USA « nuclear-news

United States: Pronuclear Energy Laws Sweep Through State Legislatures

The US nuclear sector is understandably focused on leveraging Washington’s
ever-expanding portfolio of policy support for new nuclear deployments, but
what may ultimately turn out to be just as important is state-level
support.

Lawmakers in dozens of states are introducing record amounts of
legislation meant to advance nuclear projects, as governors create offices
or advisory groups meant to help stand up statewide deployments. Multiple
states are now incorporating nuclear energy into decarbonization
initiatives, working to attract deep-pocketed hyperscalers looking to build
power-hungry data centers, or both.

Energy Intelligence 1st Aug 2025,
https://www.energyintel.com/00000198-6198-db4e-a9bd-ed9ff0900001

August 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump Deploys Nuclear Subs Amid War of Words With Russia’s Medvedev.

The US president and the former Russian president have exchanged verbal threats about possible nuclear strikes amid the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

AUG 2, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles/trump-deploys-nuclear-subs-amid-war-of-words-with-russias-medvedev

US President Donald Trump ordered the repositioning of two nuclear submarines on 2 August in response to “highly provocative” comments made by Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council.

“I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social Platform on Friday.

On Thursday, Medvedev had warned that Trump should be mindful of “how dangerous” Russia’s nuclear weapons could be.

“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances,” Trump stated.

In recent weeks, Trump has been exchanging public insults and nuclear threats with Medvedev, who is viewed as close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this week, Trump insulted Medvedev directly, stating, “Russia and the USA do almost no business together. Let’s keep it that way, and tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!”

Medvedev, who served as president of Russia from 2008 to 2012 and prime minister from 2012 to 2020, shot back in a post on Telegram.

“If some words from the former president of Russia trigger such a nervous reaction from the high-and-mighty president of the United States, then Russia is doing everything right and will continue to proceed along its own path,” he stated.

On 17 July, Medvedev warned that Moscow must be prepared to deliver preemptive strikes against the west if necessary.

Speaking to TASS on the 80th anniversary of the Potsdam Conference, Medvedev said, “The west’s treacherous nature and its warped sense of superiority are still evident. And we should therefore act accordingly, responding in full or even delivering preemptive strikes if need be.”

Medvedev’s comments followed a string of threatening statements made by the US president toward Moscow after announcing plans to deliver new weapons to Kiev.

A Financial Times report revealed that Trump encouraged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a 4 July phone call to strike deep into Russian territory. According to sources, Trump asked, “Can you hit Moscow? Can you hit St. Petersburg too?”

Zelensky allegedly responded, “Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons.”

In the wake of the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites in June, Trump also responded to Medvedev allegedly suggesting that Moscow provide nuclear weapons to Tehran, a claim he later denied.

“Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the ‘N word’ (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran?” Trump wrote on 23 June.

Trump then delivered a veiled threat to Russia by boasting about US nuclear submarine capabilities.

“They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built,” he stated.

August 4, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US, UK in secret talks with Ukrainian officials to ‘replace Zelensky’: Report

Three years into the war with Russia, the Ukrainian president has experienced his fortunes turn amid heavy human losses on the battlefield and intense Russian assaults.

JUL 29, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles/us-uk-in-secret-talks-with-ukrainian-officials-to-replace-zelensky-report

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has revealed that US and British officials recently held a meeting in the Alps with top Ukrainian officials to discuss “replacing” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

According to a statement made available to TASS, the meeting involved Andrey Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Kirill Budanov, chief of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, and Valery Zaluzhny, the country’s ex-commander-in-chief who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to London..

“The Americans and the British announced their decision to propose Zaluzhny to the Ukrainian presidency. Yermak and Budanov ‘snapped a salute,’ while securing promises from the Anglo-Saxons to let them keep their present positions, as well as to take their interests into account in the course of making decisions over other personnel issues,” TASS reports.

The Ukrainian participants were reportedly promised they would retain their positions and influence over future personnel appointments following Zelensky’s ouster.

The SVR said Yermak helped prepare the ground for Zaluzhny by persuading Zelensky to weaken Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies. Zelensky signed the new law, but Ukrainian MPs said the measure has not appeared on the parliament’s official website.
According to the SVR, the secret talks with UK and US officials aim to restructure Ukraine’s ties with the west, especially the US, and have established removing Zelensky as a prerequisite for continued western support in the war with Russia, after ceasefire talks between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul last week ended without a breakthrough.

The SVR report comes a day after US President Donald Trump shortened his 50-day deadline for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine to “10 or 12 days,” warning of stalled progress and approving expanded weapons shipments to Kiev, including US-made Patriot systems financed by European partners and coordinated through NATO.

Former Ukrainian prosecutor general’s adviser Andriy Telizhenko said the plan to replace Zelensky predated Donald Trump’s return to office, adding, “Once the strings are cut, the puppet must be replaced.”

Journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in The End of Zelensky? that Zaluzhny “is now being viewed as Zelensky’s most reliable successor,” citing “well-informed Washington sources” confirming the role could be offered to him.

August 4, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

The CIA Built Hundreds of Covert Websites. Here’s What They Were Hiding

August 1st, 2025, Alan Macleod, https://www.mintpressnews.com/cia-secret-network-885-fake-websites/290325/

The CIA didn’t just infiltrate governments; it infiltrated the internet itself. For over a decade, Langley operated a sprawling network of covert websites that served as global spy terminals disguised as harmless blogs, news hubs, and fan pages.

Beginning in 2004, the CIA established a vast network of at least 885 websites, ranging from Johnny Carson and Star Wars fan pages to online message boards about Rastafari. Spanning 29 languages and targeting at least 36 countries directly, these websites were aimed not only at adversaries such as China, Venezuela, and Russia, but also at allied nations, including France, Italy, and Spain, showing that the United States treats its friends much like its foes.

Covert Soccer Blogs and Cracked Passwords

Gholamreza Hosseini is a former CIA informant. In 2007, the Tehran-based industrial engineer contacted the agency and offered to pass them information about Iran’s nuclear energy program. His CIA handlers showed him how to use IranianGoals.com to communicate with them. Iranian Goals was a Farsi-language website that appeared to be dedicated to local soccer news. However, what appeared to be a search bar at the bottom of the home page was actually a password field. Typing the correct word into it would trigger a login process, revealing a secret messaging interface. Each informant had their own webpage, designed specifically for them, to insulate them from others in the network.

