nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Trump, Netanyahu down to last card in criminal Iran war

10 March 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, https://theaimn.net/trump-netanyahu-down-to-last-card-in-criminal-iran-war/

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister began their second war on Iran in 7 months with just 2 war crime cards to play.

The first card was the US, Israeli version of Blitzkrieg from the air. Kill Iran’s beloved leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, demand surrender, then wait for the 90 million Iranians to capitulate to new masters Trump and Netanyahu. That was projected to take just about 72 hours.

As expected, millions of Iranians came into the streets following Khamenei’s assassination. But not to welcome the grisly invaders bombing them. It was to show near total support to the Islamic government, cheering them on to inflict as much retaliation possible to repel the Trump Netanyahu criminal tag team.

And they are succeeding, causing massive damage to US military facilities in Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait. Saudi Arabia and UAE. All 6 are running out of defensive interceptors provided by Uncle Sam. Why? Trump is giving them all to himself and his war partner Netanyahu. When this is all over, the Gulf States will never again trust America for their defense. They may even tell the US to vamoose the region PDQ.

Iran is also bombing Israel night and day, giving Netanyahu, flying around the region 24/7 to avoid Khamenei’s fate, a taste of what he visited on Palestinians in Gaza for 2 years.

That leaves Trump and Netanyahu with their last war crime card to play. Bomb Iran to smithereens till there is no more Iranian weapons or personnel left with which to retaliate.

Big problem facing America and Israel is size. Both Israel and US military facilities nearby are compact in size making them easy targets, while Iran, the 17th largest country by area, has their tens of thousands of missiles scattered and largely unreachable.

Now that Iran has chosen to fight to the death rather than capitulate as expected, the advantage may be tiltng in their favor. Rumors surfacing Trump is pondering an off ramp to stop the bleeding he has no way of controlling.

Worst case scenario remains that Netanyahu may get so desperate facing unfathomable defeat, he escalates to war crime card 3… nuke Tehran.

March 13, 2026 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump hints U.S. will turn to Cuba after Iran: ‘Just a question of time’

Kevin Breuninger, Fri, Mar 6 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/05/trump-cuba-iran-regime-change.html

Key Points

  • President Donald Trump suggested his administration will turn its sights to Cuba after U.S. military operations in Iran are done.
  • It “will be just a question of time before you and a lot of unbelievable people are going to be going back to Cuba, hopefully not to stay,” Trump told a crowd at the White House.
  • On Iran, Trump said the U.S. and Israeli militaries are continuing to “totally demolish the enemy.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested his administration will turn its sights to Cuba after U.S. military operations in Iran are finished.

“What’s happening with Cuba is amazing,” Trump said at the White House while participating in a visit of Inter Miami CF, the 2025 Major League Soccer champions.

“We think that we want to fix — finish this one first, but that will be just a question of time before you and a lot of unbelievable people are going to be going back to Cuba, hopefully not to stay,” Trump said to the Miami-heavy audience that included people of Cuban heritage.

The comments show Trump, less than a week into an escalating military conflict in the Middle East, is considering another major foreign policy move.

“We want you back, and we don’t want to lose you. We don’t want to make it so nice that they stay. But some people probably do want to stay. They love Cuba so much,” he said. “That was another one that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Trump turned his focus to Cuba after providing a boastful update on the war in Iran, where he said the U.S. and Israeli militaries are continuing to “totally demolish the enemy.”

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been “doing a fantastic job.”

“And you’ve been doing a fantastic job on a place called Cuba,” Trump added, prompting applause from the room.

Trump’s latest remarks on Cuba follow previous hints, some less subtle than others, that he and his allies have dropped about their plans for the Caribbean island nation.

“Cuba’s next,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday on Fox News after the Iran strikes began.

In an interview with Politico earlier Thursday, Trump predicted that after Iran’s regime is toppled, “Cuba’s going to fall, too.”

Trump also took credit for choking Cuba’s economy to force them to the negotiating table, which he had vowed to do after the U.S. military in January attacked Venezuela, a major supplier of oil to Cuba.

“We cut off all oil, all money, or we cut off everything coming in from Venezuela, which was the sole source. And they want to make a deal,” he told Politico.

“We are talking to Cuba,” Trump also said in that interview. “How long have you been hearing about Cuba — Cuba, Cuba — for 50 years?” he added. “And that’s one of the small ones for me.”

March 13, 2026 Posted by | SOUTH AMERICA, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

“AIPAC Is Toxic”: Illinois Races Expose a Shifting Democratic Landscape

 SCHEERPOST, March 8, 2026 Joshua Scheer

The shift comes amid growing criticism of the pro-Israel lobby. Senator Chris Van Hollen recently telling a Jewish audience at a J Street conference that the actions of American Israel Public Affairs Committee were “un-American.”

A growing divide over the war with Iran is emerging inside Democratic politics and within AIPAC itself, and nowhere is it more visible than in Illinois.

According to reporting by Jewish Currents, several Democratic congressional candidates in Illinois who are backed by the powerful pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have publicly criticized the U.S. attack on Iran—despite the lobby’s strong support for the military action.

The break highlights a political dilemma for AIPAC as it pours millions of dollars into Democratic primary races across the country in an effort to maintain strong congressional backing for Israel.

AIPAC praised Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran, describing the move as “decisive.” But the Democratic candidates the group has supported in Illinois have largely taken the opposite position, condemning the U.S. attack while carefully avoiding direct criticism of Israel’s role in the conflict.

Among them is Illinois State Senator Laura Fine, who warned that Trump’s decision could send the Middle East into further chaos and suggested the president’s actions were grounds for impeachment. Other AIPAC-backed candidates—including former congresswoman Melissa Bean, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, and Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears‑Ervin—also criticized the strikes, describing them as unconstitutional, dangerous, or an immoral “war of choice.”

Yet none of the candidates have openly challenged Israel’s involvement in the conflict, reflecting the delicate balancing act facing Democrats who rely on AIPAC support while campaigning in districts where Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the war.

