Notice too – though the BBC won’t point it out – that the US sanctions are a form of collective punishment on the Iranian population that is in breach of international law and that last year’s strikes on Iran were a clear war of aggression, which is defined as “the supreme international crime”.
The UK state broadcaster streams disinformation into our living rooms – deceptions that not only leave us clueless about important international events but drive us ever closer to global conflagration
Here is another example of utterly irresponsible journalism from the BBC on tonight’s News at Ten.
Diplomatic correspondent Caroline Hawley starts by credulously amplifying a fantastical death toll of “tens of thousands of dead” from recent protests in Iran – figures provided by regime opponents. Contrast that with the BBC’s constant, two years of caution and downplaying of the numbers killed in Gaza by Israel.
The idea that in a few days Iranian security forces managed to kill as many Iranians as Israel has managed to kill Palestinians in Gaza from the prolonged carpet-bombing and levelling of the tiny enclave, as well as the starvation of its population, beggars belief. The figures sound patently ridiculous because they are patently ridiculous.
Either the Iran death toll is massively inflated, or the Gaza death toll is a massive underestimate. Or far more likely, both are intentionally being used to mislead.
The BBC has a political agenda that says it is fine to headline a made-up, inflated figure of the dead in Iran because our leaders have defined Iran as an Official Enemy. While the BBC has a converse political agenda that says it’s fine to employ endless caveats to minimise a death toll in Gaza that is already certain to be a huge undercount because Israel is an Official Ally.
This isn’t journalism. It’s stenography for western governments that choose enemies and allies not on the basis of whether they adhere to any ethical or legal standards of behaviour but purely on the basis of whether they assist the West in its battle to dominate oil resources in the Middle East.
Notice something else. This news segment – focusing the attention of western publics once again on the presumed wanton slaughter of protesters in Iran earlier this month – is being used by the BBC to advance the case for a war on Iran out of strictly humanitarian concerns that Trump himself doesn’t appear to share.
Trump has sent his armada of war ships to the Gulf not because he says he wants to protect protesters – in fact, missile strikes will undoubtedly kill many more Iranian civilians – but because he says he wishes to force Iran to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.
There are already deep layers of deceit from western politicians regarding Iran – not least, the years-long premise that Iran is seeking a nuclear bomb, for which there is still no evidence, and that Tehran is responsible for the breakdown of a deal to monitor its civilian nuclear power programme. In fact, it was Trump in his first term as president who tore up that agreement.
Iran responded by enriching uranium above the levels needed for civilian use in a move that was endlessly flagged to Washington by Tehran and was clearly intended to encourage the previous Biden administration to renew the deal Trump had wrecked.
Instead, on his return to power, Trump used that enrichment not as grounds to return to diplomacy but as a pretext, first, to intensify US sanctions that have further crippled Iran’s economy, deepening poverty among ordinary Iranians, and then to launch a strike on Iran last summer that appears to have made little difference to its nuclear programme but served to weaken its air defences, to assassinate some of its leaders and to spread terror among the wider population.
Notice too – though the BBC won’t point it out – that the US sanctions are a form of collective punishment on the Iranian population that is in breach of international law and that last year’s strikes on Iran were a clear war of aggression, which is defined as “the supreme international crime”.
The US President is now posturing as though he is the one who wants to bring Iran to the negotiating table, by sending an armada of war ships, when it was he who overturned that very negotiating table in May 2018 and ripped up what was known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The BBC, of course, makes no mention whatsoever of this critically important context for judging the credibility of Trump’s claims about his intentions towards Iran. Instead its North America editor, Sarah Smith, vacuously regurgitates as fact the White House’s evidence-free claim that Iran has a “nuclear weapons programme” that Trump wants it to “get rid of”.
Watch Sarah Smith’s one-minute report here: [on original]
But on top of all that, media like the BBC are adding their own layers of deceit to sell the case for a US war on Iran.
First, they are doing so by trying to find new angles on old news about the violent repression of protests inside Iran. They are doing so by citing extraordinary, utterly unevidenced death toll figures and then tying them to the reasons for Trump going on the war path. Its reporting is centring once again – after the catastrophes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere – bogus humanitarian justifications for war when Trump himself is making no such connection.
And second, the BBC’s reporting by Sarah Smith coolly lays out the US mechanics of attacking Iran – the build-up to war – without ever mentioning that such an attack would be in complete violation of international law. It would again be “the supreme international crime”.
Instead she observes: “Donald Trump senses an opportunity to strike at a weakened leadership in Tehran. But how is actually going to do that? I mean he talked in his message about the successful military actions that have definitely emboldened him after the actions he took in Venezuela and earlier last year in Iran.”