It seemed like an ingenious idea. However, Hosseini and the other spies were soon detected, thanks to some sloppy mistakes in Washington, D.C. An Iranian double agent revealed to the authorities their unique website, and some basic detective work led to the uncovering of the entire network.

The CIA purchased the hosting space for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of these websites in bulk, often from the same internet providers, or the same server space. That meant that the IP addresses of these websites were consecutive, akin to housing each informant in adjacent properties on the same street.

Thus, if you looked at neighboring IP addresses, you would see similarly designed websites and could easily put two and two together. Even with some relatively basic online searches, Iranian authorities were able to identify dozens of CIA-run websites. From there, they simply waited to see who would access them.

Spying on Allies and Adversaries Alike

The network of websites spanned a wide range of topics. Few would guess that Rasta Direct, a website dedicated to the relatively niche religion of Rastafari, had anything to do with U.S. intelligence. The CIA also created Star Wars Web, a fan page for the sci-fi franchise, and All Johnny, a page dedicated to late-night legend Johnny Carson. Sports, gaming and news blogs, however, were the most common topics for fake websites.

These websites served as cover for informants, offering some level of plausible deniability if casually examined. Upon close inspection, however, few of these pages provided any unique content and simply rehosted news and blogs from elsewhere, linking to already available resources.

Informants in enemy nations, such as Venezuela, used sites like Noticias-Caracas and El Correo De Noticias to communicate with Langley, while Russian moles used My Online Game Source and TodaysNewsAndWeather-Ru.com, and other similar platforms.

However, a vast network of informants in allied countries, such as France, Spain and Italy, was also uncovered, using financial news, mountaineering, and running websites to pass on vital information to the CIA.

Germany was another country Washington actively targeted. In 2013, it was revealed that the U.S. had been bugging the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel for over a decade, sparking a major diplomatic rift. One year later, in 2014, Germany detained one of its own intelligence officials after catching him spying for the United States.

The Collapse of the CIA’s China Network

China, however, remains a top target for the CIA. The organization maintains an extensive network of informants across the country, who, when the network was active, used platforms such as eChessNews.com and SportsNewsFinder.com to transmit information back to the United States.

But, as in Iran, Chinese authorities began to dismantle the network. Starting in late 2010, the spying network was systematically dismantled by officials, likely using similar tactics to those of the Iranians. Unlike Iran, however, China simply executed those operatives. It is believed that the CIA lost around 30 informants in the purge. The affair is considered one of the worst intelligence failures in the agency’s nearly 80-year history.

Since then, the U.S. spying network in China has been severely diminished. Earlier this year, the CIA changed tack, publicly releasing two videos encouraging disaffected Communist Party officials to spy for them in exchange for money and the prospect of a new life in America.

“As I rise within the party, I watch those above me being discarded like worn-out shoes, but now I realize that my fate was just as precarious as theirs,” the narrator says in one. “Our leaders’ failure to fulfil repeated promises of prosperity has become a well-known secret… It’s time to build my own dream,” he says in another.

The CIA instructs would-be traitors to download the Tor Browser and contact the CIA via its website. While Tor is marketed in the West as a privacy tool, a previous MintPress News investigation revealed that it was created with funding from the U.S. government by a company with ties to the CIA. Last year, Washington passed a $1.6 billion bill to finance anti-China propaganda worldwide.

Weaponizing Apps and Platforms

This is not the only time that the U.S. national security state has created fake web platforms in order to stoke regime change around the world. In 2010, USAID—a CIA front organization—secretly created the Cuban social media app, Zunzuneo.

Often described as “Cuba’s Twitter,” Zunzuneo rocketed to prominence. The app had been designed to offer a reliable and affordable service, undercutting the competition, before gaining dominance and slowly disseminating anti-government messages to the island.

Then, at a given time, Zunzuneo would urge users to join protests coordinated by the U.S. in an attempt to foment a color revolution on the island.

In an effort to hide its ownership of the project, the U.S. government held a secret meeting with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to encourage him to take it over. It is unclear to what extent, if at all, Dorsey contributed to the project, as he has declined to comment on the matter. In 2012, Zunzuneo was abruptly shut down.

Infiltrating Journalism and Big Tech

While the 885 fake websites were not established to influence public opinion, today, the U.S. government sponsors thousands of journalists worldwide for precisely this purpose. Earlier this year, the Trump administration’s decision to pause funding to USAID inadvertently exposed a network of more than 6,200 reporters working at nearly 1,000 news outlets or journalism organizations who were all quietly paid to promote pro-U.S. messaging in their countries.

Oksana Romanyuk, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Mass Information, warned that nearly 90% of her country’s media outlets rely on funding from USAID to survive. A survey of 20 leading media organizations in Belarus revealed that 60% of their budget came from Washington. In Iran, more than 30 anti-government groups came together for a crisis response meeting, while in Cuba and Nicaragua, anti-government press resorted to soliciting donations from readers.

The CIA has also successfully infiltrated the largest and most popular social media networks, giving the agency substantial control over what the world sees (and does not see) in their news feeds.

Facebook has hired dozens of former CIA officials to run its most sensitive operations. Perhaps the most notable of these individuals is Aaron Berman.

As the platform’s senior misinformation manager, Berman ultimately has the final say over what content is promoted and what is demoted or deleted from Facebook. Yet, until 2019, Berman was a high-ranking CIA officer, responsible for writing the president’s daily security brief. It was at that time that he jumped ship from Langley to Facebook, despite appearing to have little relevant professional experience.

Google, if anything, is even more saturated with former spies.

A MintPress News investigation revealed that dozens of former CIA agents hold top jobs at the Silicon Valley giant. Among these is Jacqueline Lopour, who spent more than ten years at the agency working on Middle East affairs before being recruited to become Google’s senior Intelligence, Trust, and Safety manager. The role gives her considerable influence on the direction of the company. This form of state censorship is how the agency prefers to shape the internet today.

The CIA continues to maintain a vast worldwide network of informants. Today, they use custom-built apps such as Tor or Signal to communicate. If they are caught by their own countries, they will likely be left to their fate, like Hosseini was. Being a spy or a stool pigeon for the CIA is as perilous as ever.

