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Trump warns of ‘bad, bad things’ for Iran if nuclear deal not reached

 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202503289286 29 Mar 25

AS president Donald Trump warned Iran on Friday that “bad, bad things” would happen if Tehran did not agree to a nuclear deal, a day after Iran declined to have direct talks under his stepped-up sanctions.

“My big preference … is we work it out with Iran. But if we don’t work it out, bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

This is what Trump said he conveyed in his letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei last week.

Tehran confirmed on Wednesday that a response to the letter had been sent via Oman.

“Our policy remains not to engage in direct negotiations under maximum pressure and military threats. However, indirect negotiations as existed in the past can continue,” foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said.

Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon but the UN’s nuclear watchdog says it has enriched more uranium than any state lacking a bomb. While Washington assesses Tehran is not actively building one, it doubts Iranian intentions.

Trump last month reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions on Iran from his first term, with the stated aim of driving its oil sales to zero.

Trump’s remarks come as Iran’s parliament speaker on Friday accused the US of using nuclear talks to pressure Tehran into relinquishing its defense capabilities.

“The US means disarmament when it says negotiation,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a speech during Quds Day rallies in Tehran on Friday. “Our people understand that talks under threat are just a show to impose their will. No wise nation would accept that.”

His comments were echoed by other senior Iranian officials speaking at Quds Day events showcasing Tehran’s solidarity with Palestinians, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Larijani.

March 30, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

The US has the power to switch off the UK’s nuclear subs – a big problem as Donald Trump becomes an unreliable partner

Th Conversation, March 28, 2025 , Becky Alexis-Martin, Peace Studies and International Development, University of Bradford

Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently boarded one of the UK’s four nuclear-armed submarines for a photo call as part of his attempts to demonstrate the UK’s defence capabilities as tensions with Russia continue.

However, Starmer faces a problem. The submarine, and the rest of the UK’s nuclear fleet, is heavily reliant on the US as an operating partner. And at a time when the US becomes an increasingly unreliable partner under the leadership of an entirely transactional president, this is not ideal. The US can, if it chooses, effectively switch off the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

British and US nuclear history is irrevocably interwoven. The US and UK cooperated on the Manhattan project, under the 1943 Quebec agreements and the 1944 Hyde Park aide memoire. This work generated the world’s first nuclear weapons, which were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

It also led to the first rupture. In 1946, the US classified UK citizens as “foreign” and prevented them from engaging in secret nuclear work. Collaboration with the UK immediately ceased.

The UK decided to develop its own arsenal of nuclear weapons. The successful detonation of the “Grapple Y” hydrogen bomb in April 1958 cemented its position as a thermonuclear power.

In the meantime, however, Russia’s launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 had demonstrated the lethal reach of Soviet nuclear technology. This brought the US and UK back together as nuclear partners…………………………………………..

Serious concerns are now being raised about the UK’s nuclear capacity, given the unpredictability and potential unreliability of the new US administration. Trump could ignore or threaten to terminate the agreement in a show of power or contempt.

The UK’s nuclear subs

The UK’s Trident nuclear deterrence programme consists of four Vanguard nuclear-powered and armed submarines. The UK has some autonomy, as it is operationally independent and controls the decision to launch.

However, it remains dependent on the US because the nuclear technologies at the heart of the Trident system are US designed and leased by Lockheed Martin – and there is no suitable alternative. The Trident system therefore relies on the US for support and maintenance.

The UK is currently in the process of upgrading the current system. But its options seem limited. If the US were to renege on its commitments, the UK would either have to produce its own weapons domestically, collaborate with France or Europe or disarm. Each scenario creates new issues for the UK. Manufacturing nuclear weapons from scratch in the UK, for example, would be a costly and protracted activity.

Technical collaboration with France seems the most plausible back-up option at the moment. The two countries already have a nuclear collaboration treaty in place. France has taken a similar submarine-based approach to deterrence as the UK and French president Emmanuel Macron has suggested its deterrent could be used to protect other European countries. Another alternative would be to spread the cost across Europe and create a European deterrence – but both strategies just re-embed the UK’s current nuclear reliance.

While these weapons may deter a hostile nuclear strike, they have failed to prevent broader acts of aggression. Nuclear weapons have not been used in warfare for 80 years. Perhaps it is time to completely and permanently unshackle the UK from nuclear deterrence, and consider alternative forms of defence.

The UK’s nuclear arsenal is expensive to maintain. The cost of replacing Trident is £205 billion. In 2023, the Ministry of Defence reported that the anticipated costs for supporting the nuclear deterrent would exceed its budget by £7.9 billion over the next ten years. This funding could be channelled into more pressing security threats, such as cybersecurity, terrorism or climate change.

Nuclear weapons will become strategically redundant if the UK cannot act independently. As Nato and the US dominate the global nuclear stage, the UK’s capacity to respond has become contested. The time has come to decide whether the US is really our friend – or a new foe.  https://theconversation.com/the-us-has-the-power-to-switch-off-the-uks-nuclear-subs-a-big-problem-as-donald-trump-becomes-an-unreliable-partner-252674

March 30, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Second shipment of high level waste departs UK for Germany

 Second shipment of high level waste departs UK for Germany. As previously
announced, the UK will be returning high level waste (HLW) in the form of
vitrified residues to Germany. The second of three planned shipments is now
safely under way. Seven flasks containing high level waste were transported
from the Sellafield site in West Cumbria to the nearby port of
Barrow-in-Furness by rail. The flasks were then loaded to the specialist
nuclear transport vessel Pacific Grebe, operated by Nuclear Transport
Solutions (NTS).

