Loading up or flying planes to Israel with tons of weapons that have already killed over 100,000 Palestinians. Any service member doing that is guilty of assisting genocide…the worst crime any servicemember can commit.
Loading up or flying planes bombing small, unarmed boats near Venezuela. This is premeditated mass murder of unknown persons. US makes sure all the boaters are killed so no record of their innocence is retained. Every one of the hundred or more boaters killed in 20 such sinkings emanated from military orders that were illegal and should have been resisted.
The US military is not content with illegal orders to support Israeli genocide in Gaza and obliterating small unarmed boats off Venezuela. Their Commander In Chief Trump has ordered 100 bombing strikes on imagined bad guys in Somalia this year. Does even one American in a million believe the lies emanating from Trump’s military that this mass murder in Somalia is crucial to protect the Homeland. Orders to relentlessly bomb a pitifully poor country 7,800 miles from America, posing no threat whatsoever, are illegal and should be disobeyed.
Granted its not easy to risk banishment from service, possibly even being imprisoned for disobeying these illegal orders. But one service member took such resistance to heroic heights. In February 2024 U.S. Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. to protest US support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Refusing to obey illegal orders to commit premeditated murder is the least that patriotic service members can do to end Uncle Sam’s worldwide killing rampage. We should commend the 6 members of Congress for reminding and supporting them to do that.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL
President Donald Trump and right-wing media have been quick to cite fentanyl interdiction as the supposed justification for the administration’s likely illegal strikes against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, which they have blamed on so-called “narco-terrorists” tied to the regime of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. But reporting has shown the Trump administration’s excuses are built on lies — with virtually no fentanyl arriving in the United States via routes currently being targeted by the military in a bombing campaign that has already claimed at least 83 lives.
This isn’t the first time Trump and his media allies have used fentanyl as an excuse for his out-of-control policies, as it was used to justify his instigation of a trade war with Mexico and Canada earlier this year. The Trump administration’s military buildup also follows multiple actions that undermine efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking into the U.S.
The New York Times: Military officials have told Congress “there was no fentanyl on the boats” destroyed by Trump administration military strikes. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) told the Times that according to briefings from military officials, the Trump administration’s “rationale for the strikes is because fentanyl is killing so many Americans, but these strikes are targeting cocaine.” Jacobs also told HuffPost that Pentagon officials “argued that cocaine is a facilitating drug of fentanyl, but that was not a satisfactory answer for most of us.” Another congressional source told HuffPost: “They’ve not recovered fentanyl in any of these cases. It’s all been cocaine.” [The New York Times, 11/19/25; HuffPost, 11/4/25]
The New York Times: Multiple government agencies have found that “Venezuela plays virtually no role in the fentanyl trade.” A September New York Times report explained: “Fentanyl is almost entirely produced in Mexico with chemicals imported from China, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Justice Department and the Congressional Research Service.” It added: “There is no proof that it is manufactured or trafficked from Venezuela or anywhere else in South America.” [The New York Times, 9/3/25]
The Atlantic: Coast Guard data shows “Fentanyl Doesn’t Come Through the Caribbean.” A September 26 article in The Atlantic countered the Trump administration’s justification for extrajudicial killings via military strikes against boats off the coast of Venezuela: “Although the United States Coast Guard interdicts staggering quantities of illegal drugs in the Caribbean each year, it does not encounter fentanyl on the high seas. South American cocaine and marijuana account for the overwhelming majority of maritime seizures, according to Coast Guard data, and there isn’t a single instance of a fentanyl seizure—let alone ‘bags’ of the drug—in the agency’s press releases.” [The Atlantic, 9/26/25]
According to the State Department’s March 2025 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: “The Department of State, in consultation with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other relevant agencies, has identified Mexico as the only significant source of illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues significantly affecting the United States during the preceding calendar year.” [Washington Office on Latin America, 11/5/25]
Trump has bombed boats and built up a military presence near Venezuela based on dubious fentanyl-trafficking claims
The United States has carried out at least 21 military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels, in which at least 83 people have been killed, in the Caribbean and the Pacific since September 2 Trump and the Department of Defense have claimed the boats carried fentanyl and were being operated by “narcoterrorists.” After the first strike, Trump claimed that the people on the boat were members of Tren de Aragua; the Trump administration has falsely claimed that gang is controlled by Venezuela’s government and invaded the U.S., and has used the gang to justify many unrelated immigration arrests. [CNN, 11/16/25; ABC News, 11/16/25; PolitiFact, 9/3/25; ProPublica, 11/13/25]
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, USA, NOVEMBER 21, 22, AND 23, 2025–The International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF) is proud to announce the highly anticipated North American Tour 2025 taking place November 21, 22 & 23 at the Downtown Cinemas in Las Vegas. Showcasing an array of compelling films and exploring the detrimental impacts of nuclear weapons testing, the festival promises to captivate audiences with its thought-provoking narratives and powerful storytelling. “You can’t hug your children with nuclear arms,” said Ian Zabarte, Secretary of NCAC.
Organizers of the IUFF Las Vegas, the Native Community Action Council (NCAC) composed of Shoshone and Paiute peoples believe these films are a necessary part of the ongoing awareness, witness and resistance to nuclear war, human health and a livable Mother Earth.