August 4, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Trump, or Violence as Diplomacy

By C.A.R. Turner / August 1, 2025, https://www.thepostil.com/trump-violence-as-diplomacy/

Violence is diplomacy—that is the essence of the Trumpian encounter with the world: do as I say, or else. Versions of this approach are easily noted in most of President Trump’s public pronouncements. The most recent iteration, in response to Trump’s bombing of Iran, was given by Vice President JD Vance at the Ohio Republican Party dinner in Lima, Ohio, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. He later summarized it on X also.

Here is what he said: “What I call the Trump Doctrine is quite simple: Number one, you articulate a clear American interest and that’s, in this case, that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. Number two, you try to aggressively, diplomatically solve that problem. And number three, when you can’t solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict.”

The contradictions from one through to three are obvious: how can there be a clarity of “American interest” when the policy is “Israel First?” America has long given up being clear about what it wants, since it wants so many different things which negate one another. It wants to be the hegemon, but also the beacon of “liberty.” Number two: suddenly “American interest” is now a “problem” that needs to “solved” by diplomacy, because other countries do not agree with the “American interest.” Was it not Zelinsky, sitting in the White House, who asked Vance, “What do you mean by diplomacy?” In other words, that “American interest” mentioned in Number one is actually an American demand.

And then we quickly move on to Number three—when America fails at diplomacy, it loves to drop bombs. Bombing, it would appear is the last resort of the scoundrel, to update a famous phrase. What is the point of doing any diplomacy when the people you are trying to diplomatize already know that you are going to bomb them in the end? Iran found that out pretty darned quick—for they thought they were actually involved in diplomacy with Washington when Trump suddenly decided to drop some bombs all over Iran, thinking that this would be persuasive. So, how quickly does Washington move from the diplomatic table to the cockpit of a B2 bomber? In other words, how do bombs become diplomacy?

Vance then throws in the caveat that “you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict.” So, we are supposed to believe that bombing a country flat and flying back home magically avoids a “protracted conflict?” A recent example—how long has America been bombing Yemen—and what has it accomplished? America just bombed Iran—and what has that accomplished? And, is there any need to mention the fact that Trump, in his first five months of his second term, has carried out 529 airstrikes against Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Somalia, and bombed 240 locations in these places—it is not known yet how many total civilians he has killed in the process. And whatever happened to Number two in all these cases? How did Trump move past diplomacy and get right to Number three with Iraq, Somalia and Yemen?

In other words, the world is viewed through simplistic Trumpian narratives and bombed accordingly.

It would seem that Vance is trying to lend coherence to a “foreign policy” that is no more than Trump’s feelings. How such feelings, which are erratic at best, become a doctrine is beyond comprehension.

Despite claims of aggressively pursuing diplomacy, what everyone has witnessed is an utter lack of diplomacy—there are only threats; or worse, bomb first and then pretend to talk.

The “overwhelming military force” part has translated into significant civilian casualties, nearly matching the total from many years prior in specific conflicts such as Yemen. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have labeled some strikes as potential war crimes. This “bomb first, ask questions later” approach contrasts starkly with the so-called doctrine’s promise to avoid prolonged entanglements, raising ethical and legal questions.

Trump promised rapid resolutions to major conflicts like Ukraine and Gaza and a definitive end to Iran’s nuclear program but has largely failed to achieve any of these objectives. Instead, what the world sees again and again is an overestimation of his own personal influence upon world leaders, and an utter lack of comprehension of the complexity of diplomacy and the ensuing buildup of a deep resentment among nations. In other, there is hardly a doctrine, let alone clarity.

What is clear to see is that all of foreign policy is reduced to a some sort of a transaction, “a deal,” which is spun as prioritizing narrowly defined American interests and sovereignty. However, what ends up happening is confrontation, backed up by a lot of threats of sanctions, tariffs, or bombs.

Despite talk of restraint and rapid exits, Trump’s administration embraces a willingness to wage sustained aerial campaigns and intense military operations, sometimes lacking clarity on long-term goals. What is deployed therefore is intimidation tactics.

This so-called “doctrine” causes unease within political factions and the public who fear prolonged conflicts despite the promise of quick disengagement. It is a strategy that will fail to prevent entanglements, because the world is seen as “ripping American off” and therefore needs to be put in its place. This completely undermines real-world expectations of other nation-states.

In essence, while Vance’s presentation of the “Trump Doctrine” attempts to offer a clear and structured foreign policy, there is a wide gap between rhetoric and reality, made worse by diplomatic incompetence, problematic military consequences, and fundamental inconsistencies that collectively render this “doctrine” not only deeply flawed, but utterly reprehensible as any sort of a guiding principle.

Thus, in June 2025, in the so-called “12 Day War,” the Trump administration conducted airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, aiming to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, consistent with the Trump Doctrine’s three-step approach (clear interests, aggressive diplomacy, military force, if necessary). However, the strikes were launched just two days after a supposed diplomatic ultimatum, raising suspicions that diplomacy was not genuinely exhausted beforehand.

Plus, the strikes risked escalating into a broader regional war and limited future diplomatic options because of Trump’s prior withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement, which Iran rightly saw as a betrayal. This undercut trust and prospects for peaceful resolution.

Although Vance and administration proponents called the strikes “wildly successful” with no American casualties, initial intelligence suggested damage to Iran’s program was limited. Moreover, Iran’s leadership remained cautious, avoiding direct war with the U.S. despite harsh rhetoric, complicating claims of decisive military resolution.

Humanitarian consequences and the risk of civilian casualties added ethical and legal criticisms, undermining the promise to exit before prolonged conflict.

Proponents of the Trump Doctrine also contrast it with the 2015 Obama nuclear deal, which they argue was lenient and compromised American moral clarity by allowing Iran’s nuclear enrichment program to continue.

The Trump Doctrine calls for denying Iran all paths to nuclear weapons through strength and clarity, but this maximalist stance (zero enrichment demanded) is unrealistic and purely ideological, offering no practical diplomatic off-ramp and increasing risk of sustained conflict.

The doctrine’s combination of maximum pressure without clear enforcement capability resulted in constrained U.S. options and increased involvement in the conflict, contradicting the promise of quick exits.

Then, there are the broader regional implications. The doctrine’s application in Yemen, with intense bombing campaigns against the Houthis, parallels its Iran approach, marked by high civilian casualties and unclear long-term strategic gains, raising concerns about ethical implications and strategic coherence.

Fear of prolonged entanglement in the Middle East and tensions within political factions about the feasibility of rapid withdrawal reveal internal contradictions within the doctrine.