 Sellafield 27th March 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/second-shipment-of-high-level-waste-departs-uk-for-germany

March 30, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Britain’s worst nuclear disaster: the Windscale fire of 1957

 When a routine procedure went wrong in October 1957, a fire broke out at
the Windscale nuclear power station in Cumbria, UK. By the time it was put
out, radiation had been sent across Britain and Europe.

Jonny Wilkes reveals what happened, and why we should be grateful that it wasn’t much
worse. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima: three names that have gone
down in infamy; bywords for the nightmare scenarios that can occur when the
production of nuclear power goes disastrously wrong. Before them all
though, was Windscale.

 History Extra 27th March 2025,
https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/atomfall-real-nuclear-windscale-disaster-fire/

March 30, 2025 Posted by | history, UK | Leave a comment

I’m Oppenheimer’s grandson. I support Trump’s pursuit of nuclear diplomacy.

President Donald Trump is right to propose direct talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China on nuclear arms control.

USA Today, Charles Oppenheimer, 28 Mar 25

Amid all the chaos in the world, I want to provide a ray of light, a sliver of hope: We may be on the verge of radically reducing the gravest global existential danger ‒ that of nuclear weapons. 

Many people and countries have felt threatened by the rapidly changing world order, and many increasingly look to nuclear weapons for supposed protection. But an uncontrolled global nuclear arms race would be the worst outcome, as global nuclear risks have already surged to the highest level since the end of the Cold War. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently pushed its famed Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest ever to humanity’s destruction.

To his credit, President Donald Trump has proposed confronting the growing global nuclear danger head-on. He is right to be repeatedly calling for bold denuclearization talks among the United States, China and Russia ‒ the world’s three biggest nuclear powers ‒ to de-escalate the new nuclear arms race. 

If Trump is serious about pursuing nuclear diplomacy, I’ll strongly support his initiative ‒ and there is much work to be done.

How many countries now have nuclear weapons? 9.

As Trump has pointed out, nothing in the world is more dangerous than the persistent threat that nuclear weapons pose to our very existence. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union waged a dangerous, costly and ultimately unwinnable nuclear arms race under the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD). At its peak, the two countries amassed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons and repeatedly brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

MAD was always a crazy gamble, positing that more nuclear weapons make us safer. But if it had any merit, it was designed for two nuclear peers, not for three nuclear superpowers. Nor did it account for the growing number of countries looking to acquire their own nuclear weapons or irrational leaders with their fingers on the button.

Yet, MAD still dominates countries’ nuclear thinking.

At a time of profound global changes and instability, following the dangerous and outdated Cold War playbook will only lead to another futile nuclear arms race among the world’s now nine nuclear powers and encourage even more countries to build their own nukes.

Instead of increasing security, such a nuclear free-for-all will only hasten our own demise.

We don’t need to go down this path. There is a reason for hope. A new opening for peace.  Not to solve all conflicts and all problems ‒ but the world’s most important and dangerous one.   

As the president suggested, the best shot at reducing the growing nuclear threat is directly de-escalating the arms race among the United States, China and Russia. China’s rise as a world power has led it to increase its once-small nuclear arsenal.

China now has roughly 600 nuclear weapons and is on a path to match America’s and Russia’s deployed arsenals of about 1,500 each (thousands more are in reserve).

Many U.S. politicians see the growth of China’s power as a reason to escalate tensions. The military-industrial complex still sells the old lie: The more nuclear weapons we have, the more we can “deter” China and Russia, and the safer we will be………………………………………………………………………………………………….

President Trump is right to propose direct talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China on nuclear arms control. Though nuclear negotiations are often held by bureaucrats with no real power and don’t go anywhere, it’s time the leaders themselves step up to lead.  

A meaningful commitment from these three leaders to reducing global nuclear threats would be the biggest breakthrough on this most important of issues since the 1986 summit between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan ‒ a hawkish leader who ended up embracing nuclear disarmament.

Such an accomplishment would be worthy of a Nobel Peace prize for Trump, Putin and Xi, regardless of what you think of their respective politics. 

There are many great ideas out there on how trilateral nuclear negotiations could work. My recommendation is to start with prohibiting artificial intelligence from launching nuclear weapons, something all parties could agree to. Washington and Moscow could then explore reducing their respective arsenals from thousands toward Beijing’s much lower level. They can further negotiate with China on a mutual pledge not to use nuclear weapons first, which China has already committed to………………………………… https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2025/03/28/trump-nuclear-diplomacy-russia-china-oppenheimer/82651474007/

March 29, 2025 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Calls to restart nuclear weapons tests stir dismay and debate among scientists

Testing “has tremendous symbolic importance,” says Frank von Hippel, a physicist at Princeton University. “During the Cold War, when we were shooting these things off all the time, it was like war drums: ‘We have nuclear weapons and they work. Better watch out.’ ” The cessation of testing, he says, was an acknowledgment that “these [weapons] are so unusable that we don’t even test them.”

A U.S. return to underground detonations would have wide-ranging implications.

Science News, By Emily Conover, March 27, 2025

hen the countdown hit zero on September 23, 1992, the desert surface puffed up into the air, as if a giant balloon had inflated it from below.

It wasn’t a balloon. Scientists had exploded a nuclear device hundreds of meters below the Nevada desert, equivalent to thousands of tons of TNT. The ensuing fireball reached pressures and temperatures well beyond those in Earth’s core. Within milliseconds of the detonation, shock waves rammed outward. The rock melted, vaporized and fractured, leaving behind a cavity oozing with liquid radioactive rock that puddled on the cavity’s floor.