Political analysts say that tension is not accidental. Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, noted that Democratic voters are strongly against the war.

A recent poll by The Washington Post found that roughly 87 percent of Democrats oppose the conflict with Iran. As a result, many candidates are directing their criticism at Trump rather than confronting AIPAC or Israel directly.

“They have to be careful if they want to keep AIPAC support,” Duss explained.

The same political dynamic is playing out in several other races. In New York, Representative Dan Goldman, who has received backing from AIPAC, criticized Trump for defying the Constitution in launching the attack but did not mention Israel. Goldman is currently facing a progressive challenge from former New York City comptroller Brad Lander.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, Representative Valerie Foushee narrowly defeated progressive challenger Nida Allam in a Democratic primary where the Iran war emerged as a late campaign issue. Allam ran television ads highlighting her opposition to the war and criticizing Foushee for accepting donations from defense contractors. Foushee also opposed the war and attempted to distance herself from AIPAC during the race.

Progressive candidates have seen stronger results in other states. In Texas, Reverend Frederick Haynes won the Democratic primary in the heavily Democratic 30th Congressional District. Haynes has been outspoken in criticizing Israeli policies in Gaza and has also opposed the war with Iran.

Advocates on the left say the results reflect a broader shift within Democratic politics. Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said recent primaries demonstrate how rapidly the political landscape is changing………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

In a joint statement, several progressive candidates—including Peters, Ahmed, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, and union organizer Anthony Driver—accused Trump of dragging the United States into what they described as an unnecessary war backed by AIPAC, and called on their opponents to reject the lobby’s “pro-war agenda.”……………………………………………………………. https://scheerpost.com/2026/03/08/aipac-is-toxic-illinois-races-expose-a-shifting-democratic-landscape/

March 13, 2026 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

‘The Military-Industrial Complex Is Winning’: While Bombing Iran, Trump Says Weapons Contractors to Boost Production.

The president and Lockheed Martin said that the expansion began months ago, but his comments followed a White House meeting held amid a US-Israeli assault on Iran and mounting threats against Cuba.

Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, Mar 06, 2026

After meeting with several chief executives at the White House on Friday—while also bombing Iran with Israel and threatening Cuba—US President Donald Trump said that top military contractors “have agreed to quadruple Production of the ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry in that we want to reach, as rapidly as possible, the highest levels of quantity.”

Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he met with the CEOs of BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell Aerospace, L3Harris Missile Solutions, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX—formerly Raytheon.

“Expansion began three months prior to the meeting, and Plants and Production of many of these Weapons are already underway,” he wrote, adding that another meeting is scheduled in two months.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

It was not immediately clear whether the meeting… resulted in any new agreements to boost production beyond those previously announced by the Pentagon since the beginning of the year.

Those agreements include a multiyear deal to triple PAC-3 production and quadruple THAAD interceptor production with Lockheed. It also included separate multiyear deals with RTX to boost production for the Tomahawk, AMRAAM air-to-air missile, Standard Missile-3 IIA and IB, and Standard Missile-6, with production for certain of those munitions set to double or quadruple, RTX said at the time………………….

Northrop Grumman said in a statement that “we support the president’s focus on speed and investment to deliver military capabilities. With our industry-leading levels of investment and decades of proven performance, we continue to grow production capacity and deliver mission-ready technologies for the nation’s warfighters.”

Using Trump’s preferred name for the Pentagon, an RTX spokesperson said the company “is proud to support the administration’s goals of defending the US and its allies at this critical moment and committed to accelerating the production of five key munitions in accordance with the historic frameworks reached with the War Department last month.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also joined the meeting, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. After Hegseth shared Trump’s Truth Social post on the platform X, Lockheed Martin replied, saying that it began working with the Pentagon chief and Feinberg “months ago,” and the company has “agreed to quadruple critical munitions production………………………………………………………….. https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-defense-contractors

March 13, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Bill Gates’ TerraPower Finally Has a Permit for a Nuclear Reactor, but No Reliable Way to Fuel It.

“HALEU is not currently available from domestic suppliers, and gaps in supply could delay the deployment of advanced reactors,” the HALEU Availability Program website says. Filling the gap will involve “downblending”—or converting highly concentrated weapons-grade uranium into relatively low-concentration HALEU. This literally means dismantling warheads, melting the uranium, and rejiggering the concentration of the crucial fissile isotope.


 Gizmodo, By Mike Pearl, 5th March 2026

By unanimous vote, TerraPower, a Nuclear Power company founded and chaired by Bill Gates, just reached a major milestone by receiving the most important federal permit: clearance to build a commercial nuclear reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, scheduled to start operating in 2031. This places TerraPower at the front of the pack when it comes to small, cutting-edge nuclear reactors for generating power in the U.S.

Unfortunately, there’s currently no way to fuel this reactor.

The plant has already been under-construction since 2024, and a spokesman for TerraPower named Andy Hallmark confirmed to me that only the “nonnuclear sections of the plant” were being built at the time.

But while TerraPower’s Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor can now at least be constructed, it won’t put power into the Wyoming energy grid without high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is only made in commercial quantities by a company called Techsnabexport, which is a subsidiary of another company called Rosatom, which is owned by the Russian state.

This has been presenting a problem ever since 2022 when Russia invaded mainland Ukraine. At that point, “it became very clear, for a whole set of reasons — moral reasons as well as commercial reasons — that using Russian fuel is no longer an option for us,” TerraPower spokesman Jeff Navin told WyoFile. 

But Hallmark told me in 2024 that alternative suppliers “are expected to develop similar capacity as demand grows,” and that Terrapower believes a solution will materialize in time for the project to stay on track.

The US government has been prioritizing and cheerleading this project (along with similar projects), and has an alternative plan, which the Department of Energy calls the HALEU Availability Program.