Thus, what happened in Iran and Yemen entirely contradicts what Vance says. In other words, there is a chasm between what is done and what is said.

The rapid shift from diplomacy to military action fully undermines claims of aggressive diplomacy first.

Then, military strikes have yet to yield definitive success and have caused legal, ethical controversies and humanitarian catastrophes.

Overly maximalist demands and the lack of feasible diplomatic pathways constrain U.S. options and risk protracted conflicts.

Contradictions between partisan expectations of quick exits and the reality of prolonged military engagement create strategic incoherence.

Thus, the doctrine abandons traditional moral leadership and multilateral cooperation in favor of a deal that tries to find ways to “protect” America rather than build or lead alliances. This results in a posture of strategic disengagement and economic self-interest rather than any sort of global leadership.

In conflicts like Ukraine, the U.S. under Trump criticizes Russia but also avoids deep involvement, leaving resolution largely to the affected parties (e.g., Kyiv and Moscow). This causes concern among long-term defense partners about the reliability and clarity of American commitments, weakening traditional alliance cohesion.

Trump treats NATO more as a “protection racket,” demanding more financial contributions from allies and showing willingness to reduce U.S. support if unmet. European leaders, uncertain about the U.S. guarantee, are exploring independent defense measures, including shared nuclear capabilities. This unsettles longstanding alliance structures and undermines trust, and points to a West that engage in a new arms race.

The Trump administration has withdrawn from major international agreements (e.g., Paris Climate Accord, WHO), signaling skepticism toward multilateral institutions. This has led to diplomatic isolation and further strains relationships with traditional global partners.

The doctrine involves recalibrated signaling to allies based on geopolitical alignment and interests rather than comprehensive coalition-building, emphasizing sovereignty and economic independence sometimes at the expense of traditional alliance solidarity.

In effect, the Trump Doctrine as articulated essentially reshapes U.S. alliances by emphasizing American sovereignty and international relations as “dealmaking,” coupled with reluctance for enduring involvement, which collectively causes alliance uncertainty, strain on NATO and Western partnerships, and challenges to traditional multilateralism and global leadership that the U.S. once upheld.

So, when Trump repeats the slogan of making America “great,” what does he mean? Great economically, or great in leading the world? He does not know how to do both. On the one hand, he piles on tariffs on the world and threatens it, and on the other he wants the world to look up to America.

Vance’s “Trump Doctrine” is clear in one thing—the Trump administration has no clue how to reconcile what they say with what they do, because their actions and words are always contradictory.

August 3, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Sen. Lindsey ‘Ghoulish’ Graham compares Israeli genocide in Gaza favorably to America’s WWII atomic bombings

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 1 August 25

No US senator loves America’s senseless wars more than Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

And Graham loves no US war more than the current US enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza. Graham observes the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, near wholly financed, by the US, and declares,

“When we were faced with destruction of our nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima Nagasaki with nuclear weapons. That was the right decision. Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war. They can’t afford to lose.”

This is not new genocide support territory for Graham. During the Biden presidency he used the same Japanese atomic bombing analogy in blasting Biden for threatening to withhold weapons from Israel if it launched a military operation in Rafah where a million Palestinian civilians were sheltering.

In a just world Graham would be referred to the International Criminal Court for a war crimes investigation. As an influential government official having the ear of President Trump, he is fervently promoting the ongoing genocide of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza to its grisly completion.

The Senior Senator from South Carolina has truly earned his damning moniker ‘Ghoulish Graham’.

August 3, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. Nuclear Energy Plans Could Proliferate Weapons

All of these companies also claim their plutonium extraction would utilize new technologies that are “proliferation resistant”—but that, too, is bunk.

The White House has now fully embraced bomb-prone nuclear fuel technology. This should stop before an arms race, atomic terrorism or even nuclear war results

Scientific American, By Alan J. Kuperman, 30 July 25

Recent events in Iran demonstrate that dropping “bunker buster” bombs on nuclear plants is not an ideal, or even necessarily effective, way to prevent proliferation. It is far preferable to prevent the spread of nuclear-weapon-usable technologies in the first place.

A simplistic way to achieve that might be to halt the worldwide growth of nuclear power. Public approval of nuclear energy, however, is actually growing in the U.S., and the White House recently announced policies to quadruple American nuclear power by 2050 while also promoting nuclear exports. This surge of support is somewhat surprising, considering that new reactors not only pose radiation risks from nuclear waste and potential accidents but also produce electricity that costs considerably more than solar or wind power (which can be similarly reliable when complemented by batteries). But nuclear power plants are touted for other attributes, including their small footprint, constant output, infrequent refueling, low carbon emissions and ability to produce heat for manufacturing. If customers decide this justifies the higher cost—and are willing to wait about a decade for new reactors—then nuclear energy has a future.

That leaves only one other way to stop the spread of dangerous atomic technology – by prudently limiting nuclear energy to the “bomb-resistant” type, which entirely avoids weapons-usable material by disposing of it as waste, rather than the “bomb-prone” variety that creates proliferation risks by purifying and recycling nuclear explosives.

Regrettably, however, the White House recently directed government officials to facilitate the bomb-prone version in a set of executive orders in May. That decision needs to be reversed before it inadvertently triggers an arms race, atomic terrorism or even nuclear war. As Iran has highlighted, ostensibly peaceful nuclear technology can be misused for a weapons program. That is why, from now on, the U.S. should support only bomb-resistant reactors and nuclear fuel.

Most Americans probably don’t realize that nuclear reactors originally were invented not for electricity or research but to produce a new substance, plutonium, for nuclear weapons such as the one dropped on Nagasaki. Every nuclear reactor produces plutonium (or its equivalent), which can be extracted from the irradiated fuel to make bombs.

This raises three crucial questions about the resulting plutonium: How much of it is produced? What is its quality? And will it be extracted from the irradiated fuel, making it potentially available for weapons?

Bomb-resistant nuclear energy—the only type now deployed in the U.S.—produces less plutonium, which is of lower quality and does not need to be extracted from the irradiated fuel. By contrast, bomb-prone nuclear energy produces more plutonium, which is of higher quality and must be extracted to maintain the fuel cycle.

Of course, a declared facility to extract plutonium in a country lacking nuclear weapons could be monitored, but history shows that international inspectors would stand little chance of detecting—let alone blocking—diversion for bombs. That is why the U.S. made bipartisan decisions in the 1970s to abandon bomb-prone nuclear energy, aiming to establish a responsible precedent for other countries.