As the temperature and pressure abated, rocks collapsed into the cavity. The desert surface slumped, forming a subsidence crater about 3 meters deep and wider than the length of a football field. Unknown to the scientists.

working on this test, named Divider, it would be the end of the line. Soon after, the United States halted nuclear testing.

Beginning with the first explosive test, known as Trinity, in 1945, more than 2,000 atomic blasts have rattled the globe. Today, that nuclear din has been largely silenced, thanks to the norms set by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, or CTBT, negotiated in the mid-1990s.

Only one nation — North Korea — has conducted a nuclear test this century. But researchers and policy makers are increasingly grappling with the possibility that the fragile quiet will soon be shattered.

Some in the United States have called for resuming testing, including a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump. Officials in the previous Trump administration considered testing, according to a 2020 Washington Post article. And there may be temptation in coming years. The United States is in the midst of a sweeping, decades-long overhaul of its aging nuclear arsenal. Tests could confirm that old weapons still work, check that updated weapons perform as expected or help develop new types of weapons.

Meanwhile, the two major nuclear powers, the United States and Russia, remain ready to obliterate one another at a moment’s notice. If tensions escalate, a test could serve as a signal of willingness to use the weapons.

Testing “has tremendous symbolic importance,” says Frank von Hippel, a physicist at Princeton University. “During the Cold War, when we were shooting these things off all the time, it was like war drums: ‘We have nuclear weapons and they work. Better watch out.’ ” The cessation of testing, he says, was an acknowledgment that “these [weapons] are so unusable that we don’t even test them.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“A single United States test could trigger a global chain reaction,” says geologist Sulgiye Park of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit advocacy group. Other nuclear powers would likely follow by setting off their own test blasts. Countries without nuclear weapons might be spurred to develop and test them. One test could kick off a free-for-all.

“It’s like striking a match in a roomful of dynamite,” Park says.

The rising nuclear threat

The logic behind nuclear weapons involves mental gymnastics. The weapons can annihilate entire cities with one strike, yet their existence is touted as a force for peace. The thinking is that nuclear weapons act as a deterrent — other countries will resist using a nuclear weapon, or making any major attack, in fear of retaliation. The idea is so embedded in U.S. military circles that a type of intercontinental ballistic missile developed during the Cold War was dubbed Peacekeeper…………………………………………………

….. . The last remaining arms-control treaty between the United States and Russia, New START, is set to expire in 2026, giving the countries free rein on numbers of deployed weapons………………………………………………………………………………..

The United States regularly considers the possibility of testing nuclear weapons……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Is there a need to test nuclear weapons?

Subcritical experiments are focused in particular on the quandary over how plutonium ages. Since 1989, the United States hasn’t fabricated significant numbers of plutonium pits. That means the pits in the U.S. arsenal are decades old, raising questions about whether weapons will still work.

An aging pit, some scientists worry, might cause the multistep process in a nuclear warhead to fizzle. For example, if the implosion in the first stage doesn’t proceed properly, the second stage might not go off at all.

Plutonium ages not only from the outside in — akin to rusting iron — but also from the inside out, says Siegfried Hecker, who was director of Los Alamos from 1986 to 1997. “It’s constantly bombarding itself by radioactive decay. And that destroys the metallic lattice, the crystal structure of plutonium.”

The decay leaves behind a helium nucleus, which over time may result in tiny bubbles of helium throughout the lattice of plutonium atoms. Each decay also produces a uranium atom that zings through the material and “beats the daylights out of the lattice,” Hecker says. “We don’t quite know how much the damage is … and how that damaged material will behave under the shock and temperature conditions of a nuclear weapon. That’s the tricky part.”

One way to circumvent this issue is to produce new pits. A major effort under way will ramp up production. In 2024, the NNSA “diamond stamped” the first of these pits, meaning that the pit was certified for use in a weapon. The aim is for the United States to make 80 pits per year by 2030. But questions remain about new plutonium pits as well, Hecker says, as they rely on an updated manufacturing process………………………

 the benefits of performing a test would be outweighed by the big drawback: Other countries would likely return to testing. And those countries would have more to learn than the United States. China, for instance, has performed only 45 tests, while the United States has performed over 1,000. “We have to find other ways that we can reassure ourselves,” Hecker says…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Underground tests are not risk-free

Tests that clearly break the rules, however, can be swiftly detected. The CTBT monitoring system can spot underground explosions as small as 0.1 kilotons, less than a hundredth that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. That includes the most recent nuclear explosive test, performed by North Korea in 2017.

Despite being invisible, underground nuclear explosive tests have an impact. While an underground test is generally much safer than an open-air nuclear test, “it’s not not risky,” Park says……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Even if the initial containment is successful, radioactive materials could travel via groundwater. Although tests are designed to avoid groundwater, scientists have detected traces of plutonium in groundwater from the Nevada site. The plutonium traveled a little more than a kilometer in 30 years. “To a lot of people, that’s not very far,” Park says. But “from a geology time scale, that’s really fast.” Although not at a level where it would cause health effects, the plutonium had been expected to stay put.

