidiary Integrity Initiative, the Institute constructed clandestine nexuses of journalists, academics, and military and intelligence operatives throughout the Western world, known as “clusters”.
These networks could be mobilized to spread pro-NATO propaganda, and encourage public and state-level antagonism towards Russia. Integrity Initiative played a not insubstantial role in laying the Ukraine proxy war’s foundations. An essay published on the Institute’s website in July 2014 by MI6-connected academic Victor Madeira openly laid out this objective, declaring “economic boycott, breach of diplomatic relations” and “propaganda and counter-propaganda” could produce “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Moscow, “that Great Britain and the West could win.”
In a leaked Institute file, Madeira discusses precisely the kind of “propaganda and counter-propaganda” he meant. “We’ll need to go beyond old-style military ‘romps’ and get entertainment ‘outputs’ that draw out the nature of 21st-century conflict: diffuse, across society, without clear boundaries at times,” he wrote. “That’s the real fight we’re fighting; we can more than hold our own on the military side of things.”
Popular TV show ‘McMafia’ influenced by British intelligence
In February 2018, a veteran writer on US state cultural policy and public diplomacy named Martha Bayles emailed Donnelly to pitch a “multi-episode, multi-season dramatic television series” about Russia in the 1990s. Bayles pointed to a US-UK co-production called McMafia as an example of the “commercial and cultural dominance” of long-form TV with “an avid following among young and old alike.” The widely-watched program drew on former BBC World Service reporter Misha Glenny’s 2008 non-fiction book of the same name………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Donnelly and the British military-intelligence veterans who staffed his now-defunct Institute for Statecraft were hard at work weaponizing popular culture to drive public hostility to Russia. In January 2018, the British state broadcaster interviewed a staffer at Donnelly’s Institute, Euan Grant, about “the impact of suspect Russian money” on London, as part of BBC wider series enquiring “How Real is McMafia?”………………………………………………………………………………
As part of the proposed collaboration, NATO would be granted “input” into the show’s script. At the time, the Institute for Statecraft was the British representative of NATO’s Atlantic Treaty Association, a “community of policy-makers, think tankers, diplomats, academics and representatives from industry.” The organization described its mission as “inform[ing] the public of NATO’s role in international peace and security and promote democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law through debate and dialogue.”
Western popular culture infiltrated by NATO for years
Leaked files show Grant masterminded a dedicated Institute project countering supposed “Russian destabilisation” of “international financial sectors.” Contacts in journalism and the arts provided an ideal delivery mechanism. He argued the broadcast of popular TV shows and films referencing Russian organized crime provided an extraordinary propaganda bonanza for the British military-intelligence apparatus, potentially exposing millions of Westerners to anti-Russian programming……………………………………….
In other leaked documents, Grant strategized a covert propaganda blitz to expose how the NATO protectorate of Moldova was supposedly “exploited” by Moscow, for “building Russian and Russian speaking influence in EU, EU applicant and Eastern Partnership countries.” He noted how recent Hollywood films and the smash French drama series Spiral had featured “Moldovan linked” plotlines, providing “opportunities” to Institute for Statecraft propagandists. He suggested the BBC “might also be interested” in covering recent books about Russian organized crime, “set in Moldova.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Were these top serials demonizing Russia organic products?
It is uncertain which recent Western cultural productions have resulted from NATO’s covert meddling. However, inexplicably timed historical dramas in recent years, featuring highly negative portrayals of Russia and Russians, raise serious questions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://thegrayzone.substack.com/p/covert-nato-initiative-turns-film?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=474765&post_id=197028664&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=4ds0bd&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Why Palantir Australia Sparks Growing Privacy Fears
8 May 2026 AIMN Editorial By Denis Hay
Palantir Australia is expanding into defence, policing, and corporate systems. What dangers could this pose to ordinary Australians?
Introduction – The Surveillance Expansion Most Australians Never Voted For
Palantir Australia is becoming deeply embedded inside Australian government agencies, defence systems, intelligence operations, and potentially private corporate networks. Yet most Australians know little about the company, the technologies it develops, or the long-term consequences these systems could have for privacy, democracy, and civil liberties.
Another intelligence technology company, Babel Street Australia, is also involved in cyber intelligence and AI-driven monitoring systems. Together, these companies represent a rapidly growing surveillance technology Australia industry built around mass data analysis, predictive behaviour modelling, and artificial intelligence.
Supporters argue these technologies improve national security and risk management. Critics warn they may be laying the foundations for a future where governments and corporations can monitor citizens at unprecedented levels.
This debate matters because once surveillance systems become normalised, they are rarely rolled back.
If you value independent, fact-based analysis that challenges concentrated corporate and political power, please consider supporting Social Justice Australia.
What Is Palantir Australia?
A Company Born from Intelligence Agencies
Palantir Technologies was founded in the United States in 2003 with support linked to the CIA investment arm In-Q-Tel.
The company developed software capable of combining enormous amounts of information into highly searchable intelligence platforms.
Its major systems include:
- Gotham, primarily used by military, intelligence, and policing agencies.
- Foundry, used for data integration across governments and corporations.
These systems can combine data from:
- Financial records.
- Communications metadata.
- Government databases.
- CCTV systems.
- Social media platforms.
- Travel records.
- Online activity.
Palantir markets its systems as tools for security, fraud detection, military coordination, and operational efficiency.
What Is Babel Street Australia?
AI Monitoring and Social Media Intelligence
Babel Street is another US-based intelligence technology company specialising in open-source intelligence and AI-driven analysis.
However, civil liberties groups argue the same systems can also enable mass surveillance and excessive concentration of informational power.
According to The Guardian, Palantir has expanded aggressively in
Its technology focuses on:
- Social media monitoring.
- Behavioural analysis.
- Cyber intelligence.
- Risk assessment.
- Investigative analytics.
The company markets its products to:
- Governments.
- Defence agencies.
- Cybersecurity organisations.
- Law enforcement.
- Corporate intelligence sectors.
Unlike Palantir, Babel Street has maintained a much lower public profile in Australia. However, reports suggest it has been connected to cyber intelligence operations and digital risk analysis systems.
The concern raised by critics is not simply the existence of these tools, but how rapidly AI systems are becoming capable of monitoring, analysing, and predicting human behaviour at scale.
How Active Is Palantir Australia?
Expanding Across Government and Defence
Palantir Australia has expanded into several major areas.
Defence and Military Operations
Australia’s Department of Defence has awarded contracts involving:
- Data integration.
- Battlefield analytics.
- Cyber operations.
- Intelligence coordination.
According to Crikey, Palantir has secured substantial Australian defence-related contracts.
Financial Monitoring
AUSTRAC, Australia’s financial intelligence agency, has used Palantir-linked systems for transaction analysis and financial monitoring.
Intelligence and Policing
Reports suggest Australian intelligence agencies have used Palantir software to analyse large volumes of investigative and communications data.
Critics argue this raises serious concerns around:
- Oversight.
- Transparency.
- Privacy protections.
- Data misuse risks.
Government Financial Investments
Australia’s Future Fund has invested heavily in Palantir shares, creating additional debate about public institutions financially benefiting from surveillance technology companies.
Which Australian Corporations Could Be Using These Technologies?
Surveillance Is Not Just a Government Issue
One of the most important aspects of this debate is that surveillance technology Australia is not limited to intelligence agencies.
Around the world, large corporations increasingly use advanced AI analytics systems to:
- Analyse customer behaviour.
- Detect fraud.
- Monitor workers.
- Assess risks.
- Predict trends.
- Track online activity.
Public reporting and procurement records suggest sectors potentially interested in technologies linked to Palantir-style systems include:
- Banking and finance.
- Telecommunications.
- Airports and logistics.
- Mining companies.
- Insurance corporations.
- Defence contractors.
- Major retailers.
In some cases, corporations use these systems for legitimate operational purposes. However, critics warn the same technologies can also create highly invasive forms of digital profiling.
For example:
- Workers could be monitored more aggressively.
- Consumers could be profiled behaviourally.
- Financial risk scoring could become increasingly automated.
- AI systems could make decisions affecting people without transparency.
Ordinary Australians may not even realise these technologies are operating behind the services they use every day.
The Rise of Surveillance Technology Australia
Australians Are Becoming Digital Profiles
Modern surveillance technology Australia extends far beyond traditional policing.
AI systems can now combine information from multiple sources to build extremely detailed digital profiles.
This can include:
- Spending habits.
- Location tracking.
- Social media activity.
- Communication patterns.
- Search histories.
- Online behaviour.
- Travel records.
Supporters argue this improves efficiency and security.
Critics warn it creates unprecedented concentrations of power over ordinary citizens.
The issue is not simply whether people have “something to hide.” The issue is whether democratic societies should allow governments and corporations to collect and analyse massive quantities of personal information.
Predictive Policing and AI Profiling
The Danger of Automated Suspicion…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………… https://theaimn.net/why-palantir-australia-sparks-growing-privacy-fears/
Accountability is optional
Hamza Yusuf | Declassified UK , May 8, 2026
| The Metropolitan Police has declined to investigate Britons accused of committing war crimes while serving with the Israeli military in Gaza.Last April, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) filed an extensive, 240-page dossier to the Met’s War Crimes Team. |
The report detailed the alleged involvement of the 10 British nationals, including dual citizens, in the “targeted killings of civilians and aid workers, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, attacks on hospitals and protected sites, and the forced transfer and displacement of civilians”.
Over 70 legal and human rights experts urged the Met’s War Crimes Team to investigate all suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by Britons when the dossier was handed in.
In its recent decision letter, the Met Police accepted that international bodies have found that Israel’s actions in Gaza “could amount to war crimes” and identified at least four individuals of “particular interest.”