In light of today’s growing concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation in East Asia, the Middle East and lately even Europe, one might assume that U.S. industry and government would promote only bomb-resistant nuclear energy—but that is not so. A growing number of venture capitalists and politicians are aggressively supporting technologies to commercialize plutonium fuel. They are doing so despite the security, safety and economic downsides that have doomed previous such efforts. These past failures are evidenced by the fact that of the more than 30 countries with nuclear energy today, including many which previously attempted or considered recycling plutonium, only one (France) still does so on a substantial scale—at considerable financial loss. However, if the U.S. government continues subsidizing nuclear technologies without regard to proliferation risk, then the plutonium entrepreneurs will keep hopping on that gravy train. Eventually, they even may find willing customers for their pricey, bomb-prone technology—but mainly among countries willing to pay a premium for a nuclear-weapon option.

The most egregious proposal has come from start-up Oklo, a company originally spearheaded by venture capitalist Sam Altman (who stepped down as chairman in April). It is pursuing “fast” reactors that can produce larger amounts of higher-quality plutonium, and it has declared the intention to extract plutonium for recycling into fresh fuel. Oklo even says it plans to export this proliferation-prone technology “on a global scale.” The Biden administration and Congress, despite the obvious dangers of dispersing nuclear weapons-usable plutonium around the world, chose to subsidize the company as part of a wholesale push for new nuclear energy. Then the Trump administration picked as secretary of energy an industrialist named Chris Wright, who actually was on Oklo’s board of directors until his confirmation. In 2024, Wright and his wife also made contributions to a fundraising committee for Trump’s presidential campaign totaling about $458,000, along with contributions to the Republication National Committee of about $289,000. In the first quarter of 2025, Oklo increased its lobbying expenditures by 500 percent compared to the same period last year.

Biden also gave nearly $2 billion to TerraPower, a nuclear energy venture founded by billionaire Bill Gates, for a similar but larger “fast” reactor that also is touted for export. Experts say this inevitably would entail far greater plutonium extraction, even though the company denies any intention to do so. The U.S. Department of Energy also has funded the American branch of Terrestrial Energy, which seeks to build exotic “molten salt” reactors that use liquid rather than solid nuclear fuel. Such fuel must be processed regularly, thereby complicating inspections and creating more opportunities to divert plutonium for bombs.

Most baffling are proposals for large “reprocessing” plants to extract huge amounts of plutonium from irradiated fuel without plausible justification. The company SHINE Technologies, with technical assistance from a firm named Orano, is planning a U.S. pilot plant to process 100 metric tons of spent fuel each year. This would result in the annual extraction of about a metric ton of plutonium—enough for 100 nuclear weapons. SHINE claims the plutonium is valuable to recycle as reactor fuel, but the U.K. recently decided to dispose as waste its entire 140-metric-ton stockpile of civilian plutonium because no one wanted it as fuel. The U.S. similarly has been working to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of undesired plutonium as waste.

Officials from five previous U.S. presidential administrations, and other experts including me, protested in an April 2024 letter to then president Biden that SHINE’s plan would increase “risks of proliferation and nuclear terrorism.” Despite this, President Trump recently issued an executive order in May that directed U.S. officials to approve “privately-funded nuclear fuel recycling, reprocessing, and reactor fuel fabrication technologies … [for] commercial power reactors.” Even more troubling, a separate order directed the government to provide weapons-grade plutonium—retired from our arsenal—directly to private industry as “fuel for advanced nuclear technologies,” which would jump-start bomb-prone nuclear energy before assessing the risks.

SHINE and a similar company, Curio, claim their facilities would slash the country’s radioactive waste stockpile. But realistically, they could barely dent its growth of 2,000 metric tons annually. They also propose to extract valuable radioactive isotopes for medical and space application, but these materials already are available elsewhere at less expense or are needed in such tiny amounts that they require processing only hundreds of kilograms of irradiated fuel annually, not the proposed hundreds of metric tons, which is a thousand times more.

All of these companies also claim their plutonium extraction would utilize new technologies that are “proliferation resistant”—but that, too, is bunk. As far back as 2009, six U.S. national laboratories concluded that, “there is minimal additional proliferation resistance to be found by introducing … [such] processing technologies when considering the potential for diversion, misuse, and breakout scenarios.”………………… https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-nuclear-energy-policy-could-accelerate-weapons-proliferation/

August 2, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Trump moves nuclear submarines after ex-Russia president’s tweet

Andrew Roth Guardian, 2 Aug 25

Order comes after president’s anger at tweet from Dmitry Medvedev which called Trump’s threat to sanction Russia over Ukraine a ‘step towards war’.

Donald Trump has said that he has deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the “appropriate regions” in response to a threatening tweet by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that he would be ready to launch a nuclear strike as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines because of “highly provocative statements” by Medvedev, noting he was now the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council.

Medvedev had earlier said that Trump’s threats to sanction Russia and a recent ultimatum were “a threat and a step towards war”.

“I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump responded. “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.”

He did not specify whether he was referring to nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed submarines.

Asked later by reporters why he ordered the submarine movement, Trump said: “A threat was made by a former president of Russia and we’re going to protect our people.”…………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/01/trump-nuclear-submarines-russia-ukraine

August 2, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump’s Fantasy Bid for the Nobel Peace Prize

1 August 2025 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/trumps-fantasy-bid-for-the-nobel-peace-prize/

In what may go down as one of the most surreal moments of Donald Trump’s second presidency, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stood before the press corps and delivered a speech so dripping with delusion that it would have made even the most seasoned propagandist blush.

With a straight face and a tone of practiced reverence, she read from a statement that claimed:

“The President has now ended conflicts between Thailand and Cambodia, Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia. This means President Trump has brokered, on average, about one peace deal or ceasefire per month during his six months in office. It is well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

The language bore all his hallmarks: self-congratulation, historical revisionism, and the casual rewriting of reality. If you closed your eyes, you could practically hear Trump dictating it himself, likely from a golf cart: “No president has ever done more for peace… The world is calmer because of President Trump.”

Meanwhile, America burns.

Cities across the country remain divided and anxious. Violent crime is rising in some areas. Racial tensions have intensified under his inflammatory rhetoric. Migrants are being plucked off the streets and separated from their families under legally murky executive actions. The economy, battered by trade wars and broken promises, limps along. The climate crisis – arguably the greatest threat to long-term peace – continues to be denied by the administration altogether.