The craters left in the Nevada desert are a mark of each test’s impact on structures deep below the surface. “There was a time when detonating either above ground or underground in the desert seemed like — well, that’s just wasteland,” Jeanloz says. “Many would view it very differently now, and say, ‘No, these are very fragile ecosystems, so perturbing the water table, putting radioactive debris, has serious consequences.’ ”…………………………………..
more https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-weapons-tests-comeback-threats

March 29, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Massive Mine Shafts and Nuclear Dump For Cumbria Coast? Tell Cumberland Council “Vote NOW

A Very Hot Nuclear Waste Dump Under the Irish Sea Bed ? Decision Maker: Cumberland Council

,  By mariannewildart. https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2025/03/27/massive-mine-shafts-and-nuclear-dump-for-cumbria-coast-tell-cumberland-council-vote-now/

The Issue

We, the undersigned, including residents, Council taxpayers and electors of Cumberland in Cumbria, UK, call upon Cumberland Council to schedule a debate at a specially convened meeting of Full Council on the question of whether Cumberland Council: 


1. Continues to support Nuclear Waste Services in its investigations to identify potential locations for a Geological Disposal Facility for Heat Generating Nuclear Wastes in either the Mid or South Copeland Search Areas and

2. Continues to remain a partner in the two Community Partnerships.This debate to be followed by a vote in which all elected members be invited to vote yes or no to continuing these arrangements, with a majority no vote signifying that Cumberland Council withdraws its support and withdraws from membership of the two Community Partnerships ending the process. 

In making this appeal, the petitioners are aware that:

1. An Executive of only four members at Copeland Borough Council originally decided to engage with Nuclear Waste Services in initiating a search for a site in either Mid or South Copeland, and that no vote ever took place amongst all the Councillors of that authority.

2. The Executive of the successor authority Cumberland Council assumed that commitment to GDF engagement, despite the facts that –

Cumbria County Council, which like Copeland was replaced by the new unitary authority and was its biggest component, was manifestly opposed to any GDF in the county.

    There has never been a vote amongst all elected Councillors of Cumberland Council as to whether the authority should have assumed this commitment made by just four Copeland Councillors.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Cumberland Council in Cumbria is unique in becoming a “Partner” in the UKs dangerous nuclear dump proposal while having had no debate or full council vote.  Other areas who were persuaded to go into Partnership with the developer, Nuclear Waste Services, later held full council debates and a vote.  South Holderness and Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire decided that they were not to be fobbed off with the bribe of £2 Million a year to host a dangerous experimental “geological disposal facility.” 

The beautiful and fragile Cumbrian coastline and already vulnerable ocean is in the firing line for the biggest infrastructure project ever in the UK.  This construction site would be active for 100+ years with massive industrial sprawl, movements of highly radioactive materials and pollution.  Mine shafts on the Cumbrian coast would be tunnelled by giant tunnel boring machines leading to a mined out void the size of the country of Tuvalu (26km square) up to the size of Bermuda (50 km square). 

 

The massive amount of rock spoil from an area up to 1000 metres deep and 50km square would be an industrial hazard in itself with naturally occurring radioactive material leaching out of the mountain of spoil.

Tourism is Cumbria’s biggest industry closely followed by Farming and despite ongoing pressures both these industries support tens of thousands of people many in the Cumberland Council area.  Both tourism and farming would be disastrously impacted by the plan for a 100+ year massive mine in which to dump high level nuclear wastes, a plan which now includes plutonium, under the Cumbrian coastline and ocean.

The reason the proposed “geological disposal facility” (sub-sea nuclear dump) has to be so huge is to dissipate the enormous heat from widely spaced out containers of highly radioactive nuclear wastes which are currently stacked together and kept cool by millions of gallons of fresh water a day from the top quality fresh water in Wastwater and the rivers Ehen and Calder (Nuclear is the most wasteful means of producing electricity as a vanishingly small percentage of heat from uranium fuel is used to turn the turbines while the rest is waste and has to “cool off” for tens of thousands, in some cases millions of years).

Where is this planned?

The Lake District coast adjacent to the National Park.  

“Mid-Copeland Community Partnership Area of Focus.” Despite Sellafield, the biggest industrialised mass in the North West or an “atomic carbuncle” as Wainwright called it, this is an ancient and beautiful area with Viking hoards, stone circle and Abbey.

“South Copeland Community Partnership Areas of Focus” are rising up against the plan to host the access mine shafts and associated industrial sprawl for a sub-sea nuclear dump in their beautiful and historic area. 

SIGN HERE

March 29, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Walt Zlotow: UK to push 250,000 Brits into poverty to increase unneeded defense spending.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 28 Mar 25

Now that President Trump has bailed on endless US funding of failed Ukraine war, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has picked up the slack.

Starmer is delusional that Russia seeks to recreate the Soviet empire. He joins equally delusional French President Emmanuel Macron that the EU must replace the disappearing $175 Billion in US treasure to continue the lost Ukraine war.

Starmer wants to boost UK defense spending to 3% of GDP from the current 2.3% tho no foreign enemy is anywhere in sight. To pay for this senseless squandering of UK treasure, Starmer proposes cuts in welfare spending. He appears oblivious of reports that such cuts may push 250,000 Brits into poverty, including 50,000 kids.

Alas, Starmer also remains oblivious that the hundreds of billions the US and EU has squandered in Ukraine has merely cost Ukraine hundreds of thousands of casualties, 10 million fled and 45,000 lost square miles of land. But the only words echoing in Starmer’s brain are: ‘The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.’

March 29, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

CODEPINK Responds to US Senate McCarthy-Style Attack

March 26, 2025 By Ann Wright,  https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/26/codepink-responds-to-us-senate-mccarthy-style-attack/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJSve9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHfT5qi0QWquXKXsyVWAvmWYbVHJu31jtYa8i4R2SJ2Xs8jadVioQ-kJknA_aem_7QqiWhe1geDtZ6x-PdskAg

We must push back” —  Retired Army Colonel Ann Wright takes on AIPAC-funded Tom Cotton, charging him with reckless libel.

