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Fukushima Remembered At URENCO’s Uranium Enrichment Plant Today in Cheshire

Campaigners gathered today at the UK’s uranium enrichment plant to
remember Fukushima and hand over a letter of concern about uranium
enrichment. Today marks the 14th anniversary of the Fukushima catastrophe.
On March 11, 2011, a record 9.0-magnitude quake struck off the coast of
Japan’s Tohoku region, triggering a tsunami with waves that reached a
maximum height of 40.5 meters and causing a triple nuclear meltdown at the
Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant.

 Radiation Free Lakeland 11th March 2025, https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2025/03/11/fukushima-remembered-at-urencos-uranium-enrichment-plant-today-in-cheshire/

March 14, 2025 Posted by | UK, Uranium | Leave a comment

At Haverigg Today – the Nuclear LIE of a “Safe” and “Secure” Sub-Sea Nuclear Dump.

At Haverigg Today – the Nuclear LIE of a “Safe” and “Secure” Sub-Sea Nuclear Dump.

The sub-sea area involved would be 26 to 50 km square. The “smaller” area proposed would be the size of Tuvalu at 26 km square. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of ongoing research projects into, for example, the release of radioactive gases, how the heat generated would impact the geology, the steel containments and the bentonite backfill.

These ongoing research projects throw up more questions regarding the safety of long term containment. Nuclear Waste Services are asking locals who are now in reciept of nuclear dump community funds, to express support for an experiment. An experiment which will impact their health and the environment for generations to come.   Those who are not “local” who would also be impacted are deliberately excluded from “having a say.” 

March 13, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

EDF unveils fresh details on new fish deterrent technology to be used at Hinkley Point C

 An alternative acoustic fish deterrent (AFD) system is being proposed for
the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station near Burnham-On-Sea to end a
bitter row over some of the site’s environmental measures.

The move sees EDF, which owns the nuclear power site, drop the controversial idea to
create new salt marshes along the Severn Estuary rather than fit AFDs to
the station’s water intake turbines. The company had been applying to the
Environment Agency for permission to not fit AFDs due to the high cost and
the danger for divers involved in fitting them in the fast-flowing tides
and poor visibility of the Bristol Channel.

Now, Hinkley C stakeholder relations head Andrew Cockcroft has said an innovative new form of AFD could be used. Mr Cockcroft said it was EDF’s preferred solution to the
issue of deterring fish from swimming too close to the Hinkley intakes and
being sucked in. He told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “The technology, pioneered
in the South West, is proven and deployed internationally.” “We are now
working with experts to provide the scientific data to underpin the case
for using it at Hinkley Point C.”

“We have received positive feedback
from environmental groups and this option is now our preferred solution
rather pursuing salt marsh creation.” Andrew Cockcroft adds that all salt
marsh design and development would be paused while work continues in 2025
to prove the effectiveness of the new AFD system. The new AFDs are already
used in fishing fleets around the world, with the technology using
electronic transducers to target specific fish species with high-frequency
sound.

 Burnham-on-Sea.com 9th March 2025, https://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/edf-unveils-fresh-details-on-new-fish-deterrent-technology-to-be-used-at-hinkley-point-c/

March 13, 2025 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Councillors oppose nuclear dump site near Louth

‘Six more communities are now facing this devastation

By Peter Craig, Reporter, 10 Mar 25

 Councillors have voted to oppose a nuclear dump site near Louth. East
Lindsey District Council want to persuade Lincolnshire County Council to do
the same and say NO to the proposed 1,000 acre site at Great Carlton.

 Grimsby Telegraph 11th March 2025, https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/grimsby-news/councillors-oppose-nuclear-dump-site-10001353

March 13, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Turbine, cooling: these unforeseen events that keep the Flamanville EPR at a standstill.

EDF is extending an unscheduled shutdown of the Flamanville EPR until the end of March in order to make adjustments to the turbine. During its first 100 days of operation, the nuclear reactor will have undergone 76 days of maintenance.

By Amélie Laurin, March 6, 2025

EDF had warned: the ramp-up of the Flamanville EPR, the first nuclear reactor to be commissioned in France in twenty-five years, would be very gradual. The public group has once again shut down, for a month and a half, its Normandy pressurized water reactor, which had been connected to the electricity grid on December 21, the first day of winter.

These maintenance operations were not planned and are the result of technical difficulties. They began on February 15 and are due to continue until March 30, after being extended three times.

Turbine heating

This work follows two initial suspensions of electricity production at Flamanville, between Christmas and mid-January, and at the turn of February. Two shutdowns that were, themselves, scheduled. In total, the reactor will have been immobilized for 76 days, during its first 100 days of operation.

The cause: various technical adjustments. In mid-February, the EPR stopped producing electrons due to an insufficient water flow in the seawater cooling circuit, which is only used “in exceptional situations”. This was followed by an intervention “on a temperature probe of the main circuit”, specifies a regulatory press release.