HIGHLIGHTS: “TO USE A MOUNTAIN” ● “WAYS OF KNOWING” ● “SILENT WAR” ● “UNDER THE CLOUD” are among the films addressing uranium, the fuel for both nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. As 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the first atomic bombings at the Trinity Site, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, the world faces a new Manhattan Project that includes nuclear modernization of weapons and the fast-tracking of uranium mining for nuclear-powered AI (artificial intelligence) data centers. The IUFF recognizes all radiation victims. Downwinders of nuclear weapons test sites and nuclear energy facilities are all impacted by environmental contamination that creates undue health risks that produce cascading health effects to future generations. The IUFF is a space for everyone who supports a nuclear-free future! We invite all to come together to view original films and to meet with affected community members, organizations and activists working toward protection from radiation risks, protection of our lands and water, and protection of all Peoples worldwide.
“The Shoshone Nation still bears the deadly legacy of nuclear testing on our unceded lands, an act that violates our treaty, our land and our lives.” said Laura Piffero of the NCAC.HIGHLIGHTS: “TO USE A MOUNTAIN” ● “WAYS OF KNOWING” ● “SILENT WAR” ● “UNDER THE CLOUD” are among the films addressing uranium, the fuel for both nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. As 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the first atomic bombings at the Trinity Site, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, the world faces a new Manhattan Project that includes nuclear modernization of weapons and the fast-tracking of uranium mining for nuclear-powered AI (artificial intelligence) data centers. The IUFF recognizes all radiation victims. Downwinders of nuclear weapons test sites and nuclear energy facilities are all impacted by environmental contamination that creates undue health risks that produce cascading health effects to future generations. The IUFF is a space for everyone who supports a nuclear-free future! We invite all to come together to view original films and to meet with affected community members, organizations and activists working toward protection from radiation risks, protection of our lands and water, and protection of all Peoples worldwide.
“The Shoshone Nation still bears the deadly legacy of nuclear testing on our unceded lands, an act that violates our treaty, our land and our lives.” said Laura Piffero of the NCAC.
Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat – The Ontario government’s decision today to approve a $26.8-billion refurbishment of Pickering Nuclear Generating Station Units 5–8 is a costly and high-risk choice that will push electricity bills higher, increase pollution, and sideline the clean-energy solutions Ontario urgently needs.
Nuclear power already dominates Ontario’s grid today and, under the government’s plan, would expand to 75 per cent of all electricity generation by 2050. Because nuclear is inflexible and cannot ramp up or down with demand, the entire system must be engineered around it, limiting its ability to integrate wind and solar. This design leaves Ontario relying more on fossil gas plants to balance the grid, driving up both emissions and costs.
Committing to refurbish Pickering—already one of the oldest nuclear stations in North America—adds more risk to an already risky strategy. And because Pickering’s reactors will be offline for most of the next decade before returning to service in the mid-2030s, the government plans to burn significantly more gas in the meantime—driving electricity-sector emissions from a near-zero low of 2.5 megatonnes to 20 megatonnes by 2030, wiping out most of the gains Ontario made in phasing out coal.
The government claims the refurbishment will create nearly 37,000 jobs, but this does not change the fundamental reality: nuclear is one of the most expensive sources of electricity. Wind and solar are now the lowest-cost sources of new power worldwide, including here in Ontario. Meanwhile, nuclear remains a key driver of the recent 29 per cent increase in electricity rates. The government is masking the true cost by shifting expenses onto the tax base—but taxpayers and ratepayers are the same people, and they will ultimately cover the bill.
At the same time, Ontario is planning for fewer renewables in 2050 than we will have in the 2030s. This flies in the face of global trends, where clean energy is being deployed at record scale because it is affordable, flexible, and fast to build. Pairing wind and solar with hydro power and battery storage has become the backbone of clean-energy systems worldwide—yet Ontario’s nuclear-heavy strategy sidelines these solutions for decades.
Ontario does not need to choose a pathway that locks in higher costs and higher emissions. There is still time to shift course toward a modern electricity system that prioritizes renewables, energy efficiency, storage, and reliability—without saddling Ontarians with decades of unnecessary nuclear expansion and increased gas burning.
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
In a review of published studies of 136 nuclear reactor sites in the European Journal of Cancer Care in 2007, elevated leukemia disease rates in children were documented in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, and Canada. This is not a new story.
More than electricity, the reactors supply a steady dose of radioactive tritium in drinking water, writes Susu Jeffrey
“Sometimes before I give a speech, I ask the audience to stand up if they or someone in their family has had cancer,” says John LaForge of Nukewatch. “Eighty percent of the audience gets up.”
The Monticello nuclear power reactor is on the Mississippi River about 35-miles northwest of Minneapolis. Xcel’s twin Prairie Island reactors, plus about 50 giant dry casks storing waste reactor fuel, are all in the floodplain of the Mississippi. This waste is sited 44 to 51 miles southeast of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
There are no plans to move the waste off-island because there is no alternative destination. In fact, 34 more concrete encased steel casks are planned. There is no national hot radioactive waste repository. Think of these waste container sites as permanent radioactive waste dumps.