Yesterday, in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats with the five heads of intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, Sen. Tom Cotton, accused on national TV a group I have worked with for over 20 years, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, of being funded by the Communist Party of China.

During the hearing CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry stood up following the presentation of the Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard’s lengthy statement about global threats to US national security and yelled “Stop Funding Israel,’ since neither Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton and Vice Chair Mark Warner had mentioned Israel in their opening statement nor  had Gabbard mentioned the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in her statement either.

As Capitol police were taking Barry out of the hearing room, in the horrific style of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, Cotton maliciously said that Barry was a “CODEPINK lunatic that was funded by the Communist party of China.”  Cotton then said if anyone had something to say, to do so.

Refusing to buckle or be intimidated by Cotton’s lies about the funding of CODEPINK, I stood up and yelled, “I’m a retired Army Colonel and former diplomat. I work with CODEPINK and it is not funded by Communist China.”  I too was hauled out of the hearing room by Capitol police and arrested.

After I was taken out of the hearing room, Cotton libelously continued his McCarty lie: “The fact that Communist China funds CODEPINK which interrupts a hearing about Israel illustrates Director Gabbard’s point that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are working together in greater concert than they ever had before.”

Cotton does not appreciate the responsibility he has in his one-month-old elevation to the chair of the Senate’s intelligence committee.

Cotton does not seem to care that his untruthful statements in a U.S. congressional hearing aired around the world can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those he lies about, their friends and family. 

In today’s polarized political environment we know that the words of senior leaders can rile supporters into frenzies as we saw on Jan. 6, 2021, with President Donald Trump’s loyal supporters injuring many Capitol police and destroying parts of the nation’s Capitol building in their attempt to stop the presidential election proceedings.

CODEPINK members have been challenging in the U.S. Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the George W. Bush administration’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Cotton was elected as a U.S. senator in 2014.  We have been in the U.S. Senate offices and halls twice as long as he has. We have nonviolently protested the war policies of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden and now Trump again.

After getting out of the Capitol Hill police station, a CODEPINK delegation went to Cotton’s office in the Russell Senate Office building and made a complaint to this office staff.

We are also submitting a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee for the untrue and libelous statements Senator Cotton made in the hearing.

The abduction and deportation of international students who joined protests against U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, the scathing treatment of visitors who have wanted to enter our country and now the McCarthy intimidating tactics used by Cotton in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing of telling lies about individuals and organizations that challenge U.S. government politics, particularly its complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza must be called out and pushed back.

And we must push back against U.S. senators who actually receive funding from front groups for other countries.  Cotton has received $1,197,989 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to advocate for the genocidal policies of the State of Israel.

Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel.  She was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in US embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia.  She resigned from the U.S. government 22 years ago in March 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq.  She is a member of CODEPINK, Veterans For Peace, Women Cross DMZ and many other peace groups.  She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.

March 29, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

China calls for strict, long-term international supervision over Fukushima wastewater discharge: spokesman

2025-03-26,  https://www.bastillepost.com/global/article/4690031-china-calls-for-strict-long-term-international-supervision-over-fukushima-wastewater-discharge-spokesman?fbclid=IwY2xjawJSuCVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRXbhJz-aEa94Wd_9BghnsxtDEzzaxDZiiCBsWn9LWkvzinWWdeZIhe3Zg_aem_9apdp3Teicc2HwmyoEjwCw
Guo made the statement at a press conference in Beijing in response to a media query about Japan’s wastewater discharge.

China calls for strict and long-term international supervision over Japan’s discharge of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the ocean, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Wednesday.

“I would like to emphasize that China opposes Japan’s unilateral discharge of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean, and this position remains unchanged. Since last year, Chinese experts have visited Japan twice to independently collect samples and announced the relevant test results in a timely manner. On the basis that Japan has fulfilled its commitments and the test results haven’t shown any abnormalities, the General Administration of Customs of China held in Beijing on March 12 technical exchanges with Japan over the safety of Japanese aquatic products,” Guo said.

“China will continue to work with the rest of the international community to urge Japan to earnestly fulfill its commitments and ensure that the discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea is always under strict international supervision,” said the spokesman.

Hit by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered core meltdowns in three reactors that released radiation, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.

The plant then generated a massive amount of wastewater tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down the nuclear fuel in the reactor buildings.

Disregarding domestic and foreign questioning and protests, the Japanese government decided in April 2021 to “filter and dilute” the nuclear contaminated wastewater from the plant and started the ocean discharge of the radioactive wastewater on August 24, 2023. This process is expected to last 20 to 30 years, until the nuclear power plant is scrapped.

March 29, 2025 Posted by | China, Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

EDF reduces stake in Sizewell C as boss sacked

the sacking raises “further fundamental questions about the wisdom of proceeding with the Sizewell C ‘Replica’ project of Hinkley Point C in which EDF is set to be deeply involved”

“Clearly Sizewell C could not reach a Final Investment Decision without taxpayers shouldering the bulk of the project’s massive cost – a hugely controversial choice given that the Chancellor is currently scrabbling around to save as much money as possible.“

25 Mar, 2025 By To s-sacked-25-03-2025/ https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/edf-reduces-stake-in-sizewell-c-as-boss-sacked-25-03-2025/

EDF’s ownership of Sizewell C has decreased to 16.2% and the UK government’s stake increased to 83.8%. Meanwhile, the French company’s chief executive has been axed and its financial stability has been called into question.