Imagine if you can – and you can’t – the BBC dispassionately outlining Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to move on from his invasion of Ukraine into launching military strikes on Poland. Its correspondents note calmly the number of missiles Putin has massed closer to Poland’s borders, the demands made by the Russian leader of Poland if it wishes to avoid attack, and the practical obstacles standing in the way of the attack. One correspondent ends by citing Putin’s earlier, self-proclaimed “successes”, such as the invasion of Ukraine, as a precedent for his new military actions.
It is unthinkable. And yet not a day passes without the BBC broadcasting this kind of blatant warmongering slop dressed up as journalism. The British public have to pay for this endless stream of disinformation pouring into their living rooms – lies that not only leave them clueless about important international events but drive us ever closer to the brink of global conflagration.
A small Berkshire village has been named on an alleged list of UK targets that Russia might strike with missiles or nukes if war between the two countries ever breaks out.
The alleged strike list of 23 sites was revealed by a Russian politician, according to LADbible.
The outlet reported that Dmitry Rogozin, a Russian senator and the country’s former deputy prime minister, shared a map of the potential targets as tensions rose between NATO and Russia last year.
The list of 23 targets includes Aldermaston, a village in Berkshire that happens to be the main site for the UK’s atomic weapons programme.
Aldermaston has hosted the programme since 1950, and it was in this humble village that the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) designed the UK’s first hydrogen bomb in 1957.
The AWRE has since become the AWE Nuclear Security Technologies, and Aldermaston remains at the centre of the government’s nuclear capabilities, responsible for designing and manufacturing the UK’s nuclear warheads.
No one is safe from the ‘Russian propaganda’ sanctions – even those who never touch Russian sources. Baud is one of nearly 60 public figures under sanctions from the EU
On December 15, 2025, the European Union slapped sanctions on former Swiss intelligence officer and ex-NATO employee Jacques Baud. No day in court, no charges filed, just abrupt, suffocating, sanctions.
Why did the EU sanction Baud? For “Russian propaganda,” of course, although many of the sources he cites in his reports on the West provoking war with Russia years prior to Russia’s military operation are Western and Ukrainian – including the SBU and Aleksey Arestovich, a former adviser to Vladimir Zelensky.
Welcome to the latest EU insanity.
Widely respected for his deep knowledge and analysis, much of which is based on his own research while working with NATO, Baud has grown increasingly popular over the years, appearing on numerous podcasts and interviews, authoring numerous books and articles as well.
Since Russia began its military operation in Ukraine, Western media have been howling about an “unprovoked invasion.” Baud has written and spoken extensively about realities which counter this claim: facts on the ground prior to February 2022, going back (unlike most legacy media who have developed selective amnesia) to even before the 2014 Maidan coup.
What is interesting about Baud is he does not use Russian sources to back his claims and he has not taken a public position in favor of either Russia or Ukraine.
He has simply analyzed the situation, based on information he had access to. How did he have access to this information? In 2014, when working for NATO in charge of countering proliferation of small arms, he was tasked with investigating accusations of Russia supplying arms to Donbass resistance.
He wrote of this in 2022, noting, “The information we received then came almost entirely from Polish intelligence services and did not ‘fit’ with the information coming from the OSCE – despite rather crude allegations, there were no deliveries of weapons and military equipment from Russia.”
“The rebels were armed thanks to the defection of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units that went over to the rebel side. As Ukrainian failures continued, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists.”
As a result of his research, he was also able to unequivocally debunk accusations of Russia sending military units into Donbass, by quoting the SBU (Ukrainian security service) itself as well as other Ukrainian sources.
In a September 2024 interview I did with Baud, he spoke of this.
“I can categorically say no, there were no Russian forces in Donbass. The guy you encountered (I had mentioned meeting one sole Russian former soldier when I went to the Donbass in 2019) represents exactly the kind of Russian presence that was at that time, recognized by the SBU and recognized also by the Ukrainian Chief of Staff.
“In a public interview in 2015, just after the signature of the Minsk Agreement 2, the head of the Ukrainian General Staff said publicly that there were no Russian military units fighting in Donbass; that there were only individual soldiers exactly the same case as the one you just mentioned.”
It is clear he is not citing Russian information (or “propaganda”) but Ukrainian and Western sources. An even better illustration of this is what he had to say about the prelude to Russia commencing its Special Military Operation in February 2022.
Referring to a March 2021 decree by Zelensky (to take back Crimea and the south of Ukraine), Baud spoke of an interview two years prior with Zelensky’s former adviser, Arestovich.
“He says in order to join NATO, we had to have a war with Russia. When the interviewer asked him when would this conflict happen, Arestovich says end of 2021 or 2022.” A position, Baud noted, which aligned with a March 2019 300-page document published by the Rand Corporation, “that explains how to defeat and to destabilize Russia.
The EU is almost certainly pissed off that Baud likewise demolished the Western propaganda claims about Russia invading Crimea in 2014. He told me, “The Ukrainian army at that time was a conscript army, meaning that within the Ukrainian army you had both Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers. When the army was ordered to shoot or to fight against demonstrators, those who were Russian speakers just defected, they just changed side. They just went to support the protesters and they became in fact those the famous ‘little green men’.”