The greater Twin Cities’ 3.7 million people are in the nuclear “shadow” (within 50 miles) of all three nukes. The Mississippi River serves 20 million people with drinking water, way beyond the Minnesota state population of 5.7 million. Minnesota’s aging nukes are a national threat. For approximately the next six generations, radioactive tritium will be a part of the drinking water wherever those molecules wander.
The Monticello nuke was licensed in 1970 for 40 years, and went online in 1971, a year it had two radioactive cesium spills. In 2010, the license was renewed for another 20 years until 2030. Xcel Energy has even been granted an extension for another 20 years until 2050. It is a corporate financial security move not yet approved by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission which holds the final consent. Paperwork is one thing, pipes are another.
In November 2022, a 50-year-old underground pipe leaked 829,000 gallons of tritium-contaminated wastewater that reached the Mississippi River, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Xcel failed to make public the radioactive spill for four months. After a May 15, 2024 public hearing in Monticello where citizens testified “We don’t trust you. You lie,” an NRC executive “clarified” Xcel’s “miscommunication.”
No telling where Xcel’s radioactive molecules will land. Men have a one in two chance of being diagnosed with cancer during their lifetimes; for women the chance is one in three (National Cancer Institute, 2/9/2022). There is tremendous popular, fear-driven support for the oncology industry.
The good news is that while cancer numbers are up so is the cancer survival rate. However, at nuke weapons, nuke reactors, and the virtually forever waste sites, “accidents” happen along with on-going radioactive decay. Radioactivity cannot be contained. When I was a newspaper reporter in Brevard County, Florida, where Cape Canaveral is located, I learned that nuclear waste cannot be rocketed off into space because it’s too hot, too heavy, and the rockets too faulty.
Nuclear Safety Regulations Changing
Among President Trump’s cost-cutting moves is a weakening of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s exposure standards. Staff would be cut and regulations “revised” virtually cutting off the commission’s independent status. The Monticello nuke was licensed for 40 years and was rubber stamped to work for 80. Octogenarian nukes are considered “safe enough” now by the nuclear/government consortium.
Piecemeal fix-it parts for geriatric machinery or people are a lucrative business. Locating a leaking tritium pipe underground, between buildings, removing and replacing it is a non-negotiable emergency at nuclear reactors with miles and miles of piping. Upkeep expenses figure in utility rate hikes.
Joseph Mangano and Ernest Sternglass did a study of eight downwind US communities in the two years after a nuclear reactor closure. A remarkable 17.4 percent drop in infant mortality was found. “We finally have peer-reviewed accurate data attaching nuclear power reactors to death and injury in the host communities,” New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky said of the 2002 report in the Archives of Environmental Health.
Monopoly capitalism or public service?
Clearly the Monticello reactor was designed to make money. In November 2024, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison wrote that Xcel has “aggressively” pursued multi-year rate hikes while earning large profits. In 2024 Xcel reported $1.94-billion net earnings, a profit margin up 14% from 2023.
According to Xcel propaganda, the nuke is “the biggest employer and largest local taxpayer” in Monticello, MN, and generates an estimated $550 million in economic activity each year in the region. And like profits, cancer rates are up notably among people under 50 and rising faster among women than men the American Cancer Society reports.
Repeatedly, the Xcel corporation wins its rate hike and re-licensing “asks.” These asks get rewritten and resubmitted until a “compromise” is reached. In 2025, residential customers will pay $5.39 more per month, down from the original ask of $9.89, according to Minnesota Public Radio, which also noted that greater increases are on the horizon for EVs and data center capital improvements.
Cancer
St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital advertises heavily with videos of big-eyed, bald children cancer patients. In a review of published studies of 136 nuclear reactor sites in the European Journal of Cancer Care in 2007, elevated leukemia disease rates in children were documented in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, and Canada. This is not a new story.
The danger of mental retardation of fetuses exposed in the womb was reported in The New York Times (page A1 on 12/20/1989). Tritium crosses the placenta. In addition to the health costs of breathing and ingesting exhausts from nuclear power reactors, there is the problem of what to do with and how to contain its long-lived waste. The nuclear profit god is a once and future terrorist.
In October, hexavalent chromium contamination was found beneath Pueblo de San Ildefonso while LANL was drilling a new well on the Pueblo, called San Ildefonso Regional Monitoring Well 3, or SIMR-3, in Mortandad Canyon. The Pueblo and LANL share borders in the area of Mortandad Canyon.
In Friday’s letter, the Environment Department wrote to LANL that “[S]ince 2021, DOE has neither complied with [the Environment Department’s] regulatory directives nor made substantial progress towards ensuring the protection of the regional aquifer. The latest sampling results from SIMR-3 prove that DOE’s refusal to take appropriate steps to ensure that contamiantion does not migrate further in the regional aquifer or offsite has created the harm to the environment that [the Environment Department] sought to prevent.”
hite House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed on Monday that “all orders” by President Donald Trump should be “presumed” legal by the military, as she defended comments he made last week threatening Democratic lawmakers with “DEATH.”
Speaking to reporters outside of the White House on Monday, Leavitt claimed that Democrats were trying to create “chaos” within the military by reminding service members of their right to refuse to carry out illegal orders.
“All orders, lawful orders are presumed to be legal by our service members. You can’t have a functioning military if there is disorder and chaos within the ranks,” Leavitt said.