March 11, 2025 Posted by | climate change, France | Leave a comment

More Guns, Less Butter: Starmer’s Defence Spending Splash

To pursue such rearmament, Starmer has decided to take the axe to the aid budget, 

March 8, 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.net/more-guns-less-butter-starmers-defence-spending-splash/

The urge to throw more money at defence budgets across a number of countries has become infectious. It was bound to happen with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, given his previous insistence that US allies do more to fatten their own armies rather than rely on the largesse of Washington’s power. Spend, spend, spend is the theme, and the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has shown himself willing to join this wasteful indulgence.

On February 25, just prior to his visit to Washington, Starmer announced that spending on defence would reach 2.5% of GDP from April 2027. In the next parliament, it would rise to 3%. “In recent years,” states a UK government press release, “the world has been reshaped by global instability, including Russian aggression in Ukraine, increasing threats from malign actors, rapid technological change, and the accelerating impacts of climate change.”  

Almost predictably, the term “Cold War” makes its retro appearance, with the spending increase the largest since that conflict of wilful misunderstandings and calculated paranoia. Russia figures prominently, as do “malign actors” who have burdened “the working people of Britain” with “increased energy bills, or threats to British interests and values.”

The governing Labour Party has also gone a bit gung-ho with the military–industrial establishment. In an open letter reported by the Financial Times, over 100 Labour MPs and peers thought it wise that ethical rules restricting investment by banks and investment firms in defence companies be relaxed. Financial institutions, the letter argues, should “rethink ESG [environmental, social and governance] mechanisms that often wrongly exclude all defence investment.” It was also important to address the issue of those “unnecessary barriers” defence firms face when “doing business in the UK.” Among such barriers are those irritating matters such as money laundering checks banks are obliged to conduct when considering the finance needs of defence and security firms, along with seeking assurances that they are not financing weapons banned under international law.

That these uncontroversial rules are now being seen as needless barriers to an industry that persists in shirking accountability is a sign of creeping moral flabbiness. Across Europe, the defence and arms lobbyists, those great exploiters of fictional insecurity, are feeling more confident than they have in years. They can rely on such figures as European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, who stated on March 4 that, “We are in an era of rearmament. And Europe is ready to massively boost its defence spending.”

To pursue such rearmament, Starmer has decided to take the axe to the aid budget, reducing it from its current level of 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% in 2027. It was, as the press release goes on to mention, a “difficult choice” and part of “the evolving nature of the threat and the strategic shift required to meet it.” The Conservatives approved the measure, and the populist Reform UK would have little reason to object, seeing it had been its policy suggestion at the last election.

It was a decision that sufficiently troubled the international development minister, Anneliese Dodds, to quit the cabinet. In a letter to the prime minister, Dodds remarked that, while Starmer wished “to continue support for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine; for vaccination; for climate; and for rules-based systems,” doing so would “be impossible … given the depth of the cut.”

Making the Office of Overseas Development Assistance absorb such a reduction would also see Britain “pull-out from numerous African, Caribbean and Western Balkan nations – at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence.” It would be isolated from various multilateral bodies, see “a withdrawal from regional banks and a reduced commitment to the World Bank.” Influence would also be lost at such international fora as the G7 and G20.

Defence establishment figures have also regarded the decision to reduce aid with some consternation. General Lord Richards, former Chief of Defence Staff, saw the sense of an increase in military spending but not at the expense of the aid budget. “The notion that we must weaken one to strengthen the other is not just misleading but dangerous,” opined Richards in The Telegraph. “A lack of investment and development will only fuel greater instability, increase security threats and place a heavier burden on our Armed Forces.”The aid budgets of wealthy states should never be seen as benevolent projects. Behind the charitable endeavour is a calculation that speaks more to power (euphemised as “soft”) than kindness. Aid keeps the natives of other countries clothed, fed and sufficiently sustained not to want to stray to other contenders. The sentiment was expressed all too clearly by a disappointed Dodds: a smaller UK aid budget would embolden an already daring Russia to fill the vacuum. How fascinating, then, that a daring Russia, its threatening posture inflated and exaggerated, is one of the primary reasons prompting an increase in Britain’s defence spending in the first place.

March 11, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Why is an ‘ethical’ investor funding arms companies?

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund holds shares in UK weapons firms that arm Israel, despite its ethical guidelines.

ANDREW FEINSTEIN and JACK CINAMON, 5 March 2025,  https://www.declassifieduk.org/why-is-an-ethical-investor-funding-arms-companies/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Button&utm_campaign=ICYMI&utm_content=Button

Scandinavian countries are often held up as models for a better society. None more so than Norway, flush with North Sea oil wealth, which it can invest responsibly.

The money is put aside in a sovereign wealth fund, owned by the Norwegian government and managed by the country’s central bank, Norges Bank. It is the largest such fund in the world, worth £1.4 trillion.

Called the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), or just the Oil Fund, it is supposed to adhere to ethical guidelines by excluding certain companies from its portfolio.

That’s if they are involved in serious violations of human rights – especially in conflicts – gross corruption, the production of nuclear weapons and more.

However, in outright contradiction to these guidelines, the GPFG invests billions of pounds in many of the world’s largest arms companies. In fact, it owns stakes in exactly half of the world’s top 100 arms companies, accumulating at almost £14 billion. 