The UK’s flagship gigawatt-scale new nuclear projects under construction – Hinkley Point C in Somerset and Sizewell C in Suffolk – are both subject to intense scrutiny as costs rise and timelines slip.

Hinkley Point C is late and over budget, and Sizewell C is awaiting its delayed final investment decision (FID) which is scheduled to be made at the Spending Review on 11 June. The FID will reveal the final determination of who will fund the project and how. The government has already invested several billion pounds in developing it.

Hinkley Point C’s costs rose from around £25bn in 2015 to up to £34bn in 2024, and Sizewell C is projected to cost £40bn – double what it was estimated by EDF and the UK Government to cost in 2020. However, the Treasury disputes this latter figure.

EDF Sizewell C ownership stake reduced

On 24 February 2024, NCE reported that EDF was appearing to scale back its proposed ownership ambitions of Sizewell C.

EDF’s 2024 Annual results document laid out its contribution to the power plant, which is “subject to some conditions, including […] a share in ownership of the project of 10 to 19.99%, including a cap on financial exposure in value.” It also requires “a return on capital expected by EDF as an investor in line with market return for this type of assets, risk allocation profile and its investment policy.”

It is understood that the reason for selecting 19.99% rather than 20% is because a company buying 20% would have to set up a subsidiary entity to take the ownership.

Credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings announced in a ‘Rating Action Commentary’ on 21 March 2025 that the Sizewell C’s owners – the UK Government and EDF – had changed their ownership stakes.

EDF previously confirmed in its 2024 half year results that Sizewell C is owned 76.1% by the UK Government and 23.9% by EDF.

Fitch’s announcement said: “As of end-2024, the project was owned 83.8% by the UK  government and 16.2% by EDF, down from 49.4% at end-2023.”

This marks a fresh drop in EDF’s ownership by 7.7 percentage points.

The decrease comes after French public spending watchdog Cour des comptes said EDF should scale back involvement in UK nuclear projects.

Macron sacks EDF chief and funds EDF reactors

In France, where the government has political control of the entirely state-owned EDF (Électricité de France), Macron fired the company’s chief executive Luc Rémont.

The UK’s Daily Telegraph linked Rémont’s ousting to EDF’s planned electricity price hikes for French industrial customers, of which Macron had promised to “take back control”.

Adding further pressure to EDF’s leadership, French building materials company Saint-Gobain chairman and chief executive officer Benoit Bazin, speaking to French business news channel BFM Business, accused EDF of “giving the middle finger to French industry”.

It has also been reported that the French state has agreed to issue a single subsidised loan “covering at least half the construction costs of six nuclear reactors”, according to the president’s office. It is understood that the six reactors are at the pairs at Penly, Gravelines and Bugey in France.

Former energy secretary reacts to ‘extremely concerning’ developments‘.

Backbench Conservative peer Lord Howell of Guildford reacted to the news. Howell was energy secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s government which supported the construction of nuclear power plants.

He described the reduced stake in Sizewell C as “one more development in growing concern about EDF’s capacity or ability to continue with Hinkley Point C project or take a large (20%+) position in the Sizewell C proposed project.”

Reflecting on the sacking of the EDF boss, he said this is “An extremely worrying development.”

He went on to say the sacking raises “further fundamental questions about the wisdom of proceeding with the Sizewell C ‘Replica’ project of Hinkley Point C in which EDF is set to be deeply involved”

Anti-Sizewell C groups say ‘alarm bells should be ringing’

Stop Sizewell C executive director Alison Downes said: “EDF has not contributed a single penny financially to Sizewell C for well over a year now, and is under growing pressure in France, not only having lost its boss but to scale back its international commitments across the board.

“Clearly Sizewell C could not reach a Final Investment Decision without taxpayers shouldering the bulk of the project’s massive cost – a hugely controversial choice given that the Chancellor is currently scrabbling around to save as much money as possible.

“Rachel Reeves should cancel Sizewell C now and redirect those funds to the Warm Homes Plan, which would lower energy bills and create jobs in every constituency.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has proposed austerity measures for the welfare state, which she says are needed to fund infrastructure developments, ahead of the Spring Statement and Spending Review.

Cuts to welfare, particularly covering disability and unemployment support, are proving to be unpopular with dozens of MPs on the left of the Labour party.

A Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) spokesperson said: “Alarm bells should be ringing as the UK government stake in Sizewell C increases to 84% with only the UK taxpayer currently funding Sizewell C’s development costs.

“This begs the question, ‘Why are EDF refusing to put any further money into Sizewell C?’ EDF have decided to build no more of this reactor design in France, indicating they have no confidence in the EPR design destined for Sizewell.”

The spokesperson went on to say: “EDF are broke, as evidenced by their desperate search for cash to finish Hinkley Point C’s construction.

“This is hardly a secure basis for the UK government to continue in partnership with EDF and certainly not a good advert to encourage potential investors.”

Referencing EDF’s plans for a final stake to be as low as 10%, TASC said: “This evidences that even the developer considers the Sizewell C development to be inherently

EDF and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero did not respond to requests for comment.

March 28, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, France, UK | Leave a comment

Russia rules out transferring control over Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine

the plant being jointly operated, including with the participation of international organizations,

“In this case, for example, it is impossible to properly ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety, or regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage.

Transfer of the facility or control over it to Ukraine or any other country is ‘impossible,’ says Foreign Ministry

Burc Eruygur  26.03.2025,  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/russia-rules-out-transferring-control-over-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-to-ukraine/3520006#

Russia on Tuesday rejected transferring control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to Ukraine or any other country, saying it is “impossible.”