“And that’s what these Democrat members were encouraging. It’s very clear,” she went on, saying that none of them “can point to a single illegal order that this administration has given down, because it does not exist.”
Leavitt said that the White House backs the Department of Defense’s probe into Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) over a video he put out with fellow lawmakers reminding military members of their oath to “defend this Constitution.” A former Naval aviator, Sen. Kelly remains subject to military law despite retiring from the Navy in 2011.
“You can refuse illegal orders,” Kelly said in the video, alongside other ex-military and intelligence Democrats. “We need you to stand up for our laws. Our Constitution. And who we are as Americans.”
The lawmakers were referencing rights afforded to service members under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which says that individuals in the military are not obligated to carry out orders that are illegal under U.S. law and known to be so by the service member. This summer, Truthout reported that a GI Rights Hotline saw an uptick in calls from members of the military seeking support for defying potentially illegal orders by Trump, like orders to carry out his immigration raids.
Leavitt’s assertion that all orders must be presumed to be legal is absurd on its face, regardless of who is handing down the orders. However, it echoes the twisted logic of a secretive Justice Department legal memo on the administration’s Latin American boat strike campaign, which reportedly suggests that Trump and his administration’s word alone is enough to establish legality for strikes. It also follows with the Trump administration’s relentless attempts to concentrate power within the executive branch, without oversight from Congress or other bodies.
The press secretary’s claim that there isn’t a “single illegal order” that has been passed down by the Trump administration is also patently false, experts have repeatedly said; as legal scholar Marjorie Cohn has noted for Truthout, the use of military force to detain and deport immigrants could be considered illegal, as well as Trump’s boat strikes.
Meanwhile, even officials within the military reportedly disagree. Last week, NBC reported that a senior judge advocate general, known as a JAG, raised concerns in August that the operations were unlawful. The man, a top military lawyer for the command that oversees the strikes, said that they could expose service members to legal action due to the illegality of the strikes, but his concerns were dismissed by more senior officials, sources said.
he vast majority of Americans say that the Trump administration hasn’t given proper explanation for potential military action in Venezuela and oppose the idea of strikes in the country, new polling finds as the U.S. builds up its military presence in the region.
New CBS/YouGov polling conducted late last week shows that 70 percent of Americans say that they would oppose the U.S. taking military action in Venezuela, with only 30 percent saying they support such an action.
Yahoo News, Catherine Lévesque, Wed, November 26, 2025
OTTAWA — Pressed on a Crown corporation’s decision to award a contract to a U.S.-based joint venture for the management of the country’s nuclear laboratories, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson suggested his government’s promise of “elbows up” can mean “lots of things.”
The National Post first revealed in June that critics were sounding the alarm on the recent decision by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) to award a contract to sole bidder Nuclear Laboratory Partners of Canada Inc. (NLPC) — a joint venture led by U.S.-based BWXT — for the management and operation of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL).
CNL includes mainly Chalk River Laboratories, the birthplace of the CANDU reactor.
Critics raised national security concerns about giving access to Canada’s homegrown nuclear technology to companies involved with the U.S. Department of Defence at a time when Canada’s sovereignty was seemingly under attack by the Trump administration.
It appeared to be also contrary to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “elbows up” campaign promise, even though AECL awarded the contract independently from the government.
NLPC is spearheaded by Virginia-based BWXT — an important supplier to the U.S. Defence Department. The other partners are Amentum — also based in Virginia — and Kinectrics Inc. — a company based in Toronto but bought by BWXT earlier this year.
Its key subcontractor, Ohio-based Batelle Memorial Institute, is the world’s largest research and development organization and manages national laboratories, including for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Are you against any American company operating in Canada?” the minister asked Tochor, adding that he does not think that view is “consistent” with Conservative thinking.
Tochor shot back: “I think it’s consistent with the ‘elbows up’ campaign you just ran.”
Hodgson replied that “‘elbows up’ means lots of things.”
“Elbows up means negotiating with all of the countries in the world, doubling our exports, creating alternatives to Americans. That’s what we’re doing,” he said.
The resolution incorporates Donald Trump’s “peace plan.” It grants control over Gaza to the U.S.-led “Board of Peace” and it orders the deployment of a U.S.-led occupation force called “International Stabilization Force (ISF).” Trump will oversee both colonial bodies, in collaboration with Israel. Palestinians will not be allowed to participate in their own governance.
“It is a brazen attempt to impose, by threat of continued force against a virtually defenseless population, U.S. and Israeli interests, plain and simple.”
A UN Special Rapporteur has decried the resolution as a violation of Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly committed the UN’s original sin when it partitioned Palestine to create Israel. This launched the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous people, and the establishment of a settler colonial state.
Now, 78 years later, the UN Security Council has committed the UN’s second cardinal sin. It enshrined Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, put its imprimatur on Israel’s genocide, and granted colonial control over the lives of the Palestinians to the United States, which has aided and abetted the genocide.