This includes arms companies here in the UK that supply Israel – despite Norway recognising the state of Palestine as recently as May 2024 and excluding companies from the GPFG involved in activities violating international law.

So why is Norwegian money finding its way into Britain’s arms industry, which supplies Israel? 

Arming Israel

Among these investments is QinetiQ in which the GPFG holds over £46 million in shares. 

The British defence tech firm has collaborated with the Israeli military to develop the Watchkeeper drone system, a joint project with Israel’s Elbit Systems, a company dropped from the fund in 2009 for supplying surveillance systems for the separation barrier in the West Bank. 

Following sustained direct action from Palestine Action, Elbit Systems UK lost its largest-ever British arms contract, worth over £2.1bn, after the UK Ministry of Defence scrapped its Watchkeeper drone programme.

QinetiQ subsidiaries, such as QinetiQ Australia, are involved in the F-35 fighter jet program. Israel has used its fleet of these aircraft to pound Gaza.

Then there is the almost £35m invested in Babcock International, another UK company in Norway’s portfolio. It claims to not provide weapons to Israel, but with partnerships involving Israeli defence firms IAI, Elbit, and Rafael Systems, the line between ‘not involved’ and ‘indirectly arming’ becomes quite blurry. 

Babcock also sustains the entirety of the UK’s submarine fleet, including by delivering through-life support and life extension of the UK nuclear armed Vanguard class submarine.

Rolls-Royce and Leonardo

Norway’s largest UK arms investment, however, is in British engineering giant Rolls-Royce, where the fund holds around £1.07bn in shares, representing over 2% of the company.

Rolls-Royce is not just about luxury cars, it is a critical supplier on the F-35 program, powering Israeli military operations. Case in point: Rolls-Royce’s German subsidiary, MTU, produces the engines for Israel’s Merkava tanks and most of the Israeli Navy’s vessels.

Divesting from the UK defence sector is far from unlikely, as the Oil Fund previously decided to exclude BAE Systems, the UK’s largest arms company, from its portfolio in 2018 for its involvement in nuclear weapons production.

However, few investments in Norway’s portfolio illustrate its ethical blind spots as starkly as its stake in Anglo-Italian arms manufacturer Leonardo. Leonardo’s presence in the UK comes largely from its ownership of Leonardo UK, formerly AugustaWestland. 

Leonardo operates from several locations in the UK, and has deep collaborations with the UK MOD, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and MBDA UK, especially with reference to its joint venture program, the Tempest new-generation fighter jet, expected to enter service in 2035.

With around £165m invested; the company has become a focal point for divestment campaigns – and for good reason. 

Leonardo supplies weapons to Israel, including naval guns for Sa’ar 6 warships used in the bombardment and siege on Gaza, and it is a key player in the F-35 program. 

Ignorance or hypocrisy?

Despite a history of corruption – linked to bribery scandals in Indonesia and India – Leonardo remains on the GPFG portfolio, even managing to convince the Council of Ethics (the body tasked with reviewing investments) “that the risk of gross corruption in the company’s operations no longer is unacceptable” as they occupied an observation list for five years until being revoked from assessment in 2022. 

The company has recently been accused of providing the military junta in Myanmar with weapons in violation of a UN arms embargo. The company also contributes to nuclear weapons production through MBDA, a joint venture with BAE Systems and Airbus SE. Leonardo’s role in Israel’s military operations and its corruption scandals demand urgent re-evaluation by the Council on Ethics.

The fund clearly channels billions of pounds into corporations that fuel violence, sustain occupations, and profit from human suffering. These aren’t just financial decisions; they’re moral failings, directly contradicting the fund’s stated ethical guidelines. 

How does Norway square these investments with its loud-and-proud commitment to peace and human rights? Is this ignorance or hypocrisy? Norway must divest from UK arms companies, sending a powerful message: that peace and human rights are not negotiable, and profit should never come at the expense of human lives.

To see the full list of investments in the world’s top 100 arms companies click here.

Part of a more detailed blog published by Corruption Tracker

March 11, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Trump plans to make Ukraine a US economic colony, exploiting its critical minerals

COMMENT. The USA has played Zelensky for a sucker, all along. Now Ukraine is faced with trying to make the least worst deal to end the war. That is still better than annihilation and the very grave gamble with nuclear war.

Former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated clearly that Washington was using Ukraine to “weaken” Russia.

Trump also revealed that the United States plans to use Ukraine’s critical minerals to create “weaponry that we’re going to use in many locations”.

GeoPolitical Economy, By Ben Norton, 2 Mar 2025

Donald Trump’s fight with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House reflected how the US treats Ukraine as a colony. Trump demands control of the country’s rare earths and critical minerals, to weaken China, re-industrialize, and build tech products. Trump wants to be paid $350 billion, roughly twice Ukraine’s GDP.

The fight that broke out in the White House between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, on February 28 was a stark symbol of the colonial relationship between the two countries.

“You’re in no position to dictate”, Trump yelled at Zelensky in the Oval Office. “You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards”.

The Trump administration has sought to impose an exploitative deal that will “make Ukraine a US economic colony”, in the words of the conservative British newspaper The Telegraph.