Keep in mind that Baud was working for NATO then. “There was absolutely not the slightest indication that Russia brought new troops to Crimea. Based on the status of force agreement signed between Russia and Ukraine, you had up to 25,000 Russian troops stationed in the Crimean peninsula. At that time they were not even 25,000, there were 22,000. A Ukrainian lawmaker on Ukrainian TV said that out of the 20,000 (sic) Ukrainian soldiers that were deployed in Crimea, 20,000 defected to the Russian-speaking side.”
As for “Russian propaganda,” it is a term bandied about quite easily by legacy media and NATO mouthpieces to taint reputations or lead to censorship of voices. The war backers are upset that their own “Russia started it” propaganda isn’t working
Sanctions prevent Baud from even buying food
Baud lives in Brussels, and now as a result of the sanctions is unable to even buy food for himself. Nor can well-intending people do so on his behalf. In an interview on Dialogue Works at the end of December, 2025, Baud said:
“Yesterday, a friend of mine tried from Switzerland to buy food for me, to be delivered to my home (in Belgium). She could order, but the payment was blocked. Any delivery to my home is prohibited, even if the funds come from Switzerland.”
People who are aware of his unjust situation have been physically bringing him food, to alleviate his inability to purchase it himself.
In a more recent interview on Judging Freedom, Baud highlighted that his case was a foreign policy decision, denying him due process.
“This is not a decision that has been taken by any court. I was not judged by anybody. In fact I was not in front of a jury. I could not present my case. I could not defend my case. This decision was not taken by a court but by the council of the foreign ministers of the European union.”
The most he can do, Baud explained, is, “go to the European Court of Justice and try to make my case saying that the decision was not just, and the court of justice may then study the case and have an assessment on that.” Even if the court concludes the sanctions are not justified, all it can then do is “advise the council of foreign ministers to change their mind.”
Given that the sanctions against Baud are punitive for his not toeing the line, it is unlikely minds will be changed.
Rachel Reeves ordered a review of the quango that handles Britain’s nuclear waste amid concerns about project overruns and spiralling budgets. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is in charge of taking apart old nuclear power stations and storing their radioactive waste securely – including at Sellafield, the nuclear waste site in Cumbria.
In 2022, a Treasury report estimated the NDA’s liabilities to be £237bn – a colossal sum that raised questions over all nuclear spending. The following year, the Treasury revised that figure down to £124bn simply by applying an increased discount rate – an accounting device used to reduce the apparent cost of future spending. Since then, however, costs have jumped again.
In 2024, the National Audit Office found that the budget for Sellafield’s clean-up had leapt to £136bn.
The new review will be led by Tim Stone, the chairman of Nuclear Risk Insurers and a former expert adviser to several government departments. In documents published online, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said the review presented an “opportunity to address concerns” with the NDA’s performance. They added: “Given the significance and complexity of the NDA’s task, it is essential to ensure that the NDA operates effectively and efficiently, delivering value for money to the taxpayer while also maintaining standards of openness and transparency.”
The UK has no shortage of ambition when it comes to infrastructure. From Net Zero commitments and energy security to rail modernisation, water resilience and nuclear new build, the pipeline of nationally significant projects is substantial. Yet beneath the headlines lies a constraint that threatens to undermine delivery across all of them: a critical shortage of skilled labour. While capital allocation, planning reform and supply chains dominate much of the public debate, workforce capability is increasingly the factor that determines whether projects progress as planned — or drift into delay and cost escalation.
Since 2021, EDF has detected more than 80 significant cracks on its French nuclear reactors, and will likely find more in the future, officials from the Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR) said on Tuesday.
A ROSYTH councillor is calling for a public consultation on plans to temporarily base the UK’s new nuclear submarine fleet at the dockyard.
Brian Goodall highlighted the “seriousness of the implications” of providing a contingency dock for the Dreadnought class of vessels that will carry Trident missiles.
He said emergency plans to be put in place in the event of a radiological accident “could require urgent protective actions, like arrangements for sheltering local people and the distribution of potassium iodide tablets to the local community”.
He has submitted a motion to next week’s South and West Fife area committee, calling on the convener to write to the “Secretary of State for Defence requesting that a public consultation be held on the proposals”.
Cllr Goodall also wants the committee to acknowledge the “seriousness of the implications of these plans and the impact any radiological accident or event would have on the local population”.
Rosyth will “bridge a gap” by offering a temporary home for the new subs and Babcock said the dock needs to be ready by 2029.
Long term the vessels will be maintained at Faslane, however the site on the Clyde won’t be ready until the mid 2030s.
The UK Government are investing £340 million in the dockyard which includes funding for the contingency dock.