And yet, here we are, talking about a Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s not that Americans don’t value peace. It’s that they can see through a bad sales pitch. The spectacle was not only cringeworthy, it was offensive. Offensive to genuine peacemakers. Offensive to Americans living pay to pay. Offensive to veterans of actual wars.

To be clear, this isn’t the first time Trump has floated his Nobel ambitions. He’s been obsessed with the prize since taking office the first time. He has tweeted about it. Endlessly. He rages that Obama – a lesser president than himself – has one in his trophy cabinet while his own cupboard is bare. But now, with his second term spiraling and his political capital shrinking, the pursuit of a symbolic trophy has become a sad distraction – a transparent bid for legacy over substance.

This press conference wasn’t about peace. It was about ego. It was about shifting the narrative from legal troubles and legislative failures to a grandiose alternate reality where Donald Trump is not just a divisive figure but a global peacemaker.

The Nobel Peace Prize stands for something: diplomacy, de-escalation, justice. Not manufactured press releases. Not fantasies of greatness. And certainly not a list of imaginary accomplishments recited by a spokesperson who knows better, but has clearly chosen not to care.

August 2, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Is Reportedly Planning to Annex Gaza Strip, With Trump Admin’s Backing

Israeli sources say the plan has already been presented to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and has the approval of the White House.

If Netanyahu’s plan goes forward, Israel will be in the process of annexing the entirety of Palestine.

By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, July 29, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/netanyahu-is-reportedly-planning-to-annex-gaza-strip-with-trump-admins-backing/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly prepared to propose a plan to annex the entire Gaza Strip that has the backing of the Trump administration, signalling the next horrific phase in Israel’s genocide as it also moves forward with annexing the occupied West Bank.

On Tuesday, Israeli outlet Haaretz reported that Netanyahu is expected to propose the plan to his cabinet soon. The plan would entail giving Hamas a few days to accept a ceasefire deal — likely one designed for Hamas to reject, given Netanyahu’s history — and beginning annexation if Hamas rejects the deal.

The Israeli military would first annex parts of the “buffer zone,” an area spanning all of Gaza’s border created by the military amid its genocide. The zone encompasses over half of Gaza’s land area, and Israeli forces have bulldozed everything inside it, including homes, schools, farming sites, and more.

The military would then move to annex parts of northern Gaza, which Israel has worked diligently to isolate from the rest of Gaza, and move gradually until Israel has annexed the entirety of the Gaza Strip, Haaretz reports.

Netanyahu is reportedly presenting the plan in order to keep Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in his government, following the prime minister’s longtime pattern of taking drastic military actions in order to maintain his coalition and stay in power. Citing sources familiar, Haaretz says that Smotrich has said that he will stay in his position if the annexation plan goes forward.

Israeli sources say the plan has already been presented to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and has the approval of the White House.

Numerous military officials in Netanyahu’s government have said in recent months that annexation has long been the goal of Israel’s genocide, forcible removal of Palestinians, and near-complete destruction of Gaza. Israel has previously distanced itself from an Israeli general’s comments about Israel’s intentions for total occupation in the Strip, but has recently become even more emboldened.

The genocide has accelerated in the past weeks, with Israel’s near-total blockade on all basic resources reaching a breaking point last week, causing at least dozens of starvation deaths.

If Netanyahu’s plan goes forward, Israel will formally begin the process of annexing the entirety of Palestine. In many ways, however, Israel has already been carrying out an annexation plan in all but name.

Israeli officials have vastly accelerated settlement-building and violence in the occupied West Bank throughout their genocide, and last week, the Israeli Knesset passed a nonbinding measure calling for the annexation of the West Bank. Smotrich is a key architect of this plan, and has been pushing for annexation alongside many of the most extremist Israeli politicians for years.

In light of Israel accelerating its genocide and moving to annex Palestine, human rights advocates and experts have issued urgent calls for the world to act.

“The absolute incapacity of Western leaders to enforce international law when it comes to Israel is EPIC,” said UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese on Tuesday. “Ministers, Prime Ministers, Presidents of Republic: Doing NOTHING, diverting attention, sanctioning individual ministers IS NOT enforcing the [international] law that was developed after the Holocaust and WWII to prevent another Holocaust and WWII.”

July 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics international, USA | 1 Comment

Trump puts Putin on ‘Double Secret Probation’ for not ending Ukraine war.

31 July 2025 AIMN Editorial By Walt Zlotow, https://theaimn.net/trump-puts-putin-on-double-secret-probation-for-not-ending-ukraine-war/

President Trump channeled Animal House’s Dean Vernon Wormer in trying to reign in the out of control John ‘Bluto’ Blutarsky, a.k.a. Vladimir Putin.

Trump is livid over Putin’s refusal to cave into his demand he end the Ukraine war. And what will Trump do if Putin doesn’t enact ceasefire in “10 to 12” days?

Send in American troops to replace the rapidly disappearing Ukraine soldiers filling up numerous freshly dug Ukraine cemeteries? Nope.

Pour another $170 billion in US weapons that have done nothing but cause loss of one fifth of Ukraine territory to Russia? Nope.

Threaten Russia with nuclear annihilation? Nope.
Trump is planning something so horrific Putin will cave the moment Trump drops it on him… the Mother of all Sanctions. Only Trump knows what horrifying sanctions he has in store for Putin. Hence, Double Secret Probation (DSP).

Putin’s Bluto simply thumbed his nose at Trump’s Dean Wormer, hurling hundreds of drone bombs into Ukraine every day since Trump imposed DSP.

Trump’s Ukraine war policy is as chaotic as the administration of Faber College in Animal House. Big difference? Trump’s presiding over a catastrophe, destroying Ukraine in the lost cause to weaken Russia. All things considered, I prefer John Landis’ ‘Animal House’ to the Donald Trump version.

July 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, USA | 1 Comment

Radioactive wasps discovered at South Carolina nuclear facility

By Julian Agnew and Christopher J. Teuton. Jul. 29, 2025 , https://www.wtoc.com/2025/07/28/radioactive-wasps-discovered-south-carolina-nuclear-facility/

AIKEN, SC (WTOC) – A radioactive wasp nest was discovered earlier this month in South Carolina by workers at a nuclear facility, according to a report from the US Department of Energy.