However, the War Crimes Team has refused to move beyond a scoping exercise, saying there was “no realistic prospect of conviction” and that an “effective investigation could not be conducted.”
Paul Heron, a solicitor at PILC, said: “We reject The Met’s conclusions”.
“By demanding evidence capable of securing a realistic prospect of conviction before even opening an investigation, the Police have applied the wrong legal test and set the bar far too high. British nationals and residents cannot be allowed to participate in atrocities abroad with impunity.”The PILC maintains that the referral provided credible material warranting a full investigation. We recently revealed that at least 2000 Britons served in Israel’s military during the Gaza genocide. Meanwhile, Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state may also place British nationals serving in the Israeli army in breach of the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act. The act prohibits citizens from fighting for a foreign state at war with another state at peace with the UK, but there is no sign of enforcement. |
And what is absent is equally telling: The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) travel advice for Ukraine explicitly warns British nationals that fighting there “may amount to offences under UK legislation”and that they “could be prosecuted on your return”.
No equivalent warning appears in FCDO advice for Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This exposes a glaring and systemic accountability gap – one the Foreign Office recently deepened by quietly shutting down its unit tracking Israeli breaches of international law.
The Met’s refusal is the latest in a pattern of dereliction: British institutions, one by one, declining to act on Israel’s crimes.
Three Recent Examples Of AI Being Used For Empire Propaganda
Julian Assange was warning years ago that we could one day expect artificial intelligence to be used in this way, saying that the growing ability of the powerful to manipulate public opinion using AI “differs from traditional attempts to shape culture and politics by operating at a scale, speed, and increasingly at a subtlety, that appears likely to eclipse human counter-measures.”
Caitlin Johnstone, Apr 28, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/three-recent-examples-of-ai-being?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=195741327&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
In the last few days I’ve seen three separate instances of generative AI being used to promote propaganda for US-Israeli war agendas which are worth paying attention to.
Firstly, an Israel-based company called Generative AI for Good has been creating deepfakes of supposedly real women who say they were sexually assaulted by government forces in Iran.
The Canary reports:
“An Israel-based AI firm, Generative AI for Good, claims to be using deepfake technologies for positive ends. ‘Positive’ appears to mean creating deepfake videos to help the illegal US-Israel war on Iran.
“Generative AI for Good claims that it uses AI to ‘help survivors testify safely — in their real voice, without revealing their identity’. But Israel and its mouthpieces have been shown to have used false allegations of rapes and other atrocities on 7 October 2023 to justify its genocide in Gaza.”
The Canary notes that Generative AI for Good is staffed with Israelis who have very conspicuous agendas, including a creative director who pushes the discredited narrative about mass rapes on October 7, a marketing manager who served in the IDF’s “Psychotechnical Headquarter”, and a founder who said in early 2024 that “Artificial intelligence is a secret weapon of ours” in using the revolutionary technology to bolster the military’s efforts both online and on the ground in the information war being waged alongside the military battlefields in Gaza.
An Israeli company generating AI videos of anonymous Iranian women describing sexual abuse at the hands of their government should obviously be considered a deceitful propaganda operation until proven otherwise. The line between using AI to help real victims protect their identities when describing real events and using AI to generate fake atrocity propaganda is far too nebulous to be taken seriously, especially in the hands of wildly biased Israelis. You should trust it about as far as you’d trust a hungry crocodile.
Secondly, users of the graphic design platform Canva have been complaining that the company’s AI service has been translating the word “Palestine” to “Ukraine” without prompting or permission. Complaints went viral, compelling Canva to address the issue.
The Verge reports:
“One of Canva’s new AI features has been caught replacing the word ‘Palestine’ in designs. The Magic Layers feature — which is designed to break flat images out into separate editable components — isn’t supposed to make visible alterations to user designs, but it was found by X user @ros_ie9 to automatically switch the phrase ‘cats for Palestine’ to ‘cats for Ukraine.’
“The issue was seemingly limited specifically to the word ‘Palestine,’ as @ros_ie9 noted that related words like ‘Gaza’ were unaffected by the feature. Canva says it has now resolved the issue and is taking steps to prevent it from happening again.”
Thirdly, a Spanish-language tweet about Israel from user @maps_black was auto-translated into English by Elon Musk’s AI Grok in a way that added entirely new sentences to the social media post to frame the Zionist state in a sympathetic light.
The original tweet read simply, “¿Cuál es tu opinión sobre ISRAEL?”, which of course translates to “What is your opinion about Israel?” But Grok translated the post into English as “My opinion on Israel? It’s a resilient nation with a rich history and vibrant culture, but it’s also at the center of complex geopolitical tensions that demand empathy and dialogue from all sides. What’s yours?”
Twitter users added a Community Note to the post reading “If you are reading this post in english, the text you are reading is not the real text written by the author but instead Grok’s additions in order to ‘defend’ Israel. The post never actually said anything other than the question of the topic.”
Someone removed Grok’s propagandistic translation after outcry on the platform, but the Community Note remains.
None of these instances look particularly significant or impactful on their own, and right now they only scan as ham-fisted efforts to manipulate public opinion in ways that are far too obvious to do much damage. But we can be sure that we’ll be seeing a lot more AI-driven propaganda in the future, and we can expect its manipulations to become much more sophisticated as the technology develops and grows more influential in shaping the information ecosystem. American tech plutocrats are only ever allowed to ascend to billionaire status when they collaborate with the imperial machine.
Julian Assange was warning years ago that we could one day expect artificial intelligence to be used in this way, saying that the growing ability of the powerful to manipulate public opinion using AI “differs from traditional attempts to shape culture and politics by operating at a scale, speed, and increasingly at a subtlety, that appears likely to eclipse human counter-measures.”
Pointing out how AI could already outmaneuver even the greatest chess players in the world, Assange described in 2017 how programs which can operate with exponentially more tactical intelligence than the human mind can manipulate the field of available information so effectively and subtly that people won’t even know they are being manipulated. People will be living in a world that they think they understand and know about, but they’ll unknowingly be viewing only empire-approved information.
“When you have AI programs harvesting all the search queries and YouTube videos someone uploads it starts to lay out perceptual influence campaigns, twenty to thirty moves ahead,” Assange said. “This starts to become totally beneath the level of human perception.”
Anyway. Something to keep an eye on.
‘Spies inside the Holy See’: Report reveals US espionage campaign targeting Pope Leo XIV
Independent US journalist Ken Klippenstein says Washington stepped up intelligence activities against the Vatican following Trump’s spat with the Pope
News Desk, APR 24, 2026, https://thecradle.co/articles/spies-inside-the-holy-see-report-reveals-us-espionage-campaign-targeting-pope-leo-xiv
The administration of US President Donald Trump has been “spying” on Pope Leo XIV as part of a years-long intelligence campaign by Washington against the Vatican, US investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein said in a report released on 24 April.
Klippenstein – an independent, Washington-based investigative journalist who formerly wrote for The Intercept – cited sources as saying that Trump’s recent comments on the new Pope were taken by the intelligence community as “a directive to prioritize spying on the Vatican.” Trump had said earlier this month that Pope Leo was “terrible on foreign policy” and “weak on crime.”
According to Klippenstein’s sources, Washington has “for years” been spying on the Vatican.
“The CIA has human spies working inside the Holy See bureaucracy. The NSA and CIA seek to intercept telecommunications, emails, and texts. The FBI investigates crimes committed against and by the Vatican. The State Department closely follows the ins and outs of Papal diplomacy and politics. All of these agencies liaise with the Vatican’s own foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies,” the report stated.
Klippenstein pointed to a “longstanding – and quietly extensive – relationship between the US national security apparatus and the Vatican” involving diplomatic, law enforcement, and cybersecurity cooperation.
Much of it is “genuine” but also serves as a “convenient cover for collecting intelligence.”
“The first Trump administration sought to beef up its coordination with Italian intelligence agencies and Vatican officials on things like cybersecurity, white collar crime, human trafficking, art theft, and other issues. One particular project was to help the Vatican actively thwart cyber intrusions into its networks. The FBI also regularly provides threat intelligence to the Pope during his travels,” Klippenstein cited FBI documents as saying.
“The State Department, meanwhile, maintains a daily Vatican-centric news digest circulated to diplomats worldwide … The department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research has analysts dedicated to producing classified assessments on Vatican affairs,” he added, referring to other documents he obtained.
“Even the US military has a Vatican-specific language code on its books as a distinct linguistic capability. ‘QLE’ designates Ecclesiastical Latin – the Vatican’s preferred liturgical register – as distinct from classical Latin.”
The report follows recent tensions between Trump and the Holy See.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the US … And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the US,” Trump said earlier this month.
Prior to that, the pope had condemned what he called the “delusion of omnipotence,” fueling the US-Israeli war against Iran.
“Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!” he said.
The pope also recently said that a “handful of tyrants” were ruling the world, before later clarifying that his comments were not meant as a jab at Trump and were written before the US president criticized him.
Additionally, the papacy referred to Trump’s threat to wipe out the Iranian civilization as unacceptable.
Pope Leo’s remarks came weeks after dozens of US lawmakers demanded a probe due to hundreds of complaints from service members saying that military commanders portrayed the war on Iran as “divinely ordained” and linked to biblical prophecy, including claims that Trump had been “anointed by Jesus.”
Well over 2,000 people have been killed by the US-Israeli war on Iran, and the country’s infrastructure has been ravaged.
Only about one-third of the infrastructure destroyed in Iran’s capital during the US-Israeli war was military-linked, Bloomberg revealed on 21 April in an analysis of the damage caused by Washington and Tel Aviv.