“HALEU is not currently available from domestic suppliers, and gaps in supply could delay the deployment of advanced reactors,” the HALEU Availability Program website says. Filling the gap will involve “downblending”—or converting highly concentrated weapons-grade uranium into relatively low-concentration HALEU. This literally means dismantling warheads, melting the uranium, and rejiggering the concentration of the crucial fissile isotope.

It is, of course, unsustainable for commercial power plants to be fueled by the guts of the aging U.S. nuclear stockpile, and a real supply chain for HALEU has to exist if TerraPower’s plant is actually going to operate.

In the short term, TerraPower needs enough fuel from early sources like downblending to load its reactor for the first time, and then it can focus on staying online. One report says it needs about 150 metric tons of the fuel to run from 2028 through 2037—roughly 15 metric tons per year on average.

But according to Reuters, there’s only one U.S. company actually attempting to make HALEU by enriching uranium rather than downblending: Ohio’s Centrus Energy. But Centrus was projecting 900 kilograms per year in 2024—by my rough math that’s about 6% of what Terrapower’s Kemmerer plant will need per year. To stay Centrus needs to ramp-up quickly is an understatement.

Needless to say, Terrapower is racing to find alternatives, which include companies like South Africa’s ASP Isotopes, Inc.  with whom it launched a “strategic agreement” in 2024. As of last month, ASP was hoping to build a HALEU plant soon.  

At any rate, TerraPower’s Kemmerer plant can be built now, and that construction can now include its reactor. There’s not enough fuel for that reactor—unless of course the war in Ukraine ends, and Russia-U.S. relations get patched up in a hurry—but there are still five years between now and then, and a whole lot is riding on this. Generating nuclear fuel has always forced people to move mountains. Why should this plant be any different?

Gizmodo reached out to TerraPower for a statement, or additional information about any as-yet unreported sources of HALEU. We will update if we hear back.

00

.00

March 12, 2026 Posted by | ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

US Argues ‘Emergency’ of Iran War Means Israel Needs 20,000+ More Bombs Without Congressional Approval

This is the first time that the second Trump administration has formally declared an emergency, allowed under the Arms Export Control Act, to bypass Congress to sell arms to Israel. The administration has bypassed the informal approval process in Congress three times to sell arms or send weapons aid to Israel, but previously has not declared an emergency

‘Who cares about Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and aggression?” asked one human rights expert.

Jon Queally, Mar 07, 2026, https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-bombs-for-israel-iran-lebanon

The US State Department is hiding behind the war against Iran that was started by US President Donald Trump last week to justify an emergency order to ship more than 20,000 bombs—estimated at a value of $660 million—to Israel, skirting a pending approval process for the sale by Congress.

In a statement issued quietly on Friday night, the State Department said 12,000 BLU-110A/B general purpose, 1,000-pound bombs had been determined for approval, noting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has “provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and defense services is in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements under Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act.”

Not included in the statement, according to the New York Times, were additional parts of the sale that “include 10,000 bombs of 500 pounds each and 5,000 small-diameter bombs.”

“This is an emergency of the Trump administration’s own creation.” —Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.)

According to the Times:

The State Department did not mention these details in the announcement, but two current US officials and a former, Josh Paul, who worked on weapons transfers at the State Department, said they were part of the emergency sale. The current officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive arms transactions.

This is the first time that the second Trump administration has formally declared an emergency, allowed under the Arms Export Control Act, to bypass Congress to sell arms to Israel. The administration has bypassed the informal approval process in Congress three times to sell arms or send weapons aid to Israel, but previously has not declared an emergency.

The push for the “emergency” arms sale comes as Israel pummels Lebanon with airstrikes, forcing an estimate 500,000 people or more in southern regions outside of Beirut to flee their homes. It also coincides with Israeli forces hitting targets in Iran alongside the US in what experts say is a wholly illegal attack on that country.

Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, denounced the move by the Rubio in a Friday statement.

“Today’s invocation of the Arms Export Control Act’s emergency authority to bypass congressional review for two munitions cases to Israel exposes a stark contradiction at the heart of this administration’s case for war,” said Meeks. “The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted it was fully prepared for this war. Rushing to invoke emergency authority to circumvent Congress tells a different story. This is an emergency of the Trump administration’s own creation.”

Others also questioned the emergency sale, especially given Israel’s record of genocide in Gaza over the last two years and its pivotal role in pushing the Trump administration toward a war of choice with Iran.

Meeks, in his statement, argued that key questions about Trump’s war in Iran remain unanswered.

“What is the endgame? What preparations have been made to protect American citizens in the region? And how much will this war cost the American people?” asked Meeks. “The administration has provided no credible answers. The American people deserve answers, and Congress must demand them.”

March 12, 2026 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Marco spills the beans…’Bibi made us do it’

Walt Zlotow, Mar 04, 2026, Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, https://substack.com/home/post/p-189862460

In 4 days of immoral, criminal war on Iran, the Trump administration changes the rationale every day, indeed almost every hour.

The most preposterous comes from supreme American warmonger Marco Rubio who masquerades as Secretary of State while every fiber of his damaged soul plots endless war.

“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States, Israel, or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. If we stood and waited for that attack to come first, before we hit them, we would have suffered much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces,”

Rubio could not have been more disingenuous. He’s pretending we’re a neutral observer that will be involved if Israel attacks and must attack first to avoid US casualties. . He knows full well the US and Israel have been plotting together to destroy Iran for decades. He’s spent the last year as Secretary of State involved in that war plotting. The US wants to extend its dominance over the entire Middle East while Israel wants to eliminate its only hegemonic rival in the region. Together the US, Israeli tag team seeks to accomplish both imperialistic goals.

The combined attack February 28 was a replay on steroids of the smaller combined preemptive attack last June. Since it didn’t accomplish regime change and Iran’s destruction, Netanyahu and Trump decided to launch an all out war to the death. This time Americans are dying along with Israelis, and the shutdown of oil production and transit may send America spiraling into a major recession.