Cllr Goodall’s motion explains the dock will be used for the “Dreadnought-class nuclear submarines from the UK’s continuous at-sea nuclear Trident missile programme”.
He said the UK Government plans included information on the need for a “Detailed Emergency Planning Zone” which was still being calculated but was likely to include parts of the town within 1.5km.
The SNP councillor added that “emergency plans both on and off site will also be needed to reduce and/or prevent the escalation of the impact of any radiological accident or event”.
They also confirmed residents would be given potassium iodate tablets to block radiation in the event of an emergency.
The MoD was giving an update on the plans for Rosyth to be the temporary repair base for the UK’s new fleet of nuclear deterrent submarines.
This work would be alongside the submarine dismantling project, which is cutting up an old nuclear sub, Swiftsure, at the dockyard and removing the radioactive waste left within it.
There are another six decommissioned subs laid up at Rosyth – and 15 at Devonport – still to be dismantled and although no decision has been made, local Labour MP Graeme Downie has called for that work to be done here.
He said the yard could become a “centre of excellence” for submarine dismantling which would secure highly paid skilled jobs for decades to come.
This week Cllr Goodall posted: “I’ve said that this (motion) should include an update from Babcock and the Ministry of Defence, following the local Labour MP’s really concerning call for all of the UK’s decommissioned nuclear submarines to be brought to Rosyth for the dismantling, and so, the storage of radioactive materials that goes with it, to go on in Rosyth indefinitely.”
Statistics from the formerly known JCCC, now called “The Department for Documentation of War Crimes of Ukraine of the Administration of the DPR Head and Governme
NOTE: From February 17, 2022-January 26, 2026, in the DPR (so not including Lugansk or elsewhere in Russia):
–5520 CIVILIANS KILLED by Ukrainian attacks, including 159 CHILDREN
–8630 CIVILIANS INJURED, including 574 CHILDREN
–192 CIVILIANS MAIMED, including 11 CHILDREN, by Ukrainian-fired PFM-1 “Petal” mines (warning, graphic: look at this photo to see what a maimed foot looks like)—THREE of whom DIED as a result of their injuries.
Michael Parenti, who died on Saturday at 92, wrote for Consortium News what appears to be his last article on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI.
Michael Parenti, a giant on the American left, who influenced generations of activists, scholars and ordinary Americans, died on Saturday in Berkeley, California. He was 92. Parenti wrote for Consortium News what is believed to be his last article, about the horrors of World War I. It appeared on U.S. Memorial Day, May 28, 2018, and we republish it here ahead of a tribute Consortium News is preparing.
On Memorial Day 2018, in the year marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Michael Parenti contemplates the trenches and the oligarchs who caused so much unnecessary misery.
Looking back at the years of fury and carnage, Colonel Angelo Gatti, staff officer of the Italian Army (Austrian front), wrote in his diary:
“This whole war has been a pile of lies. We came into war because a few men in authority, the dreamers, flung us into it.”
No, Gatti, caro mio, those few men are not dreamers; they are schemers. They perch above us. See how their armament contracts are turned into private fortunes — while the young men are turned into dust: more blood, more money; good for business this war.
It is the rich old men, i pauci, “the few,” as Cicero called the Senate oligarchs whom he faithfully served in ancient Rome. It is the few, who together constitute a bloc of industrialists and landlords, who think war will bring bigger markets abroad and civic discipline at home.
One of i pauci in 1914 saw war as a way of promoting compliance and obedience on the labor front and—as he himself said—war, “would permit the hierarchal reorganization of class relations.”
Just awhile before the heresies of Karl Marx were spreading among Europe’s lower ranks. The proletariats of each country, growing in numbers and strength, were made to wage war against each other.
What better way to confine and misdirect them than with the swirl of mutual destruction.
Then there were the generals and other militarists who started plotting this war as early as 1906, eight years before the first shots were fired.
War for them means glory, medals, promotions, financial rewards, inside favors, and dining with ministers, bankers, and diplomats: the whole prosperity of death.
When the war finally comes, it is greeted with quiet satisfaction by the generals.
Moguls and Monarchs Prevail
But the young men are ripped by waves of machine-gun fire or blown apart by exploding shells. War comes with gas attacks and sniper shots: grenades, mortars, and artillery barrages; the roar of a great inferno and the sickening smell of rotting corpses.
Torn bodies hang sadly on the barbed wire, and trench rats try to eat away at us, even while we are still alive.
Farewell, my loving hearts at home, those who send us their precious tears wrapped in crumpled letters. And farewell my comrades. When the people’s wisdom fails, moguls and monarchs prevail and there seems to be no way out.
Fools dance and the pit sinks deeper as if bottomless. No one can see the sky, or hear the music, or deflect the swarms of lies that cloud our minds like the countless lice that torture our flesh.
Crusted with blood and filth, regiments of lost souls drag themselves to the devil’s pit. “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.” (“Abandon all hope, ye who enter” as our Dante delivered his painful message).
