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Plutonium, Public Money and a Perilous Nuclear Dump on the Lake District Coast, a Letter to Cumberland Council’s “Nuclear Issues Board”

  By mariannewildart, https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2025/09/19/plutonium-public-money-and-a-perilous-nuclear-dump-on-the-lake-district-coast-a-letter-to-cumberland-councils-nuclear-issues-board/

Sent by Email 19th September 2025

For consideration by the Nuclear Issues Board

of Cumberland Council on Monday 22nd Sept 2025

Dear Nuclear Issues Board of Cumberland Council,

On 14 October 2021, Copeland Borough Council’s Executive of just four councillors took the decision to establish two Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) Community Partnerships in accordance with the UK Government’s “GDF siting process”

West Cumbria is predictably the only consideration by NWS as a potential site for a GDF (also known as a nuclear waste dump for the abandonment of high level wastes).

A lot has changed since those four Copeland councillors put forward the Lake District coast as a sacrifice zone for the UK’s nuclear waste geological disposal plan.

We urge the Nuclear Issues Board to exercise their democratic duty and call for a debate by the Full Cumberland Council and a Full vote before going any further in the partnership with Nuclear Waste Services for delivery of a very deep, very hot and very experimental nuclear waste dump for high level wastes.

There is no democratic mandate to continue in partnership with Nuclear Waste Services in delivery of a GDF for the following reasons:

Community Unwillingness.

Despite the ongoing Community Partnership funding, Millom Town Council and Whicham Parish Council have both withdrawn from the South Copeland Community Partnership. Whicham PC also held a parish poll that clearly indicated a 77% majority against the GDF . Millom Without Parish Council will be consulting its parishioners on withdrawal. An external review of the SCCP also found the Partnership to be totally dysfunctional with infighting between community representatives and NWS staff.

The Community of Seascale within the Mid-Copeland Community Partnership have also voiced opposition. Seascale Parish Council talked about GDF’s potential area of focus for Headworks and were shown a map of a potential area for Seascale: “as a Parish Council we rejected the proposal as it was not suitable for Seascale at all, but there needs to be more that just our voice, attached is a map of the proposed Headworks location for Seascale.. We encourage residents to attend these events with GDF and voice their concerns too.

” It is ironic, given the above, that one of the Copeland (now Cumberland) councillors who took the delegated decision to ‘volunteer’ the West Cumbrian coastline once again into the nuclear dump plan is Vice chair of Seascale Parish Council.

It is clear that previous geological work, public inquiries and Cumbria County Council resolutions on this subject are being ignored in order to proceed with a clearly unwanted, expensive, ultimately public money and time wasting project once more, casting known and unknown blight on communities for decades to come. As Martin Lowe of Close Capenhurst has observed “Cumberland Council have a duty of care to the public which this development flies in the face of.”

Increase of the mine footprint from 25km2 to 36km2 since Copeland Executive volunteered the Lake District coast.

Initially NWS literature stated that the mine footprint would be 25km2. A letter to Lakes Against Nuclear Dump from Nuclear Waste Services states that the footprint would now be 36km2 (or larger).

Increase in heat of the “thermal footprint” of the GDF from 100 degrees c to 200 degrees c.

100 degrees c is the maximum heat “allowed” to try to ensure integrity of the bentonite buffer (clay slurry to be pumped into the mine as backfill and to delay leakage), however the thermal footprint has been increased to 200 degrees c as confirmed in a letter to Lakes Against Nuclear Dump from Nuclear Waste Services.

Inclusion of Plutonium along with High Level Wastes.

The inclusion of plutonium for burial in a GDF is a new, experimental and dangerous concept. There are unresolved (and likely unresolvable) difficulties of containing the radiotoxic nature and criticality of plutonium in a geological disposal facility.

“The problems of criticality and toxicity to the biosphere essentially come down to water—it creates the conditions for potential criticality and provides the transport mechanism for plutonium’s toxicity.” (Plutonium—the complex and ‘forever’ radiotoxic element of nuclear waste. How exactly should we manage its containment? Nick Scarr 22/08/25).