40 years after Chernobyl, Stasi files reveal scale of Soviet misinformation
For decades, researchers, political leaders and advocacy groups have worked to uncover the story of the explosion
Lauren Cassidy The Conversation, Monday 27 April 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chernobyl-disaster-anniversary-secret-stasi-files-b2965335.html
On April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were conducting a safety test. Doomed by a fatal design flaw and pushed to the limit by human negligence, reactor 4 exploded amid an attempted shutdown during a routine procedure, setting off a chain of events that ultimately released radioactive material hundreds of times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Although the accident occurred north of Kyiv, Ukraine, near the border with Belarus, radioactive fallout was soon detected throughout northern and central Europe. Yet the Soviets did what they could to prevent the spread of information that would reveal the true horror of what had occurred.
For decades, researchers, political leaders and advocacy groups have worked to uncover the story of the explosion. While science has allowed us to understand the circumstances of the explosion itself, it has taken much more work to uncover the layers of mismanagement, negligence and misinformation that resulted in human suffering, ecological disaster and economic damage.
One of the problems is that many of the official Soviet records of the event, such as the KGB files, are located in Moscow and are inaccessible to all but a few Russian government agencies.
But there is a partial workaround: Because East Germany was a Soviet satellite state and not a full member of the Soviet Union, official documents remained in the country after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1991, after the reunification of Germany, the German government passed a law allowing for the declassification of certain files from the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police and intelligence service. These files can now give us further insight into the mismanagement of Chernobyl, since the East German Stasi and the Soviet KGB were in communication on the matter.
I have spent the past three years reading Stasi files and researching the creation of misinformation in the former Eastern bloc, meeting with Stasi archivists in Berlin and viewing the original archival rooms in the former Stasi headquarters.
Looking at formerly top secret communication between the KGB and Stasi, it is clear that despite publicly insisting everything was under control, both intelligence agencies knew the explosion was absolutely devastating. They kept detailed records of hospitalizations, casualties, damaged crops, contaminated livestock and radiation levels.
But only the very top officials in East Germany and the Soviet Union had access to these numbers. The main fear for both the KGB and Stasi was not the radiation that would harm affected populations but the damage done to their respective countries’ reputations.
Controlling the message
Handling the press was a top priority.
In the Soviet Union, top government officials created their own briefings for the media to be published at precise dates and times. In a set of classified documents that one government official bravely saved and later published, the concreteness with which the lies were devised is apparent. It documents Mikhail Gorbachev, then-leader of the Soviet Union, saying in a Politburo meeting with top government officials: “When we inform the public, we should say that the power plant was being renovated at the time, so it doesn’t reflect badly on our reactor equipment.”
Later in the same meeting, another senior Soviet official, Nikolai Ryzhkov, suggests that the group prepare three different press releases: one for the Soviet people, one for the satellite states and another for Europe, the U.S. and Canada.
In East Germany, the Stasi reports mirrored this messaging. Although top officials are briefed on the presence of radioactive contaminants, the formerly classified Stasi files reiterate that the public is to be told that “absolutely no danger” is present. East German media, controlled by the state, then disseminated this information to the public.
The problem for the East German state was that by the mid-1980s, a lot of people were able to pick up Western TV and radio signals. Many recognized that their own government wasn’t telling them the truth. However, they also knew that Western media would take any chance they got to disparage the Eastern bloc. The result was that many people knew that they weren’t being told the truth, but they weren’t sure exactly what the truth was.
Much of the East German and Soviet propaganda at that time was designed to confuse and cast doubt, not necessarily to fully persuade. The idea was that enough conflicting information would tire people out.
Downplaying economic concerns
One of the Stasi’s major concerns following the disaster was the economic damage that was sure to affect East Germany. Once people began to learn of the radioactive fallout over much of Europe, they grew fearful of their own produce and dairy products.
Children began refusing to drink milk at school, while people frequently asked produce vendors whether their products were grown in a greenhouse or outdoors. On the whole, people stopped buying many of these products.
With an excess of these goods, the East German government needed to devise a plan to continue to make money off potentially contaminated goods. The Stasi’s solution was to increase export of these goods to West Germany.
In the formerly classified files, Stasi officials claim that exports would spread out the consumption of radioactive products, so that no one would consume unsafe levels of contaminated meat and produce.
The problem for the East Germans was that West Germany quickly amended their regulations for border crossings from East to West. Vehicles emitting certain levels of radiation were no longer allowed across the border. As a response, the lower-ranking Stasi workers were required to clean radioactive vehicles themselves. In doing so, the state was knowingly risking the health and safety of its own officials.
The East German food export plan was modeled on a similar one proposed by the Soviet government. The Soviet strategy, however, was not to export contaminated goods abroad but rather to send contaminated meat products to “the majority of regions” in the Soviet Union “except for Moscow.”
How disinformation proved an Achilles’ Heel
When the Stasi was founded in 1950, many of its employees genuinely believed in the East German cause.
Having witnessed the horrors of Nazi Germany, many older Stasi workers saw the East German state as the answer to creating a just and equitable society. By the 1980s, however, this sentiment had grown rare. Instead, many Stasi workers viewed their jobs as means to a decent income and privileged government treatment.
As a result, many Stasi workers had grown disillusioned and dispassionate.
It was little surprise, then, that the Stasi put up little resistance when protesters stormed their headquarters in 1990, months after the Berlin Wall fell. While there are many factors in the demise of the communist bloc, the way the East German and Soviet governments handled the aftermath of Chernobyl contributed greatly to the growing popular sentiment against each regime.
In East Germany, the disinformation campaign after the nuclear disaster only strengthened the message that the state did not have its people’s best interests in mind and that it was willing to sacrifice their health and well-being in order to maintain a certain image.
Epstein’s evil legacy destroys everything it touches. Everything except Palantir
f Palantir were a person, it would be a much worse person than either Peter Mandelson or the deceased paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. And yet the Labour government continues to welcome Palantir to manage our NHS, military and financial data, spewing all our personal details into its cauldron of weaponisable knowledge.
.
Mandelson, and by extension Starmer, are tainted by proximity to the abuse scandal. But the paedophile was a close associate of Peter Thiel too. Why don’t we talk about that?
The American tech firm Palantir, which uses its data hoard to provide tech support for ICE’s violent street goons and the bombing of Iranian girls’ schools, has just issued a terse manifesto – “The Technological Republic” – basically outlining its plans to turn the world into a fascist technocracy, bent on neutralising “regressive cultures”, enfranchising right-leaning male voters at the expense of educated liberal female voters, and muttering darkly of the errors made in reining in the power of post-Nazi Germany. I thought we all agreed at the time that this was a good thing, what with the Holocaust and that? We’re all worried about antisemitism aren’t we? Did I miss the memo on this, as they say in American sitcoms?
The Palantir manifesto’s cryptically fascist reappraisal of the “postwar neutering” of Nazi Germany makes the company’s decision to appoint the perma-smirking grandson of the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, Louis Mosley, as its British head look less like carelessness and more like someone holding your head under the duvet and farting in your face just because they can. Take that!
Oddly, the London listing app Time Out significantly softened a joke about Louis Mosley and Palantir in a piece I wrote for it this week, about a fun walk around Hackney, which included the site where, in 1962, Louis’s Nazi grandad Oswald Mosley and his then-fascist father Max Mosley were knocked to the ground outside Ridley Road market by Jewish and antifascist protesters. It seems Palantir’s intimidating shadow even extends to the realm of recreational historical hiking. Rest assured any Leisure Walking Route I submit to the Nerve will remain resolutely politically independent. If only one of the Hackney Jews had booted Max Mosley really hard in his Nazi nuts too, maybe Palantir wouldn’t currently have a British head of operations.
“It’s the kind of market dominance thing Apple did with making you have to buy their special plugs, but applied to missiles, snatch squads and gulags“
Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, has posited, openly and unashamedly, the necessity of a warlike American surveillance state, which Palantir would essentially profit hugely from servicing with its own warlike surveillance technologies. It’s the kind of monopolised market dominance thing Apple did with making you have to buy their own special plugs, but applied to missiles, snatch squads and gulags.
And it makes Nigel Farage’s attempts to profit from the cryptocurrencies he uses his political platform to promote look rather quaint, like a child stealing some Blackjack chews from the newsagent sweet racks while Mr Knuckles arrives in a ski mask, shoots the shopkeeper in the face and makes off with the till, the choicest porn mags and all the worst fags.
If Palantir were a person, it would be a much worse person than either Peter Mandelson or the deceased paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. And yet the Labour government continues to welcome Palantir to manage our NHS, military and financial data, spewing all our personal details into its cauldron of weaponisable knowledge. There are lonely old ladies scammed by people pretending to be down on their luck, who just need a few hundred thousand to free up their family funds, with better noses for decidedly dodgy dodginess.
And when Nigel Farage gets elected by millions of angry morons and, like Trump, starts coming for immigrants, Muslims, pro-choice campaigners, academics, journalists, teachers, cartoonists, and in the end even people your racist Facebook auntie rather likes, like that nice transgender woman over the road with the cats, Palantir will be only too happy to provide Farage’s snatch squads with all their personal details, as it already does for Farage’s best friend Donald Trump, “the bravest man” he knows.
And when Nigel Farage gets elected by millions of angry morons and, like Trump, starts coming for immigrants, Muslims, pro-choice campaigners, academics, journalists, teachers, cartoonists, and in the end even people your racist Facebook auntie rather likes, l
And when Nigel Farage gets elected by millions of angry morons and, like Trump, starts coming for immigrants, Muslims, pro-choice campaigners, academics, journalists, teachers, cartoonists, and in the end even people your racist Facebook auntie rather likes, like that nice transgender woman over the road with the cats, Palantir will be only too happy to provide Farage’s snatch squads with all their personal details, as it already does for Farage’s best friend Donald Trump, “the bravest man” he knows.