Since few Americans are buying into this madness, rejecting one Trump justification after another, Rubio came to the rescue. ‘I’ve got it’ he proclaimed. ‘We’ll tell the public that we had to attack because it was the only way to save American lives after Israel attacks Iran. We’re simply playing defense.’

Rubio’s logic would be hilarious if not for the fact that it guarantees US body bags coming home as a result of Rubio’s self-licking ice cream cone.

March 12, 2026 Posted by | USA | Leave a comment

Cardinals McElroy and Cupich denounce Iran war: ‘War now has become a spectator sport.’

“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment,”

by Edward DesciakMarch 9, 2026, https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/dispatches/2026/03/09/cardinal-mcelroy-cupich-iran-war/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Cardinals%20McElroy%20and%20Cupich%20denounce%20Iran%20war%3A%20%20War%20now%20has%20become%20a%20spectator%20sport&utm_campaign=Daily%203%209%2026

Following the United States and Israel’s overnight missile barrage of Iran on Feb. 28 and the widening war across the Middle East, a number of U.S. bishops have spoken out in opposition to the war.

They underscored an urgent need for peace and a return to diplomacy, denounced as unjust American and Israeli military aggression and expressed deep concern for the millions in the region affected by the armed conflict.

“At this present moment, the U.S. decision to go to war against Iran fails to meet the just war threshold for a morally legitimate war,” Cardinal Robert McElroy of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., said.

In an interview with the Catholic Standard on March 9, he explained that the U.S. offensive operations failed to meet at least three criteria of just war theory—the Catholic framework for evaluating the morality of military action—including the requirements for just cause, right intention and clarity that “the benefits of this war will outweigh the harm which will be done,” made impossible by the unpredictability of the region

Cardinal McElroy said: “Almost everyone rightly believes that the Khamenei regime has been for decades a brutal and repressive government that has spread terrorism throughout the world and should be replaced. But there is immense concern that this war will spiral out of control and embroil the United States in ever greater depth.” 

The cardinal, who has also voiced opposition to the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy, mentioned particular concern for the military families he has spoken with who are worried about their loved ones’ safety.

“We must all work together to forbid this expansionism to lead us into an ongoing morass in Iran,” he said, expressing his “deepest concern” for the “deterioration of moral norms” in the United States and the world, signified by the growing willingness to turn to preventative war over diplomacy as a legitimate means of foreign policy.

Cardinal McElroy’s responses echoed comments from Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago, who criticized the war and the Trump administration’s mix of militarism and entertainment in a statement on March 7.

Cardinal Cupich cited a post from the official White House X account captioned “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY” that spliced clips from popular action movies, cartoons and TV shows “with actual strike footage from their war on Iran.” 

It was one of many edits the White House has posted over the last few days in which the account has similarly spliced together video footage of the war with NFL and MLB highlights and video game references.

“A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game—it’s sickening,” Cardinal Cupich said. “This horrifying portrayal demonstrates that we now live in an era when the distance between the battlefield and the living room has been drastically reduced.”

He noted that the social media post dishonored the six U.S. soldiers who had been killed at that point during the war (the death of another service member was confirmed on March 8) as well as the hundreds of others who have died across the Middle East, “including the scores of children who made the fatal mistake of going to school” the day a U.S. missile struck a naval base next to an elementary school in Iran, killing 175 people.

“The moral crisis we are facing is not just a matter of the war itself, but also how we the observers, view violence, for war now has become a spectator sport or strategy game,” Cardinal Cupich wrote, referencing a particularly macabre scandal involving the popular prediction market site Kalshi, where Americans can now gamble on matters of life and death. The company is the respondent in a $54 million class action lawsuit after it declined to pay out wagers on whether Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would be ousted by March 1, citing a “death carveout.”

Cardinal Cupich also urged the American people not to “become addicted to the ‘spectacle’ of explosions.”

“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment,” he wrote, “as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store.”

“I know that the American people are better than this. We have the good sense to know that what is happening is not entertainment but war, and that Iran is a nation of people, not a video game others play to entertain us,” he concluded.

The cardinals joined the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul Coakley, who followed Pope Leo XIV’s lead and released a statement on March 1 condemning the hostilities: “We ask for a halt to the spiral of violence, and a return to multilateral diplomatic engagement that seeks to uphold the ‘well-being of peoples, who yearn for peaceful existence founded on justice.’”

Archbishop Coakley added: “I invite Catholics and all people of goodwill to continue our ardent prayers for peace in the Middle East, for the safety of our troops and the innocent, that leaders may seek dialogue over destruction, and pursue the common good over the tragedy of war.”

The Archdiocese of New York’s new archbishop, Ronald Hicks, also commented on the Iran crisis in a brief interview for 1010 WINS on March 5, calling for prayers and diplomacy. “We have to give some special prayers for our men and women in uniform and pray for their protection, too, and everyone involved,” he said. “It is absolutely heartbreaking.”

March 12, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

As proposals for nuclear stations proliferate across Canada, ‘fleet-based’ reactor deployment remains elusive.

The Ontario government announced last summer a body called the New Nuclear Technology Panel, composed of senior executives from OPG, Bruce Power and the government, and instructed it to co-ordinate a technology selection decision. But the panel has not been established, and there is no timeline for doing so.

among those few proponents that have publicly committed to specific models, at least three have already wavered on their decisions. The situation underlines how tentative plans for nuclear expansion in Canada remain

Matthew McClearn, 9 March 26, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-nuclear-stations-canada-fleet-based-reactor-deployment-remains-elusive/

In the nuclear industry it is practically gospel: Canada isn’t populous or wealthy enough to purchase a smorgasbord of different nuclear reactors. Yet after years of lukewarm efforts by Canadian utilities and governments to reach a consensus on which ones to buy, there are few indications that one is emerging.

In January, Saskatchewan’s government announced it had begun evaluating large nuclear reactors for potential deployment. Jeremy Harrison, a minister whose responsibilities include the Crown-owned SaskPower, said the utility will study the readiness of reactors to be built, vendors’ ability to support licensing and construction, and their track record of executing previous projects.