On November 17, 2025, the Council adopted Resolution 2803, by a vote of 13-0. Russia and China, both permanent members of the Security Council, could have vetoed it. But shamefully they abstained, ostensibly influenced by support for the resolution from several Arab and Muslim states, including Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
The resolution incorporates Donald Trump’s “peace plan.” It grants control over Gaza to the U.S.-led “Board of Peace” and it orders the deployment of a U.S.-led occupation force called “International Stabilization Force (ISF).” Trump will oversee both colonial bodies, in collaboration with Israel. Palestinians will not be allowed to participate in their own governance.
The Board of Peace is designed to function as a transitional administrator of Gaza. It will control all services and humanitarian aid, all ingress and egress into and out of Gaza, and will supervise the financing and reconstruction of Gaza. The resolution “underscores the importance” of humanitarian assistance but does not require the unimpeded provision of aid.
The ISF will not be a peacekeeping force. Since the Council authorized it “to use all necessary measures to carry out its mandate,” the ISF will have the power to disarm Palestinian groups, as Israel insists. There is no provision in the resolution for disarming the Israel Occupation Forces, the body that has been conducting the genocide.
“A military force answering to a so-called ‘Board of Peace’ chaired by the President of the United States, an active party to this conflict that has continually provided military, economic and diplomatic support to the illegal occupying Power, is not legal,” said Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. “It is a brazen attempt to impose, by threat of continued force against a virtually defenseless population, U.S. and Israeli interests, plain and simple.”
“Essentially, it will leave Palestine in the hands of a puppet administration, assigning the United States, which shares complicity in the genocide, as the new manager of the open-air prison that Israel has already established,” Albanese added.
Since October 2023, Israel has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 170,000. Nearly everyone in Gaza has been displaced by Israel multiple times and Gaza has largely been reduced to rubble. Israel has violated the latest ceasefire at least 393 times and killed at least 312 Palestinians since it went into effect on October 10, 2025.
In three recent cases, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found a plausible case of genocide by Israel, that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful, and that Israel has illegally used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Resolution Violates the Palestinian People’s Right to Self-Determination
The Security Council resolution violates fundamental tenets of international law including the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. “The ICJ was clear: self-determination is an inalienable right of the Palestinian people and the UN and all States have an obligation to assist in its realization,” Albanese said…………………………………………………..
Resolution 2803 “rewards the U.S., a co-perpetrator of genocide, with control over Gaza and its potentially lucrative reconstruction process, while simultaneously relieving the Israeli regime of all of its responsibilities as an illegally occupying force,” Yara Hawari wrote in Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian-led think tank. “Palestinian participation is expected to be tightly limited and heavily conditioned. Trump’s plan confines it to ‘technocratic’ and ‘apolitical’ roles, subject to continuous external supervision and effectively excluding any representatives with democratic legitimacy or political agency.”
Hamas and other Palestinian factions rejected the resolution. They wrote in a joint statement that ISF “will turn into a type of imposed guardianship or administration — reproducing a reality that restricts the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and to managing their own affairs.”
“Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation,” Hamas said…………………………………………………………………………
it won’t prevent Israel from carrying out its military operations or aerial bombardments of Gaza. It may even help Israel achieve its goals.”
Uniting for Peace
……………………………………………..In adopting Resolution 2803, the Security Council did not discharge its responsibilities under the Charter to act on behalf of Palestine, a permanent observer state, which is undergoing the first live-streamed genocide in history. Nor is the Council discharging its responsibility to maintain international peace and security by memorializing an illegal occupation and an ongoing genocide.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has declared that he will introduce a Uniting for Peace resolution in the UN General Assembly to establish a multinational protection force for Palestinians and levy sanctions and an arms blockade to end the genocide and liberate Palestine from the unlawful Israeli occupation.
In retaliation, the U.S. government has revoked Petro’s visa, imposed sanctions against him, raised punitive tariffs on Colombia, and threatened the use of military force against Colombia.
People opposed to the U.S.’s colonial takeover of Palestine can join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, lobby for arms embargoes, and support accountability for Israeli and U.S. leaders responsible for perpetrating the genocide.
the escalation that Trump claims is the latest battle in the “War on Drugs” comes two years after he explicitly announced his desire to take control of Venezuela’s oil,
War would deliver “not security but a torrent of bloodshed,” said a letter signed by dozens of political leaders.
ith thousands of US troops patrolling the Caribbean, at least eight warships deployed in the region, and the BBCreporting that it tracked four US military planes that flew near Venezuela Thursday night, lawmakers and other leaders from across Europe on Friday issued a unified demand for the Trump administration to deescalate the tensions it has ratcheted up in recent weeks.
The administration’s “show of force has already proved lethal,” said the leaders, with more than 80 people — including fishermen and an out-of-work bus driver — having been killed in the US military’s strikes on more than 20 boats, which the administration has insisted were trafficking drugs to the US. The White House has publicized no evidence of the claims.
President Donald Trump has not taken further military action against Venezuela since he was presented with “options” for potential strikes last week by officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, nor has he followed through with threats he’s made against Mexico and Colombia.
But the European leaders — including British Members of Parliament Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, and Spanish Member of European Parliament Irene Montero Gil — noted that Trump “severed diplomatic channels with Caracas and approved covert [Central Intelligence Agency] operations in Venezuela” as the military buildup continues in the region.