Trump is demanding control over Ukraine’s minerals, and plans to use revenue from the sale of its natural resources to pay the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, equivalent to roughly twice Ukraine’s GDP.

The US government believes that Ukraine could have trillions of dollars worth of rare earth elements and other critical minerals, which are needed for advanced technologies.

Trump wants to re-industrialize the United States, and he is offering corporations access to Ukraine’s resources to make their products.

This is part of Washington’s attempt to remove China from the supply chain for critical minerals, which has been a top priority of the Pentagon and the US House select committee on the Communist Party of China.

The Telegraph reported that Ukraine’s resources could be worth $15 trillion, writing that its “minerals offer a tantalising promise: the ability for the US to break its dependence on Chinese supplies of critical minerals that go into everything from wind turbines to iPhones and stealth fighter jets”.

Trump has stated that he wants to “un-unite” Russia and China, and his efforts to end the war in Ukraine also aim at splitting Moscow from Beijing.

Trump demands Ukraine pay the US twice its GDP

The US government pushed Ukraine into war with Russia, after expanding NATO up to Russia’s borders and backing a coup d’etat that overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected, geopolitically neutral government in 2014. This set off a violent conflict that escalated into a massive proxy war between NATO and Russia in 2022.

Former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated clearly that Washington was using Ukraine to “weaken” Russia.

At different times, Trump has falsely claimed that the United States gave Ukraine $350 billion or $500 billion in aid. This is not true.

Independent analysts have calculated that the United States spent $119.7 billion on Ukraine-related “aid” since 2022.

According to the US Department of Defense, $182.8 billion was appropriated for military operations related to Ukraine from the end of 2021 to the end of 2024. The BBC noted that this figure includes military training in Europe and US weapons supplies.

Much of this “aid” consisted of US government contracts with private, for-profit weapons corporations, which produced the arms and ammunition that were sent to Ukraine.

In other words, the US military-industrial complex made a killing off of Ukraine “aid”.

Regardless, Trump is demanding that Ukraine pay the United States at least $350 billion, which is nearly two times the size of the country’s entire economy.

Ukraine’s GDP in 2024 was reported by the IMF to be $184.1 billion — although this figure is questionable, given the war.

The US wants Ukraine’s critical minerals

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, has repeatedly said that the United States wants to exploit Ukraine’s critical minerals.

In a June 2024 interview on CBS, Graham stated:

What did Trump do to get the weapons flowing [to Ukraine during his first term]? He created a loan system.

They’re sitting on $10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. I don’t want to give that money and those assets to Putin, to share with China.

If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. That $10 to $12 trillion of critical mineral assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China. This is a very big deal, how Ukraine ends.

In an interview on Fox News, just two weeks after Trump won the presidential election in November 2024, Graham argued that “the war is about money”, and he promised that Trump would impose a deal to “enrich ourselves with rare earth minerals”:………………

It is not known if Ukraine actually has these large reserves of rare earths. This claim has been called into question.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration believes there could be trillions of dollars worth of untapped minerals, and it wants to carry out exploration operations.

In the disastrous White House press conference with Zelensky on February 28, Trump was asked if his plan would provide security for Ukraine, and he replied: “We have security in a different form. We’ll have workers there, digging, digging, digging, taking the raw earth [sic], so that we can create a lot of great product in this country”.

Trump also revealed that the United States plans to use Ukraine’s critical minerals to create “weaponry that we’re going to use in many locations”.

“This is an incredible agreement for Ukraine, because we have a big investment in their country now”, he said in the meeting with Zelensky. “And what they have, very few people have. And we’re able to really go forward with very, very high-tech things, and many other things, including weaponry — weaponry that we’re going to use in many locations, but that we need for our country”.

Throughout the press conference, Trump repeatedly referred to rare earth elements as “raw earth”.

A journalist asked Trump how exactly Ukraine will benefit from his one-sided deal. Trump responded by enthusiastically explaining how it will help the United States. The following is a partial transcript:

REPORTER: How does this provide long-term security for Ukraine?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, we don’t know exactly how much, because we’re going to be putting some money in a fund, that we’re going to get from the raw earth, that we’re going to be taking, and sharing, in terms of revenue. So it’s going to be a lot of money will be made from the sale, and from the use of raw earth……………………………………………….

Trump’s remarks criticizing US environmentalists over their opposition to the mining of rare earths was an implicit acknowledgment that the process is toxic.

In a peer-reviewed article published in 2024, scientific experts warned that the “long-term, large-scale mining and utilization of rare earths has caused serious environmental pollution and constitutes a global health issue, which has raised concerns regarding the safety of human health”.

The US government has apparently made the assessment that it would be better to pollute Ukraine by exploiting rare earths there, where Americans won’t suffer from the environmental impact.

Trump boasts of arming Ukraine

Trump’s discourse on Ukraine has been utterly contradictory. He has alternated between blaming Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama for the war, while simultaneously boasting of supplying Kiev with weapons that Obama had initially refused to send.

Trump has repeatedly demanded credit for, during his first term, arming Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missile systems, which were used to fight against Russian-backed forces in the eastern Donbas region.