Top geologists call the plan “dangerous”

– this is why…

Professor Stuart Haszeldine, Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage, School of Geosciences Edinburgh Climate Change Institute said: “Making waste into specialised solid compounds can help to become more resistant to dissolution in groundwater. But the heat generated from the radioactive decay of isotopes is not affected by that re-engineering. Adding material which may heat to 100-200C is a huge disruption and will undoubtedly change the pathways of groundwater flow. This is like having an electric kettle containing stable stationary water and then turning on the electricity to add heat – the water soon circulates and if heating continues, the water boils.”

Professor Haszeldine added: “Have the developers actually made computer predictions of these effects in this GDF? Because plutonium has isotopes which can last for thousands of years, it may be sensible to spread that through the GDF to minimise heating – but that will make predictions of containment in circulating hot water much more difficult. It’s perfectly reasonable to think of a 150C-200C heat source at 0.5km, producing a geyser of boiling water intermittently erupting at surface temperatures above boiling.”

The spread of this increased temperature, known as a thermal pulse, would be conducted through the rock over several thousand years. With the additional pressure of water column above the GDF (a hypothetical 500m below the surface), water would boil at the higher temperature of 250C, in which case superheated steam may also occur. There is currently no guarantee that the maximum heat of the GDF will remain at 200C.

Even a 1.0C increase in ocean water [ii]can cause ‘massive impacts’ on the health of sea life and contribute to marine desertification, including loss of biodiversity, collapse of fisheries, and accelerated climate change. The proposed GDF is planned to be at least 37 km3, a substantial section of seabed under the Irish Sea, in a Marine Protected Area. Similar to nature reserves or SSSIs, Marine Protected Areas are parts of the ocean established to protect habitats, species and healthy, functioning marine ecosystems. Professor Haszeldine pointed out that seeps of warm or hot waterfrom a GDF onto the seabed are unlikely to stabilise, repair, and rewild the natural seabed ecosystems.

Professor David K. Smythe, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Glasgow, said he agreed with Professor Haszeldine about the danger of trying to bury High Level Waste, whether it was conditioned or not. “The waste should be kept on the surface of the earth, and immobilised beyond any possibility of re-use, until a proper long-term solution is found.”

For all these reasons and many more, thousands of people including hundreds of Cumbrians have signed a pettion calling for the full Cumberland Council to debate and vote before going any further in the partnership with Nuclear Waste Services for delivery of an experimental and uniquely dangerous plan to abandon nuclear wastes.

We urge the Nuclear Issues Board to exercise their democratic duty and call for a full debate and vote by Cumberland Council. Currently there is no democratic mandate to continue with the GDF “process” without at least carrying out a full debate and full vote by all Cumberland Councillors

Yours sincerely,

Marianne Birkby, Lakes Against Nuclear Dump, a Radiation Free Lakeland campaign

Richard Outram, Secretary of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs)

September 21, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Antifa Nation

The Australian Independent Media Network, By Walt Zlotow  19 Sept 25, https://wordpress.com/reader/blogs/240145538/posts/22161

 I must thank President Trump for a moment of personal enlightenment. He’s made me aware that for the past 75 years I’ve been a member of the domestic terrorist group Antifa.

Back around first grade my parents informed me about WWII, the Holocaust and Nazism. It was a difficult concept for my young brain to grasp but it spurred a lifelong commitment to anti-fascism, which is precisely what Antifa is short for.

Eight decades on we have a cynical, McCarthyite-channeling president designating a long forgotten, amorphous fringe group with no organized structure, no leadership, no nothing as a ‘terrorist organization’. It’s a cynical dissent suppressing strategy to crush any peaceful opposition to his anti-democratic, fascistic agenda.

He spent his first term demonizing Antifa as a terrorist organization. In his current term he has officially designated Antifa as a terrorist organization with this bit of lunacy: “I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION”.

Our mentally disintegrating president believes his terrorist designation paves the way to expand his road to fascism in America. But there are tens of millions of us peacefully but strenuously resisting his fascistic mindset and governing agenda. We will not let Trump’s wide net of Antifa terrorist designation to our pushback deter us. Resisting the first attempt of fascist rule in America’s 250 years must be a priority of every decent American. 

September 21, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Iran, allies submit draft IAEA resolution to ban attacks on nuclear sites

Sep 16, 2025, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202509162278
Iran and five other countries have submitted a draft resolution to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual general conference calling for a ban on any attack or threat of attack against nuclear sites under UN safeguards, Iran’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on X that the text, backed by China, Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Belarus, was intended “to defend the integrity of the NPT” and reaffirmed the inalienable right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

“All states must refrain from attacking or threatening to attack peaceful nuclear facilities in other countries,” Baghaei wrote. “These principles must be upheld; it is high time that the international community acted firmly to prevent the normalization of lawlessness.”