Meanwhile from above the Vatican wall, the pope himself begs the world leaders to put an end to hostilities, “lest there be no young men left alive in Europe.” But the war industry pays him no heed.
Finally the casualties are more than we can bear. There are mutinies in the French trenches! Agitators in the Czar’s army cry out for “Peace, Land, and Bread!” At home, our families grow bitter. There comes a breaking point as the oligarchs seem to be losing their grip.
At last the guns are mute in the morning air. A strange almost pious silence takes over. The fog and rain seem to wash our wounds and cool our fever. “Still alive,” the sergeant grins, “still alive.” He cups a cigarette in his hand. “Stack those rifles, you lazy bastards.”
He grins again, two teeth missing. Never did his ugly face look so good as on this day in November 1918. Armistice embraces us like a quiet rapture.
Not really a quiet rapture with smiling sergeants. Many troops on both sides continued killing to the bitter end, with a fury that had no mercy.
In one day, November 11, the last day of war, some 10,900 men were wounded or killed from both sides, a furious rage in the face of peace, years of slaughter; now moments of vengeance.
The Fall of Eagles
A big piece of the encrusted aristocratic world breaks off. The Romanovs, Czar and family, are all executed in 1918 in Revolutionary Russia. That same year, the House of Hohenzollern collapses as Kaiser Wilhelm II flees Germany. Also in 1918, the Ottoman empire is shattered.
And on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918, at 11:00 a.m.—the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—we mark the end of the war and with it the dissolution of the Habsburg dynasty.
Four indestructible monarchies: Russian, German, Turkish, and Austro-Hungarian, four great empires, each with millions of bayonets and cannon at the ready, now twisting in the dim shadows of history.
Will our children ever forgive us for our dismal confusion? Will they ever understand what we went through? Will we? By 1918, four aristocratic autocracies fade away, leaving so many victims mangled in their wake, and so many bereaved crying through the night.
Back in the trenches, the agitators among us prove right. The mutinous Reds standing before the firing squad last year were right. Their truths must not be buried with them. Why are impoverished workers and peasants killing other impoverished workers and peasants?
Now we know that our real foe is not in the weave of trenches; not at Ypres, nor at the Somme, or Verdun or Caporetto. Closer to home, closer to the deceptive peace that follows a deceptive war.
Now comes a different conflict. We have enemies at home: the schemers who trade our blood for sacks of gold, who make the world safe for hypocrisy, safe for themselves, readying themselves for the next “humanitarian war.”
See how sleek and self-satisfied they look, riding our backs, distracting our minds, filling us with fright about wicked foes. Important things keep happening, but not enough to finish them off. Not yet enough.
The 2.2 million men that are currently on the run amounts to 6.8% of the Ukrainian population and is slightly larger than the percentage of Asians in the US.
New Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov shockingly revealed that 200,000 men have already deserted thus far and ten times more (2 million) are actively dodging the draft, which are probably an underestimate but are in any case still very large numbers. To put that into context, Ukraine claimed in early 2025 to have had a population of 32 million, likely an overestimate, so the 2.2 million men who either deserted or dodged the draft amounts to at least 6.8% of the population currently on the run.
Rada Deputy Dmitry Razumkov claimed during a parliamentary session last month that his country had already lost half a million troops by then with an equal number wounded, possibly also an underestimate, while Ukraine is thought to currently field around 900,000 active troops. All of this data enables observers to better understand the significance of these “voluntary losses” since it should be clear by now that 2.2 million more troops would have certainly made a major difference for Ukraine.
That’s not to imply that it would have been able to reverse the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict that have trended in Russia’s favor since the epicfailure of Ukraine’s NATO-backed counteroffensive in summer 2023, but perhaps it might have been able to decelerate the pace of its losses afterwards. Ukraine could have thus also been in a comparatively better diplomatic position too going into Trump 2.0 a year ago and that might have in turn predisposed him to a relatively harder line towards Russia as well.
For that reason, while the scale of its desertions and draft-dodging can’t credibly be described as a game-changer, it can still be considered a significant variable that adversely affected Ukraine’s fortunes. By contrast, this was never a relevant factor for Russia, which hasn’t conscripted anyone unlike Ukraine. On that topic, it’s worthwhile reminding readers about Ukraine’s forcible conscription policy that’s been made infamous by viral videos showing officials snatching young and old men alike off the streets.
This footage and stories that draft-eligible males (25-60 years of age) heard through the grapevine are partly why 2 million of them decided to go on the run and dodge the draft. They’ve also seen drone footage of the conflict zone and are therefore well aware of how likely it is that they’ll be killed shortly after being deployed to the front. These men might sincerely consider themselves to be Ukrainian patriots in their hearts, however they conceptualize it, but they’re not willing to die for nothing.