In a press conference at the White House on February 25, a journalist asked Trump about the minerals deal. The following is a transcript of his response:

REPORTER: What does Ukraine get in return, Mr. President?

DONALD TRUMP: Uhh, $350 billion, and lots of equipment, and military equipment, and the right to fight on, and, originally, the right to fight.

Look, Ukraine, I will say, they’re very brave, and they’re good soldiers, but without the United States, and its money, and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time.

In fact, I was the one that gave the Javelins. You remember the famous Javelins? That was me. That wasn’t Obama; it wasn’t Biden; it wasn’t anybody else; it was me. And they wiped out a lot of tanks with those Javelins.

And the expression was that Obama gave sheets, and I gave the Javelins. That was a big deal, at the time. It wiped out — that was the beginning, when people said, “Wow, that’s something”.

Well, that was American equipment. Without American equipment, this war would have been over very quickly. And American money, too. I mean, a lot of money.

During his fight with Zelensky on February 28, the US president made similar comments.

Trump blamed the Ukraine war on Biden, whom he called “stupid”. At the same time, however, although he denied responsibility for the war, Trump could not help but brag about sending weapons to Ukraine during his first term, which exacerbated the war that was already ongoing at the time, before it massively escalated in 2022.

“We gave you military equipment, and your men are brave, but they had to use our military equipment”, Trump yelled at Zelensky. “If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks”.

USA will control Ukraine’s reconstruction fund

The text of the agreement that Trump has sought to impose on Ukraine has not been publicly released.

The conservative British newspaper The Telegraph obtained the early draft of the deal, which the media outlet said would “amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity”.

This draft stated that the United States would get control over Ukraine’s “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure (as agreed)”. It is based not on Ukrainian law, but rather New York law.

The Telegraph wrote:

The US will take 50pc of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, and 50pc of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for the future monetisation of resources. There will be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations.

It states that “for all future licences, the US will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals”. Washington will have sovereign immunity and acquire near total control over most of Ukraine’s commodity and resource economy. The fund “shall have the exclusive right to establish the method, selection criteria, terms, and conditions” of all future licences and projects. And so forth, in this vein. It seems to have been written by private lawyers, not the US departments of state or commerce.

This leaked draft caused international outrage, given how explicitly colonial it was.

To try to save face, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent published an op-ed in the Financial Times on February 22 explaining the Trump administration’s plans for Ukraine.

Bessent is a billionaire hedge fund manager who previously worked for the billionaire oligarch George Soros, who is ironically a bugbear of Western conservatives.

Bessent traveled to Ukraine in February to negotiate the agreement with Zelensky.

In his FT article, Bessent explained that, under the deal, the United States will oversee a joint fund with the Ukrainian government. He wrote:

The terms of our partnership propose that revenue received by the government of Ukraine from natural resources, infrastructure and other assets is allocated to a fund focused on the long-term reconstruction and development of Ukraine where the US will have economic and governance rights in those future investments.

The Treasury secretary strongly implied that US corporations will benefit from these investments, writing, “When I was in Kyiv, I met with many American companies that have been on the ground in Ukraine for years”.

Bessent stressed that the “terms of this partnership will mobilise American talent, capital, and high standards”.

In a separate, accompanying article, the Financial Times noted that, in his op-ed, Bessent had conveniently left out how much of Ukraine’s export revenue will be paid to the US.

A draft of the deal obtained by the FT stated that Ukraine’s fund will be set up “with the encumbrance (legal claim) of such revenues in favour of the United States”. The text made it clear that Washington will be given power over reconstruction projects in Ukraine.

This framework is reminiscent of the colonial arrangement that the United States imposed on Iraq, after invading the country in an illegal war of aggression in 2003 and overthrowing its government. The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, administers the money that Iraq receives from selling its crude oil.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that his country had agreed to Trump’s mineral deal, two days before Zelensky’s meeting at the White House. It is unclear if the fight changed the status of the agreement.

The other major revelation in Bessent’s FT article was that Zelensky himself had visited Trump Tower in September, just a few weeks before the presidential election. There, in Bessent’s words, “Zelenskyy proposed giving the US a stake in Ukraine’s rare earths elements and critical minerals”.

This was the biggest irony of all: Zelensky had long showed himself to be an obedient vassal of the United States, and he offered Trump some of Ukraine’s natural resources as an incentive to continue arms shipments.

Trump apparently loved the idea, but he wanted total control, not just a little. Now, Trump is demanding to be paid roughly twice the GDP of the country.

The colonial deal that the Trump administration is imposing on Ukraine recalls an infamous quote from the late US imperial strategist Henry Kissinger, who said in the context of Washington’s puppet regime in South Vietnam, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal”.

The people of Ukraine have learned this lesson the hard way.  https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/03/02/trump-ukraine-us-economic-colony-minerals/

March 10, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Europe’s Face-Saving Theater on Ukraine

Could they have been as corrupted as Antony Blinken, who insisted to the end of his time as U.S. secretary of state that Ukraine lower the conscription age to 18, even though he knew these youth would be sent to certain death?  Have Western leaders not understood that the only chance Ukraine had to win the war was with NATO’S direct participation, risking a nuclear holocaust ? 