But Palantir is fine, apparently, despite the fact that its founder Peter Thiel met Epstein many times after his child sex trafficking conviction and invested heavily in his venture capital company, in a deal which netted the dead paedophile $130m, none of which was included in the sum divided into restitutive payments to his victims. Perhaps Palantir’s Peter Thiel can top the paedo payments up with some of his personal wealth of $29.3bn.
Thiel’s $29.3bn is a sum which makes you realise managing the NHS for pocket money can’t really be about the cash. Palantir’s fascist vision of the future doesn’t need to be funded by turning the British public health system upside down like a sleeping tramp and shaking the loose change from its threadbare pockets into a top hat. But the data it provides is worth its digital weight in digital gold if you are aiming to TAKE OVER THE FUCKING WORLD!!!
And Farage is fine as well, of course, despite the fact that he and his American mentor Steve Bannon both appear in the Epstein files because Bannon was working with Epstein on how to fund his pan-European fascist aggregator, The Movement. Never mind. Protect our women and girls!!! But only from brown people. Bernard Manning! Bernard Manning!! Bernard Manning!!!
Proximity to Mandelson or Epstein can prove politically toxic, ending careers and ruining reputations. But not for everyone. It seems there’s one law for Epstein-adjacent people and institutions on the left and quite another for everyone else. Double standards anyone? We’ve got loads!
Years ago now, the TV dramatist Graham Duff told me that Mark E Smith, the now late lead singer of enduring Manchester post-punk thing the Fall, had asked him to help him write a play. Its working title? The Death of Standards. How I would love to have seen that play – the name alone makes me laugh out loud – though suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so apposite, and we look back on the early noughties, when Smith proposed this project, as a golden age of determinable ethical values.
Contrary to popular belief, reports of the death of standards (as they were regarding Mark Twain, Rock Family Trees cartographer Pete Frame and one of the fiddle players from Fairport Convention) are greatly exaggerated. Standards aren’t dead. They are just in a perpetual state of flux. To say we live in a world of double standards is an understatement. Post-Trump, post-Epstein and post-Brexit, there are so many different standards in operation simultaneously that trying to judge any action by a commonly understood yardstick of ethical value makes about as much sense as trying to knit fog or make a hat out of soup.
Can we put an end to this? By all means, allow Keir Starmer’s proximity to Epstein, via his cheerleader Peter Mandelson, to bring him down, although let it be noted he kept us relatively clear of an Iranian quagmire Farage and Kemi Badenoch were only too keen to bathe in, like a pair of horrible hippos. But to condemn Starmer by association with Epstein, and yet to allow Palantir to continue to cherry-pick the ripest fruit from the data we are happy for it to traffick into its lair makes no sense. And it is far more damaging for the country than the outgoing PM’s once unanimously praised realpolitik decision to appoint an arsehole ambassador to deal with an even bigger arsehole president.
Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf tours everywhere in the UK and Ireland until the end of the year, with a final November and December London run just announced.
Stewart is talking to the director Mark Jenkin at a screening of his new film, Rose of Nevada, at Hackney Picture House on 26 April, and hosting an evening of imaginary horror film soundtracks by Graham Reynolds and Mike Lindsay at Hackney’s Moth Club on 30 April. He is also co-hosting a screening of the rockumentary King Rocker, with director Michael Cumming and star Robert Lloyd, and launching his new podcast, Joking Apart, at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival on 2 May
Westminster keeps nuclear secrets to avoid upsetting Scottish Government
The Scottish Greens argued that the people of Scotland have a “fundamental right” to know the risks they face from hosting weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. Suppressing information that may support arguments against nuclear weapons poses a “clear and present danger” politically, it warned
Rob Edwards, April 10 2023, https://www.theferret.scot/nuclear-secrets-scottish-government/
The UK Government is refusing to say why it is keeping nuclear safety reports secret because it is worried about “anti-nuclear arguments from the Scottish Government”.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) won’t give its reasons for failing to release annual assessments of the safety of nuclear weapons on the Clyde so as not to “prejudice relations between the UK and Scottish governments”.
The secrecy has been condemned by the Scottish Greens as “outrageous, undemocratic and frankly dangerous”. It was akin to nuclear policies in Russia, China and North Korea, according to a campaigner — and it was described as “totally unacceptable” by a former nuclear submarine commander.
The Scottish Government urged the MoD to be “open and transparent” about the handling of nuclear materials in Scotland. The MoD said it had to “strike a balance” between public interest in safety and protecting information about nuclear weapons.
Annual reports from the MoD’s internal watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), were released for ten years, but ceased being published in 2017. A freedom of information appeal to a UK tribunal to force the MoD to again release the reports was rejected in July 2021.
The Ferret previously revealed that the reports for 2005 to 2015 highlighted “regulatory risks” 86 times, including 13 rated as high priority. One issue repeatedly seen as a high risk was a shortage of suitably qualified and experienced engineers.
Now the MoD has rejected another freedom of information request asking for documents that set out the rationale for refusing to release more recent DNSR reports. It disclosed that the decision was taken in 2017 by then secretary of state for defence, Michael Fallon, but has withheld information on why.
In a letter to a campaigner in January 2023, the MoD said it had used an exemption under freedom of information law aimed at preventing damage to relations between UK administrations. The exemption had been applied to information “which relates to the basing of the nuclear deterrent in Scotland”, it explained.
“There is a strong public interest in reassuring the public, especially in Scotland, that the nuclear deterrent is maintained and operated safely. However, any misinterpretation of the information, due to an incomplete picture, could lead to further anti-nuclear arguments from the Scottish Government, which is already strongly in favour of removing the nuclear deterrent from Scotland.”
The MoD concluded that “the balance of public interest” was in favour of withholding the information “as its release would prejudice relations between the UK and Scottish governments.”
The MoD letter also argued that information on reasons for withholding the reports should be kept secret “for the purpose of safeguarding national security”. Secrecy was also necessary so as not to prejudice “the defence of the UK” or “the relationship between the UK and the US” as well as to allow a “safe space” for officials to advise ministers.
A formal memo to officials from Fallon in October 2017 released by the MoD gave a little more detail. “The current threat of the UK deterrent from hostile state actors, including hostile foreign intelligence services [redacted] means we need to tighten up our practice on release of information,” it said.
“Even information which is unarguably unclassified in isolation could help a potential adversary put together a more highly classified picture.”
Nuclear secrecy ‘totalitarian’
The Scottish Greens argued that the people of Scotland have a “fundamental right” to know the risks they face from hosting weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. Suppressing information that may support arguments against nuclear weapons poses a “clear and present danger” politically, it warned.
“The extraordinary admission in this letter that the MoD and UK Government are actively concealing key pieces of information from the Scottish Government is outrageous, undemocratic and frankly dangerous,” said Green MSP, Mark Ruskell.
“The MoD is basically saying they won’t share this information because they are scared Scotland won’t like it and it might upset the US. You simply can’t get any more totalitarian than that and this should be challenged further.”
Ruskell added: “If they want to reassure people that there are no unnecessary added dangers, they should share the information urgently and transparently. If not they should pack up and ship out. Scotland doesn’t want nukes here and they know it.”
The nuclear researcher and campaigner who has been challenging the MoD’s refusal to release the nuclear safety reports is Peter Burt. UK citizens are allowed to know “virtually nothing” about the hazards of nuclear weapons despite paying billions of pounds for them, he said.
“We’re not allowed to know whether the Ministry of Defence’s safety watchdog thinks the nuclear weapons programme is complying with public protection arrangements, and Scottish Ministers are not trusted to know what is going on at the Navy’s nuclear bases in Scotland,” Burt told The Ferret.
“It’s pretty clear that this has more to do with politics than security. While the US government regularly releases information about its nuclear weapons programme, the UK Government has decided to model its own nuclear policies on those of countries like Russia, China, and North Korea.”
Rob Forsyth, a former Royal Navy nuclear submarine commander who now campaigns against nuclear weapons, described the MoD’s justifications for secrecy as “totally unacceptable”.
He said: “The way to avoid any misinterpretation is to be honest and fully transparent over matters affecting public safety and our national defence. The notion that government should not allow public discussion is not conduct expected of a democracy.”
The Scottish Government reiterated its opposition to the possession of nuclear weapons and its support for world-wide nuclear disarmament.
“In order to retain the confidence of this government and the Scottish public, the Ministry of Defence should be open and transparent in its actions around the handling of nuclear materials in Scotland,” said a spokesperson.
The Ministry of Defence insisted that it had “robust safety measures” at nuclear sites and took safety incidents “incredibly seriously”. Nuclear programmes were “subject to regular independent scrutiny and reviews,” it said.
An MoD spokesperson told The Ferret: “The release of information on nuclear safety must strike a balance between recognising public interest in nuclear safety matters and protecting information about our nuclear systems.”
Exposed: Israeli operation to help Brits move to West Bank
Undercover investigation reveals charity touted ‘awesome’ illegal settlements and claimed it could benefit from UK tax subsidies
Martin Williams, DECLASSIFIED UK, 13 April 2026
An Israeli organisation has been caught on camera offering to help British citizens move to an illegal settlement in the West Bank.
Declassified can reveal how the group, Shivat Zion, told supporters it could benefit from UK tax subsidies – despite staff bragging about “awesome” settlements.
An undercover investigation saw the group’s “encouragement” officer discussing the support it would give settlers moving to Efrat, in the West Bank.
“You’re next to the Arabs; you’ll hear their mosques,” he was recorded saying. “But apart from this, it’s a great living standard.”
The comments were made during a Zoom call with a Jewish anti-Zionist activist, who asked Declassified to secretly film the conversation.