This segues into the plummeting popularity of the conflict among the populace and increasing support for a quick end thereto per recent Gallup polling. Trump just blamed Zelensky for stalling peace talks, which is in direct opposition to the will of the same people in whose name he still acts despite the expire of his term in May 2024. Other than his authoritarian tendencies, corruption is likely responsible for his obstinance since he’s thought to be profiting from the conflict and might thus fear charges once it ends.
Whenever he’s asked about the conflict, Trump usually says that he wants to end it as soon as possible in order to stop the killing, which it’s now known has spooked at least 2.2 million Ukrainian men into either deserting or dodging the draft. The 6.8% of the population that’s currently on the run is slightly larger than the Asian population in the US (6.7%) per the last census. The sooner that the conflict ends, the sooner that they can re-enter the economy and help rebuild their country, unless they flee abroad first.
An employment tribunal has ordered the taxpayer owned company tasked with safely decommissioning the UK’s first-generation nuclear power sites pay more than £10,800 in compensation to a worker who was banned from speaking Swahili. The Glasgow tribunal found that Nuclear Restoration Services Limited (NRS) discriminated against Mr K Ruiza after his line manager instructed him to only speak English while on site. The judge said the order left him humiliated, distressed and fearful he would lose his job. The tribunal ruled the company must pay £9,000 for injury to feelings, plus £1,875.94 in interest, bringing the total award to £10,875.94.
In a sweeping and unsparing conversation with Glenn Diesen, economist and longtime geopolitical analyst Jeffrey Sachs dissects the accelerating rupture between Europe and the United States — a crisis triggered not by Russia or China, but by Washington’s own imperial overreach. Speaking with Glenn, Sachs argues that Europe is finally confronting the consequences of “riding on the back of a predator,” a metaphor he borrows from President Kennedy’s 1961 warning that those who try to ride the tiger often end up inside it.
A Crisis Europe Helped Create
Sachs traces Europe’s current panic — triggered by Trump’s threats toward Greenland and open hostility toward NATO — to decades of European complicity in U.S. militarism. For years, he argues, European leaders “said not a word” as Washington toppled governments, invaded sovereign states, and shredded international law from Iraq to Libya to Syria.
One of Sachs’ most pointed observations captures the hypocrisy now on display:
“When the United States said, ‘We want Greenland,’ suddenly Europe rediscovered international law.”
The same governments that lectured Iran about “restraint” after being bombed, or applauded the kidnapping of Venezuela’s president, now find themselves shocked that the empire they enabled is turning its gaze toward them.
The End of the ‘Rules‑Based Order’
One of the most striking developments Sachs highlights is Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s admission in Davos that the so‑called “rules‑based international order” was never neutral — it was a Western privilege system. With the world shifting toward multipolarity, even U.S. allies are reassessing their dependence on Washington.
Carney’s outreach to China, Sachs notes, signals a geopolitical realignment that Europe has been too timid — or too captured — to attempt.
NATO’s Identity Crisis
The interview exposes a NATO leadership class that continues to praise U.S. power even as Trump openly calls the alliance America’s “enemy from within.” European leaders like Mark Rutte, Sachs argues, have responded with “pathetic” deference, hoping to appease Washington rather than assert independent interests.
Meanwhile, the EU’s political imagination has shrunk to a single unifying principle: Russophobia. Sachs calls this a catastrophic strategic error:
“Europe has no diplomacy with Russia, no diplomacy with the United States — basically no diplomacy at all.”
Germany’s Pivotal Role — and Repeated Failures
Sachs lays particular responsibility at Germany’s feet. From violating its reunification assurances on NATO expansion, to abandoning the 2014 Yanukovych agreement, to failing to enforce the Minsk II settlement, Berlin repeatedly chose alignment with Washington over European stability.
Yet Sachs insists the path to peace still runs through Berlin — joined by France, Italy, and the Central European states already calling for diplomacy.
Economic Warfare as Regime Change
One of the most explosive moments in the interview comes when Sachs quotes U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant openly bragging about collapsing Iran’s economy:
“This is economic statecraft… their economy collapsed… and this is why the people took to the streets.”
For Sachs, this is not policy — it is gangsterism. And Europe’s silence in the face of such actions has only emboldened Washington.
Despite Sachs bleak assessment, in the end there is room for conditional optimism: Europe could still reclaim sovereignty, pursue diplomacy, and avoid becoming collateral damage in America’s imperial decline. But doing so requires courage — something in short supply among current European elites.
The 2026 Winter Olympics will rely on millions of cubic metres of artificial snow. Climate crisis is threatening the future of the Winter Olympics, with warming winters already forcing heavy reliance on artificial snow at the upcoming games in Italy and raising questions about long-term viability of traditional skiing venues.