US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the situation surrounding energy supplies to Ukraine and the country’s nuclear power plants during a phone call last Wednesday.

Trump told Zelenskyy that the US could be “very helpful in running the plants with its electricity and utility expertise” and that “American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure,” according to a White House statement.

Zelenskyy told journalists at a briefing later that he and Trump did talk about the restoration of the ZNPP and that Ukraine is ready to discuss the modernization of the plant but they did not discuss the issue of ownership of the plant.

A statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that the plant is a “Russian nuclear facility,” saying the transfer of the facility or control over it to Ukraine or any other country is “impossible.”

“All the station’s employees are citizens of the Russian Federation. Their lives cannot be played with, especially considering the atrocities that Ukrainians have committed and continue to commit on the territory of our country,” it said.

The statement also denied the possibility of the plant being jointly operated, including with the participation of international organizations, describing this as having “no such precedents in world practice.”

“In this case, for example, it is impossible to properly ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety, or regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage.

The statement also denied the possibility of close cooperation between NATO intelligence services with Ukraine, which have impressive sabotage potential, makes it impossible, including with the participation of international organizations, describing this as having “no such precedents in world practice.”

“In this case, for example, it is impossible to properly ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety, or regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage.

“An important aspect is that close cooperation between NATO intelligence services with Ukraine, which have impressive sabotage potential, makes it impossible to even temporarily admit representatives of these states to the ZNPP,” the statement added.

The situation around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest and one of the world’s 10 biggest, particularly remains tense as concerns persist over a possible nuclear disaster involving Moscow and Kyiv, both of which have frequently accused each other of attacks around the facility.

Since Sept. 1, 2022, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) personnel have been present at the plant, which has been under Russian control since March 2022.

March 28, 2025 Posted by | Russia, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

  The rush to war in space only needs a Gulf of Tonkin incident, and then what happens?

Spacecom Protecting Homeland From Growing Threats
March 26, 2025 | By David Vergun , https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4136285/spacecom-protecting-homeland-from-growing-threats/

The Defense Department must prepare for conflict in space to ensure deterrence. If that fails, the U.S. military is ready to fight and win, said Space Force Commander Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, who testified today at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces. 

He said threats continue to expand at a breathtaking pace and pose a risk to the joint force. 

The Defense Department must prepare for conflict in space to ensure deterrence. If that fails, the U.S. military is ready to fight and win, said Space Force Commander Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, who testified today at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces. 

He said threats continue to expand at a breathtaking pace and pose a risk to the joint force. 

Whiting said no other country can match the United States’ understanding of the complexities of space and the requirements to operate effectively in the most challenging areas of responsibility.  

“Our military has the best trained, most capable space warfighting force in the world, and they stand dedicated to for America,” he added.  

The general said Operation Olympic Defender is an example of working with allies and partners. He noted that Germany, France and New Zealand recently joined the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia as participating nations. 

The operation’s mission optimizes space operations, improves mission assurance, enhances resilience and synchronizes efforts, according to a Spacecom news release. 

This growth further strengthens partnerships and enables our allies to share the burden of collective space security, Whiting said. 


“These advantages and our ability to deter potential adversaries cannot be taken for granted,” he said. “Deterrence in space is consistent with other domains. It requires a keen understanding and clear communication of what we are deterring against, credible, acknowledged capabilities to impose costs on those who attack us, and resilient architectures to dissuade attack by making any effort futile.”  


Whiting said Spacecom is fully integrated into and contributing to the department’s efforts to establish a Golden Dome for American missile defense shield, adding that Space Command requires stable funding, as well as effective and efficient acquisition programs that deliver advanced space capabilities.     

He identified the most pressing issues as the delivery of integrated space fires, enhanced battlespace awareness, and integrated command and control capabilities to achieve space superiority, which enhances homeland defense while protecting and enabling the joint force. 


“Although many challenges lie ahead, the future of space holds tremendous promise for America if we actively and thoughtfully protect it,” he said. 

In Whiting’s prepared testimony submitted to lawmakers, he wrote: “Spacecom is partnering with U.S. Northern Command and other stakeholders to write an initial capabilities document aimed at defining capability-based requirements for the Golden Dome architecture, based on forecasted threat scenarios. As these capabilities develop and deliver, we stand ready to take an active role in the operation of a next-generation space architecture which will be resident in our in support of protecting American citizens from attack.” 

In his prepared testimony, he also addressed China’s views on space technology and its goal of becoming the dominant power in East Asia and a global superpower. 

” seeks to rival the United States in nearly all areas of space technology by 2030 and establish itself as the world’s preeminent space power by 2045. Since 2015, China’s on-orbit presence has grown by 1,000%, with 1,094 active satellites as of January 2025. Its sophisticated space and counter-space systems enhance its ability to secure territorial claims, project power, and challenge U.S. advantages.” 

March 28, 2025 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New nuclear arms race looms as US threatens to pull atomic shield

For decades the nuclear weapons ‘club’ has been limited to nine nations. But fears Trump could withdraw America’s ‘nuclear umbrella’ is threatening proliferation

 When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held their latest phone call a week
ago, the leaders of the two countries with the world’s largest nuclear
arsenals agreed on “the need to stop proliferation of strategic
weapons”. The point of accord between Moscow and Washington was in many
ways the continuation of a stance that has endured for the best part of 80
years – namely, that it is in the interests America, Russia and their
respective allies to keep the global “club” of nuclear-armed nations as
small as possible.

In order to do so, the United States has extended its
so-called “nuclear umbrella” – a promise of nuclear protection in
return for allies not seeking atomic weapons themselves – to some 30
countries. But it is a post-war consensus that is increasingly under
strain.