Britain’s prime minister called an “emergency” summit in London following the Oval Office Fiasco to try to convince the world it will not be Europe’s fault, but America’s (Read: Donald Trump’s) when Ukraine collapses, writes Joe Lauria.

By Joe Lauria, Consortium News,  https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/05/europes-facing-saving-theater-on-ukraine/

Then Starmer added: but only if the United States joins us. 

He said: 

“We will go further to develop a ‘coalition of the willing’ to defend a deal in Ukraine…

And to guarantee the peace.

Not every nation will feel able to contribute. 

But that can’t mean we sit back. 

Instead, those willing will intensify planning now – with real urgency.

The UK is prepared to back this…

With boots on the ground, and planes in the air…

Together with others. 

Europe must do the heavy lifting…

But to support peace on our continent.

And to succeed, this effort must have strong US backing.

We’re working with the US on this point, after my meeting with President Trump last week.” 

Donald Trump has made it clear he is not going to commit U.S. troops to Ukraine, however. And Russia has said it would never accept Western troops there. 

What Starmer is really saying is:  Europe stands ready to fight and die as peacekeepers to save Ukraine if necessary, but only with the Americans. So when they refuse to come and the disastrous Project Ukraine at last comes crashing on our heads, don’t blame us, blame the U.S.A. 

Trump will become even easier to blame now that he has cut off military aid and intelligence to Ukraine.

[The theater continued on Thursday at another European summit in Brussels, dubbed a “War Summit” by Politico, in which French President Emmanuel Macron, and still German Foreign Minister Alena Baerbock said Europe needed to get ready for war with Russia.]

The theater piece directed by Starmer at Lancaster House with an assembly of 15 European heads of government (and Justin Trudeau of Canada) was not really choreographed to try to convince Trump to reverse course, which appears unlikely, but as an elaborate presentation to save the hides of politicians who invested so much of their own political capital and wasted so much of their citizens’ money in the inevitable and humiliating defeat of Ukraine.

The summit was called by Starmer within two days of what he and the other Europeans saw transpire in the Oval Office on Friday. [See: Trump, Vance School Zelinsky on Reality of His War]. That occured at the end of a week in which both Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron had paid a visit to the same Oval Office where they learned first hand Trump’s determination to end the war even if it means Ukraine’s defeat. 

That Ukraine would lose was obvious two years ago to Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz when they both gently broke that news to Zelensky privately in Paris in February 2023.

The private remarks clashed with public statements from European leaders who had routinely said then, and still say today, that they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes to achieve victory on the battlefield. That was Joe Biden’s line too.

The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the private remarks to Zelenksy two years ago, wrote:

“The public rhetoric masks deepening private doubts among politicians in the U.K., France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to expel the Russians from eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and a belief that the West can only help sustain the war effort for so long, especially if the conflict settles into a stalemate, officials from the three countries say.

‘We keep repeating that Russia mustn’t win, but what does that mean? If the war goes on for long enough with this intensity, Ukraine’s losses will become unbearable,’ a senior French official said. ‘And no one believes they will be able to retrieve Crimea.’”

Indeed Ukraine’s losses have become unbearable. Macron and Scholz tried to tell Zelensky at that Élysée Palace dinner in February 2023 that he must consider peace talks with Moscow, the Journal reported.

According to its source, the newspaper quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.”

Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported. 

One wonders then why Scholz and Macron and the rest of Europe have persisted in fueling a lost cause that has since chewed up tens of thousands of additional Ukrainian lives. Could they be so corrupt that the survival of their political careers was worth the carnage of another nation’s men?

Could they have been as corrupted as Antony Blinken, who insisted to the end of his time as U.S. secretary of state that Ukraine lower the conscription age to 18, even though he knew these youth would be sent to certain death?  Have Western leaders not understood that the only chance Ukraine had to win the war was with NATO’S direct participation, risking a nuclear holocaust ? 

It seems that U.S. and European leaders kept an unwinnable war going until now to save their own careers. They could never admit defeat. But it did not save Biden or Harris or Blinken or Scholz or Trudeau, and Macron is in trouble too as voters saw through them all.

They’d all staked too much on the outcome of the war. They allowed their economies to fall. They pushed government censorship of social and alternative media to hide criticism that they were allowing men to die so that they would not be accused of “losing Ukraine.”      

It’s been a cornerstone of history from ancient emperors to Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in Vietnam, and now Biden and Starmer in Ukraine: Let them die so that we may stay in office.

With defeat staring them in the face, who better to blame it on than the ogre, Donald Trump, who has dared to inject realism into the twisted dream of using Ukraine to weaken and defeat Russia. 

It’s a failed policy that the European and Ukrainian leaders desperately need to keep going. One way to attempt this, as Chicago University professor John Mearsheimer said, is for the British, French and Ukrainians to “trap” the United States into giving a “security guarantee” to Ukraine.

Language in the mineral deal Zelensky had gone to the U.S. on Friday to sign calls for “common protection of critical resources.” Mearsheimer told a TV network in India that that is “the way they are trying to trap Trump and Co., and Trump won’t be trapped.”

This became evident in the Oval Office dust up last Friday when Trump angrily rejected Zelensky’s insistence on a U.S. “security guarantee” before he’d agree to a ceasefire and sign the mineral agreement.  [See: Trump, Vance School Zelensky on Reality of His War]

The only way to keep their war going is to cajole Trump into getting the U.S. deeper into the morass, rather than wisely pulling out and pushing for a deal to end it. 

As much as they might despise Trump, Starmer’s Sunday performance was designed to suck up to him. And an ungrateful Zelensky, reconsidering his public feud with Trump, is trying to make up with a man that seems susceptible to flattery.

In his address to the U.S. Congress Tuesday night, Trump said:

“Earlier today I received an important letter from President Zelensky of Ukraine. The letter reads: ‘Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.’

‘Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians,’ he said. ‘My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. … We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine, maintain its sovereignty and independence. … Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time.’

That is convenient for you. I appreciate that he sent this letter. I just got it a little while ago. Simultaneously we’ve had serious discussions with Russia. Then I’ve received strong signals that they are ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end the senseless war. If you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides.”

Desperate Europeans and Ukrainians need Trump to keep their war and thus their careers going, perhaps none more so than Zelensky.

Will Trump stand firm, or will he succumb to a trap?

March 10, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Changing nuclear policy would make ‘SNP as bad as Tories’, MSP warns

By Xander Elliards Content Editor, 9th March

CHANGING the SNP’s policy on nuclear weapons would be a “panic measure” demonstrating the same lack of principles as the Tories or Labour, an MSP has warned.

 Bill Kidd, who is also co-president of the
global group Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and
Disarmament, issued a warning to his party after its long-standing policy
on nuclear weapons came under fire on multiple fronts – including from
within.

As the fear of Russia rises in Europe, Labour have chosen nuclear
weapons as an issue on which to attack the SNP. Just this week, Prime
Minister Keir Starmer took aim at the party’s stance on nuclear weapons
in the Commons – followed by Labour MP Joani Reid and Scottish Secretary
Ian Murray doing the same two days later. Then, Ian Blackford, the SNP’s
former Westminster leader, joined the calls for the SNP to change tack on
nuclear weaponry – saying the party should support multilateral
disarmament instead of unilateral disarmament.

The question being asked is
simple: will the SNP stick with their support for the removal of nuclear
weapons from Scotland on day one of independence? Or, will they change tack
and say nukes can stay on the Clyde indefinitely (which, in practice, is
what waiting for multilateral disarmament means)?

For Kidd, who spoke to
the Sunday National from a UN summit on the Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the answer is clear. “There may be increasing
pressure from the UK, from the UK political parties – and in fact I
expect that there will be – but that is another example of why the SNP
should stand firmly as an anti-nuclear [party],” he said.

 The National 9th March 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/24992541.changing-nuclear-policy-make-snp-bad-tories-msp-warns/

March 10, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Britain’s nuclear submarines bill spirals by £5bn

The MoD blames inflation as the cost of replacing the UK’s at-sea deterrent hits £37bn

Szu Ping Chan Economics Editor. Matt Oliver Industry Editor

The cost of replacing the submarines carrying Britain’s nuclear deterrent
has ballooned by more than £5bn in just three years, according to official
documents. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has raised its estimate for the
lifetime cost of manufacturing and maintaining four new ballistic missile
submarines to £36.7bn as of March last year, up from an estimate of
£31.5bn in 2020-21. It is also £2.5bn more than projected in March 2023.

 Telegraph 9th March 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/09/cost-for-britains-new-nuclear-submarines-spirals-by-5bn/

March 10, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US support to maintain UK’s nuclear arsenal is in doubt, experts say.

Guardian 8th March 2025,

Malcolm Rifkind joins diplomats and analysts urging focus on European cooperation to replace Trident.

Britain’s ability to rely on the US to maintain the UK’s nuclear arsenal is now in doubt, experts have warned, but working with European states to replace it will be costly and take time.

An existing debate about the future of Trident – Britain’s ageing submarine-launched nuclear missile system – has taken a dramatic new turn in recent weeks amid fears Donald Trump could pull out of Nato.

A range of concerns had already loomed over the £3bn-a-year programme, not least around its efficiency and effectiveness after a second embarrassing failed test launch last year.

Costs have also been a longstanding challenge but replacing Vanguard submarines on time has been prioritised over coming in under budget.

Downing Street sought to play down concerns earlier this week after diplomatic figures including the former British ambassador to the US Sir David Manning floated the scenario of an end to Anglo-US nuclear cooperation.

However, calls for Britain to make alternative plans have been joined by the former UK foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who initiated talks in the 90s between the UK and France on nuclear weapons cooperation.

“It really is necessary for Britain and France to work more closely together because if American reliability ever came into question, then Europe could be defenceless in the face of Russian aggression,” he said.

“The contribution by America must now be to some degree in doubt, not today or tomorrow, but over the next few years and certainly as long as Trump and people like him are in control in Washington.”………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/08/us-support-uk-nuclear-arsenal-in-doubt-trident-france

March 10, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Russians aren’t coming, the Russians aren’t coming.