Draft resolution

The draft resolution condemns “the deliberate and unlawful attacks carried out in June 2025 against nuclear sites and facilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” calling them clear violations of the UN Charter and the IAEA Statute.

It says nuclear sites under IAEA safeguards “shall not be subject to any kind of attack or threat of attack,” adding that such actions pose serious risks to international peace and security, human health, the environment, and the credibility of the non-proliferation regime.

The document also recalls UN Security Council Resolution 487 of 1981, which condemned Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor, and reaffirms previous IAEA decisions prohibiting attacks on safeguarded facilities.

It further stressed that all questions regarding nuclear programs should be resolved “exclusively through dialogue and diplomacy, as the only viable path.”

Israel launched a surprise military campaign on June 13 targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites, including senior commanders and nuclear officials in a conflict that lasted 12 days. On June 22, the United States joined the campaign, striking nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Washington brokered a ceasefire on June 24.

Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami told the conference on Monday that Tehran’s atomic program “cannot be eliminated through military action,” accusing Israel and the United States of launching illegal strikes on Iranian sites in June.

“Despite our formal request, the agency did not condemn the attacks by the United States and Israel on the nuclear centers of the Islamic Republic,” Eslami said, calling the IAEA’s silence “a stain on the Agency’s history.”

Eslami said Tehran would use the conference to highlight what he called unlawful measures against its nuclear industry and to push for adoption of the draft.

The debate comes as Iran’s recent cooperation deal with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi awaits implementation and European powers press ahead with the UN “snapback” mechanism that could reinstate sanctions on Tehran by late September.

September 21, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international, safety | Leave a comment

Chernobyl shelter repairs: ‘Difficult choices’ lie ahead

 The arch-shaped New Safe Confinement structure built over the remains of
Chernobyl’s destroyed unit 4 suffered such extensive damage in a drone
strike in February that it may not be possible to restore it to its full
original design purposes and life-span of 100 years, a side event at the
International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference heard.

 World Nuclear News 18th Sept 2025, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/chernobyls-giant-shelter-may-never-return-to-original-state

September 21, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Can the UK fast-track nuclear power without cutting corners on safety?

The UK’s nuclear regulator is being asked to consider radically
different designs on a scale and pace never before seen. That’s partly
why, as part of the deal, the two countries have agreed to accept each
other’s safety checks. The government claims this will “halve the time
for a nuclear project to be licensed”. The question is whether this can
be done as safely.

The US and UK take fundamentally different approaches to
nuclear regulation. The US’s Nuclear Regulation Commission (NRC) takes a
“prescriptive” approach. It sets detailed rules based on its own
research and enforces them directly. Like police setting speed limits, the
regulator decides the standards and then ensures nuclear operators meet
them. If an accident happens, operators can point to meeting every
requirement as evidence they followed the rules. They could even
legitimately blame the regulator.

The UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation
(ONR) takes a “descriptive” approach. It sets broad standards but
leaves operators to prove how they will meet them. In road terms, the US
sets the speed limit and checks drivers obey it. The UK simply says cars
must stay on the road, leaving drivers to decide their own limits, prove
they’re safe, and take full responsibility if they crash. These two
approaches are driven to a large extent by the two country’s history and
make up of their nuclear industries. So while UK-US collaboration could
boost Britain’s nuclear industry and accelerate the path to low-carbon
energy, independence and transparency will be essential. Any perception of
corner cutting or transatlantic political interference could undermine
public trust and derail Britain’s nuclear ambitions.

 The Conversation 18th Sept 2025, https://theconversation.com/can-the-uk-fast-track-nuclear-power-without-cutting-corners-on-safety-265614

September 21, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Construction starts of Belgian disposal facility

 Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever has laid a foundation stone,
marking the start of construction of a surface disposal facility for low-
and intermediate-level, short-lived waste at the Dessel site in Belgium.
The facility will consist of several concrete bunkers that will house large
concrete vaults in which short-lived low- and intermediate-level waste will
have been encapsulated with mortar. Currently, 28,831 vaults are planned,
spread across two zones: 20 bunkers in the first and 14 in the second. The
Dessel facility will house all Belgian low- and intermediate-level,
short-lived radioactive waste including that from nuclear power plants,
hospitals, research institutes and the decommissioning of nuclear
facilities. Currently, this waste is managed by national radioactive waste
management agency ONDRAF/NIRAS’s industrial subsidiary Belgoprocess in
several dedicated buildings on the Dessel site.

 World Nuclear News 19th Sept 2025, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/construction-starts-of-belgian-disposal-facility

September 21, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, wastes | Leave a comment

Political witch hunts and blacklists: Donald Trump and the new era of McCarthyism

September 19, 2025 , Shannon Brincat, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of the Sunshine Coast, Frank Mols, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, The University of Queensland, Gail Crimmins, Associate professor, University of the Sunshine Coast, https://theconversation.com/political-witch-hunts-and-blacklists-donald-trump-and-the-new-era-of-mccarthyism-265389?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekender%20-%2019th%20September%202025&utm_content=The%20Weekender%20-%2019th%20September%202025+CID_d7a6e5ec27e543170fba8540bf95d6ea&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Political%20witch%20hunts%20and%20blacklists%20Donald%20Trump%20and%20the%20new%20era%20of%20McCarthyism

A modern-day political inquisition is unfolding in “digital town squares” across the United States. The slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk has become a focal point for a coordinated campaign of silencing critics that chillingly echoes one of the darkest chapters in American history.

Individuals who have publicly criticised Kirk or made perceived insensitive comments regarding his death are being threatened, fired or doxed.

Teachers and professors have been fired or disciplined, one for posting that Kirk was racist, misogynistic and a neo-Nazi, another for calling Kirk a “hate-spreading Nazi”.

Journalists have also lost their jobs after making comments about Kirk’s assassination, as has the late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel.

A website called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” had been posting the names, locations and employers of people saying critical things about Kirk before it was reportedly taken down. Vice President JD Vance has pushed for this public response, urging supporters to “call them out … hell, call their employer”.

This is far-right “cancel culture”, the likes of which the US hasn’t seen since the McCarthy era in the 1950s.

The birth of McCarthyism

The McCarthy era may well have faded in our collective memory, but it’s important to understand how it unfolded and the impact it had on America. As the philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Since the 1950s, “McCarthyism” has become shorthand for the practice of making unsubstantiated accusations of disloyalty against political opponents, often through fear-mongering and public humiliation.

The term gets its name from Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican who was the leading architect of a ruthless witch hunt in the US to root out alleged Communists and subversives across American institutions.

The campaign included both public and private persecutions from the late 1940s to early 1950s, involving hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Millions of federal employees had to fill out loyalty investigation forms during this time, while hundreds of employees were either fired or not hired. Hundreds of Hollywood figures were also blacklisted.

The campaign also involved the parallel targeting of the LGBTQI+ community working in government – known as the Lavender Scare.

And similar to doxing today, witnesses in government hearings were asked to provide the names of communist sympathisers, and investigators gave lists of prospective witnesses to the media. Major corporations told employees who invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify they would be fired.

The greatest toll of McCarthyism was perhaps on public discourse. A deep chill settled over US politics, with people afraid to voice any opinion that could be construed as dissenting.

When the congressional records were finally unsealed in the early 2000s, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said the hearings “are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to reoccur”.

Another witch hunt under Trump

Today, however, a similar campaign is being waged by the Trump administration and others on the right, who are stoking fears of the “the enemy within”.

This new campaign to blacklist government critics is following a similar pattern to the McCarthy era, but is spreading much more quickly, thanks to social media, and is arguably targeting far more regular Americans.

Even before Kirk’s killing, there were worrying signs of a McCarthyist revival in the early days of the second Trump administration.

After Trump ordered the dismantling of public Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, civil institutions, universities, corporations and law firms were pressured to do the same. Some were threatened with investigation or freezing of federal funds.

In Texas, a teacher was accused of guiding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) squads to suspected non-citizens at a high school. A group called the Canary Mission identified pro-Palestinian green-card holders for deportation. And just this week, the University of California at Berkeley admitted to handing over the names of staff accused of antisemitism.

Supporters of the push to expose those criticising Kirk have framed their actions as protecting the country from “un-American”, woke ideologies. This narrative only deepens polarisation by simplifying everything into a Manichean world view: the “good people” versus the corrupt “leftist elite”.

The fact the political assassination of Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman did not garner the same reaction from the right reveals a gross double standard at play.

Another double standard: attempts to silence anyone criticising Kirk’s divisive ideology, while being permissive of his more odious claims. For example, he once called George Floyd, a Black man killed by police, a “scumbag”.

In the current climate, empathy is not a “made-up, new age term”, as Kirk once said, but appears to be highly selective.

This brings an increased danger, too. When neighbours become enemies and dialogue is shut down, the possibilities for conflict and violence are exacerbated.

Many are openly discussing the parallels with the rise of fascism in Germany, and even the possibility of another civil war.

A sense of decency?

The parallels between McCarthyism and Trumpism are stark and unsettling. In both eras, dissent has been conflated with disloyalty.

How far could this go? Like the McCarthy era, it partly depends on the public reaction to Trump’s tactics.

McCarthy’s influence began to wane when he charged the army with being soft on communism in 1954. The hearings, broadcast to the nation, did not go well. At one point, the army’s lawyer delivered a line that would become infamous:

Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness […] Have you no sense of decency?

Without concerted, collective societal pushback against this new McCarthyism and a return to democratic norms, we risk a further coarsening of public life.

The lifeblood of democracy is dialogue; its safeguard is dissent. To abandon these tenets is to pave the road towards authoritarianism.

September 21, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Department of War Is Back!

But Victoryless Culture Remains.

 William J. Astore, 17 Sept 25, https://tomdispatch.com/the-department-of-war-is-back/

My fellow Americans, my critical voice has finally been heard inside the Oval Office. No, not my voice against the $1.7 trillion this country is planning to spend on new nuclear weapons. No, not my call to cut the Pentagon budget in half. No, not my imprecations against militarism in America. It was a quip of mine that the Department of Defense (DoD) should return to its roots as the War Department, since the U.S. hasn’t known a moment’s peace since before the 9/11 attacks, locked as it’s been into a permanent state of global war, whether against “terror” or for its imperial agendas (or both)

A rebranded Department of War, President Trump recently suggested, simply sounds tougher (and more Trumpian) than “defense.” As is his wont, he blurted out a hard truth as he stated that America must have an offensive military. There was, however, no mention of war bonds or war taxes to pay for such a military. And no mention of a wartime draft or any other meaningful sacrifice by most Americans.

September 20, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Will the US Continue to Aid, Abet, and Arm Genocide in Gaza?

Every leader should move now to end our complicity.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, 16 Sept 25, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/israel-genocide-complicity-gaza-palestine/

he United States is aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza. This horror has the support —like so many of our most disastrous foreign debacles from Vietnam to Iraq—of both political parties.

As more and more children die of starvation and the famine deepens, as the Netanyahu government begins its attack on Gaza City, moving to occupy all of Gaza, as Israeli soldiers and bulldozers systematically level city after city in Gaza, the criminal horror is reaching its obscene goal: the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza (and, if Netanyahu’s ministers have their way, all of the occupied West Bank).

While all signatories to the Genocide Convention have the right—and indeed the duty—to intervene to halt this slaughter, only two countries have the power to actually stop the genocide: the Israeli government that is committing it and the US government that is aiding, abetting, and arming it. The US could stop this criminal assault by ending its support for Israel, cutting off the flow of arms, ammunition, bombs, and military coordination and demanding and helping to organize immediate, emergency humanitarian relief. To do any less makes us complicit in the ongoing crime.

Across the world—and within Israel itself—some brave leaders have demanded an end to the horror.

David Grossman, Israel’s leading literary and moral voice, says that for many years he has refused to use the word genocide, but now he must—“with immense pain and with a broken heart.”

Two leading Israeli human rights groups—B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel—released a report on “Our Genocide,” detailing the unfathomable violence and concluding that there is “no doubt” that since October 2023, the Israeli regime has been responsible for carrying out genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza strip.” Physicians for Human Rights Israel provided a medical-legal analysis documenting Israel’s deliberate destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, as well as other systems critical for the survival of the Palestinian civilian population.

The special rapporteur of the United Nations has reported on the companies and countries profiting from the “economy of genocide.”

Back In January 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that there was a plausible risk that Israel’s actions amounted to genocidal acts—long before the systematic starvation became apparent. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then–Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a former Hamas commander on the suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A growing number of countries have suspended all or part of their arms shipments to Israel, including Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada. Last month, in a resolution passed by 86 percent of its members, the oldest and largest association of genocide scholars concluded that Israel’s nearly two-year military campaign in Gaza meets “the legal definition of genocide,” The resolution, by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, added to a growing chorus from human rights organizations and academics concluding that Israel is committing genocide by “killing members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” according to Emily Sample, a member of the association’s executive board.

Across the world, citizens of conscience demonstrate in greater and greater numbers, demanding an end to the horror.

And in the United States where the responsibility and the complicity are the greatest?

Courageous Jewish scholars like Omer Bartov and writers like Peter Beinart have spoken out early against the calamity.

More than 1,000 rabbis have called for Israel to allow humanitarian aid, stating “we cannot condone the mass killings of civilians…or the use of starvation as a weapon of war

After months of looking the other way, more and more of the mainstream US media are beginning to awake to the humanitarian catastrophe that is being inflicted on the Palestinians.

But among those who could actually bring the horror to an end, courage is in short supply.

Only 13 members of Congress have been willing to state the obvious: that Israel is committing genocide. House minority whip Katherine Clark declared that the “genocide and destruction” in Gaza needs to end—only to walk back her comments a few days later.

The Senate Resolution submitted by Senator Bernie Sanders to block some weapons sales to Israel received not one Republican vote. Instead, Republicans line up behind Donald Trump, who muses about beachfront properties in Gaza and tells Israel to hurry up and finish the job.

A Gallup poll showed only 8 percent of Democrats support Israel’s military action in Gaza. The Sanders Resolutions received support from a majority of the Senate Democratic caucus, yet those still refusing to stand up include Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, as well as Senator Corey Booker, who styles himself as a voice for human rights.

This is no longer a policy debate. This is now an urgent question of basic humanity. Will the United States continue to arm genocide in Gaza? Will legislators continue to support an unconscionable crime against humanity—or act to end it? As more Palestinians starve to death, as more doctors and aid workers and journalists are murdered, as needed food and water continues to be withheld, as families are huddled into smaller and smaller open-air camps, no amount of censorship, doubletalk, lies, or excuses can hide the true horror.

There is no excuse for inaction. There is no escape from responsibility. Each legislator, official, and officer will have to look in the mirror. Complicity in this crime will destroy their reputations. Growing numbers of their constituents, their neighbors, even their own children will demand to know why they chose complicity rather than courage.

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Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

America is aiding, abetting, and arming that genocide.

Every American should stand up to protest the horror being committed in our names.

Every leader should move now to end our complicity. 

Every American should stand up to protest the horror being committed in our names.

Every leader should move now to end our complicity.

September 20, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Why Starmer’s nuclear ‘golden age’ risks becoming a lot of hot air.

Crippling costs and mountains of red tape threaten to pour cold water on the PM’s ambitions.

Donald Trump hasn’t been shy about criticising British
energy policy under Labour, lashing out at “ugly” wind farms and
crippling taxes on North Sea oil and gas. Yet one area where the US
president and Sir Keir Starmer seem to fervently agree is on nuclear power.
This week, the US and UK governments promised to work together to deliver a
“golden age” of privately-financed power plant construction.

The agreement will see the two countries fast-track the approval of new,
cutting-edge reactor designs by recognising each other’s safety regimes – a
controversial move that has already raised the hackles of activists. But to
underline the economic prize on offer, the announcement featured a string
of eye-catching investments being looked at by American and British
companies with plans for fleets of reactors that will power the grid, as
well as high-tech data centres needed for artificial intelligence (AI)
software. British Gas owner Centrica and X-energy, a nuclear start-up
backed by Amazon, said they were exploring building up to 80 advanced
modular reactors (AMRs) capable of delivering electricity and heat to both
industrial businesses and millions of homes. Meanwhile, Holtec
International and the UK arm of EDF are looking at building a small modular
reactor (SMR) on the former site of a coal power plant in Nottinghamshire.
Micro-reactor firm Last Energy is also exploring plans to power the London
Gateway port, while Bill Gates-backed TerraPower is scouting out locations
for mini power plants as well.

On the face of it, the deals looked like a
major triumph for the Prime Minister. But industry veterans were quick to
note that, in their current form, they are just loosely-worded commitments,
with the companies yet to sign binding contracts or exchange serious sums
of cash. One potential blueprint may lie in a new report by pro-growth
campaign group Britain Remade, which argues that nuclear power can offer
“abundant, clean, reliable electricity” and lower bills for consumers –
but only if the Government overhauls red tape that is “not fit for
purpose”. “US firms want to build here,” says Sam Dumitriu, the
report’s author. “But turning it into shovels in the ground, data centres
online, on time and on budget, depends on making the UK a lower-cost,
faster place to build”

Telegraph 18th Sept 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/09/18/why-starmer-will-struggle-to-deliver-nuclear-golden-age/

September 20, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

UN genocide report puts Starmer in the dock.

Declassified UK , 19 Sept 25.


This week, the UN commission of inquiry concluded on reasonable grounds that “the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit [acts] of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

The acts include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.UN member states are consequently urged to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide in Gaza, including the cessation of arms transfers and the facilitation of legal investigations into Israel’s actions.

The commission of inquiry was set up four years ago by the UN human rights council, and is staffed by three independent experts. While it does not speak officially for the UN, it strongly reinforces the growing consensus around the genocidal nature of Israel’s war.

So what are the implications for Britain?

Perhaps most significantly, the commission flatly rejects the UK government’s argument that the duty to prevent genocide is only triggered when an international court has established that a genocide has taken place.

“Since at least January 2024, when the International Court of Justice ordered its first provisional measures, all states… have been on notice of a serious risk that genocide was being or would be committed”, the report notes.

The UK government, in other words, has misconstrued its obligations under the Geneva Convention to prevent and punish genocide. Indeed, how is it possible to prevent genocide if you wait until it has taken place?

The report also notes how “Israeli security forces shot at and killed civilians, including children who were holding makeshift white flags”. Days before, a Dutch newspaper found that at least 114 Palestinian children had been hit with single gunshot wounds to the head or chest.

The UK government is clearly aware this is occurring, but it has covered up its own evidence on Israel’s killing of minors. 


In June, the government’s lawyers refused to submit a research report to court on “Long-Range Shootings or Shootings of Minors”. Subsequent requests from MPs and the media for the report have been repeatedly refused.

And then there’s the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, who was welcomed to London last week by prime minister Keir Starmer.

The report found that Herzog, alongside Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, “incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities… failed to take action against them to punish this incitement”.

These are serious findings, and they require a serious response from the UK government. Yet ministers, unsurprisingly, have largely shied away from talking about the report – perhaps unwilling to incriminate themselves further.

September 20, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

Rolls Royce “Small” nuclear reactors are not at all small!

Dr Paul Dorfman Letter: Further to your report “Deal with US to
fast-track mini nuclear reactors” (Sep 15; letter, Sep 16), small modular
reactors (SMRs) are defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency as
reactors that generate up to 300MW power.

At 470MW, the Rolls-Royce design is not an SMR: it is larger than the UK Magnox reactor, more than half the size of the 900MW reactors that make up the bulk of the French nuclear fleet, and about a third the size of the very large EPR reactor design at Hinkley Point C.

This matters because the Rolls-Royce design will need big
sites, standard nuclear safety measures, exclusion zones, core catchers,
aircraft crash protection and security. All this is important because in
calling its design an SMR, or small, Rolls-Royce appears to me to have been
economical with the truth — and all that implies for its other claims,
especially about time and cost.

As for the nuclear waste problem, the former chair of the US government Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports
that SMRs would produce more reactive waste per kWh — the key parameter — than large reactors.

Times 17th Sept 2025. https://www.thetimes.com/comment/letters-to-editor/article/times-letters-ethics-of-danny-krugers-defection-to-reform-uk-3rbg90m3b

September 20, 2025 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Trump not Commander in Chief…he’s Violence Inciter in Chief.

Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn IL 16 Sept 25

45 men have served as president. Everyone had a base of voters they geared their presidency toward to remain politically viable and enact their agenda. But all pledged fealty to serving all the people throughout their presidency without regard to political affiliation. All but one that is.