Ontario’s utilities have been asking similar questions for several years. In 2023 Bruce Power began hunting for a reactor for Bruce C, a proposed four-unit station at its facility near Tiverton, Ont. Ontario Power Generation recently began its own search for a huge plant dubbed Wesleyville, planned in Port Hope, Ont.

Observers have long warned that given Canada’s population and economy, utilities, private developers and provinces must co-ordinate procurement of reactors – an approach sometimes dubbed “fleet-based deployment.” But it hasn’t arrived yet.

Indeed, among those few proponents that have publicly committed to specific models, at least three have already wavered on their decisions. The situation underlines how tentative plans for nuclear expansion in Canada remain, even as governments forecast spiking demand for electricity in the immediate future and consider their options for generating that power.

All 25 reactors built in Canada during the 1960s through the 1990s featured Canada deuterium uranium (Candu) technology developed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., a Crown corporation. One benefit was that later Candus, such as those at the Bruce B and Darlington stations, proved significantly more reliable than earlier ones in that they suffered fewer outages. Similar dynamics applied when those stations required midlife overhauls. Another advantage was that utilities could share operational experience through the Candu Owners Group (now known as Conexus Nuclear).

By the time the federal government began promoting small modular reactors (SMRs), though, the Candu’s monopoly seemed precarious, and international vendors arrived promoting early-stage designs. In 2018 the government published a “roadmap” for SMRs, recommending stakeholders settle on a small number of finalized designs.

Jeremy Whitlock, a nuclear consultant and adjunct professor at McMaster University, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions that fleet-based deployment is vital for nuclear. “There is simply not enough infrastructure, resources, and (currently at least) work force to support multiple lines of technology,” he wrote.

A report released in February by Clean Prosperity, a Toronto-based energy and climate policy think tank, asserted that one necessary precondition for nuclear expansion is that all proponents converge on three designs at most: one “large” design with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts or more (enough to power a large city), one “small” reactor with an output around 300 megawatts, and one “micro” reactor putting out less than 20 megawatts.

Brendan Frank, Clean Prosperity’s head of policy development, said a first-of-a-kind reactor is far too expensive; the industry needs to learn how to build subsequent units more cheaply to compete with other generation options. “Your chances of doing that are significantly higher if you build the same reactor design over and over and over again,” he said.

The BWRX-300 from U.S.-based GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy has seemingly emerged as the lone contender among the larger SMRs. Yet only OPG has committed to build one.

As for large and micro-reactors, no firm orders have been placed in Canada. However attractive fleet-based deployment might seem, it might be difficult to achieve. Selecting a model has numerous implications, from securing a fuel supply to managing the resulting waste; what’s best for Ontario mightn’t seem so for Saskatchewan or New Brunswick.

Nuclear power is among the few generation options that has grown more expensive, and eliminating pricing competition by sourcing from a single reactor vendor won’t help

Options are limited. AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.

ATRL-T -1.07%decrease, the company which purchased Atomic Energy of Canada’s reactor business more than a decade ago, is developing an updated 1,000-megawatt Candu dubbed the Monark. Its most significant home-court advantage is that utilities and their workers are already familiar with operating and maintaining Candus. Moreover, its supply chain is on Canadian soil, an appealing feature amid surging economic nationalism. Its greatest vulnerability might be its readiness: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says it has not yet begun a preliminary assessment of the Monark, known as a vendor design review.

The CNSC reviewed the Monark’s most obvious competitor more than a decade ago. It concluded there were “no fundamental barriers” to licensing Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000. Although AP1000s have been built in China and the U.S., the American projects suffered disastrous setbacks during construction. Souring Canada-U.S. relations further diminish the AP1000’s appeal.

GE Vernova Hitachi, which designed the BWRX-300, faces similar obstacles in marketing its larger Advanced Boiling Water Reactor. Dark horses include the European Pressurized Reactor, a French design, and the South Korean APR-1400.

If fleet-based deployment is to succeed in Canada, Ontario appears to be the most credible co-ordinator. Between Bruce C and Wesleyville, it might purchase up to 14 large reactors.

Neither OPG nor Bruce Power specified reactors in their regulatory applications, which are intended to encompass a variety of options. Bruce Power’s chief operating officer, James Scongack, said since late 2023 his company has sought information from reactor vendors, a process intended to ascertain which reactors are ready to be constructed and at what cost. The process “was really designed to look at what are all the technologies available for new nuclear, assess them, review them, narrow them down,” he said.

Citing confidentiality agreements, Mr. Scongack declined to discuss which ones had emerged as front-runners. But “we’re now very focused on options that would not be a surprise to you.”

The Ontario government announced last summer a body called the New Nuclear Technology Panel, composed of senior executives from OPG, Bruce Power and the government, and instructed it to co-ordinate a technology selection decision. But the panel has not been established, and there is no timeline for doing so.

Lately, Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce has spoken emphatically about the importance of promoting Canadian technology and supply chains – comments suggesting strong support for Candus.

“My first preoccupation is: What is going to advance the national interest of Canada in a post-Trump world,” he told The Globe in late January.

“We need to be fiercely protective of our intellectual property, of Canadian technology for Candu, a large-scale [reactor] that is made in Canada, stored in this country, a supply chain that is Canadian, a work force that is mature and Canadian.”

But a different champion could emerge in Saskatchewan. As far back as 2022, SaskPower selected the BWRX-300. Yet just two years later, SaskPower announced it had signed an agreement with Westinghouse to evaluate other models including its AP300, a direct competitor.

That sudden interest in Westinghouse didn’t come out of nowhere. The uranium giant Cameco Corp. CCO-T +5.86%increase, based in Saskatoon, is one of the province’s most influential companies. In 2023 it purchased a 49-per-cent stake in Westinghouse.