The Trump administration has insisted it is engaged in a legal “armed conflict” with drug cartels in Venezuela, which it has accused of trafficking fentanyl to the US — though experts say drug boats originating in Venezuela are “are mainly moving cocaine from South America to Europe,” and analysis by both the United Nations and US intelligence agencies have shown the South American country plays virtually no role in the production or transit of fentanyl.
The US Congress has not authorized any military action against drug cartels or Venezuela’s government, and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have attempted to pass war powers resolutions blocking the US from striking more boats or targets on land in Venezuela, only to have the resolutions voted down.
In his second term, Trump has sought to tie Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to drug cartels — despite a declassified US intelligence memo showing officials rejected the claim — and designated Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organization last week, giving the White House what Hegseth called “new options” to go after the group.
But the escalation that Trump claims is the latest battle in the “War on Drugs” comes two years after he explicitly announced his desire to take control of Venezuela’s oil, and following years of condemnation of Maduro’s socialist government from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The European leaders said the administration’s narrative about the threat Venezuela poses to the US and the escalation is simply the “latest attempt to threaten and undermine the sovereignty of Latin America and the Caribbean nations.”
“Declassified documents have confirmed the CIA’s hand in overthrowing democratically elected governments in Latin America, such as Salvador Allende’s Chile in 1973, João Goulart’s Brazil in 1964, and Jacobo Árbenz’s Guatemala in 1954. The human cost of these regime change operations was catastrophic, and their political legacy endures,” reads the letter, which was organized by Progressive International.
A military intervention by the US in Venezuela “would mark the first interstate war by the United States in South America,” the leaders said, yet “the pretext for intervention is as tired as it is familiar.”
“Under the banner of combating the ‘narco-terrorists,’ Trump celebrates lethal strikes against peaceful fishermen arbitrarily labeled as carrying drugs,” the leaders said.
As in the past, they added, moving the War on Drugs to Venezuela would deliver “not security but a torrent of bloodshed, dispossession, and destabilization.”
Therefore, we condemn in the strongest terms the military escalation against Venezuela,” they said. “Our demand is clear and our resolve is firm: No war on Venezuela.”
As Peoples Dispatchreported Thursday, many European leaders have “subordinated” themselves to Trump and have avoided speaking out against the US escalation with Venezuela, but left-wing political parties have led the way in denouncing the US deployment of soldiers and warships to the region.
The Workers’ Party of Belgium said recently that the world is “witnessing an unprecedented military escalation in 20 years, a multifaceted aggression that threatens not only Venezuela, but any project of sovereignty and social justice in Latin America.”
A Washington Post story headlined the “White House Blew Past Legal Concerns in Deadly Strikes on Drug Boats,” reported that “There is no actual threat justifying self defense — there are not organized armed groups seeking to kill Americans.” The Post quoted a former senior official saying, “The question is, is it legal just to kill the guy if he’s not threatening to kill you … There are people who are simply uncomfortable with the president just declaring we’re at war with drug traffickers.”
For a more critical perspective on Venezuela, we turn to Venezuelanalysis.com and their conversation with Atilio Borón (Borón is an Argentine sociologist, political scientist, professor, and essayist, he holds a doctorate in Political Science from Harvard University), Their conversation examines the administration’s military expansion in the country. Some key takeaways include:
“Venezuela remains a strategic target … global oil markets are more strategic than ever, and geological surveys confirm that Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world … greater even than those of Saudi Arabia!”
“Latin America has long been described as a continent in dispute, and today that dispute is sharper than ever. … What we are witnessing now, however, is an open display of brute military force.”
“This is the largest imperialist air–naval military buildup in our region since the October 1962 Missile Crisis.”
“New actors have emerged with decisive weight, fundamentally reshaping geopolitics … China is here to stay.”
I also recommend checking out this graphic also from Venezuelanalysis.com — it details the scale of weaponry in the region:
Here’s the reporting from CNN on the situation, including Trump’s discussion about attacking Mexico, with a chilling interview at the end between Jake Tapper and GOP House member Carlos Gimenez.
From yesterday, former ambassador James Story discussed the situation. I’ll add that it still doesn’t pass the smell test. It feels like we’re being pushed toward a conflict — framed through what the former ambassador called Venezuela’s relationship with our “strategic competitors.” At this point in world history, can’t we find a way to get along? Naive or not, I don’t want the world to melt down.
Of course I’m posting this video from a mainstream source, but where are the questions for our leaders and former leaders that push back — even slightly — against the status quo narrative? Honestly, it brings me back to an old classroom discussion about nuclear war: If a nation is treated as an enemy, or labeled a “strategic competitor,” and you make it clear you want them weakened or destroyed, why wouldn’t they stockpile weapons? Or, more simply put: if your neighbor hates you and has an axe, maybe you go get an axe too.
I guess I’m still wishful enough to hope that the United States could be the bigger person and put the axe down — especially when, in our case, we have the Fifth Fleet. Here is former Ambassador Story:
President Donald Trump shamefully welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House today. He brushed aside questions about Prince Mohammed’s role in the gruesome murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, commenting that “things happen” and “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
Freedom of the Press Foundation Director of Advocacy Seth Stern said:
“Somehow calling a female reporter ‘piggy’ was only the second-most offensive anti-press utterance to come out of the president’s mouth in recent days. And somehow Biden’s infamous fist bump is now only the second-most disgusting public display of flattery by a U.S. president to journalist-murderer Mohammed bin Salman.
“Scolding a U.S. reporter for asking questions about MBS ordering a fellow journalist to be bonesawed signals to dictators everywhere that they can murder journalists with impunity — as if Trump hadn’t already sent that message clearly enough by bankrolling and arming Israel while it does just that in Gaza.
“Today’s fiasco felt like the nail in the coffin for whatever was left of the U.S.’s global standing as a leader on press freedom. The next president is going to have their work cut out for them in rebuilding that credibility. In the meantime, judges, lawmakers, and everyone else in a position to slow the backslide need to step up and rise to the moment before more journalists get killed.”
Santa Fe, NM – An internal Department of Energy (DOE) memorandum eliminates worker and public radiation protection rules known “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA). This fundamental departure from decades of accepted health physics practices is being promoted by senior DOE political appointees with little background in health or radiation control. It is marked as “URGENCY: High” under the auspices of the DOE Deputy Secretary, the Under Secretary for Science, and the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The memorandum awaits the final signature of DOE Secretary Chris Wright.
The memo’s stated goal is to:
“…remove the ALARA principle from all DOE directives and regulations, including DOE Order 458.1, Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment, NE [Office of Nuclear Energy] Order 458.1, Radiation Protection of the Public, and, upon completion of the rulemaking process, 10 CFR [Code of Federal Regulations] 835, Occupational Radiation Protection.” [1]
It follows the playbook of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which called for:
“Set[ting] clear radiation exposure and protection standards by eliminating ALARA (“as low as reasonably achievable”) as a regulatory principle and setting clear standards according to radiological risk and dose rather than arbitrary objectives.”[2]
Contrary to Project 2025’s assertion that ALARA is just “arbitrary objectives,” the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration declares it to be:
“…the cornerstone principle of radiation safety, emphasizing that radiation exposure should be minimized to the lowest possible levels while still allowing essential tasks to be performed. This principle applies everywhere radiation is present, including medical, industrial, nuclear, and research settings… ALARA is not just a recommendation—it is a legal and ethical requirement in radiation-related industries.”[3]
The elimination of ALARA protections is likely to increase radiation exposures to workers and weaken cleanup standards at contaminated sites where DOE has binding legal requirements with the impacted states (e.g., Los Alamos Lab, NM; Hanford Nuclear Reservation, WA and West Valley Demonstration Project, NY), as well as DOE Legacy Management sites where residual contamination remains after completion of claimed “cleanup” (e.g., Rocky Flats, CO and Weldon Spring, MO).
DOE’s memo purports to remove red tape constraining construction of new nuclear power plants, which inevitably experience huge cost overruns at ratepayers’ expense because of the inherent economic problems with nuclear power. However, because DOE’s primary mission is expanding nuclear weapons production, the elimination of ALARA protections will hit workers and nearby communities by allowing higher worker and public doses.
Two pertinent examples are the expanding production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores at the Los Alamos Lab and future pit production at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At the same time, the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s role of nuclear safety oversight is being crippled by the Trump Administration’s refusal to nominate candidates to the Board. Moreover, DOE’s termination of ALARA rules can even downgrade international radiation protection standards because the Department provides staff and training for the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.
DOE’s high-level memorandum relies heavily upon a recent study by its Idaho National Laboratory.[4] According to the memo, the INL Report concluded:
“The balance of available scientific evidence indicates that annual dose rates of 5,000 mrem or less have not been shown to result in detectable increases in adverse health outcomes across diverse human populations and exposure scenarios. Furthermore, substantial evidence suggests that even 10,000 mrem/year may maintain a reasonable safety margin based on available epidemiological and radiobiological data.”
This is highly debatable (see comments by an independent epidemiologist below). By way of comparison, a standard chest X-ray is around 10 millirem (mrem) and an average annual radiation dose from all sources (including natural) to any one individual in the United States is around 600 mrem.[5] The INL report begins to rationalize public radioactive doses that are up to 16 times higher.
The Idaho National Laboratory is where DOE extracted weapons grade uranium from spent reactor fuel for warhead production, resulting in significant ground water contamination and “temporary” storage of liquid high-level waste now estimated to cost billions of dollars to stabilize. Nevertheless, according to INL Director John Wagner, the Idaho National Laboratory Report specifically recommends:
Eliminating all ALARA requirements and limits below the 5,000 mrem occupational dose limit in order to reduce “unnecessary economic burdens.”
Multiplying five-fold the allowed public radioactive dose limit from 100 mrem per year to 500 mrem per year.
Supporting ongoing research on low-dose radiation effects to “further refine scientific understanding and regulatory approaches.”
Ongoing research on low-dose radiation effects” is aimed at the Linear No-Threshold principle, which maintains that no dose of radiation is safe. Related, ALARA is considered to be the global bedrock of radiation protection for nuclear workers and the public and is widely accepted as best practices by health physics professionals. Historically, more than 10,000 DOE workers have filed compensation claims for their occupational illnesses, which argues for strengthening, not weakening, occupational protection standards.