The US should continue to work with Russia to end the war, reestablish normal diplomatic relations and reinstate the 3 nuclear agreements America dumped with Russia this century The survival of peoplekind depends on this détente

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 9 Mar 25

The US pause of all weapons and intelligence to Ukraine has got some Western European countries in uproar.

French President Emmanuel Macron is scrambling to make up the slack by pledging massive military aid to Ukraine by France and whichever neighbors he can con into squandering their treasure to sustain Ukraine’s lost cause against Russia. Macron may as well be shouting the ‘The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.’ when he blurted out “Russia has become a threat to France and Europe for years to come. I want to believe that the United States will remain by our side, but we need to be ready if that were no longer the case. The future of Europe should not be decided in Washington or in Moscow.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned, “We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times.” German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz recently declared that Europe had “five minutes to midnight.”

For 76 years Europe NATO members have been dependent on Uncle Sam to save their bacon from an imaginary enemy. The aforementioned leaders are now pledging to make up for America’s pullback from their own economies already weakened by three years of aid to the lost war in Ukraine.They are calling for EU member states to take on additional debt and ramp up military spending by $840 billion over four years, some of which will continue weaponizing the war in Ukraine till the last Ukrainian soldier is dead.

Macron recklessly went further stating that French troops could be sent to Ukraine. “Our forces will be there if necessary to guarantee peace, not before a peace agreement is signed. We will continue to meet with allies to move toward the signing of such an agreement. The only thing French and other European troops in Ukraine will guarantee is being attacked by Russia and possibly triggering nuclear war.

The US should continue to work with Russia to end the war, reestablish normal diplomatic relations and reinstate the 3 nuclear agreements America dumped with Russia this century The survival of peoplekind depends on this détente.

While a daunting task, if those objectives can be achieved the US should further encourage Europe to provide for their own defense by withdrawing from NATO which became obsolete 34 years ago when the Soviet Union went poof. With a GDP ten times Russia’s, that should be snap.

If America does withdraw from Europe, the hardliners in France, Germany and the EU, might come to their senses that…the Russians aren’t coming, the Russians aren’t coming.

March 10, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Britain’s nuclear weapons fiasco is a nightmare for Rachel Reeves

Overhauling the UK’s ageing defence has left the Chancellor facing a fresh battle to balance the books

 Sir Keir Starmer was the first Labour leader in three decades to visit the
Barrow shipyard where Britain’s next generation of nuclear submarines are
being assembled. The Prime Minister, on the opposition benches at the time,
was unflinching in his support for the UK’s submarines-based nuclear
deterrent – a continuous at-sea presence that the Royal Navy has
maintained since 1969.

But while keeping Britain safe may be priceless,
being ready for war doesn’t come cheap. Trident, Britain’s nuclear
deterrent, gobbles up a significant share of our defence budget, leaving
the share devoted to troops and guns far below the 2pc Nato baseline. While
the Treasury said in October that its commitment to the UK’s nuclear
deterrent was “absolute”, many have warned that costs are spiralling
out of control, piling more pressure on a Chancellor who is already
struggling to balance the books.

 Telegraph 8th March 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/08/britains-nuclear-weapons-fiasco-nightmare-rachel-reeves/

March 10, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Radioactive pollution is increasing at Britain’s nuclear bases

7 Mar 25 https://cnduk.org/radioactive-pollution-is-increasing-at-britains-nuclear-bases/

Radioactive air emissions have been increasing year-on-year at Coulport one of Britain’s nuclear submarine bases in Scotland. This development is of some concern as it would lead to increased health risks wherever the emissions were inhaled. 

Investigations by The Ferret and The National newspaper found that emissions of radioactive tritiated water vapour had doubled at the Royal Navy’s nuclear weapons storage depot at Coulport on Loch Long between 2018 and 2023. According to the Scottish Pollution Release Inventory, tritiated water vapour emissions at Coulport were 1.7 billion becquerels (units of radioactivity) in 2018, rising steadily to 4.2 billion units in 2023. Tritiated water vapour is  harmful when inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin as its radiation causes cancer and cardiovascular diseases including strokes.

The investigation also found that eight miles from Coulport at Faslane, where Britain’s nuclear submarines are based, tritiated water containing over 50 billion units of radioactivity had been dumped into the Gareloch. The level of dumping peaked in 2020, when 16.6 billion units were discharged. 

The Ferret noted that in 2019,  the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) “changed the rules to allow certain tritium-contaminated effluents from nuclear submarines at Faslane to be discharged into the Gareloch.” Both SEPA and the MoD claim these emissions are within official safety limits.

However Dr Ian Fairlie, CND’s science advisor, states that these limits are unreliable, as official estimated doses from tritium contain “large uncertainties.”

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said: 

“From faulty nuclear-armed subs on dangerously extended patrols to crumbling nuclear waste sites, Britain’s nuclear industry is putting us all at great risk. Instead of enforcing the highest levels of environmental standards, the government is just redefining what ‘acceptable risk’ means. All so it can allow the dumping of radioactive water, putting local people at greater risk of cancer. This is beyond reckless. It’s time to scrap Trident and its replacement, and decommission the nuclear industry.”

March 10, 2025 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

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