In February, the UK government promised to take “concrete steps in accordance with international law to counter settlement expansion”.
Foreign minister Hamish Falconer said: “Israel’s illegal settlements and decisions designed to further them are a flagrant violation of international law”.
But Declassified can reveal how Shivat Zion invited supporters to claim UK Gift Aid when making donations.
Despite being registered in Israel, it directed donations to a separate charity called UK Toremet Ltd, based near London.
In an email seen by Declassified, a representative from Shivat Zion claimed that donations “go through” the UK Toremet charity, explaining that this “ensures the donations properly reach Shivat Zion”.
If money were to be received this way, it could mean that support for illegal settlers could potentially benefit from British tax subsidies………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ‘Unacceptable’
Human rights lawyer Daniel Machover told Declassified: “Fundamental breaches of international law cannot constitute charitable purposes.”
He added: “It’s just unacceptable, really, for these things to go unhindered when it’s clear that they shouldn’t be taking place. I am really deeply disturbed that this is going on.”………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://www.declassifieduk.org/exposed-israeli-operation-to-help-brits-move-to-west-bank/
Did Iran ever Really Have a Nuclear Weapons Program?
Fariba Amini, 04/21/2026, https://www.juancole.com/2026/04/nuclear-weapons-program.html
Interview of Dr. Mehran Mostafavi by Fariba Amini
In a resolution against nuclear war initiated by philosopher Bertrand Russell and endorsed by Albert Einstein just a week before his death, they wrote: “We appeal, as human beings, to human beings, remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you do so, the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.” — July 1955, letter addressed to President Roosevelt, the Russel-Einstein Manifesto
Dr. Mehran Mostafavi* is a nuclear expert who teaches at some of the most prestigious institutions in France. Throughout the years, he has also been on various French and Iranian media outlets speaking about Iran’s nuclear energy while a vocal critic of the Islamic Republic for its repressive rule. He is also the son-in-law of a very famous Iranian, the late Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the first President of Iran (1980-1981) who left Iran clandestinely and passed away in a suburb of Paris.
He is the 2026 recipient of Medal of Honor from CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique).
FA: What is your field of expertise?
MM: I am a physical chemist and a professor at Université Paris‑Saclay. I have been following Iran’s nuclear policy for 20 years, and I have written several dozen articles and given hundreds of interviews about it.
FA: As an expert on nuclear energy who has done extensive research on the subject, how do you evaluate Iran’s nuclear energy program?
MM: Iran’s nuclear policy began in the late 1980s. At that time, Iran was in a difficult position in its war with Iraq, and Iraq was using chemical bombs provided by the West against Iran. In Iran, the idea gradually took shape that to deter and confront Israel, it would be better for Iran to have an atomic bomb. On the other hand, the Islamic Republic decided to complete the Bushehr reactor,
much of the work on which had been done by the Germans before the revolution, with Russian help, and various projects were launched in this field. However, Iran was forced to abandon the military program in 1992. In the civilian sphere, Iran has only the Bushehr power plant, which generates less than 2 percent of Iran’s electricity, and its fuel is supplied by the Russians.
FA: Did the Islamic Republic intend to make the bomb as Israelis have claimed? We know that Netanyahu has been declaring that Iran would have the bomb in six months since 1984. It is now 2026.
MM: Yes, Israel, even though it knows that since 1992 Iran has not been active in building a bomb and had only carried out rudimentary work before then, regularly claims that Iran will build an atomic bomb any day now—a big lie that has been repeated countless times without evidence. All Western intelligence agencies, including the U.S. one, have reported that Iran does not have a bomb-building program.
FA: The nuclear power plants were built under the Shah in the 1970’s initially in Bushehr with the help of the German company Siemens KVU. But the project was abandoned after the 1979 Revolution, damaged during the Iran-Iraq, and later completed by Russia. At that time, did anyone object to this project?
MM: At the beginning of the revolution, it was decided that Iran did not need a nuclear power plant and that it was not cost-effective to complete the Bushehr plant. This position was particularly championed by Mehdi Bazargan and Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and was eventually approved. However, in the 1990s the Islamic Republic once again resumed construction of the plant with Russian assistance.
FA: To build a nuclear bomb, you need to enrich to more than 60 percent uranium. In your opinion, was this ever done?
MM: Yes, you need to enrich it up to 90%
FA: Why did the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) build its nuclear facilities in Natanz and Bushehr or near cities which ultimately could be dangerous for the people?
MM: It is not particularly significant that these facilities are located a few dozen kilometers from towns. There is no risk of a nuclear explosion, but there is a risk of radioactive contamination or chemical pollution. In this respect, the facilities in Iran, even following very intense bombing by the Americans and Israelis, have not caused any serious problems.
FA: According to several U.S. intelligence services Iran was no imminent threat to the U.S. Why then did Trump push for war?
MM: Trump is a compulsive liar! Let me remind you that, following the attacks in June, he claimed that the US had destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, and then in March he attacked Iran on the grounds that it posed an imminent threat. We know full well that this is not true. He started the war in response to demands from Israel, which does not want any regional powers other than itself in the Middle East.
FA: We know that upon coming into office in 2016, Trump tore up the JCPOA [the 2015 nuclear deal], at the advice of the man in Tel Aviv. Today, if an agreement is made, it will probably be little different from the one that the Obama administration agreed to. Do you think there will be any significant differences?
MM: I do not believe that they will do a similar agreement.
FA: Do you believe that the IRI ever had the intention to use nuclear weapons against Israel as they claim? We know that the Israelis, even if they have never been open about it, have at least 300 nukes. So, isn’t all a sham?
MM: No, because Iran has never had the full technical capability to build a bomb. Iran is still a long way from having a bomb. Even if Iran enriches uranium to 90%, it will still take a long time – perhaps a year – before it had the capability to use the bomb. Israel has never declared its facilities and has never complied with international law. Israel is in no position to lecture other countries
FA: Don’t you think that for the IRI, this whole idea was more defensive rather than offensive?
MM: I think that over the last 20 years, Iran has used its nuclear policy to bargain with the West, and in recent years its intention has been to demonstrate that it can become a nuclear-capable country.
FA: In a recent New Yorker article dated April 6, 2026, a former CIA operative says that he was involved in getting Iranian nuclear scientist defect or be killed. We know that Mossad has been involved in the assassination of several scientists in Iran, approximately eighteen of them. Do you know of any defections?
MM: I am fully aware that Israel has eliminated several Iranian scientists. It is very interesting to note that Iran and Israel worked together in a consortium to develop the only synchrotron in the Middle East, in Jordan. It was a peaceful project for a facility intended for physicists. One of the Iranian representatives was Prof. Massoud Ali Mohamadi. The Israelis met him in Jordan during the meetings and knew him well. He was assassinated by the Israelis. He was very intelligent but was not involved in the Iranian nuclear program. He was simply assassinated because he was a great physicist.
US ‘restricts intelligence sharing with South Korea’ after minister identified suspected nuclear site
Washington reportedly limits satellite data after minister spoke publicly about suspected facility in North Korea
Raphael Rashid, Guardian, in Seoul, 21 April 26
The US has partly restricted intelligence sharing with South Korea after the country’s unification minister publicly identified a suspected North Korean nuclear site, according to reports in South Korean media.
Chung Dong-young told lawmakers in March that North Korea was operating uranium enrichment facilities in Kusong, a north-western area that had not previously been officially confirmed as a nuclear site alongside the known facilities at Yongbyon and Kangson.
A senior military official told the state-funded Yonhap news agency on Tuesday that Washington had imposed partial restrictions on sharing satellite-gathered intelligence about North Korean technology since early this month, though surveillance of missile activity continued normally and military readiness remained unaffected.
The restrictions followed what South Korean outlets described as multiple protests from US officials, who expressed concern that sensitive information had been disclosed without authorisation.
No US agency has confirmed the restrictions on record. The Guardian contacted the US embassy in Seoul for comment.
Chung has defended his remarks, saying they were based on publicly available research rather than classified intelligence.
He told reporters on Monday it was “deeply regrettable” that his policy explanation had been characterised as an information leak. “This is open information,” Chung said, citing a 2016 report by a US thinktank and South Korean media coverage.
He noted he had mentioned Kusong during his confirmation hearing last year without incident. Writing on Facebook, he said he was “bewildered” the issue had suddenly become a problem nine months later.
President Lee Jae Myung, whose administration is pursuing a conciliatory approach towards North Korea, backed his minister. Writing on X, Lee said it was a “clear fact” that Kusong’s existence had been widely reported in academic papers and media before Chung’s remarks.
“Any claims or actions premised on the assumption that minister Chung leaked classified information provided by the United States are wrong,” Lee wrote from Delhi during a state visit to India. “I must look closely into why such an absurd situation is unfolding.”
The restrictions come amid broader tensions in the alliance, according to South Korean media reports…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/21/us-reportedly-restricts-south-korea-intelligence-sharing-after-minister-identified-suspected-nuclear-site
What secret report reveals about British nuclear weapons tests – veterans claimed they were harmed by the fallout
Christopher R. Hill, Professor of History, Faculty of Business and Creative Industries, University of South Wales, Jonathan Hogg, Senior Lecturer in Twentieth Century History, School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, University of Liverpoo, l April 15, 2026 https://theconversation.com/what-secret-report-reveals-about-british-nuclear-weapons-tests-veterans-claimed-they-were-harmed-by-the-fallout-280189
“The Ministry of Defence has always maintained that it never rained,” said Ken McGinley, founder of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA). “I’m sorry, you’re liars … I was there!”
McGinley, who was a royal engineer, gave this interview in January 2024, shortly before his death, as part of our Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project.