The 2026 Winter Olympics, co-hosted by Milan and the Alpine town of Cortina d’Ampezzo, will rely on millions of cubic metres of artificial snow…………………………..(Registered readers only)
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL , 24 Jan 26
Every day Ukraine sinks deeper into shattered rump state status. Every day brings more death, lost territory and degraded living conditions with no hope of prevailing against Russia.
Yet, instead of settling on Russia’s terms to end the war, end more casualties, end more lost land, Ukraine President Zelensky keeps shuttling between Europe and the US begging for weaponry to take the war deep into Russia.
The US has already bailed on investing in Ukraine’s lost cause. Europe is edging closer to bailing as well even as they continue the lie that a Ukraine victory is critical to keeping Russia from marching westward into NATO countries. They know the war is lost but cannot publicly admit that truth. In addition, without the US, they don’t have sufficient military resources to have any meaningful impact on the outcome.
Near four years into Ukraine’s demise, Zelensky may simply be delusional that Ukraine can prevail in expelling Russia from lost territories. It’s more likely he’s simply taking orders from his ultra-nationalist Kyiv handlers to keep demanding weaponry to continue Ukraine’s lost cause.
Zelensky’s recklessness was epitomized by his refusal to conclude the Istanbul Agreement with Russia in April 2022 that would have ended the 2 month conflict with a minimum of casualties, no lost territory and economy intact. All Zelensky had to do was give up NATO membership, guarantee Ukraine neutrality between Europe and Russia, and grant regional autonomy to the Russian cultured Ukrainians in Donbas being brutalized by Kyiv for 8 long years.
But instead of statesmanship, Zelensky chose recklessness, acquiescing in US, UK demands to keep the war going till Russia was defeated with US, NATO weaponry. But even with over $200 billion in such aid, Ukraine is nearing collapse, running out of soldiers that its western backers will never replace. $200 billion yes, but not one drop of western blood.
Zelensky’s recklessness in destroying Ukraine is exceeded by his dangerousness, putting the world at risk of nuclear war every day now for nearly 4 years. Every NATO bomb, tank, missile, gun given to Zelensky to attack Russia continues the threat of nuclear war between Russia and NATO. This was most irresponsibly demonstrated in 2022 when an errant Ukraine missile landed in Poland killing two Polish citizens. Zelensky immediately claimed it was a Russian missile which could have triggered a direct Article 5 NATO response against Russia. Tho the US quickly refuted Zelensky’s false claim, Zelensky has never wavered from demanding long range NATO weapons to attack deep into Russia, a prescription for all out NATO, Russia war that could go nuclear.
Continuing Ukraine’s inevitable collapse while keeping the whole world hostage to the possibility of nuclear war makes Volodymyr Zelensky the most reckless and dangerous leader in the world.
“The Kremlin has tried every which way to bring its ‘special military operation,’ along with its broader confrontation with the West, to a mutually beneficial conclusion.”
The Europeans have run out of postures and gestures in the way of performative statecraft: This is my conclusion. And the Russians, evidently sharing it in one or another form, see no point in indulging them any further.
The Europeans have run out of postures and gestures in the way of performative statecraft, and the Russians see no point in indulging them any further.
Sometimes wars have occasions that can be read — immediately, soon or in time — as turning points, clarifying moments. D–Day, June 6, 1944, is an obvious case: The Allies and the Red Army were in Berlin less than a year later.
The Tet Offensive, which began 58 years ago next week (Can you believe it?), is another: All the victory-is-near illusions the American command had cultivated for years collapsed. There were many more casualties at the altar of imperial delusion, but the war in Southeast Asia was on the way to over.
On Jan. 8 Russia attacked Lviv, the city in western Ukraine, with an Oreshnik missile. To me this looks very like a clarifying event in the Ukraine war — Moscow’s announcement that it has decided to begin the beginning of the end.
The Oreshnik is a new-generation weapon that already wears a little of the mystique of Ares, the Greek god of war. It travels at hypersonic speeds and is undetectable by air-defense systems. It is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, although the missile that hit Lviv wasn’t armed with one.
This was not Russia’s first use of the Oreshnik in Ukraine. Its first was in November 2024, when the target was a munitions factory in Dnipro, not far from the front lines. That blew minds as well as production lines.
But the missile that hit Lviv seemed to have more to say to the regime in Kiev and its Western backers, notably all those supercilious Europeans. Lviv, Ukraine’s cultural capital, has been a safe haven these past four years of conflict. Not to be missed, it lies roughly 45 miles from the border with Poland.
Russia’s declared intent in launching its second Oreshnik was to respond to the Dec. 29 drone attack the Ukrainians, with the usual assistance of the Americans and Brits, launched on President Vladimir Putin’s secondary residence in Valdai, northwest of Moscow.
Parenthetically, Kiev and the C.I.A., two famous truth-tellers, deny any such attack took place, but let us not waste any time with this silliness. The Russians have reportedly presented Western officials with evidence of the event.