In parallel with DOE under Trump Executive Orders, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (which oversees the nuclear energy industry) is questioning the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) principle. In recent written comment to the NRC, epidemiologist Joseph Mangano summarized decades of studies supporting LNT. His cited evidence includes:
Studies of low-dose pelvic X-rays to pregnant women in the mid-1950s that concluded that a single X-ray would nearly double the risk of the child dying of cancer or leukemia by age ten.
A 1990 study by the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) that concluded that cancers and genetic damage increase with low-level radiation as a linear, non-threshold function of the dose. It included over 900 references that support LNT.
A second BEIR study in 2005 that reiterated the risks of low-dose radiation exposures.
A 2020 systematic review of 26 studies involving 91,000 individuals with solid cancers and 13,000 with leukemia that documented excess risks caused by low dose radiation.
A 2023 study of 309,932 workers at nuclear plants in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States that found 28,089 had died of solid cancers with occupational doses well below Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors. This suggests that the Linear No-Threshold model may actually underestimate the harmful effects of prolonged low radiation doses.[6]
Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, concluded: “The Trump Administration is pumping taxpayers’ money into the much hyped “nuclear renaissance,” now in its third or fourth failed attempt, while cutting Medicaid for the poor and cutting taxes for the rich. But this time the corporate nuclear titans are being given a leg up by cutting nuclear safety protections for workers and the public, inevitably causing more illnesses. The good news is that fundamental market economics will eventually collapse the nuclear industry. However, one has to ask, at what safety costs to other sectors, such as the expanding production of nuclear weapons for the new arms race?”
Last month, the Trump administration announced a deal to spend at least $80 billion to build at least 10 new large-scale Westinghouse reactors, a move that seemed to anoint a “national champion” in nuclear power. On its face, the agreement appeared to offer these new U.S. AP1000s — the type of reactor built at Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle in Georgia — with a guarantee of financing akin to direct funding from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.
But exactly how the $80 billion will be spent and when remains an open question.
The details are unusual. Rather than coming from the Energy Department, the Department of Commerce brokered the deal in what one Republican source described as an example of the administration’s internal “chaos.” Rather than coming from the federal budget, the $80 billion appears to be contingent upon Japan fulfilling its $550 billion investment in the U.S. that President Donald Trump negotiated in Tokyo last month. Rather than funneling the money through an entity such as the LPO, the disbursement process remains unclear.
“Without a sense of how this $80 billion is going to be used for nuclear in the U.S., it’s not going to give actual developers or owner-operators a chance to structure their own finances in response,” Advait Arun, a former Treasury Department analyst who now researches capital markets and energy finance at the Center for Public Enterprise think tank, told Latitude Media. “Is $80 billion going to go through LPO? Will it go through the White House? Are there other costs? There [are] all these different ways to imagine how the $80 billion will flow.”
Adding to the uncertainty, a top Energy Department official said this week the federal government may take ownership of the new reactors outright.
“The role of having the government involved in private markets is sacrosanct; you just don’t do it,” Carl Coe, the Energy Department’s chief of staff, said at a conference hosted by the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council. “But this is a national emergency.”
In a statement, Cameco, the Canadian uranium giant that owns a 49% stake in Westinghouse, said the initial agreement with the Trump administration set the stage to “negotiate and enter into definitive” contracts. Brookfield Asset Management, the private equity firm that owns the 51% share of the nuclear giant, told Latitude Media it expected to broker a binding contract by early next year. ……………………………………………………………………….
The big investor-owned utilities — Exelon, Duke, or Southern Company, for example — are arguably the ones with the resources to pursue a new nuclear deal. But so far, they have resisted building the plants themselves.
“I wouldn’t build a nuclear plant,” Calvin Butler, CEO of utility giant Exelon, told CNBC last week. “What I could do is lean in on combined-cycle gas turbines. What I could do is build community solar. What I could do is own battery storage.”
In an earnings call earlier this month, Duke CEO Harry Sideris said North Carolina’s biggest utility would need to sort out some insurance policy to manage cost overruns before embarking on its loose plans to build more than a gigawatt of new nuclear power by 2037.
“We still need to figure out what we’re going to do with cost overrun protection and how we’re going to protect our investors and our customers from overruns,” Sideris told investors on the call. “Nothing going forward until we have those other items resolved.”
Westinghouse is pursuing alternative ways to bring down the cost of new reactors. Earlier this week, the company debuted new artificial intelligence software it’s developing with Google to streamline construction and reduce the enormous cost of interest payments on loans from slow buildouts.
‘A shiny toy’
That the landmark Westinghouse agreement came through the Commerce Department rather than the Energy Department is a sign of the lack of coordination between agencies under the Trump administration, a Republican source with direct knowledge of the White House’s nuclear plans told Latitude Media.
“Everyone is running around the globe trying to make deals to bring a shiny toy back to the president,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The source said it was a situation of “the left hand not knowing what the right is doing,” and expressed doubt that the Japanese would direct that much funding toward a non-Japanese company in the U.S.
But that might be about to change. In late October, hard-right stalwart Sanae Takaichi took office as prime minister, pushing her plans to rebuild her country’s nuclear sector. More than half of Japan’s operable reactors are still offline as part of a nationwide shutdown that occurred after the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi accident, but the new Takaichi administration is aiming to restart those reactors and build new ones………………. https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/trumps-westinghouse-nuclear-deal-comes-with-unresolved-questions/
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