McGinley was present during the Grapple nuclear weapons test series, conducted by the UK on the central Pacific island of Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island) in the late 1950s. At the time, this remote atoll was inhabited by 250 villagers as well as thousands of British servicemen.
For decades, many of those present during this and other above-ground British nuclear weapons tests have argued they were harmed by radioactive fallout. McGinley founded the BNTVA in 1983 to “gain recognition and restitution” for the veterans who took part in British and American nuclear tests and clean-ups between 1952 and 1965.
Rain became a key symbol in their argument as one of the only tangible signs of fallout taking place. The nuclear physicist Sir Joseph Rotblat described these alleged post-blast showers as “rainout”, a phenomenon whereby rain and mushroom clouds interact, leading to the contamination of rain droplets by harmful radionuclides.
In almost all cases, any link to subsequent health issues has been denied by the UK government because of lack of evidence of widespread radioactive contamination. However, a review of the evidence – written in 2014 by anonymous government scientists in response to freedom of information requests – was recently leaked by whistleblowers.
It reveals that post-blast radiation readings increased by a factor of up to seven on the island, compared with the normal background level. In our view, this would be more than enough to satisfy the “reasonable doubt” that tribunals require for veterans to receive a war pension due to illness or injury related to their service, as stated in the Naval, Military and Air Forces (Disablement and Death) Services Pension Order.
The top secret review, first revealed publicly by the Mirror newspaper on March 14 2026, also contains new evidence of radioactive contamination of fish in the island’s waters.
The repeated dismissal of veterans’ testimony in court cases and pension appeals caused stress and trauma for many. The majority died insisting they were not deceitful or forgetful – and that it did indeed rain while they were living on Kiritimati.
Factually inaccurate’
Kiritimati was monitored for fallout by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) after each detonation over the island – the largest of which, Grapple Y, was 200 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
In 1993, environmental monitoring data was collated into a report by a team at the MoD’s Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE). Known as the Clare report, this informed the UK’s official position on fallout: namely, that none occurred over populated areas and that veterans would need to prove otherwise to secure redress.
However, the 2014 review of fallout data concluded the Clare report was “incomplete and, in some cases, factually inaccurate”.
Despite this review being passed on to the MoD, however, it was kept secret for more than a decade. Following its release, the legal implications could be gamechanging. According to the 2014 review: “The instrument readings could potentially be used to challenge the validity of statements made by MoD and UK government regarding … fallout on Christmas Island.”
In a recent House of Commons debate on the issue, the UK minister for veterans and people, Louise Sandher-Jones, confirmed her commitment “to the nuclear test veterans and their fight for transparency … They have had a very long fight, and I really recognise how difficult it has been for them, and I want them to understand that I am committed to them.”
What Merlin reveals
Behind the scenes, the release of newly declassified archival material in the publicly accessible Merlin database has added to calls for government accountability about the nuclear tests.
Compiled by the treasury solicitor during a class action against the MoD between 2009 and 2012, the database was stored at AWE until the journalist and author Susie Boniface discovered it held information about the medical monitoring of servicemen and Indigenous people. Her work led to its release in 2025.
Holding over 28,000 files, Merlin was commissioned by the MoD in response to the compensation claims made by almost 1,000 veterans from 2009. Its contents include official reports and communications, photographs, maps, safety guidelines and health monitoring information. Video footage includes the Grapple X test in November 1957.
A University of Liverpool team based in The Centre for People’s Justice and the Department of History is working with Boniface and campaign group Labrats International to catalogue and analyse the contents of Merlin – combining it with other sources, including personal testimony. Recently released files indicate nuclear fallout in the island’s ground sediment and rainwater, and heightened radioactivity in its clams.
Evidence has also emerged of radioactive waste being dropped from aeroplanes into the sea off Queensland in 1958 and 1959. Although dumping radioactive waste was surprisingly common during the cold war, this revelation raises questions about how risk and danger was understood and managed during Britain’s nuclear test programme.
The files also show workers without protective clothing around a plutonium pit at Maralinga in South Australia, site of seven British atmospheric nuclear tests in 1956-57.
The Merlin releases have galvanised claims that not so long ago may have been interpreted as conjecture. The recent releases suggest that servicemen and islanders were exposed to radioactive fallout – not just from rain showers, but from the fish they ate and the water they drank.
While a causal link with subsequent health conditions would be hard to prove, we believe it is time for the UK government to get behind a public inquiry into the full impact of Britain’s nuclear weapons testing programme.
A Case for War? Iran’s Non-Existent Nuclear Weapons Program
ByWilliam O. Beeman, Apr 14, 2026, https://americancommunitymedia.org/oped/a-case-for-war-irans-non-existent-nuclear-weapons-program/
The United States’ repeated attacks on Iran over more than 40 years are based on a lie: that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
Vice-President J.D. Vance, who led the U.S. delegation in cease-fire talks with Iran on April 10-11, once again repeated this lie in his demand that Iran declare that it “will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon.”
The current Iranian regime has done much that has disturbed the world community since the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979. They have supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Assad Regime in Syria, and militant groups throughout the Middle East. They have repressed dissent in their own country, including incarceration and execution of many thousands of Iranian citizens, with little justification. For these actions the regime deserves severe condemnation.
However, what Iran has not done and has never done is to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran’s critics hide behind the phrase “Iran’s nuclear ambitions” as if that vague phrase constitutes proof that a nuclear weapons program exists. It does not exist and has never existed. So why does this unsubstantiated accusation remain a live issue?
The answer is surprisingly simple. When Iran was an ally of the United States during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was re-installed from exile in a CIA-led coup in 1953, the United States fervently encouraged Iran to develop nuclear technology. After the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, when Iran was seen as opposed to the United States, its nuclear program was suddenly seen as suspect and dangerous.
Iranian nuclear development started during the Eisenhower administration as part of the “Atoms for Peace” program. In 1957, the United States signed a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with Iran stipulating that the United States would provide Iran with technical assistance, nuclear fuel, and a small research reactor. This resulted in the establishment of the Tehran Nuclear Research Center in 1959. In 1967, under the Johnson administration, the United States delivered a five-megawatt research reactor to Iran along with weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to fuel it.
In 1968, Iran and the United States were founding signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which was eventually signed by virtually every nation on earth except for Israel, India, and Pakistan. (North Korea initially signed and then withdrew. South Sudan, founded in 2011, never signed the treaty).
The NPT prohibits nations that did not have a nuclear weapons program at the time of signing from ever developing nuclear weapons. At the same time, the NPT guarantees the right of all countries to pursue non-nuclear-weapons programs to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The treaty also requires nations that already had nuclear weapons to protect the rights of other nations to develop their own nuclear technology, including the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. (Aside from Iran, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, and Argentina all have active nuclear enrichment programs today).
From this point on, until the 1978-79 Revolution, the United States encouraged nuclear development in Iran, urging companies like Westinghouse and General Electric to sell nuclear power reactors to the Shah’s government. At one point 23 nuclear power plants were envisioned.
But following the Iranian Revolution and the 444-day hostage crisis when U.S. officials were held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran became suspect in the eyes of the United States. The nuclear program that had once been so fervently encouraged became a point of attack against the Islamic Republic.
The idea that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon stems from a 1984 United Press International article entitled “Ayatollah’s Bomb in Production for Iran.” On April 26, 1984, the U.S State Department under the Reagan administration — with no evidence that Iran had the equipment or the capability to produce a bomb — nevertheless urged a world-wide ban on providing nuclear materials to the country.
The eight-year Iran-Iraq war was then underway, and the Reagan administration feared that Iran could develop a weapon to use against Iraq. Another press article from The Washington Post in 1987 entitled “Atomic Ayatollahs” continued the alarm.
Even though Western intelligence agencies repeatedly insisted that Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program, U.S. officials — buoyed by negative public opinion of the Iranian regime — continued the accusation. The first U.S. imposed economic sanctions levied on Iran in relation to its nuclear program were imposed by President Bill Clinton in 1995.
In 2003 the George W. Bush administration, under urging from neo-conservatives bent on effecting regime change throughout the Middle East, again accused Iran of having a nuclear weapons program.
From this point on, the specter of Iran’s “nuclear ambitions” became a mantra in Washington, despite Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei having issued a religious edict prohibiting nuclear weapons development that same year. President Bush imposed further U.S. economic sanctions, increasing tensions between the two nations.
After more than 10 years, the Obama administration was able to create the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). As part of the agreement, Iran agreed to curtail its uranium enrichment program as a “confidence building” measure to assure that it would not violate the provisions of the longstanding NPT.
After President Trump canceled the JCOPA during his first presidential term in 2017, the idea that Iran still had “nuclear ambitions” became the baseline excuse for continued U.S. sanctions. No matter Iran’s transgressions, this one accusation remains the principal reason for continued hostilities culminating in the current war between the two nations.
The base fact is that Iran has never been shown to have had a nuclear weapons program. All intelligence organizations involved with nuclear containment agree on this fact. Nevertheless, as was seen in the failure of the Islamabad talks, Iran’s “nuclear ambitions” continue to be the pretext for U.S. attacks.
THE “SPIES” WHO CRIED GENOCIDE
An Investigative Exposé on the “Christian Genocide” Narrative and the Weaponization of Terrorism in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
The African Noticer, Apr 09, 2026
“If the Nigerian government is not going to protect you, go and protect yourself… Whatever you feel you have the power to do, do it to protect yourself.”
— Judd Saul, Iowa insurance salesman, issuing a public call to arms for Nigerian civilians. March 2026
When Your Source Is You, Yourself, and I
On March 20, 2026, the Nigeria-based outlet Sahara Reporters posted a video message from an American named Judd Saul, head of an Iowa nonprofit called Equipping The Persecuted, a missionary organization operating in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. In the video, Saul claimed inside intelligence on an imminent terrorist attack in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, naming exact dates, routes, and tactics. He said drone surveillance had verified machine-gun placements. Then he urged Nigerian civilians to arm themselves.