Indeed, in his efforts to make his “America First” policy a
geopolitical reality, there is growing evidence that Trump is flirting
dangerously with starting a new nuclear arms race. From Berlin to Seoul,
alarm bells are ringing that the United States, the lynch stone of the
Western security apparatus in Europe and Asia for three generations, is no
longer a reliable guarantor of the ultimate deterrence offered by nuclear
weapons.

 iNews 26th March 2025,
https://inews.co.uk/news/new-nuclear-race-looms-usa-threatens-pull-atomic-shield-3604636

March 28, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A nuclear Svengali on Capitol Hill?

  Linda Pentz Gunter   by beyondnuclearinternational

Attempts by the Breakthrough Institute’s Ted Nordaus to derail NRC commissioner candidacies have met with mixed success, writes Linda Pentz Gunter

We’re getting used to the swagger of entitlement and the complacency of corporate nuclear lobbyists on Capitol Hill.  They, in turn, have become accustomed to getting their way — usually through the powerful persuasion of big money or saturation propaganda campaigns financed with those large stashes of handy corporate cash.

But when that isn’t enough, then a nice smear campaign should do. One who appears to enjoy such an endeavor is the Breakthrough Institute’s founder, Ted Nordhaus, who has made it his business of late to decide who does and does not get a commissioner seat at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Those who should not, in Nordhaus’s views, are the Democratic candidates or incumbents who have too much of a regard for nuclear safety as a priority.

Safety is a big ticket item for the nuclear power industry. Literally. Maintaining, upgrading and replacing aging parts in these decades-old dinosaurs of the 20th century, many of them running well past their sell-by date, is an expensive undertaking. But a relaxation of — or looking the other way on — some of those pesky safety regulations would be made easier by more compliant NRC commissioners.

Cue Nordhaus, Capitol Hill’s nuclear Svengali. 

His most recent target was Matthew Marzano, the candidate for the long vacant fifth seat on the NRC commission. Nordhaus pulled out all the stops to derail Marzano, beginning last September prior to Marzano’s hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Nordhaus prepared a veritable death warrant in which he claimed, among other things, that Marzano would, if approved, be “the least qualified commissioner ever seated on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”. Nordhaus also wrote that Marzano, if chosen, “will not be a voice for reform and modernization on the commission.”

Never mind that Marzano, who was then an official at the Idaho National Laboratory, has a pretty solid nuclear background, having worked both on commercial reactors and as an instructor for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program at the US Department of Energy. (As a side note, this exemplifies once again the two-way street and inexorable link between the civil and military nuclear sectors.)

“Modernization” is Nordhaus’s absolutely most favorite word. He used it, or a derivation of it, nine times in his public assassination-by-blogpost of Marzano’s qualifications (accusations that were obediently re-quoted by senators during Marzano’s hearing.)

“Modernization” is code of course. What it really means is “weakening” or “emasculation,” because what Nordhaus, the Republicans and far too many Democrats are now intent on doing is to transform the NRC from what is already a lame safety regulator into an even meeker nuclear industry lapdog.

The same hand of influence belonging to Nordhaus and his Breakthrough Institute had earlier been felt when legislation was passed on Capitol Hill designed specifically to weaken the NRC. At that time, the Breakthrough Institute railed on its website that the NRC’s “national progress is hindered by its self-imposed narrowly defined mission, primarily concentrated on nuclear safety, which leads to unwarranted delays in reactor licensing.”

Last June, the Senate voted almost unanimously for a bill introduced by Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat from Michigan —S.870 – A bill to authorize appropriations for the United States Fire Administration and firefighter assistance grant programs, to advance the benefits of nuclear energy, and for other purposes. Ostensibly designed to provide improved benefits and safety conditions for firefighters, it included an entire section on the NRC straight from the Nordhaus playbook.

The bill required the NRC to “update the mission statement of the Commission to include that licensing and regulation of the civilian use of radioactive materials and nuclear energy be conducted in a manner that is efficient and does not unnecessarily limit—

(1) the civilian use of radioactive materials and deployment of nuclear energy; or

(2) the benefits of civilian use of radioactive materials and nuclear energy technology to society.”

Afraid of appearing to throw firefighters under the bus, all but two senators voted for the bill. Predictably, the dissenters were Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the only consistent anti-nuclear voices on Capitol Hill…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

What has really crippled the nuclear power sector is its exorbitant costs. But the ruse to undermine the NRC and weaken (“modernize” or “reform”) safety oversight is precisely because it is nuclear power’s immense dangers that cause its costs to sky-rocket.

None of this fazes Nordhaus, however, who insists that new reactors constitute “a new generation of even safer reactors” and that nuclear power has “substantial environmental public health benefits”. 

The former assertion is strongly challenged by physicists such as Edwin Lyman at the Union of Concerned Scientists and M.V. Ramana at the University of British Columbia, who happen to understand the science and know that the untested, recycled and long ago rejected design ideas for small modular reactors are replete with radiological risks and serious and unsolved uncertainties around safety.

As for the substantial health benefits of nuclear power, perhaps Mr. Nordhaus would like to say that to the (non-White) faces of Native Americans coping with the deadly legacy of abandoned uranium mines and to the mothers of childhood leukemia sufferers living near nuclear plants, who would beg to differ.

This article is adapted from a piece that first appeared in the February/March 2025 edition of Ralph Nader’s newspaper, Capitol Hill Citizen, available in print only.
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/03/23/a-nuclear-svengali-on-capitol-hill/

March 28, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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