The report states that on July 3, 2025, workers found a wasp nest on a stanchion near a tank at the F-Area tank farm at the Savannah River Site.

When the nest was probed it was discovered to be highly radioactive, according to the DOE’s report. While it does sound like something out of a comic book or horror movie, the report says this is not related to a loss of contamination control at the nuclear facility.

Instead, the wasp nest is considered a victim of “legacy radioactive contamination.”

The nest was sprayed (in order to kill the wasps) and was then bagged as radiological waste.

The report states the ground and surrounding area did not have any contamination.

The Savannah River Site was built in the 1950s near Aiken, South Carolina and covers more than 300 square miles.

During the Cold War, the Savannah River Site produced nuclear material and nuclear weapons components.

It became an EPA Superfund site in 1989, with cleanup and environmental remediation going on ever since.

In recent years, the National Nuclear Security Administration has begun work on a facility there to produce new plutonium cores for American nuclear weapons.

The NNSA plans to build at least 50 new plutonium cores per year in the new facility.

July 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Trump Shows Strong Support for Israel as Palestinians in Gaza Starve to Death

Trump has been claiming that a ceasefire deal was close, but now he is appearing to suggest that Israel should escalate its genocidal war.

After the US and Israel quit ceasefire talks, Trump suggested it was time for Israel to ‘finish the job’

by Dave DeCamp | July 27, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/07/27/trump-shows-strong-support-for-israel-as-palestinians-in-gaza-starve-to-death/

President Trump has shown strong support for Israel in recent days, while much of the world has been outraged over the images of Palestinians who are starving to death due to the US-backed Israeli siege on Gaza.

After the US and Israel quit ceasefire talks, Trump blamed the lack of progress on Hamas and suggested it was time for Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza. “I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad,” Trump said on Friday, referring to Hamas.

For its part, Hamas has said that it was surprised by the US and Israel quitting the truce talks and that it was committed to continuing the process until a deal was reached.

In recent weeks, Trump has been claiming that a ceasefire deal was close, but now he is appearing to suggest that Israel should escalate its genocidal war. “They’re gonna have to fight, and they’re gonna have to clean it up. You’re gonna have to get rid of [Hamas],” he said.

Israeli officials told Axios that they weren’t sure if Trump’s comments were a negotiating tactic or a “green light” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use even more extreme military measures. The report said the Trump administration was rethinking its Gaza strategy, but there’s no sign it’s considering putting pressure on Israel to reach a ceasefire.

Israeli officials also told Axios that Trump has applied virtually no pressure on Netanyahu to end the slaughter in Gaza in recent months. “In most calls and meetings, Trump told Bibi, ‘Do what you have to do in Gaza.’ In some cases, he even encouraged Netanyahu to go harder on Hamas,” one official said.

While meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland on Sunday, Trump was asked about the images of starving children in Gaza. The president said people were “stealing the food,” a reference to Israel’s unfounded claims that Hamas has been stealing massive amounts of aid, then quickly pivoted to different topics.

In other comments, Trump said the issue of food shortages in Gaza was an “international problem,” not a “US problem.” But Israel is reliant on US military aid to sustain its military operations in Gaza, and Trump has the power to end the genocidal war by leveraging that support.

July 30, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, USA | 1 Comment

Chris Hedges: The Gaza Riviera

July 27, 2025 ,By Chris Hedges / ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/07/27/chris-hedges-the-gaza-riviera/

Israelis do not see the images of skeletal corpses of Palestinian children who they have starved to death as a curse. They do not see the slain families they gun down at food hubs — designed not to deliver aid but lure starving Palestinians into a massive concentration camp in the south of Gaza in preparation for deportation — as a war crime. Israelis do not look at the savage bombing and shelling that kill or wound dozens of Palestinian civilians, where an average of 28 children die daily, as anything extraordinary. They do not see the wasteland of Gaza, pulverized by bombs and methodically being torn down by bulldozers and excavators, leaving virtually the entire population of Gaza homeless, as barbaric. They do not see the destruction of water purification plants, decimation of hospitals and clinics, where doctors and medical staff are often unable to work because they are weak from malnutrition, as savage. They do not blink at the assassinations of doctors as well as journalists, 232 of whom have been murdered for trying to document the horror.

Israelis have blinded themselves morally and intellectually. They view the genocide through the lens of a bankrupt media and political class that tells them only what they want to hear and shows them only what they want to see. They are intoxicated by the power of their industrial weapons and license to kill with impunity. They are drunk on self-adulation and the fantasy that they are the vanguard of civilization. They believe that the extermination of a people, including children, condemned as human contaminants, makes the world, especially their world, a happier and safer place.

They are the heirs of Pol Pot, the killers that carried out the genocides in East Timor, Rwanda and Bosnia and, yes, the Nazis. Israel, like all genocidal states — no population since World War II has been dispossessed and starved with such speed and ruthlessness – has a final solution that would have earned the stamp of approval from Adolf Eichmann.

Starvation was always the plan, the preordained final chapter of the genocide. Israel methodically set out from the beginning of the genocide to destroy sources of food, bombing bakeries and blocking food shipments into Gaza, something it has accelerated since March, when it severed nearly all food supplies. It targeted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — on which most Palestinians depended on for food — for destruction, accusing its employees, without providing evidence, of being involved in the attacks of Oct. 7. This accusation was used to give funders such as the United States, which provided $422 million to the agency in 2023, the excuse to halt financial support. Israel then banned UNRWA.

Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and U.S. mercenaries in the chaotic scramble to get one of the few food packages distributed during the brief blocks of time, usually an hour, at the four aid sites set up by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.

Once Gaza was turned into a moonscape after 21 months of saturation bombing, once Palestinians were forced to live in tents, under crude tarps or in the open air, once clean water, food and medical aid became nearly impossible to find, once civil society was obliterated, Israel began its grim campaign to starve the Palestinians out of Gaza.

One in three people in Gaza are going multiple days without eating, according to the U.N.

Starvation is not a pretty sight. I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took an estimated 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs — scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not.

I watched hundreds of skeletal figures, ghosts of human beings, trudge at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never got up. Many were the remains of entire families.

The starved lack enough calories to sustain themselves. They eat anything to survive — animal feed, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from constant diarrhea. They have trouble breathing because of respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it in a vain attempt to hold off the gnawing hunger pains.