Mr. Harrison said the AP300 is no longer under consideration, and SaskPower confirms it’s planning to announce a proposed site for building BWRX-300s later this year. But SaskPower won’t make a final investment decision until at least 2029, leaving plenty of time to pivot again.

And that’s one reason Saskatchewan’s decision to explore large reactors could be highly significant. Mr. Harrison said the province is prepared to go its own way. And while SaskPower will consider candidate reactors on their merits, he added that local companies’ interests are an important consideration.

“We are really very, very proud of Cameco, a great Saskatchewan company,” Mr. Harrison said. “To be a 49-per-cent owner of this iconic American company, Westinghouse Electric, is really a quite an amazing story for a company that began life as a Crown corporation.”

He added: “Without question, benefits to the supply chain in Saskatchewan is a part of the consideration. We’ve been very upfront about that.”

Energy Alberta, a nascent developer with a long-standing proposal to build a four-reactor plant in Peace River, Alta., offers perhaps the most striking example of indecision. It had selected the Monark, but late last year announced it was considering Westinghouse’s AP1000s instead.

New Brunswick selected two reactors for construction at its Point Lepreau station nearly a decade ago. But neither the ARC-100 nor the SSR-W appear to be nearing a completed design; their vendors (ARC Clean Technology and Moltex Energy Canada, respectively) have few employees and have struggled to raise capital.

NB Power’s chief executive officer, Lori Clark, said her utility remains committed to building reactors. But it has come around to fleet-based thinking: it no longer wants to build a first-of-a-kind, or one-of-a-kind, reactor, because they are inevitably costlier. Provincial officials have expressed interest in a variety of different reactors over the past year, including the BWRX-300, AP1000 and Candu.

“We want to watch what’s happening in Ontario, because they are much bigger player in the nuclear field than we are.”

March 12, 2026 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

In US/Israeli war on Iran, all roads point to rise in global nuclear weapons.

Trump and Netanyahu are already boasting of success. But the war is not going to plan for any of the parties involved

Paul Rogers, 6 March 2026, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/us-iran-israel-war-lead-to-nuclear-weapons-donald-trump-netanyahu/

One week in, there is little prospect of an early end to the Israeli war with Iran and even less of preventing a regional escalation. Given Binyamin Netanyahu’s success in bringing Donald Trump’s United States on board as Israel’s partner in a widening war, he may feel satisfied with progress so far. In reality, though, the conflict is not going according to plan for any of the three states involved.

Netanyahu’s intended outcome was straightforward regime termination in Tehran, with the assassination of the supreme leader and most of Iran’s senior war leaders. A public uprising would then have followed, ending the power of the theocrats.

Israel and the US could then have brought sufficient force to terminate Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program and cut back its conventional forces, starting with the abolition of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Finally, the removal of the US’s punishing economic sanctions on Iran would have been agreed, allowing some civil recovery for the country – although this would, of course, have been contingent on the new leaders agreeing to oil and gas deals that would prove punitive for Iran and lucrative for the US, likely ensuring Trump’s continued support for Israel.

The Israeli war aims may have been clear, but it is impossible to say for sure what the White House wanted.

A muddle of reasons and statements of intent for bombing Iran have been given by Trump, his secretary of state, Marco Rubio and self-styled secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, who last year sought to rebrand from the ‘secretary of defense’ title that has been used by successive post-holders since the end of the Second World War. While Washington initially embraced Israel’s desire for total regime termination through an uprising, that aim has disappeared from its recent statements. Now it seems that crushing Iran’s military capabilities, starting with its nuclear ambitions, is the US order of the day.

For Iran’s theocratic leadership, the primary war aim was survival in the face of the massive power of the Israeli/US war machine, which would itself have been quite an achievement. Indeed, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, barely survived the first hour or so of the war before being killed in a missile strike.

The unexpected has since become clear: Khamenei is gone, but Iran’s leadership system is likely to survive for now. His successor will probably be his son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who will quite possibly be as hard-line as his father. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has declared that whoever is chosen as Iran’s next supreme leader will be “a target for elimination” – a clear indication that for Netanyahu and the Israeli Defence Forces, there is no turning back.

If regime survival is one of the surprises of the conflict, the other is Iran’s continuing ability to fire barrages of armed drones and ballistic missiles, which has been the least expected element of the war so far.

By last July, the IDF and the US believed they had massively damaged Iran’s air defences, with Trump boasting of “spectacular military success” in a press conference. On top of this, the past week has seen the determined and intensive targeting of Iran’s missile systems by the combined power of the IDF and US armed forces. Yet to the genuine surprise of many Western political and military analysts, Iran can still launch its missiles.

Three elements of this survival offer a clue as to what comes next.

One is that the regime in Tehran is likely to continue to survive. Look to Gaza, where Hamas is still active despite the massive destruction that Israel has inflicted over the past two and a half years. This, as I noted in last week’s column, is largely down to its quite extraordinary network of tunnels dug mostly by hand and reinforced with concrete walls. The network, which extends to around the distance from London to Edinburgh, has around 5,700 shafts, as well as electricity, ventilation and communication facilities.

In Iran, the IRGC now looks to have been similarly active in extensively preparing for war. It has built numerous and widely dispersed underground ‘missile cities’ – deep tunnel complexes built into mountains for making and storing armed drones and other weapons – as well as producing undersea armed drones for use against the US Navy, especially if it tries to guide tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

The second element follows on. There are indications that the IRGC appears to be using its older and least advanced missiles and drones first, aiming to deplete Israeli and US stocks of their anti-missile defences. Quite apart from anything else, this means Israel and the US are depleting their high-cost weaponry to “catch” incoming missiles, while Iran saves its most recently developed drones and ballistic missiles – with greater reach and more power for destruction, as well as improved accuracy and reliability – for later in the war.

Finally, there is the decision to opt for economic warfare against Western interests in many Gulf states. This involves the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, alongside attacks on oil and gas processing plants and distribution systems, as well as tourist infrastructure across the Gulf, with a luxury hotel in Dubai reportedly hit by a retaliatory strike.