Donald Trump has served every one of his 1,700 days over 5 years ignoring his opposition. Worse, he relentless demonizes them, inciting threats and actual violence unprecedented in American history.

It began with his very first words campaigning for the 2016 election. He glided down the escalator at Trump Tower charging undocumented from Mexico are murderers and rapists, the worst of the worst.

That set the tone for his entire administration. Knowing he was likely to lose reelection, he pivoted to a treasonous assault on the electoral system that put a target on every election official, judge and worker not affiliated with the Trump base. Worse, he inspired, indeed orchestrated, a violent riot to overturn the 2020 election in which he was crushed by over 7 million votes. Also crushed were over 100 patriotic law enforcement injured by a ravenous mob doing Trump’s bidding. One died and 4 committed suicide shortly thereafter from Trump’s riot trauma.

His second term has continued apace. He’s sent his masked immigration storm troopers into American workplaces rounding up undocumented workers serving the economy. Why? Because he can’t round up enough law breaking undocumented on the street to satisfy his vengeful base.

When right wing influencer Charlie Kirk was gunned down Trump immediately blamed the ‘extreme left’, his favorite target for retribution. A number of his high profile supporters called for war against his imaginary enemy. Trump said nothing against this madness that will near certainly result in reprisal violence. Democratic office holders, media influencers and election personnel are all reassessing their security endangered by the very man responsible for their safety.

Trump’s love affair inciting demonization, if not outright violence against the ‘other’, is an aberration in American presidential history.

Someday Trump will leave the presidency he has shockingly betrayed. The only remaining question is how many will fall victim, whether threatened or assaulted, to the madness Trump has unleashed.

September 20, 2025 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, USA | Leave a comment

US Bombs Another Boat Near Venezuela.

President Trump claimed without evidence that the boat was running drugs and that the strike killed three ‘terrorists’

by Dave DeCamp | September 15, 2025 , https://news.antiwar.com/2025/09/15/us-bombs-another-boat-near-venezuela/

The US military on Monday bombed a boat near Venezuela and killed three people, according to a statement released by President Trump on Truth Social.

President Trump claimed without providing evidence that the boat was carrying drugs and that the three people who were killed were “narcoterrorists.” He made similar claims about the first US military strike on a boat near Venezuela that occurred on September 2, which he said killed 11 “narcoterrorists.”

The president also posted a video that purported to show the Monday strike. It showed what appeared to be a boat that was drifting at sea, followed by an explosion.

“This morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump said. “The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the US.”

The president also signaled that more US strikes on boats in the region were coming. “BE WARNED — IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!” he wrote.

The second US bombing in the region came after the Venezuelan government said that personnel from a US warship boarded a Venezuelan tuna boat that was in Venezuelan waters. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil said 18 armed US troops were on the vessel for 8 hours, a claim that hasn’t been confirmed by the US military.


“Those who give the order to carry out such provocations are seeking an incident that would justify a military escalation in the Caribbean,” Gil said.

While Trump and other US officials claim the military action and pressure on Venezuela’s government is about drug trafficking and a response to overdose deaths in the US, fentanyl doesn’t come from or through Venezuela, and the majority of the cocaine that is transported to the US comes through the Pacific, not the Caribbean. Gil said that the real purpose of the US operations was for the US to “persist in their failed policy” of regime change in Venezuela.

The Venezuela policy is being largely driven by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long pushed for regime change in Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday called out Rubio in response to the US boarding the tuna boat, calling him a “lord of death and war.”

September 20, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why a national cancer study near US reactors must be conducted before any new expansion of nuclear power.

Nuclear power reactors were introduced in
the United States during the 1950s. Despite concerns about potential health
hazards posed by routine radioactive emissions into the environment, few
research articles have been published in professional journals. The only
national study of cancer near reactors was conducted by federal researchers
in the 1980s and found no association between proximity to reactors and
cancer risk.

But since then, articles on individual nuclear facilities have
documented elevated cancer rates in local populations. Current proposals to
expand US nuclear power, along with concerns about protracted exposures
near aging reactors, make it imperative that an objective, current national
study of cancer near existing reactors be conducted.

 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 12th Sept 2025, https://thebulletin.org/2025/09/why-a-national-cancer-study-near-us-reactors-must-be-conducted-before-any-new-expansion-of-nuclear-power/

September 20, 2025 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

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