Starvation reduces the iron needed to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1, which affects heart and brain function. Anemia sets in. The body, in essence, feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands.

It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates. This is the future Israel has preordained for the two million people in Gaza.

But it is not the future Israelis see. They see paradise. They see an ethno-nationalist Jewish state where Palestinians, whose land they stole and occupied and whose people they have subjugated and forced into an apartheid existence, do not exist. They see cafes and hotels rising up where thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of bodies lie buried under the rubble. They see tourists frolicking on the Gaza beachfront, a vision enhanced by an Artificial Intelligence-generated video uploaded to social media by Israeli Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Gila Gamliel. It is what a Gaza devoid of Palestinians would look like, echoing the absurdist AI video posted by Donald Trump.

In the new video, carefree Israelis eat at seaside restaurants. Anchored in the sparkling Mediterranean are luxury yachts. Gleaming hotels and office high rises, including a Trump Tower, dot the beachfront. Attractive residential neighborhoods stand where now there are broken, jagged mounds of concrete. The video shows Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, as well as Trump and Melania, strolling along the seaside.

Gamliel, like other Israeli leaders and Trump, cynically uses the term “voluntary emigration” to describe the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This omits the stark choice Israel actually offers the Palestinians — leave or die.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for a “security annexation” of the northern Gaza Strip and vowed that Gaza will become an “inseparable part of the State of Israel.” He made the remarks at a Knesset conference called “The Gaza Riviera — from vision to reality,” which presented proposals for the building of Jewish colonies in Gaza. Smotrich said Israel would “relocate Gazans to other countries,” and that Trump endorsed the plan.

Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu, who once proposed dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, declared that “All Gaza will be Jewish.” The Israeli government “is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out,” Eliyahu said. He described Palestinians as Nazis. “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil. We are pushing this population that has been educated on ‘Mein Kampf.’”

Genocidal killers embrace fantasies of eradicating a native population and expanding their ethnonationalist state. The Nazis carried out their genocidal assault, which included mass starvation, on Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other indigenous people, dismissed as Untermenschen, or subhumans. Colonists were then to be shipped to Central and Eastern Europe to Germanize the occupied territory.

These killers do not reckon with the darkness they unleash. The upscale beachfront properties dreamt of by Israel will never appear, just as the modern, exclusively Serb capital, with its golden domed cathedral, imposing presidency building, 15-story clock tower, state-of-the-art medical center and national theater with a 72-foot revolving stage was never built on the ruins of Bosnia.

Rather, there will be ugly apartment blocks, populated by the usual miscreants, proto-fascists, racists and mediocrities who live in the Jewish colonies in the West Bank. These ultranationalists, who have formed rogue militias to seize Palestinian land and joined the Israeli army in murdering over 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, will define Israel. They are the Israeli version of the 3-million-strong Pancasila Youth — Indonesia’s equivalent of the Brown Shirts or the Hitler Youth — that in 1965 helped carry out the genocidal mayhem that left half a million to one million dead.

These rogue militias, equipped with automatic weapons provided by the Israeli government, lynched Saifullah Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American, who was attempting to protect his family’s land two weeks ago. He is the fifth U.S. citizen killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7.

Once these Israeli goons and thugs are done with the Palestinians, they will turn on each other.

The genocide in Gaza signals the abolition, for Israelis as well as Palestinians, of the rule of law. It marks the obliteration of even the pretense of an ethical code. Israelis are the barbarians they condemn. If there is any warped justice in this genocide it is that Israelis, once they finish with the Palestinians, will be forced to live together in moral squalor.

July 28, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Gaza, Israel, Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

US and Israel Quit Gaza Ceasefire Talks in Doha as Palestinians Starve to Death

Hamas’s long-standing position is that it’s willing to release all remaining captives in exchange for a permanent ceasefire. But Israel has rejected this, and there’s no sign the Trump administration is willing to put pressure on Israel to change its position.

Steve Witkoff blamed the collapse of negotiations on Hamas while Hamas said it was caught off guard and wanted to continue talks

by Dave DeCamp | July 24, 2025 , https://news.antiwar.com/2025/07/24/us-and-israel-quit-gaza-ceasefire-talks-in-doha-as-palestinians-starve-to-death/

The US and Israel have withdrawn negotiators from Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha, Qatar, dashing hopes for a breakthrough as the humanitarian situation in Gaza is as bad as ever, and Palestinians are starving to death due to the US-backed Israeli blockade.

Israel announced it was bringing its negotiators home after Hamas presented its latest counter-proposal. The Israeli announcement was quickly followed up by a statement from US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Both the US and Israel are blaming Hamas for the collapse of the negotiations. However, Israel has maintained a hardline position throughout the talks and made clear that it would agree only to a temporary ceasefire since Israeli officials announced a plan to build a concentration camp in southern Gaza during the truce. One of Hamas’s conditions has been for a stronger guarantee that an initial 60-day ceasefire would lead to a permanent one.

“We have decided to bring our team home from Doha for consultations after the latest response from Hamas, which clearly shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza. While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith,” Witkoff said in a post on X.

“We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza. It is a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way. We are resolute in seeking an end to this conflict and a permanent peace in Gaza,” he added.

It’s unclear what sort of “alternative options” the US and Israel may be considering, but the collapse in negotiations comes as the Israeli military has launched a ground offensive in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, an area where Israelis believe many of the remaining captives may be held.

In response to Witkoff’s statement, Hamas said that it has been flexible and that it was “committed to reaching an agreement that halts the aggression and ends the suffering of our people in the Gaza Strip.” Hamas said it presented its “final response” in consultations with other Palestinian factions and mediators.

“We are surprised by the negative statements of US envoy Steve Witkoff regarding the Movement’s stance, especially when the mediators have expressed their welcome and satisfaction with this constructive and positive position, which opens the door to reaching a comprehensive agreement,” Hamas said.

“The Movement reiterates its commitment to continuing negotiations and engaging in them to help overcome obstacles and reach a permanent ceasefire agreement,” the group added.

According to Axios, Hamas had asked for more Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for Israeli captives, including 2,000 Palestinians who have been abducted in Gaza since October 7, 2023, instead of the 1,200 the US and Israel proposed. The two sides have also been at odds over the amount of territory Israel will occupy, as Israel is refusing to withdraw its forces back to the positions it held during the short-lived ceasefire deal that was signed in January 2025.

July 28, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics, USA | Leave a comment

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