This puts states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in a difficult position as to how to respond. To react forcefully by joining the war against Iran may be the natural response, but this has consequences. It means allying with an Israel that has killed at least 80,000 Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and enacted violence in the occupied West Bank to make life fraught with difficulty and increasingly dangerous.

This war is barely a week old but is having a worldwide impact and, despite Trump’s bluster, is already problematic for the US. The killing of at least 165 people, many of them children, at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls School in Minab is just one example of this, while another may be significant in a different way.

On Wednesday, a US Navy submarine torpedoed an Iranian frigate, the IRIS Dena, killing at least 87 crew members. The Dena had recently left a series of exercises organised by the Indian Navy in the Bay of Bengal, and its sinking was reported with great glee by Hegseth, who told reporters: “Yesterday, in the Indian Ocean, an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death. The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.”

Earlier in the press conference, Hesgeth had used the same celebratory and boastful tone to discuss what he framed as early US success. “We are only four days into this, and the results have been incredible. Historic, really,” he said. “Only the United States of America could lead this – only us. But when you add the Israeli Defence Forces, a devastatingly capable force, the combination is sheer destruction for our radical Islamist Iranian adversaries. They are toast, and they know it. Or at least, soon enough, they will know it. America is winning – decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy.”

The US war secretary’s speech betrayed the sense of impunity in Trump’s White House, confirming that members of his administration are certain in their own minds that in this war, Israel and the US can do what they like.

The consequences of this war are impossible to say for sure, but all roads appear to lead to increased uptake of nuclear weaponry, leaving the world an even less safe and stable place. If Israel and the US fail to terminate the Iranian regime and if any significant part of the IRGC survives, the very first thing it will do is to go to the ends of the earth to put together a crude nuclear device. Across the wider region, any state that sees two nuclear-armed regimes seeking to destroy a non-nuclear regime will see a need to go nuclear itself.

March 11, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Senator Joins Police to Eject Antiwar Marine From Hearing, Breaking His Arm

“America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel,” McGinnis said as he protested the hearing. “This is wrong.”

Police and Sheehy tried to force the protester out of the room as he yelled, “no one wants to fight for Israel.”

By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, March 5, 2026, https://truthout.org/articles/senator-joins-police-to-eject-anti-war-marine-from-hearing-breaking-his-arm/

Republican senator joined Capitol Police as they violently ejected an anti-war protester and U.S. Marine veteran from an Armed Services subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, appearing to break his arm as the group tried to wrestle him out of the chamber.

Video of the incident shows Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Republican from Montana, rushing over to help police as they try to tug and push the protester out of the chamber, as the protester yells, “no one wants to fight for Israel.” The protester appears to be wearing a U.S. Marine Corps dress uniform.

The protester, Green Party candidate Brian McGinnis, has his hand stuck in the door frame, with his arm hooked around the adjacent open door panel as several police try to force him out of the room. Sheehy lifts up McGinnis’s leg as police officers grab his torso and tug.

As Sheehy is moving over to dislodge the protester’s hand and tug on his arm, McGinnis’s forearm can be seen appearing to snap in half. There is a loud cracking sound, and bystanders begin to yell at the police to stop. Shortly after, officers let up on their tugging, and begin to work to dislodge McGinnis’s hand, as Sheehy returns to the front of the room.

“The senator broke his hand. A sitting U.S. senator just broke the hand of a Marine,” one person yells. One bystander asks McGinnis, “is your hand ok?”

“No, it’s not,” McGinnis responds. McGinnis is running for Senate in North Carolina, and is a Marine who fought in Iraq, according to his campaign website.

Police arrested McGinnis and have charged him with three counts of assault on a police officer, and three counts of resisting arrest and crowding, obstructing, and incommoding for his demonstration.

In a statement posted on McGinnis’s X account, his family expressed gratitude for the well wishes. “We are taking a necessary step back from the public eye to allow him to focus fully on his recovery in private,” the statement said.

The protest occurred during a hearing by the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, held to hear testimony from military officials on the readiness of various military branches for combat. The hearing was scheduled before the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28.

“America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel,” McGinnis said as he protested the hearing. “This is wrong.”

Sheehy called McGinnis an “unhinged protester,” and claimed on social media that he was trying to “help out and deescalate the situation,” ignoring that he helped lift McGinnis off the ground, potentially helping to break his arm.

“This gentleman came to the Capitol looking for a confrontation, and he got one,” Sheehy said, though McGinnis was merely protesting the hearing.

In a video posted to social media ahead of his protest, McGinnis said that he was in D.C. to “speak out against the Senate and ask them why they’re going to send our men and women to harm’s way.”

“Anyone who feels disillusioned and betrayed, you’re not alone. Join us in demanding accountability for this betrayal,” he said. “Free Palestine, free America.”

March 11, 2026 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

A War for Oil: Economist Michael Hudson on U.S. Quest to Control the World’s Oil Trade

By Democracy Now!

We speak with economist Michael Hudson, who details how President Trump opted to attack Iran despite progress at indirect U.S.-Iran negotiations. “The whole reason that America has attacked Iran has nothing to do with its getting an atom bomb,” but instead the aim was U.S. control of oil, says Hudson. The Trump administration may have been after the ability to “turn off the power” to countries that don’t follow U.S. foreign policy, he says.

Transcript……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://scheerpost.com/2026/03/04/a-war-for-oil-economist-michael-hudson-on-u-s-quest-to-control-the-worlds-oil-trade/

March 10, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Loony Bin Rationales: The Continuing War on Iran

6 March 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/loony-bin-rationales-the-continuing-war-on-iran/

Villainous lunacy is abundant these days as the bombing of Iran by Israel and the United States continues. The rationale for this illegal pre-emptive war that not only lacks legitimacy but should land its perpetrators in the docks of the International Criminal Court, continues to get increasingly muddled. With US President Donald Trump now given to giving press conferences on the conflict, loony bin mutterings are becoming increasingly the norm.