“More Attacks Coming! Be Vigilant!” -Judd Saul
The questions came immediately. Was he a missionary or a security expert? How does an insurance salesman from Sioux City, Iowa, obtain real-time drone surveillance of remote Nigerian river crossings? Why does he keep raising the same alarm pattern: terrorist incidents, herder-farmer clashes, and Christian massacres on a loop? And why does every alarm from this network arrive in the same packaging: there is a Christian genocide in Nigeria, and the Nigerian government is complicit in the systematic extermination of said Christians?
What happens after the alert is even more suspicious. These conservative U.S. publications (CBN, Washington Times, Epoch Times, etc.), congressional offices, and religious media outlets treat Saul’s “terror alerts” as primary intelligence. He has a website, Truth Nigeria, which publishes these claims. Then U.S. media outlets echo the narrative, and Saul is paraded around as a guest speaker on podcasts like Tim Pool’s The Culture War and the Lara Logan Show. He even held a press conference on Capitol Hill back in March. Once these media outlets echo the claim, it is then cited as independent corroboration of what Saul claimed in the first place. He is the source, the reporter, and the person who checks the facts all at the same time. No external source has ever confirmed the 89% success rate he publishes on his website, as no external source has ever been granted the ability to independently assess his methods.
Is this press operation legit, or is there some foolery afoot?
It’s time to put on our investigative journalism hats and do some noticing and networking.
THE NETWORK: THE AMERICANS AND THE NIGERIANS
The Many Hats Of Judd Saul
Judd Saul is a very busy man, with more occupations than Kirk on Gilmore Girls. When he is not attending the wedding of the Hungarian Ambassador to Nigeria in Budapest, he is a documentary filmmaker, political activist, journalist, security expert, missionary, and, since 2020, founder and president of Equipping The Persecuted, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has allegedly built, in just four years, an international media operation, a terror alert system, an orphanage, two K-12 schools, and what it claims is a staff of more than 115 Nigerian personnel across the Middle Belt. Whether all of that actually exists is a question the organization’s own filings do not answer. More on that later.
Saul the Insurance Salesman
Judd Saul grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and for most of his adult life has sold insurance out of a suite in Sioux City, in the same state, operating under FTM Insurance (For The Mission Insurance), where the tagline is explicit: every policy sold funds Christian aid to Nigeria. What a line! A marketing angle of using a charitable message to market your business. However, no reviews or comments have been found from customers who either complimented him on his product/service or acknowledged him as a vendor/agent to do business with. It appears that he has no customers to date.
Saul the Filmmaker
Saul’s documentary portfolio is essentially a filmography of civilizational, anti-woke, Islamophobic paranoia with a slight disdain for the IRS. His credits include Unfair: Exposing the IRS (2014), The Enemies Within (2016), America Under Siege: Soviet Islam, America Under Siege: Civil War, and Enemies Within the Church (2021).
Co-directed with controversial Iowa pastor Cary Gordon and conspiracy alarmist Trevor Loudon, that last film claimed American churches were being subverted by “cultural Marxism” and “intersectionality” (whatever that means). Even the ultra-conservative Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary president called it “scandalous, scurrilous, slander.”
Saul The Missionary
Saul is the founder and president of Equipping The Persecuted, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit he started in 2020. According to its website, ETP supports persecuted Christians in Nigeria with food, medical aid, and even security equipment. Saul says the story began with a burden placed on his heart: in 2011, his grandfather-in-law, Duane Wessels, invited him on a mission trip to Nigeria. That trip, Saul says, is where he felt called to the lost and persecuted Christians of the Middle Belt.
It is a story designed to move conservative white evangelical Americans, who are primed to respond to the language of calling, sacrifice, and rescue. It probably also moves their wallets
Saul The Journalist
In 2024, Judd Saul launched Truth Nigeria. This media outlet functions as both a journalism operation and a fundraising instrument, its articles invariably directing readers back to Equipping the Persecuted donation pages. The journalistic operation Saul built to document the violence in Nigeria employs Douglas Burton, a former U.S. State Department official, as managing editor of Truth Nigeria. He gets his own section in Part Two of this series.
The 15 journalists listed under the Truth Nigeria banner, when researched, do not all hold up equally well under scrutiny:
- Segun Onibiyo, Abuja bureau correspondent, spent 24 days in prison in 2018 on charges of defamation and inciting disturbance against a sitting governor.
- Luka Binniyat, described as “award-winning” with 26 years of experience, cannot be linked to a single verifiable award or publication before Truth Nigeria.
- Lawrence Zongo, listed as a reporter: a community spokesperson with a disclosed ethnic stake in the conflict.
According to Judd Saul, in May 2025, the Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria’s primary domestic intelligence agency operating directly under the presidency, arrested Truth Nigeria reporters. However, Saul did not mention any names or provide any evidence or sources that might substantiate his arrest claims. The narrative’s structural function is to create insulation for the organization’s unverifiable intelligence from anyone outside the organization. If the government is suppressing us, then no one can check our work. Convenient, and almost impossible to falsify by design.
Something is not Adding Up!
Finding financial documentation for Judd Saul’s organization was a feat in itself. Still, thanks to the all-seeing eyes of Uncle Sam, we dug up the 2024 Form 990 for Equipping The Persecuted (EIN: 85-2702281), and it tells a very strange story.
The organization is technically insolvent, spending $1.17 for every dollar raised, while Saul, the only compensated officer, collected $60,000. Management costs ballooned 310% over 2023. Only 57 cents of every donated dollar reached actual programming, well below the 75% threshold watchdogs consider the floor of acceptable.
The filings also raise basic operational questions. ETP claims to employ more than 115 Nigerian staff; however, as per it’s 990 filings, there are no employee salaries listed. The organization also claims to serve thousands of Nigerians monthly, operations that require significant ground-level infrastructure. MinistryWatch (a watchdog for evangelical charities) has stripped the organization from its database and issued a transparency grade of D. No independent audit seems to exist online.
Oh, they sell coffee, too! Their ETP Coffee brand, which includes products with names such as Guardian, Refuge, and Warrior, claims 100% of proceeds go to victims of the Christian genocide. But coffee has costs: sourcing, roasting, packaging, shipping, and processing fees. That kind of claim only works if someone else is quietly subsidizing production or if the claim is not true. Neither possibility inspires confidence
All this math makes my head hurt, so enough of that. The picture it paints, however, is difficult to shake: how does an organization that is, on paper, financially insolvent, with over $1 million flowing annually, extreme operational opacity, and unnamed donors, somehow stay afloat and shape U.S. foreign policy outcomes?
There are some intriguing personalities and histories associated with that question.
Let’s meet them!……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
We have an Iowa insurance salesman with no customers, a documentary filmmaker whose own seminary called his work slander, a nonprofit that spends more money than it raises while claiming to employ 115 people it does not pay, and a Liberty University kid in crusader patches screaming at Nigerian villagers to pick up AK-47s. All of them connected. All of them pointing at the same patch of ground. And we have not even gotten to the State Department spook, the CPAC missionary, the congressmen with oil stocks, or the part where Mossad shows up.
To Be Continued …
Part Two drops next Tuesday. If you cannot wait, and honestly, why would you, the full investigation is up right now for subscribers at The African Noticer https://ddgeopolitics.substack.com/p/the-spies-who-cried-genocide?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1769298&post_id=193402804&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
From Risk to Target: The New Reality for Journalists in War Zones
April 9, 2026, Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/09/from-risk-to-target-the-new-reality-for-journalists-in-war-zones/
As Journalists Are Killed, the World Looks Away
We reported on one of these deaths yesterday. Today, there are more.
The killing of journalists—already at record levels—continues at a pace that is both staggering and deliberate. What was once framed as the “risk” of war has become something far more disturbing: a pattern in which reporters are not just caught in violence, but increasingly subject to it.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least three more journalists were killed by Israeli forces in a single day across Gaza and Lebanon—with at least one case identified as a targeted attack.
They were not abstractions. They had names:
- Mohammed Samir Washah, correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher
- Ghada Dayekh, presenter with Sawt Al-Farah
- Suzan Khalil, reporter and presenter on Al-Manar TV and Al-Nour Radio
“Journalists are being killed at a pace and scale that should shock the conscience of the world,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “These are not isolated tragedies; they reflect a systematic failure to uphold the most basic protections owed to civilian journalists under international law.”
The killings came amid a renewed wave of Israeli bombardment across Lebanon—more than 100 strikes launched within minutes, even as ceasefire announcements involving Iran, Israel, and the United States were still fresh.
This is the context in which journalism now exists.
Not as a profession protected under international law—but as a target operating within it.
Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza and Lebanon is not incidental. It is part of a broader assault on press freedom—one unfolding in real time, with little sign of restraint and even less accountability.
And as the numbers rise, so does the question:
How many more must die before the world treats this as more than collateral damage?
The most striking—and politically explosive—finding in the Committee to Protect Journalists report is this: Israel was responsible for roughly two-thirds of all journalist killings worldwide in 2025.
From Risk to Targeting
War has always been dangerous for reporters. But what distinguishes Israel’s conduct, according to CPJ’s findings, is the shift from incidental risk to alleged deliberate targeting.
- CPJ documented 47 cases of journalists killed specifically because of their work in 2025.
- Israel accounted for 81% of those targeted killings.
These are not cases where journalists were simply caught in crossfire. They are cases where evidence suggests reporters were identified, tracked, and struck—sometimes by precision tools like drones.
In Gaza, where foreign journalists are largely barred, local Palestinian reporters have become the world’s only witnesses. That visibility has made them indispensable—and, increasingly, vulnerable.
Silencing the Witnesses
The report highlights a disturbing pattern: journalists who documented alleged war crimes—such as attacks on hospitals or starvation—were among those targeted.
This raises a deeper question:
Is the killing of journalists functioning not just as violence, but as information control?
In modern war, narrative is power. Eliminating those who document reality doesn’t just remove individuals—it erases evidence in real time.
The Role of “Deadly Smears”
Another key mechanism identified by CPJ is the use of unsubstantiated accusations against journalists after—or even before—they are killed.
Israel has repeatedly labeled slain reporters as militants, often without presenting verifiable evidence.
This serves two purposes:
- Justification after the fact
- Preemptive delegitimization of journalists as civilian targets
In effect, it blurs the line between journalist and combatant—undermining one of the most fundamental protections in international law.
Total Impunity
Perhaps the most damning finding is not just the scale of killings, but the absence of consequences.
- No one has been held accountable for any targeted killing of a journalist by Israel since October 2023.
This is not just a failure of justice—it is a signal.
A signal that such actions can continue without legal or political cost.
A Precedent Beyond Gaza
What happens in Gaza does not stay in Gaza.
When a state can kill journalists at this scale without accountability, it sets a precedent that other governments—authoritarian or democratic—can follow. The erosion of press protections in one conflict zone becomes a global permission structure.
The Deadliest Year for the Press: How War—and Impunity—Are Killing Journalism
In a world already fractured by war, the truth itself is increasingly under fire.
A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists reveals a staggering reality: 2025 was the deadliest year ever recorded for journalists, with at least 129 media workers killed globally—a historic high that underscores a deepening crisis for press freedom worldwide.
But beyond the numbers lies a far more disturbing pattern.
According to CPJ, two-thirds of all journalist killings in 2025 were carried out by Israeli forces, marking not only a statistical anomaly but a structural shift in how modern warfare treats the press. In Gaza especially, Palestinian journalists bore the brunt of this violence, with the majority killed while documenting the realities of a war zone increasingly sealed off from the outside world.
This is not collateral damage—it is, in many documented cases, targeting.
CPJ identified 47 journalists deliberately killed for their work in 2025, the highest number of targeted killings in over a decade. Israel alone accounted for 81% of those cases, raising profound legal and moral questions about violations of international humanitarian law, which explicitly classifies journalists as civilians.
Even more alarming is what follows these killings: nothing.
The report finds that no one has been held accountable for any targeted killing of a journalist in 2025. This culture of impunity—long entrenched but now accelerating—has turned journalism into one of the most dangerous professions on Earth, particularly in conflict zones where truth itself is treated as a threat.
And the methods of killing are evolving.
Drone warfare, once a distant technological abstraction, has become a frontline tool in silencing reporters. CPJ documented a surge from just two journalist deaths by drone in 2023 to 39 in 2025, with the majority linked to Israeli military operations in Gaza. These are not indiscriminate weapons—they are capable of precision targeting, raising further concerns about intentionality.
Yet the crisis extends far beyond any single battlefield.
From Mexico to India, Sudan to the Philippines, journalists continue to be murdered for exposing corruption, documenting war crimes, or simply telling inconvenient truths. In many of these cases, weak legal systems and political complicity ensure that perpetrators are never brought to justice.
The result is a global chilling effect.
When journalists are killed without consequence, entire societies are pushed into darkness. Information disappears. Accountability collapses. Power operates unchecked.
As CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg warns, attacks on journalists are not isolated incidents—they are early warning signs of broader democratic decline.
And that decline is no longer creeping—it is accelerating.
What this report ultimately reveals is not just a record-breaking death toll, but a fundamental shift: the normalization of violence against the press as a tool of war and governance.
In such a world, the question is no longer whether journalism is under attack.
It is whether the truth can survive it.
Here is a list from The Guardian from last September. These are not just names—they are the people who risked everything to report what was happening on the ground in this conflict. We should remember them, hold onto them, speak them, because even now more are being killed—and more will be killed—as the genocidal empire pushes forward in Iran.
To remember them is to refuse their erasure. To say their names is to resist the silence that follows.
Ahmed Abu Aziz,Mohammed Salama,Moaz Abu Taha,Hussam al-Masri,Mariam Abu Dagga,Anas al-Sharif,Mohammed Noufal,Ibrahim Zaher,Mohammed Qreiqeh,Moamen Aliwa,Mohammad al-Khaldi,Ismail Abu Hatab,Moamen Abu AlOuf,Ahmad Qalaja,Ismail Baddah,Suleiman Hajjaj,Hassan Abu Warda,Hassan Samour,Ahmed al-Helou,Yahya Sobeih,Noureddine Abdo,Fatma Hassouna,Hilmi al-Faqaawi,Ahmed Mansour,Mohammed Mansour,Hossam Shabat,Mahmoud Islim al-Basos,Ahmed al-Shayyah,Ahmed Abu al-Rous,Mohammed al-Talmas,Saed Abu Nabhan,Omar al-Dirawi,Areej Shaheen,Hassan al-Qishawi,Ayman al-Gedi,Faisal Abu al-Qumsan,Mohammed al-Ladaa,Fadi Hassouna,Ibrahim Sheikh Ali,Mohammed al-Sharafi,Ahmed al-Louh,Mohammed al-Qrinawi,Mohammed Balousha,Iman al-Shanti,Maisara Ahmed Salah,Mamdouh Qanita,Ahmed Abu Sharia,Mahdi al-Mamluk,Ahmed Abu Skheil,Zahraa Abu Skheil,Bilal Rajab,Amr Abu Odeh,Saed Radwan,Nadia Emad al-Sayed,Haneen Baroud,Tareq AlSalhi,Mohammed al-Tanani,AlHassan Hamad,Abdul Rahman Bahr,Nour Abu Oweimer,Wafa al-Udaini,Mohammed Abed Rabbo,Hussam al-Dabbaka,Hamza Murtaja,Ibrahim Muhareb,Tamim Abu Muammar,Mohammed Issa Abu Saada,Rami al-Refee,Ismail al-Ghoul,Mohammed Abu Daqqa,Mohammed Abu Jasser,Mohamed Meshmesh,Mohamed Manhal Abu Armana,Amjad Juhjouh,Wafaa Abu Dabaan,Rizq Abu Shakian,Saadi Madoukh,Mohammed al-Sakani,Mohammed Abu Sharia,Rasheed Albably,Ola Al Dahdouh,Mahmoud Juhjouh,Bahaaddine Yassine,Mustafa Ayyad,Salem Abu Toyour,Ibrahim al-Gharbawi,Ayman al-Gharbawi,Mohammed Bassam al-Jamal,Mustafa Bahr,Mohamed Adel Abu Skheil,Saher Akram Rayan,Mohamed el Sayed Abu Skheil,Tarek El Sayed Abu Skheil,Mohamed el-Reefi,Abdul Rahman Saima,Muhammad Salama,Mohamed Yaghi,Zayd Abu Zayed,Ayman al-Rafati,Angam Ahmad Edwan,Alaa al-Hams,Yasser Mamdouh el-Fady,Nafez Abdel Jawad,Rizq al-Gharabli,Mohammed Atallah,Tariq al-Maidna,Iyad el-Ruwagh,Yazan al-Zuweidi,Mohamed Jamal Sobhi al-Thalathini,Ahmed Bdeir,Shareef Okasha,Heba al-Abadla,Abdallah Iyad Breis,Mustafa Thuraya,Hamza al-Dahdouh,Akram ElShafie,Jabr Abu Hadrous,Ahmed Khaireddine,Ahmad Jamal al-Madhoun,Mohamad al-Iff,Mohamed Azzaytouniyah,Mohamed Naser Abu Huwaidi,Mohamed Khalifeh,Adel Zorob,Abdallah Alwan,Haneen Kashtan,Assem Kamal Moussa,Samer Abu Daqqa,Ola Atallah,Duaa Jabbour,Shaima el-Gazzar,Hamada al-Yaziji,Hassan Farajallah,Abdullah Darwish,Montaser al-Sawaf,Adham Hassouna,Marwan al-Sawaf,Mostafa Bakeer,Mohamed Mouin Ayyash,Mohamed Nabil al-Zaq,Assem al-Barsh,Jamal Mohamed Haniyeh,Ayat Khadoura,Bilal Jadallah,Mossab Ashour,Sari Mansour,Mostafa al-Sawaf,Hassouneh Salim,Abdel Rahman al-Tanani,Amal Zohud,Abdelhalim Awad,Amro Salah Abu Hayah,Yacoup al-Borsh,Moussa al-Borsh,Ahmed al-Qara,Yahya Abu Manih,Mohamed Abu Hassira,Mohamad al-Bayyari,Mohammed Abu Hatab,Majd Fadl Arandas,Iyad Matar,Imad al-Wahidi,Majed Kashko,Nazmi al-Nadim,Yasser Abu Namous,Duaa Sharaf,Jamal al-Faqaawi,Saed al-Halabi,Ahmed Abu Mhadi,Tasneem Bkheet,Ibrahim Marzouq,Mohammed Imad Labad,Roshdi Sarraj,Mohammed Ali,Khalil Abu Aathra,Sameeh al-Nady,Issam Bhar,Mohammad Balousha,Abdulhadi Habib,Yousef Maher Dawas,Salam Mema,Husam Mubarak,Ahmed Shehab,Hisham Alnwajha,Mohammed Sobh,Saeed al-Taweel,Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi,Mohammad Jarghoun,Mohammed al-Salhi
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
-
Archives
- October 2026 (247)
- September 2026 (339)
- August 2026 (330)
- July 2026 (355)
- June 2026 (287)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (267)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