Would Putin raise it in a telephone exchange with President Trump were it, as corporate media now have it, just another disinformation operation?
These things said, the Oreshnik hit in Lviv merits a broader reading, in my view.
Here is an account of the Oreshnik as it descended through the winter clouds above Lviv. It is written by Mike Mihajlovic, who publishes, edits and writes frequently for Black Mountain Analysis, a Substack newsletter I have found worth looking at on previous occasions.
This passage is based on Mihajlovic’s apparently diligent study of digital evidence and eyewitness accounts. Good enough we know what happens when these things arrive, as there may be more of them in the skies above Ukraine as the war begins its fifth year:
“As the hypersonic penetrators broke through the cloud layers, each was enveloped in a luminous plasma sheath, producing brief but violent flashes that momentarily illuminated the surrounding atmosphere. These flashes were not explosions in the conventional sense, but visual signatures of extreme velocity, friction, and compression as the warheads tore through dense air at hypersonic speed.
Observers on the ground reported an unsettling soundscape that followed the visual phenomenon. Rather than a single detonation, there were sharp, cracking noises that seemed to ripple across the terrain, as if the ground itself were fracturing under stress.
“What made the event particularly striking was the setting. The impacts occurred against the backdrop of an idyllic winter landscape: fields and forests blanketed in snow, small settlements dimly lit, and a horizon that, moments earlier, conveyed calm and stillness.
Against this muted palette, the light generated by the strike stood out with almost surreal intensity. Reflections danced across the snow, briefly turning the ground into a mirror that amplified the event’s brightness. Witnesses described the glow as unnatural, a cold, shimmering illumination that lingered just long enough to be noticed and remembered.”
The Lviv attack seems to be part of an intensifying campaign to cripple Ukraine’s power grids, energy infrastructure and productive capacity. The Russians have been hitting such targets for years, of course, but these new operations suggest Moscow is after the endgame now.
Moscow’s Attempts to End Conflict
The Kremlin has tried every which way to bring its “special military operation,” along with its broader confrontation with the West, to a mutually beneficial conclusion. You can go back to the spring of 2022, when was ready to sign an accord with Kiev a few months into the war — only for the Brits, with American consent, to scotch it.
Or December 2021, when it sent Washington and NATO draft treaties as a basis of negotiating a new security framework between the Russian Federation and the West. They were dismissed as “nonstarters,” a British-ism the Biden regime thought was clever.
Or the Minsk Protocols, September 2014 and February 2015, which the British and French sabotaged. Or back to the early 1990s, when Michail Gorbachev hoped to bring post–Soviet Russia into “a common European home.”
The Kremlin has proven exceptionally restrained, not to say forebearing, through all of this. And it would be a mistake now to conclude the Russians have lost their patience.
No, in my read they have simply concluded there is no point waiting around while the Western powers indulge themselves in pantomime statecraft or — maybe better put —some kind of group onanism they seem to find satisfying.
And in public, no less.
For weeks toward the end of last year we read incessantly of the intense diplomatic work Kiev, the Europeans and the Trump regime’s contingent were getting up to. The swashbuckling Musketeers cooked up a 20–point peace plan that was supposed to supersede Trump’s 28–point document.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s unconstitutional president, went from one European capital to another and then to Washington and then to Mar-a–Lago and then back to Europe, all along asserting he and his backers were “90 percent there.”
Ninety percent there on security guarantees providing for European troops to serve as peacekeepers on Ukrainian soil. Ninety percent there on a territorial settlement. And so on.
You watched all this with your jaw dropping. None of it had anything to do with fashioning an accord Moscow would find even preliminarily negotiable. The 20–point plan’s intent, indeed, was to subvert the 28–point plan, the first pieces of paper since the spring 2022 attempt that Moscow appeared to find worth its time.
Not Enough Delusion
No, the Trump plan was too realistic as a draft of a settlement accord in recognizing that Moscow was the victor in its war with Ukraine, Kiev the vanquished. There wasn’t enough delusion in it.
And now, roughly since the start of the year, more or less complete silence from Zelensky and the Musketeers — Kier Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz, a prime minister, a president and a chancellor.
There is no establishing any certain causality between the Oreshnik attack in previously safe — relatively speaking — western Ukraine, and this nothing-to-say lapse in Kiev, London, Paris and Berlin (and for that matter Washington). But the point may prove the same.
The Europeans have run out of postures and gestures in the way of performative statecraft: This is my conclusion. And the Russians, evidently sharing it in one or another form, see no point in indulging them any further.
As to the Trumpster, it seemed to me unimaginable from the outset that the national security state in all its appendages would ever allow him to reach a comprehensive settlement with Moscow that would open into a new era in East–West relations.
So has the war turned. So do matters clarify. So does the war in Ukraine appear set to end — not with a single detonation, no, rather with sharp cracking noises that seemed to ripple across the terrain.
nuclear-news 