A common assumption behind these attacks is Israel’s firm, unremitting stranglehold on the US President. Combined with the considerable influence of what John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt called the “Israeli Lobby,” American foreign policy in the Middle East has been tenanted by Israeli interests. And Israel has shown itself to be a particularly bruising tenant in this regard.

While the central rationale is both fantastic and mendacious – namely, the destruction of a nuclear capability that had been, in any case, apparently obliterated last June – the view that Iran was going to unilaterally strike either Israel, the United States, its allies or all of the above, is fascinatingly absurd.

In a classified briefing with Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill on March 2, senior administration officials put forth the position that Israel had already planned to strike Iran, with or without US support. Present were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the increasingly deranged Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. Prior to the briefing, Rubio put forth the view that “there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer high casualties.” Israeli impulsiveness proved the heaviest of tails in wagging the dimmest of dogs.

This less than convincing explanation worried Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “This is still a war of choice that has been acknowledged by others that it was dictated by Israel’s goals and timeline.” He questioned whether American lives should be put at risk when an alleged imminent threat was directed at an ally. “Israel is a great ally of America. I stand firmly with Israel. But I believe at the end of the day when we are talking about putting American soldiers in harm’s way and we have American casualties and expectations of more, there needs to be the proof of an imminent threat to American interests. I still don’t think that standard has been met.” Had Iran actually posed an imminent threat to the US, “better planning” should have been in place.

An even clearer statement of the foolish rationale was allegedly put to conservative broadcaster and commentator Tucker Carlson by Trump himself, suggesting that Israel had essentially painted him into the smallest of corners. Carlson, according to The New York Times, had attempted no fewer than three times in meetings at the Oval Office to argue why the US should not go to war with Iran. Reasons for not doing so included risks to US military personnel, the soaring effects of war on energy prices and concern about how Washington’s Arab partners would react. He surmised that it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to strike Iran that was the sole reason the president was considering a military effort. It would be prudent, suggested Carlson, if the Israeli PM was restrained in his bellicosity.

Carlson has also personally expressed the view that the war took place “because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States War.” It had been launched on a freight of “lies” and orchestrated by Netanyahu’s beguiling approach. “The point is regional hegemony.” Israel wanted “to control the Middle East” and “sow chaos and disorder” in the Gulf.

Another right-wing commentator, Megyn Kelly, reiterated what had been a central, even canonical line of MAGA: “No one should have to die for a foreign country.” The four service members (there were actually six) who had given their lives for the US “died for Iran or for Israel.” The war was clearly Israel’s and based on a fictional threat. “Does it make any sense to you that Iran was planning pre-emptive strikes against us? Obviously, it doesn’t.”

Trump was dismissive of both Carlson and Kelly, slipping into that habit common to megalomaniacs humming before a mirror: he referred to himself in the third person. “I think MAGA is Trump – not the other two.” The movement wished “to see our country thrive and be safe, and MAGA loves what I’m doing.” Carlson’ could “say whatever he wants. It has no impact on me.”

Israel, however, did and does, though Trump, in what can only be regarded as piffling nonsense, is now promoting the view that Israel was the second hitter, with the US taking the bold lead. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” he reasoned at a bilateral meeting with Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz. As he “didn’t want that to happen,” Trump thought he “might have forced Israel’s hand, but Israel was ready and we were ready.”

Hegseth, in another mad, uneven display before the press, also laid the entire blame for the war on Iran itself. “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.” Not that the facts even mattered. International law did not exist. “No stupid rules of engagement, no national-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars.” (What do politically correct wars look like?) He sums up the jungle attitude to conflict, a deranged, semi-literate Tarzan whose views would sit well with the state machinery of Nazi Germany, one that showed the world how best to avoid international protocols and violate the laws of war in the name of streaky fantasy and monstrous ego.

March 10, 2026 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump Says He Must Have a Say in Picking Iran’s New Leader

by Dave DeCamp | March 5, 2026, https://news.antiwar.com/2026/03/05/trump-says-he-must-have-a-say-in-picking-irans-new-leader/

President Trump said in an interview with Axios on Thursday that he must have a say on who is chosen as Iran’s next leader following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, contradicting other administration officials who say the US’s goal is not regime change.

Trump made clear to Axios reporter Brak Ravid that Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has reportedly emerged as a frontrunner to replace his father, wouldn’t be acceptable to the US.

“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela,” the president said, referring to Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez.

The US didn’t choose Rodriguez as Nicolas Maduro’s replacement, but she was the next in line as the vice president and has been willing to work with the US to stave off another attack. A much different dynamic is unfolding in Iran as the killing of Khamenei has not slowed Iran’s military response, and the country’s leadership shows no sign of backing down despite the massive US-Israeli bombing campaign, which has killed over 1,000 civilians.

Trump said that he wouldn’t accept any leader who continues Khamenei’s policies because it would result in the US launching another war within five years. “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” he said.

Earlier this week, Trump said that all of the people he had in mind to replace Khamenei have been killed and acknowledged that in the end, Iran’s next leader could be “as bad” as Khamenei.

“The worst case would be we do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person,” he said. “That could happen. We don’t want that to happen. It would probably be the worst — you go through this and then in five years, you realize you put somebody in who was no better.”

March 10, 2026 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Canada will soon release new electricity and nuclear strategy, minister says 

 Canada’s Energy and Mining Minister Tim Hodgson said on Thursday ‌the
government will release a new electricity and nuclear strategy in the
coming months as demand for ⁠nuclear energy rises. “Investors want
clarity. They want speed, and they want direction from nations to which
they are allocating capital. That is why our government will release a
‌new ⁠comprehensive electricity and nuclear strategy in the coming
months, probably weeks,” Hodgson said at CIBC’s ⁠nuclear summit.

 Reuters 5th March 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/canada-will-soon-release-new-electricity-nuclear-strategy-minister-says-2026-03-05/

.

March 10, 2026 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »