Dangerous and expensive, nuclear power is a dead end for Scotland
I’ve been through every argument that the nuclear industry
makes promoting new nuclear power stations – but scratch the surface and
they just melt through the floor. New nuclear is fundamentally not needed –
numerous studies, including by Stanford University and renowned energy
modellers at LUT show that the UK, and indeed most, if not all, other
countries can meet their energy needs with 100% renewables.
Politicians’ fears about the wind and sun and the rain and the waves and tides being
unable to meet all our needs are misplaced. Renewables, energy storage,
energy efficiency and flexible power with a modern upgraded grid can do it
all – cheaper, quicker, safer and a hell of a lot cleaner, and create many
more thousands of jobs.
The cost of nuclear power is eye-watering. Look at
Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C – nearly £100bn to build them both with
massive delays and cost -over-runs. That is enough to install a 5kWh
battery in every one of the 28 million homes in Britain, and leave £44bn
for other things. Combine that with solar and every home becomes a power
station with its own ‘baseload’.
Alternatively, £100bn could fund planned
upgrades to the grid needed to facilitate large and small renewables, twice
over. The Coire Glas pumped hydro storage project in the Highlands could be
built 50 times over. £100bn spent on a nuclear-free transition could be
revolutionary.
What a renewables-based system needs is flexible power,
energy storage and a smart, modern grid. Surplus renewable electricity
could also be used to generate ”green hydrogen” to generate electricity
on calm, dull days. It could also be used to power heavy transport and
industry.
Battery systems, including compressed air and pumped storage
hydro, alongside vehicle-to-grid technology, can all be parts of the
bedrock of energy security and an energy system that would be cooking with
green power 24/7.
Nuclear does nothing to help any of this. Indeed, it is
worse, it directly causes wind and solar plants to be switched off when
green power is plentiful, because nuclear is so inflexible. Not only does
nuclear cost an arm and a leg, it adds cost to the consumer for renewables
We only have to look at the recent history of nuclear power to see how
dangerous and polluting it is. Fukushima remains a slow motion disaster for
Japan as they scramble to deal with millions of gallons of radioactive
water and melted reactor cores. Chernobyl’s 40-year anniversary this week
is another timely reminder, that when things go wrong, they can go very
wrong.
At least when a wind turbine breaks down you don’t need an exclusion
zone for decades and mass public health measures – you just get some
engineers with a crane and some spanners to go fix it.
And despite what the
‘nuke, baby, nuke’ lobby says, there is no solution for the waste yet,
other than to store and guard the most highly radioactive cores for
hundreds of years to cool down out of the way somewhere. That’s the
solution!
The hype about Small Modular Reactors is just that, hype. In
fact, the only two operational SMRs are in China and Russia, and both have
been beset by delays and cost increases. The economies of scale are lost,
and studies have shown that they produce more highly radioactive waste for
the same generating capacity than their slightly larger cousins.
These projects are pure spin, a clever wheeze by industry lobbyists intended to
promote nuclear acceptability – small, click and collect, a kind of
middle-aisle at LIDL feel to it. In the words of energy expert Amory Lovins
on SMRs: “This illusion neatly fits the industry’s business-model shift
from selling products to harvesting subsidies.”
The Rolls Royce SMR –
chosen by Great British Energy-Nuclear to be built at Wylfa in North Wales
– is a 470MW reactor, not much smaller than the two Torness reactors, which
are about 600MW each. And then there is the fuel – uranium ore is needed
and we don’t have any, (and the mining of it is handily missed out in
nuclear promotional graphics comparing its land use to renewables, which
also fail to point out that the land around solar arrays and turbines can
still be used for traditional purposes).
Mind you, there is some
recoverable uranium ore on the Orkney mainland – and when it was proposed
to dig it up to use it at Dounreay last century, all hell broke loose and
Orcadians stopped it by popular protest. So we would have to rely on
imports of this global commodity – a market that is dominated by Russia and
associates.
Pete Roche of SCRAM put this well when commenting on a recent
poll indicating only 14% of Scots thought we should focus on uranium
fuelled nuclear reactors for our long term energy security needs:
“Relying on a uranium-fuelled nuclear future is like jumping out of the
oil and gas frying pan and into a nuclear fire – it makes no sense and
Scots seem to get that.”
We should just get on with building a country
that is a renewable energy powerhouse so that future generations can look
back and thank us for choosing a green, clean and sustainable energy route.
Nuclear is NOT a natural partner with renewables, indeed, it is a delaying
tactic, holding back rapid decarbonisation, and adds extra and unnecessary
cost to a renewables-based energy system.
Herald 29th April 2026, https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/26064131.dangerous-expensive-nuclear-power-dead-end-scotland/
The US Tech Giant Where Employees Wear Israeli Defense Force Uniforms To Work
Nate Bear, Apr 28, 2026, https://www.donotpanic.news/p/exclusive-the-us-tech-giant-where
The American tech giant behind the most popular tax filing software in the US allows employees to wear their IDF uniforms to work and also permits them to take months off the job to fight Israel’s wars.
Last month, Tom Yacobi, a data analyst at financial tech giant Intuit, whose products include the widely-used tax return program TurboTax, showed up to an all-hands company Zoom call in his full IDF uniform.
Yacobi works in TurboTax’s trust and safety team which handles the most sensitive personally identifiable information of TurboTax customers and users.
The whistleblower who provided me with this screenshot told me that since the beginning of the Gaza genocide, Israeli employees of California-based Intuit have, like Yacobi, been allowed to take as long as three or four months off work, often with minimal notice, to serve as reservists in the IDF.
“Intuit has shown no consideration for how these disruptions affect workflows and operations for employees in the US who have had to put processes on hold and postpone meetings to cater to Israeli employees’ army schedules,” PM (not their real initials) told me. “And of course, there has been no concern for the emotional and mental health impact on US employees who have been put in the awkward position of joining Zoom calls with active soldiers implicated in genocide and war crimes.”
Showing up to work in a military uniform, let alone the uniform of a military which has committed genocide and war crimes, and whose former head is an ICC-indicted war criminal, is not only unprofessional and unethical, but clearly an unabashed display of arrogance and impunity.
PM said one senior manager took three consecutive months off work from October to December 2023 to participate in the genocide of Gaza. PM says Israeli employees continue to take two-week stints off work for IDF reserve duty.
PM has never raised the issue with HR or management for fear of the consequences at such an openly pro-Israel and pro-genocide company.
“What discouraged me the most was the shocking depravity of hearing directly from chief information security officer, Atticus Tysen, that the company had selected the Israel office as a ‘strategic growth site’ during the peak of the Gaza genocide, in December 2023. This was announced at the same time as the company was down-sizing certain American and Canadian offices.”
According to PM, Intuit employees are regularly required to think about Israeli feelings. PM says that on numerous occasions since October 2023, Intuit management have posted on the company-wide Slack messaging app “about the need to show our Israeli colleagues extra kindness and grace because of their distressful circumstances.” Needless to say, Intuit management have never posted similar messages concerning the distress of those who may have been affected by the Israeli genocide of Gaza or Israel’s mass murder of civilians in Lebanon and Iran.
PM adds that “many” of Intuit’s Israeli employees have moved to the US on an L-1 visa in the last few years, with the process for approval much easier than for an H-1B visa. An L-1 visa allows multinationals to transfer employees from their overseas offices to their US offices, and is a straightforward pathway to permanent US residency.
Zionists serve in key leadership positions at Intuit.
Marianna Tessel, an executive vice-president and general manager, is an Israeli-American who served as a captain at Mamram, the computing centre and IT backbone of the Israeli military. In 2023 Tessel posted on LinkedIn about her visit to Intuit’s Israel-based R&D centre which is staffed almost exclusively by former Israeli intelligence officers.
In 2023 the Jerusalem Post reported that Intuit’s Israeli employees were going to lead on integrating generative AI into TurboTax software. Tessel said Intuit’s Israel office creates “some of our fintech software, and much of the AI.”
David Hahn, another executive vice-president and general manager at Intuit, is a friend and confidante of Jewish-Zionist venture capitalist Keith Rabois, who he met when both worked at LinkedIn. Rabois is married to Jacob Helberg, an undersecretary of state in the Trump administration and an influential, if little-known Zionist voice in the US government. Rabois is often referred to, alongside Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, as a member of the ‘Paypal Mafia’ for his role in launching Paypal.
Deadly strike by Ukraine at Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant as chilling warning issued
An employee has been killed in a drone attack carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation has said.
Mirror Joe Smith News Reporter, 27 Apr 2026,
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued an urgent warning after a deadly attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.
Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation said a driver was killed by a drone strike in an operation carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The Rosatom corporation said an employee at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant died this morning. The Russian agency said the strike was a “great tragedy” and added that attacks on the nuclear plant “pose a threat not only to people but also to security as a whole”.
Meanwhile the IAEA’s Director General said in a statement today that strikes on or near nuclear power plants (NPPs) can endanger nuclear safety and “must not take place”.
The IAEA statement said: “IAEA has been informed by the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that a drone strike this morning killed a driver at its transport workshop in the vicinity of the plant site.
“Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi reiterates that strikes on or near NPPs can endanger nuclear safety and must not take place. The IAEA’s team on the site will look into the incident and continue to monitor the situation.”
In a separate statement Russian agency Rosatom, which has controlled the plant since it was captured by Russian forces, said: “A Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant employee has been killed in a strike by the Ukrainian Armed Forces
“Today, a driver was killed as a result of a strike by a Ukrainian Armed Forces drone on the premises of the transport workshop at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.”
The plant bosses called the man’s death “a terrible and irreplaceable loss,” adding that “employees of the nuclear industry must not be targeted.” They continued: “Any attacks on the Zaporizhzhia NPP pose a threat not only to people but also to security as a whole. It is a blow to life and to the future……………………. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-ukraine-37074915
40 years after Chernobyl, Stasi files reveal scale of Soviet misinformation
For decades, researchers, political leaders and advocacy groups have worked to uncover the story of the explosion
Lauren Cassidy The Conversation, Monday 27 April 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chernobyl-disaster-anniversary-secret-stasi-files-b2965335.html
On April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were conducting a safety test. Doomed by a fatal design flaw and pushed to the limit by human negligence, reactor 4 exploded amid an attempted shutdown during a routine procedure, setting off a chain of events that ultimately released radioactive material hundreds of times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Although the accident occurred north of Kyiv, Ukraine, near the border with Belarus, radioactive fallout was soon detected throughout northern and central Europe. Yet the Soviets did what they could to prevent the spread of information that would reveal the true horror of what had occurred.
For decades, researchers, political leaders and advocacy groups have worked to uncover the story of the explosion. While science has allowed us to understand the circumstances of the explosion itself, it has taken much more work to uncover the layers of mismanagement, negligence and misinformation that resulted in human suffering, ecological disaster and economic damage.
One of the problems is that many of the official Soviet records of the event, such as the KGB files, are located in Moscow and are inaccessible to all but a few Russian government agencies.
But there is a partial workaround: Because East Germany was a Soviet satellite state and not a full member of the Soviet Union, official documents remained in the country after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1991, after the reunification of Germany, the German government passed a law allowing for the declassification of certain files from the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police and intelligence service. These files can now give us further insight into the mismanagement of Chernobyl, since the East German Stasi and the Soviet KGB were in communication on the matter.
I have spent the past three years reading Stasi files and researching the creation of misinformation in the former Eastern bloc, meeting with Stasi archivists in Berlin and viewing the original archival rooms in the former Stasi headquarters.
Looking at formerly top secret communication between the KGB and Stasi, it is clear that despite publicly insisting everything was under control, both intelligence agencies knew the explosion was absolutely devastating. They kept detailed records of hospitalizations, casualties, damaged crops, contaminated livestock and radiation levels.
But only the very top officials in East Germany and the Soviet Union had access to these numbers. The main fear for both the KGB and Stasi was not the radiation that would harm affected populations but the damage done to their respective countries’ reputations.
Controlling the message
Handling the press was a top priority.
In the Soviet Union, top government officials created their own briefings for the media to be published at precise dates and times. In a set of classified documents that one government official bravely saved and later published, the concreteness with which the lies were devised is apparent. It documents Mikhail Gorbachev, then-leader of the Soviet Union, saying in a Politburo meeting with top government officials: “When we inform the public, we should say that the power plant was being renovated at the time, so it doesn’t reflect badly on our reactor equipment.”
Later in the same meeting, another senior Soviet official, Nikolai Ryzhkov, suggests that the group prepare three different press releases: one for the Soviet people, one for the satellite states and another for Europe, the U.S. and Canada.
In East Germany, the Stasi reports mirrored this messaging. Although top officials are briefed on the presence of radioactive contaminants, the formerly classified Stasi files reiterate that the public is to be told that “absolutely no danger” is present. East German media, controlled by the state, then disseminated this information to the public.
The problem for the East German state was that by the mid-1980s, a lot of people were able to pick up Western TV and radio signals. Many recognized that their own government wasn’t telling them the truth. However, they also knew that Western media would take any chance they got to disparage the Eastern bloc. The result was that many people knew that they weren’t being told the truth, but they weren’t sure exactly what the truth was.
Much of the East German and Soviet propaganda at that time was designed to confuse and cast doubt, not necessarily to fully persuade. The idea was that enough conflicting information would tire people out.
Downplaying economic concerns
One of the Stasi’s major concerns following the disaster was the economic damage that was sure to affect East Germany. Once people began to learn of the radioactive fallout over much of Europe, they grew fearful of their own produce and dairy products.
Children began refusing to drink milk at school, while people frequently asked produce vendors whether their products were grown in a greenhouse or outdoors. On the whole, people stopped buying many of these products.
With an excess of these goods, the East German government needed to devise a plan to continue to make money off potentially contaminated goods. The Stasi’s solution was to increase export of these goods to West Germany.
In the formerly classified files, Stasi officials claim that exports would spread out the consumption of radioactive products, so that no one would consume unsafe levels of contaminated meat and produce.
The problem for the East Germans was that West Germany quickly amended their regulations for border crossings from East to West. Vehicles emitting certain levels of radiation were no longer allowed across the border. As a response, the lower-ranking Stasi workers were required to clean radioactive vehicles themselves. In doing so, the state was knowingly risking the health and safety of its own officials.
The East German food export plan was modeled on a similar one proposed by the Soviet government. The Soviet strategy, however, was not to export contaminated goods abroad but rather to send contaminated meat products to “the majority of regions” in the Soviet Union “except for Moscow.”
How disinformation proved an Achilles’ Heel
When the Stasi was founded in 1950, many of its employees genuinely believed in the East German cause.
Having witnessed the horrors of Nazi Germany, many older Stasi workers saw the East German state as the answer to creating a just and equitable society. By the 1980s, however, this sentiment had grown rare. Instead, many Stasi workers viewed their jobs as means to a decent income and privileged government treatment.
As a result, many Stasi workers had grown disillusioned and dispassionate.
It was little surprise, then, that the Stasi put up little resistance when protesters stormed their headquarters in 1990, months after the Berlin Wall fell. While there are many factors in the demise of the communist bloc, the way the East German and Soviet governments handled the aftermath of Chernobyl contributed greatly to the growing popular sentiment against each regime.
In East Germany, the disinformation campaign after the nuclear disaster only strengthened the message that the state did not have its people’s best interests in mind and that it was willing to sacrifice their health and well-being in order to maintain a certain image.
The Buzz About Chornobyl, 40 Years Later. How Do We Tell the Bees?
April 26, 2026, , by Ann McCann, https://www.nirs.org/the-buzz-about-chornobyl-40-years-later-by-ann-mccann/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b8cab31a-e1b5-41e6-9e5a-3ff568976c1b
No, the bees in the Chornobyl exclusion zone (CEZ) are not mutated–in the visual ways we think of–nor are they glow-in-the-dark. They didn’t turn into giant, killer bees, and they don’t light up green at night. But what they did do was begin to produce fewer and fewer queens. A lot fewer, “with upper estimates of a 30-45% reduction compared with unexposed colonies (Raines).” When fewer queens are produced, fewer bees are produced, period. With fewer queens laying eggs and building colonies, the population struggles to sustain itself within the CEZ.
On the surface and from the outside, it appears that nature is “flourishing” within the CEZ. Large mammal populations appear abundant, and many use the CEZ as evidence for the utopic idea that there has been reclamation of the Earth in the zone’s time without human interference. While this idea certainly feels hopeful outside of the context of a nuclear disaster, it is simply not what it seems. “Wild” dogs roam the CEZ, which are not so wild at all, but actually descendants of the pets left behind in the evacuation after the meltdown. Larger mammals like boars and bears have taken over the area in the exclusion zone simply because there are no humans, can be no humans, around the zone to keep them at a distance as human-populated areas do. And there indeed appears to be a higher diversity rate among bee species in the exclusion zone, but again, this is not as it seems. Researchers correlate this to the abandoned farmlands that have now been overturned to wildflower meadows, creating more resources for diversity, but not necessarily for the long-term health of any species. Similarly, scientists who have studied the population effects of the contamination believe that “higher numbers [of animals in the area] may reflect the fact that there are fewer competitors or predators for these species in highly radioactive areas (Mousseau).”
Additionally, among the various species in the area, a number of ill effects are consistently documented, including cataracts in their eyes, smaller brains, tumors on their bodies, and reproductive issues such as a low sperm count and even complete infertility (Møller, et al). None of which, in my own estimation, bodes well for the idea of an ecological utopia in the aftermath of nuclear contamination. And this is not even mentioning the fact that many scientists believe we don’t see mutations in the fauna of the area (yes, those kinds of mutations) because most mutations, unsurprisingly, wouldn’t exactly help an animal live long enough to be consistently documented by researchers. Which isn’t to say deer are being born with two heads or that fish are growing legs and walking out of the water, all before scientists are miraculously able to see them. What it does imply, however, is that when there are genetic mutations or effects from radioactive contamination that cause, for example, a stunted immune system or a malformed part of the body, at best, the animal is simply not going to thrive long enough to reproduce and continue that mutation. At worst, these animals are born, suffer, and die of their biological weaknesses, whether through predation or through the failings of their own bodies.
If we do not see this as a mirror to ourselves, what happens to those humans exposed to radioactive contamination, be it in the form of a nuclear accident, nuclear terrorism, or the waste produced by mining and power generation? Scientists are now getting long-term data on this exact question. Stated by science researcher, the late Alexey V. Yablokov, “observations of both wild and experimental animal populations in the heavily contaminated areas [of the CEZ] show significant increases in morbidity and mortality that bear a striking resemblance to changes in the health of humans–increased occurrence of tumor and immunodeficiencies, decreased life expectancy, early aging, changes in blood and the circulatory system, malformations, and other factors that compromise health.” Once again, these findings do not seem to bode well for the idea of ecological revitalization in the aftermath of nuclear disaster, so why do we keep racing toward a future full of nuclear reactors that do not glow green as they do in cartoons, but should be lit up bright red–a stoplight, a warning sign? We do not need our communities sitting as tinder boxes of fodder for the next long-term study on the effects of radiation.
It’s additionally worth noting that the dangers of the radiation from Chornobyl didn’t stop after the initial meltdown. Nuclear sites are notorious war targets, as we’ve seen in just the last several years. In 2022, Russian forces attacked and gained control of the Chornobyl site–an exclusion zone intended to minimize risks to human life for the hundreds of years it will remain a radioactive contamination site–damaging the new containment structure and setting it on fire for several days, releasing unknowable amounts of continued radioactive contamination.
I’m going to bring us back to our apiary lesson. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was common for beekeepers and their families to inform the bee colony, to “tell the bees,” of major events, including births, marriages, and deaths. It was even believed that if a hive was not told of someone’s death, the colony would either die itself or abandon the hive. It seems that there is a race between a world that has seen the aftermath of disaster and is charging, headfirst, back into the flames, and the slow death of the CEZ bees. If we put any stock into that old folk-belief, I wonder then, what happens when there are simply no bees left to tell?
Works Cited
Mousseau Professor of Biological Sciences, Timothy A. “At Chernobyl and Fukushima, Radioactivity Has Seriously Harmed Wildlife.” The Conversation, 3 Oct. 2025, theconversation.com/at-chernobyl-and-fukushima-radioactivity-has-seriously-harmed-wildlife-57030.
Møller, Anders Pape, et al. “Chernobyl birds have smaller brains.” PLoS ONE, vol. 6, no. 2, 4 Feb. 2011, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016862.
Starmer’s Talking Points: King Charles III Visits Washington
29 April 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark https://theaimn.net/starmers-talking-points-king-charles-iii-visits-washington/
He can hardly be blamed for being given the brief by his Prime Minister. King Charles III is in the United States on a repair job, playing diplomatic handyman and mender for Sir Keir Starmer and the US-UK alliance so long regarded as special. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of American independence, it was easy to forget that the British, despite losing its American colonies, gained some vengeance through the exploits of Major General Robert Ross, who, on August 14, 1814, burned down the White House, the Capitol building, and an assortment of other government facilities.
The US President Donald Trump has made it clear that alliances are only special if they serve his bullying and selfish needs, transient and fickle as they are. Otherwise, the whole notion of an alliance can be allowed to go by the wayside or stung into decay by venomous statements on social media. The UK’s ambassador to Washington, Christian Turner, who replaced the disastrously appointed Peter Mandelson in February, has even gone so far to suggest that the term “special relationship” be scrapped as dated and musty. The phrase, he unguardedly told a group of British students visiting that month, was “quite nostalgic” and “quite backwards-looking,” encumbered with “baggage.” Instead of leaving it at that, Turner proceeded to offer the only exemplar in the US diplomatic inventory that might count, whatever the baggage. “I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States – and that is probably Israel.”
Any ruffles arising from that leaked audio has been seemingly contained. On the occasion of this state visit Trump was cordial, even sprightly. “The Americans have had no closer friends than the British,” he declared on April 28. The same language was spoken, the same values shared, the “warriors” of the two nations having “defended the same extraordinary civilization under the twin banners of red, white, and blue.”
Before a joint sitting of Congress, Charles delivered a speech filled with the usual solecisms on the US political system, not to mention a few on his own. The US Congress is hardly a “citadel of democracy created to represent the voice of all American people, to advance sacred rights and freedoms,” being the republican vision of slave owning plantation owners who were nervous about the mob and ever keen to keep them at bay with a dampening system of checks and balances. The “revolutionary” notions of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were to be kept on a firm leash. And while the United Kingdom has democratic pretensions, it exercises power through that mysterious political and legal construction known as the Crown. In a short note for the Spectator in October 1959, the conservative, at times reactionary novelist Evelyn Waugh made an abundantly clear point: “Great Britain is not a democracy. All authority emanates from the Crown.” All figures of note from judges and bishops to the Poet Laureate “exist by the royal will.” Elections are, rather, “a very hazardous process” to select ill-chosen advisors.
Starmer, as advisor-in-chief, clearly fed the monarch a rather odd assortment of dishes to temper and placate the businessman tyrant trainee. Lay it heavy with the friendship issue, talking of that “bond of kinship and identity” that is “priceless and eternal.” Accept that disagreements can happen between close allies (“no taxation without representation”, for instance, stirring the anger of the American colonists). “Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it.” When the countries found ways to agree “what great change is brought about – not just for the benefit of our peoples, but of all peoples.”
A fig leaf of soothing assurance was offered to US lawmakers and the Trump administration. The UK, recognising “that the threats we face demand a transformation in British defence,” was swelling the defence budget, “the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War.” The defence of Ukraine, not high on Trump’s list but very much top of the Starmer summit, also warranted a mention.
Damnably foolish things can be said about defence, that area of spending scandalously exempt from the usual, fiscal scrutiny reserved for welfare budgets and services. And Charles was not spared the Starmer talking points about joint efforts to build F-35 fighter jets and pursuing “the most ambitious submarine program in history, AUKUS.” AUKUS was being pursued “in partnership with Australia, a country of which I am also immensely proud to serve as sovereign.”
AUKUS continues to warp the imagination of its executors, distort military planning, and, importantly, make the most telling demands on Australia, the junior yet, in some ways, most essential partner in the relationship. For one thing, it remains the most duped and witless of the three, having made staggering concessions to both the US and UK in terms of military real estate and investment. Despite turning Australia into a garrison state invigilating over the rise of China in the Indo-Pacific, the agreement makes no guarantee that the Royal Australian Navy will ever receive Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines it does not need, let alone any assurance that it will exercise control over their use and command.
The US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, published on January 26, does much to scupper suggestions that Australian sovereignty would ever be a serious consideration, given an analysis of the “benefits, costs, and risks compare[d] with those of an alternative of procuring up to eight additional Virginia-class SSNs that would be retained in US Navy service and operated out of Australia along with the US and UK SSNs that are already planned to be operated under Pillar 1.” Even as these doubts are being expressed, the Australian taxpayer continues to invest in the US submarine industrial base.
Obsessed by the deterrent value of such boats against China, the nail-biting worry in the Pentagon and Congress is that any transfer from a navy that remains tardy in meeting the set target of 2 SSNs a year will blunt potency. “Selling three to five Virginia-class SSNs to Australia would thus convert those SSNs from boats that would be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict into boats that might not be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict.” Such considerations would have been unlikely to feature in Starmer’s mind when mulling over the details of the King’s speech. The British PM has shown himself to be stunningly short on political judgment and incapable in making sound decisions. However polished the performance by Charles in Washington, it may not be enough to save his prime ministership.
More costs for Europe in the never-ending effort to keep Chornobyl safe.
An agreement was signed with the EBRD for EUR30 million (USD35 million) of
funding for the initial phase of restoration work on the giant arch-shaped
New Safe Confinement shelter, which covers the initial shelter, which was
hastily built in 1986 and encases the wreckage of unit 4. The NSC was
damaged by a drone strike in February last year during the ongoing
Russia-Ukraine war, and assessments have put the cost of restoring it to
its full design function at about EUR500 million.
World Nuclear News 27th April 2026, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/funding-pledge-and-tributes-paid-at-conference-marking-chernobyl-anniversary
UK parliament’s AUKUS inquiry report questions if Britain can keep nuclear submarine promises.
By Riley Stuart and Europe correspondent Elias Clure in London, Tue 28 Apr, 26, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-28/aukus-report-released-by-house-of-commons-defence-committee/106613750
In short:
The House of Commons Defence Committee has released its report on the AUKUS defence pact after launching an inquiry last year.
While the report was broadly supportive of AUKUS, it also “laid bare the scale of the endeavour that will be required to deliver it”.
What’s next?
There have been calls to hold a public inquiry into AUKUS in Australia too, although right now one has not been announced.
British politicians have cast doubt on their country’s ability to develop and deliver nuclear submarines promised as part of the AUKUS defence pact.
The House of Commons Defence Committee on Tuesday released the findings of its year-long review into the trilateral partnership.
While the report was broadly supportive of AUKUS, it also “laid bare the scale of the endeavour that will be required to deliver it”.
As part of the deal, the United Kingdom and Australia are working together to design and build a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarine, known as SSN-AUKUS, scheduled to enter service in the late 2030s and the early 2040s.
“For the UK, delivering SSN-AUKUS will be a lengthy and complex undertaking requiring a sustained financial commitment from government across several electoral cycles,” the report noted.
“It is deeply concerning that there are signs that the investment pipeline that underpins that commitment has already faltered.”
The report urged the UK government to devote more money to the partnership.
“Shortfalls or delays in funding risk a failure to deliver SSN-AUKUS on time, with potentially severe consequences for UK and wider Euro-Atlantic security, and our standing with our trilateral partners,” it read.
While the White House has reiterated its commitment to the partnership, and Australia has already given the United States $US500 million ($798 million) to try to reinvigorate the country’s shipbuilding industry, critics contend the AUKUS deal’s fine print means nothing is guaranteed.
Australia is expected to invest a total of $US3 billion in US submarine manufacturing capabilities as part of the deal.
It has been estimated AUKUS could cost Australia about $368 billion by the mid-2050s.
“For Australia, AUKUS is an unprecedented undertaking to be delivered to ambitious timescales,” the House of Commons report noted.
“The UK will need to work closely with Australia at both industry and government level to share expertise and support Australia in meeting its own milestones.”
Trump ‘an unreliable ally’, submission says
US President Donald Trump has expressed his support for the trilateral pact, but the House of Commons inquiry received submissions saying the president’s “America First” approach to foreign policy, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and other geopolitical factors “had undermined the case for AUKUS and its chances of successful delivery”.
The Australian Peace and Security Forum — a not-for-profit that has been calling for a public inquiry into AUKUS to be held in Australia — gave a written submission to the inquiry in which it contended the US under Mr Trump was “an unreliable ally”.
The group also claimed that “geopolitical circumstances have changed for both the UK and Australia since AUKUS was conceived in 2021”.
“Strategic priorities for both countries do not align,” the submission read, adding “the UK should not proceed with AUKUS if it cannot guarantee delivery of its commitments on time and on budget”.
But the inquiry also heard from the UK’s minister for defence readiness, Luke Pollard, who said the changing geopolitical context and increasing threats meant “the importance of making sure that AUKUS delivers is even more prominent than it was when the original initiative was launched all those years ago”.
The House of Commons report highlighted difficulties in staff movement between the AUKUS partner countries due to the security clearances required to work in the defence sector.
A consultancy company involved in AUKUS told the inquiry that moving employees between its UK and Australian businesses was a “time-consuming and administratively burdensome” process.
While AUKUS enjoys significant support from both major political parties in Australia, the deal has also attracted criticism, notably from former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating.
Tan Dhesi, the Labour MP for Slough and chair of the House of Commons Defence Committee, told the ABC the inquiry was designed to review the UK government’s progress with regard to AUKUS.
“Many of us had concerns that things were perhaps not progressing at the pace they should be, but we wanted to gain expert advice as well as evidence,” he said.
Mr Dhesi said as part of the inquiry, representatives of the defence committee visited locations in the UK, US and Australia.
“Our key recommendation is that the UK government needs to do much more and it needs to do it faster in order to reap the full benefits of this once-in-a-generation, long-term strategic partnership with Australia and the US,” he said.
Links to Full Report –
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9068/aukus/publications/ and https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/52831/documents/294641/default/
Iran didn’t have a nuclear weapon before this war. But you can see why it would develop one now
Simon Tisdall, 26 Apr 26, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/26/iran-nuclear-weapon-war-develop-one-now
If lawless aggression by ‘might is right’ nuclear-armed powers spreads unchecked, what other option do middle-ranking countries have?
With every bomb dropped, ship seized and blood-curdling threat of annihilation, Donald Trump increases Iran’s incentive to reject his “grand bargain” peace deal and sprint instead to acquire nuclear weapons for future self-defence. Justifying his declaration of war on 28 February, Trump claimed that Iran – and primarily its nuclear programme – posed an “imminent threat”. But Iran does not possess nukes. The US and Israel do.
US intelligence chiefs and UN inspectors agree there’s no firm evidence that the regime, while developing its technical capabilities and keeping political options open, has built, or ever tried to build, a nuclear weapon since at least 2003, when a covert scheme was exposed. But after Trump’s second unprovoked attack in a year, and his vow to bomb Iranian civilisation back to the “stone ages”, that is very likely to change.
It’s increasingly difficult to argue with the view, attributed to the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps generals now running Iran, that nukes are the only sure way of deterring future onslaughts. The US and Israel have twice struck without warning, in the middle of diplomatic negotiations. Even if a peace deal were agreed, Iranians know the ever-vengeful Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu cannot be trusted. The US-Israel axis could sustain its aggression for years to come.
Trump’s focus on “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear programme is as woefully wide of the mark as any misdirected US Tomahawk cruise missile. Indigenous nuclear knowhow cannot be easily bombed away, no matter how many scientists Israel kills. And in any case, Tehran does not necessarily need to reconstitute the capacity and skills required to build nuclear weapons at home. It may be able to buy them off the shelf abroad.
North Korea, a longtime ally, would be the most likely source, while help from Vladimir Putin’s Russia (already collaborating on nuclear energy projects) cannot be entirely ruled out. Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang’s dictator, has steered clear of the war so far. But just as he covertly sent troops to assist Putin in Ukraine, he could yet secretly step in to arm Tehran. On nuclear proliferation, Kim has form.
Iran has joined a growing number of non-nuclear armed countries that have suffered grievously at the hands of domineering nuclear powers. In 1994, Ukraine surrendered its nukes in return for what turned out, when Russia first attacked it in 2014, to be valueless western security assurances. Iraq’s regime, lacking a nuclear deterrent, succumbed to US invasion in 2003. Would Trump have attacked Venezuela in January had it been nuclear-armed?
If the acknowledged nuclear weapons states honoured their 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) obligation to reduce and ultimately eliminate their nukes, others might feel less need of a nuclear shield. But they persistently break their word. Increasingly, the US and Russia abuse their dominant position – abuses that the NPT was specifically designed to prevent. Israel (unlike Iran) never signed the treaty.
Trump’s alarmingly irrational, impulsive and threatening behaviour creates uncertainty and insecurity by itself. But his militarism also fuels global nuclear weapons proliferation. The US is spending billions modernising its arsenal. Russia, North Korea, France and the UK are doing likewise, while China is rapidly, hugely expanding its forces. Yet Trump has refused to renew a series of cold war arms control treaties.
He trashed Barack Obama’s European-backed 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, a foolish decision that has led directly to today’s confrontation. On the first day of the war, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was targeted and killed. His binding fatwa expressly forbidding development of an Iranian bomb probably died with him.
Regarding Iran, Trump and Netanyahu labour under two fundamental misconceptions. Even if some form of cold peace is eventually established, Iranians will neither forgive nor forget atrocities such as the Minab school massacre, the wanton destruction visited on their country, and Washington’s diplomatic betrayals – whether or not the current regime remains in power. The “Iran threat” will persist. Second, Tehran still has options over which the US and Israel, despite military superiority, have no control.
Sanctioned, ostracised North Korea offers a possible template for Tehran. The Pyongyang regime originally developed its own atomic weapons using hidden market technology obtained from Pakistan. The Kim dynasty later made nuclear-related transfers to Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. It currently sells ballistic missiles to, among others, Iran and Russia.
It’s speculation at this point, but who’s to say Kim will not provide Iran with complete nuclear warheads? Or if that is too risky, he could supply highly enriched uranium, warhead designs and expertise in return for oil, suggested Mark Fitzpatrick, an International Institute for Strategic Studies non-proliferation expert and former senior US diplomat. If Kim did so, who would know and who could stop him?
Kim has grown increasingly emboldened since the failure of Trump’s embarrassing first-term charm offensive. Ignoring White House signals about renewed contacts when Trump visits Beijing next month, the North Korean leader ostentatiously test-fires new missiles, taunts South Korea and Japan, and stresses closer ties with China, Russia and Belarus. Speaking in March, he said US aggression in Iran “proved” North Korea was right to develop a nuclear deterrent. Tehran has surely heard that message.
If Kim is wrong, then why exactly does Trump treat North Korea so differently from Iran? After all, both countries menace their neighbours and embrace anti-western alliances, both are authoritarian regimes oppressing their citizens, and the North Korean nuclear threat is demonstrably genuine. The reason for the double standard seems obvious. Even Trump is not stupid enough to attack a nuclear-armed state.
The way Trump’s and Putin’s bellicose behaviour is legitimising arguments favouring the possession of nuclear weapons is prospectively disastrous for global non-proliferation efforts. If Iran does seek to acquire nukes to defend itself, will Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey follow? And that’s just in the Middle East. Like Ukraine, the Iran war also provides cover and precedent for other nuclear weapons states if they, too, decide to attack non-nuclear-armed countries. Might China follow suit in Taiwan? Given Iran’s fate, should Taipei rush to acquire nukes? Should Japan and South Korea?
Little wonder that an air of gloom hangs over the five-yearly NPT review conference, which opens in New York on Monday. Its challenges include ubiquitous nuclear weapons modernisation and expansion programmes; the collapse of arms control diplomacy; resumed nuclear testing; and what the Arms Control Association calls “rising nuclear dangers” and proliferation risks. “The idea of ‘global zero’, or a world without nuclear weapons, is seen to be steadily eroding,” a House of Commons Library research briefing warned this month.
This is no made-up story with which to scare the children. It’s real. Since invading Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons. So far, fortunately, it has not. In recent weeks, as Trump flailed in Iran, there was a flurry of reports, later denied, that the US, too, might resort to nukes. Sabre-rattling or not, such threats are becoming way too familiar. If a just and reasonable negotiated path can be found out of the present morass, Iran and similarly vulnerable middle-ranking countries may be persuaded to continue to forego nuclear weapons. But if lawless aggression by domineering “might is right” nuclear-armed powers spreads unchecked, the old cold war nightmare of mutually assured destruction will become today’s waking reality.
- Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
Adi Roche: My nightmare is that the next Chernobyl event occurs at Chernobyl itself
There may be an impression 40 years on that Chernobyl is something which happened a very long time ago and no longer poses a threat to the world, but the reality is very different. Chernobyl is not something from the past – Chernobyl is forever. The impact of that single nuclear incident can never be undone; its radioactive footprint is still affecting countless millions of people.
For the first time in history, nuclear facilities have been weaponised in active warfare. This is not Cold War rhetoric – it is a new and terrifying reality. If we remain silent, we are playing with a loaded gun.
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There may be a view that the nuclear disaster is an event from long ago and no longer poses a threat, but the reality is very different
Adi Roche, Sat Apr 25 2026 – https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/04/25/adi-roche-my-worst-nightmare-is-that-the-next-chornobyl-could-be-chornobyl-itself/
At exactly 01:23 on the morning of April 26th, 1986, a chain of events in Reactor No 4 at Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
The first of the explosions blew a 1,000-ton roof off reactor No 4 as though it was the lid of a saucepan, and a second, bigger explosion disintegrated the reactor core, rocketing tons of deadly radioactive material high into the night sky like a blazing meteor.Only 3 per cent of the reactor’s nuclear fuel escaped in the first catastrophic moments. Up to 200 tons of uranium dioxide fuel remains buried in the broken heart of reactor 4.
In that instant, the world changed forever.
A new word, Chernobyl, entered into the history of world disasters and the history of the world with deadly and frightful force. The sun shone, the wind blew, rain fell – and so did the deadly radioactive poison with it.
A nuclear catastrophe does not conclude when the cameras leave. It seeps into the soil, the water, the food chain, and embeds itself in the DNA of all living things. It passes silently from one generation to the next, creating what has become commonly known as “Chernobyl lineage”, as the damage and devastation leans into the next generation.
For four decades, I have walked beside the victims of this tragedy. I have held children whose tiny thyroid glands were attacked by poisonous radioactive iodine 131, as their small bodies mistook it for naturally occurring safe iodine. I have listened to some of “liquidators” – the 800,000 young men, including many conscripted, who were sent into the convulsing fires of hell with shovels and bare hands to contain the inferno – describe running across radioactive rooftops for 60 seconds at a time, knowing that every second shortened their lives. We missed a far greater nuclear explosion at Chernobyl by a hair’s breadth because of these brave men. Without the intervention by the liquidators, there would have been even further widespread contamination and radioactivity on a global level.
“To those who saved the world” are the words on the monument to the liquidators at the site in Chernobyl. Hailed as heroes in 1986, they are now discarded and forgotten, their ill-health dismissed by the authorities as being unrelated to their exposure to extraordinary levels of radiation and the lack of adequate safety precautions. Many of them paid with their health and their lives. Today, too many of them battle for pensions and medical care while their suffering is dismissed or minimised. Their self-sacrifice cannot be overstated.
There may be an impression 40 years on that Chernobyl is something which happened a very long time ago and no longer poses a threat to the world, but the reality is very different. Chernobyl is not something from the past – Chernobyl is forever. The impact of that single nuclear incident can never be undone; its radioactive footprint is still affecting countless millions of people.
It is impossible to say whether we are over the peak of the consequences of radioactive contamination, or whether we are just on the threshold. The consequences will last for up to 20,000 years. Other disasters are vying for the world’s attention while Chernobyl has been relegated to history, even though the latency period for some cancers is estimated to be up to 60 years – so the worst could yet be to come.
The ghost of Chernobyl was dragged back into headlines on February 24th, 2022, as Russian troops drove tanks through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on their way to Kyiv. Places such as Chernobyl’s Red Forest, regarded as among the most radioactive landscapes on Earth, became a military corridor, and deeply radioactive soil that had lain undisturbed for decades was churned up again. Radiation does not need a passport. It does not respect boundaries or borders, travelling wherever the wind takes it. Soon after, Russian forces occupied Europe’s largest nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia. For the first time in history, nuclear facilities have been weaponised in active warfare. This is not Cold War rhetoric – it is a new and terrifying reality. If we remain silent, we are playing with a loaded gun.
‘We must call for nuclear facilities to be declared permanent “no war zones” under international law. Attacks on nuclear sites must be treated unequivocally as war crimes’
Nuclear power plants were always considered globally “off-limits” because of their deadly catastrophic potential. The collision between warfare and nuclear energy has created a threat with consequences not just for Ukraine, but for Europe and the world and all the generations yet unborn. This weaponising of nuclear facilities has resulted in a collision between warfare and nuclear power, which is a whole new threat with potentially devastating, unimaginable consequences for humankind for centuries to come. This is nuclear terrorism.
The issues associated with Chernobyl have become even more urgent, particularly following the Valentine’s Day 2025 drone strikes on the nuclear power plant, further escalating the war. The impregnable sarcophagus that is meant to protect humanity from radiation is scarred and breached, heightening the risk of another nuclear catastrophe and bringing with it a sense of foreboding for wars of the future.My worst nightmare in this conflict is that the tragedy of a second Chernobyl would be unleashed on the world. The next Chernobyl-type event could happen at Chernobyl itself.
Ireland knows something about solidarity. Compassion became our calling card and is the heartbeat of our society.
That is needed now more than ever. The Irish proverb “Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine” hasnever been more apt.
We must call for nuclear facilities to be declared permanent “no war zones” under international law. Attacks on nuclear sites must be treated unequivocally as war crimes.
The “war” that has been waged by what happened at Chernobyl is a silent, invisible but deadly one. No associated smells, no visible signs – nothing to forewarn you of danger.
Deadly radiation flows in rivers, towns, streams and forests. It clicks endlessly, ferociously, in Geiger counters, into the silent numbness that is, and sadly always will be, Chernobyl
If we fail to learn from Chernobyl, we betray those who died and those who still suffer. If we fail to act, we risk repeating the unthinkable. Chernobyl is not history, it is a warning. We cannot, will not, turn away.
Adi Roche is the founder and voluntary chief executive of Chernobyl Children International
EU economic sanctions ramp up NATO war plan on Russia
Two-thirds of the EU loan – some €60 bn – is reportedly allocated for military aid. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said that the first tranche worth €45 bn will be transferred to Ukraine within weeks and that it would be used to increase the production of aerial combat drones
Strategic Culture Foundation, 24 April 2026, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/04/24/eu-economic-sanctions-ramp-up-nato-war-plan-on-russia/
The European Union announced its 20th round of economic sanctions against Russia this week. The bloc of 27 nations began imposing sanctions on Moscow when the conflict in Ukraine erupted in February 2022. Every six months, the EU has been extending these economic measures, which Brussels claims is support for Ukraine to “deter Russian aggression.”
The 20th round of sanctions unveiled this week attempts to go much further in inflicting damage on the Russian economy. It was flagged as the biggeset package yet and a “multi-layered targeting of key sectors” of the Russian economy, primarily its energy industry.
It is tempting to dismiss the EU sanctions policy as feeble and a form of insanity. The bloc keeps repeating an action expecting a different result each time, when the record shows that the action of sanctions is having little detrimental impact on Russia. If anything, it is the EU that has suffered an economic downturn as it unilaterally cut itself off from Russian oil and gas, the traditional source of affordable energy feedstock for European industries. Russia’s economy has not crashed as was anticipated when the sanctions were first imposed more than four years ago. In fact, the Russian Federation has maintained a robust economic performance as it finds alternative markets in Asia for its oil and gas products. The soaring price for a barrel of crude due to the reckless U.S.-Israeli aggression on Iran has given Russia a further boost.
However, it would be a mistake to simply brush off the EU sanctions as futile and self-defeating.
There is a more blatant and sinister aspect to the new round of sanctions. Brussels is nakedly showing its war agenda. The new measures aim to restrict all sectors of Russian energy production, including “exploration, extraction, refining and transportation.” The EU is endeavoring to tighten restrictions on “third countries” to prevent Russia from circumventing existing embargoes on shipping, port access and trade. Whether these new measures achieve their objective of “crippling the Russian economy” is debatable. But it is the belligerent intention – stated now with more determination – that is significant. The EU is brazenly laying out a plan to strangle Russia in conjunction with upping the military threat.
It is the accompanying developments that are ominous and which give full meaning to the economic measures.
This week the EU hailed that its €90 billion ($105 bn) loan to Ukraine had finally been approved. That financial aid was blocked by Hungary since December. But with the recent election loss for Viktor Orbán’s government, Budapest’s veto has been lifted under the new prime minister, Péter Magyar. EU leaders were ecstatic that the financial transfer to Ukraine can now go ahead.
Two-thirds of the EU loan – some €60 bn – is reportedly allocated for military aid. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said that the first tranche worth €45 bn will be transferred to Ukraine within weeks and that it would be used to increase the production of aerial combat drones. “Drones from Ukraine for Ukraine,” she said by way of trying to give the impression that the EU is not a party to the war.
An EU leaders’ two-day summit held in Cyprus on April 24-25 was reported with celebratory mood. Von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa, along with the EU’s Foreign Affairs Commissioner, Kaja Kallas, were cock-a-hoop at the “breakthrough” of releasing the largest single financial package to Ukraine so far in combination with the new economic sanctions aimed at drilling down on Russia’s economic core. Attending the summit in Cyprus was Ukraine’s nominal president, Vladimir Zelensky, who reportedly joined the EU leaders for dinner to discuss new developments.
It gets even more sinister. The Kiev regime has been stepping up deep air strikes on Russian energy and other industrial infrastructure. There is no doubt the regime is being assisted with NATO expertise in finding such wide-ranging targets in Russia’s vast territory. This week, for example, a drone strike hit an industrial facility in Novokuybyshevsk in the central Samara region, nearly 900 kilometers southeast of Moscow and nearly 2,000 kms from the warzone in Donbass.
Clearly, the EU’s economic strikes are designed to reinforce the damage that NATO is trying to inflict with drones and missiles on Russia’s industrial base. These are not separate initiatives but an integral war strategy.
In announcing the latest round of sanctions Kaja Kallas could hardly contain her Russophobic glee. “Today we have broken the deadlock. On top of the €90-billion loan for Ukraine, we have adopted the 20th sanctions package,” she said.
Deceptively, the sanctions were billed as “increasing pressure on Russia to stop its brutal war of aggression and engage in meaningful negotiations towards a just and last peace.”
That’s a cynical con – a con that is betrayed by the EU’s own stated objective of “crippling” the Russian economy. How can one have a “just and lasting peace” by crippling a country?
The real purpose of the funds that EU citizens will have to pay through decades of indebtedness is to escalate NATO’s war in Ukraine against Russia. The economic sanctions are war measures aimed at maximising the impact of military attacks.
Other developments this week raise the stakes to even more sinister levels.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk discussed joint nuclear weapons “scenarios” in a bilateral summit in Gdansk. The French leader wants to share his country’s nuclear weapons capabilities with other European countries. It is reported that French and Polish warplanes will begin joint exercises on flying nuclear weapons in the Baltic region. This is evidently meant as a threat to Russia. It amounts to Paris and Warsaw carrying out training exerises for nuclear strikes on Russia.
In yet another provocative development, it is reported that Britain is leading a NATO Joint Expeditionary Force to formulate a naval plan to blockade the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad located between Poland and Lithuania. Kaliningrad provides Russia with vital port access to the Baltic Sea.
The European NATO leaders are concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump has lost interest in the “Ukraine project” against Russia owing to his reckless war with Iran. That is why they are ramping up the war effort against Russia while telling barefaced lies about wanting to achieve “lasting peace.”
So far, the EU’s economic sanctions against Russia have been an abject failure. But the failure of economic measures is no longer the point. It is what they reveal about an intensifying NATO war plan against Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly called for a negotiated end to the conflict while the EU and NATO accuse Russian leader Vladimir Putin of “not wanting peace.”
People can make their own minds up about who the aggressors are. NATO is at war with Russia and is not interested in negotiations. Criminally, the NATO aggressors are creating a boiling frog situation for Russia. The European russophobic leaders seem to want war at any cost.
Satellites launched for coming war on China
Space Development Agency launches first operational satellites
By Courtney Albon, Sep 11, 2025, https://www.defensenews.com/space/2025/09/10/space-development-agency-launches-first-operational-satellites/
The Space Development Agency launched its initial batch of operational satellites on Wednesday, kicking off a 10-month campaign to deliver more than 150 satellites to low Earth orbit.
The 21 satellites, all built by York Space Systems, flew on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The spacecraft are part of SDA’s Transport Layer, designed to provide fast, secure communication capability to military operators.
The launch represents a new phase for SDA, which since 2019 has been crafting plans for a large constellation of government-owned missile tracking and data transport satellites in low Earth orbit. Its first spacecraft, Tranche 0, launched in 2023 and 2024 and have been used to demonstrate capabilities like laser communication between satellites, with the ground and recently between a commercial partner’s satellite and an SDA terminal installed on an aircraft in flight.
Once on orbit, the Tranche 1 satellites launched today will build on that work. Following initial payload health and safety checks, the spacecraft could start providing operational capability to combatant commands and other users within four to six months, according to acting SDA Director Gurpartap Sandhoo.
“This is the first time we’ll be able to start working with our COCOMs, our joint force to start integrating space into their operations and getting the warfighters used to using space from this construct,” Sandhoo told reporters prior to the launch. “This is the first time we’ll have the space layer fully integrated into our warfare operations.”
SDA’s first user group, whom Sandhoo called “early adopters,” includes military operators in the Indo-Pacific. This initial work is key, he added, to familiarize the services and combatant commands with the capability SDA can provide.
“Doing the warfighter immersion is going to be critical because they have to get trained on this and we have to provide this capability,” Sandhoo said. “That’s what Tranche 1 will start doing.”
Tranche 1 will include 154 satellites — 126 for the Transport Layer and 28 for the Tracking Layer. The first 21 spacecraft will bring a limited coverage and capacity, but that will increase over time as more reach orbit.
Starting with today’s launch, SDA plans to fly a new batch of Tranche 1 satellites each month for 10 months, with six of those missions carrying transport spacecraft and four flying missile warning and tracking satellites. The first few launches will be dedicated transport missions, but Sandhoo said tracking satellites will start to fly early next year.
The next mission is slated for mid-October and will feature satellites built by Lockheed Martin.
By the end of Tranche 1, Sandhoo said, SDA hopes to be providing regional capacity. Tranche 2, scheduled to start launching in late 2026, will further expand the constellation’s reach.
The agency is making headway on future missile tracking capabilities beyond Tranche 2 — which could provide essential support for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile shield — but the longer-term future of the Transport Layer is uncertain. The effort is fully funded through Tranche Two, but the Space Force has paused work on Tranche 3 amid an ongoing study considering whether the constellation is the best solution to meet the U.S. military’s data transport needs.
Sandhoo said the stalled funding will delay SDA’s plans to expand from regional to global transport coverage.
Israel Kills Journalist in Lebanon After “Hunting” Down Her and a Colleague
April 25, 2026, By Sharon Zhang, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/25/israel-kills-journalist-in-lebanon-after-hunting-down-her-and-a-colleague/
Israel targeted the slain journalist’s colleague with three strikes, including one on an ambulance she was in.
Israeli forces killed journalist Amal Khalil and wounded her colleague, Zeinab Faraj, on Wednesday, firing multiple strikes on the journalists in southern Lebanon in Israel’s latest attack on journalists covering its violence across the region.
Khalil and Faraj were taking cover in a nearby house after an Israeli strike near their car, while they were out reporting on an Israeli strike on another vehicle. While at the house, Khalil reached out to family and Lebanese officials, notifying them of her location, but Israeli forces bombed the house, collapsing it.
Rescuers pulled Faraj from the wreckage, but Israeli forces fired at emergency workers trying to reach Khalil, delaying her rescue, according to Lebanese officials. Khalil’s body was only recovered hours later from the rubble.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces also fired, for a third time, on the ambulance transporting Faraj to the hospital, Lebanese media reported, in an incident described by critics as the Israeli forces “hunting her down.” Faraj underwent surgery at the hospital and was brought to stable condition.
Khalil was a veteran reporter for the Al-Akhbar newspaper. The left-wing journalist was raised under Israeli occupation in the 1980s in southern Lebanon, and was driven by a desire to chronicle daily life in south Lebanon under constant threat of Israeli invasion and bombardment.
“On a personal level, resistance means everything to me,” Khalil said in an interview, translated from Arabic, with The Public Source last year. “Through my work, I have tried to be in solidarity with these people — the people of the land.”
Khalil was also an animal lover, and devoted her free time to rescuing and sheltering stray cats in her family home in Baysariyyeh, in southern Lebanon.
“This was a blatant murder. This was a targeted assassination,” said independent Lebanon journalist Courtney Bonneau. “The Israeli army committed multiple flagrant war crimes this afternoon, during this incident.”
Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said in a statement that the strikes on the journalists were war crimes.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned Israel’s targeting of the journalists as a “brutal and recurring crime.” “Khalil, an unarmed civilian journalist, remained trapped under the rubble for more than seven hours while the Red Cross was prevented from reaching her,” said Sara Qudah, Middle East and North Africa regional director for CPJ, in a statement.
The multiple strikes on the journalists are seemingly part of a practice by Israel to strike the same or similar locations multiple times in order to kill targets and then attack the people who come to rescue them.
Just a week before the killing of Khalil, Israeli forces carried out a “quadruple-tap” attack on Mayfadoun, in southern Lebanon. Israel struck the city, then struck three more times as successive waves of paramedics arrived on the scene. In all, the attacks killed four medics and wounded six others, The Guardian reported last week.
Antisemitism and Israel: A challenge to the Australian narrative (Part 1)
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has delivered the 21-page report, ‘Torture and genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’, dated 19 February 2026. Albanese’s team outline the depths of depravity and inhumanity to which the Israeli regime has now sunk in its attempted destruction of the Palestinian people.
By Evan Jones | 27 April 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/antisemitism-and-israel-a-challenge-to-the-australian-narrative,20974
A provocative Royal Commission submission by Dr Evan Jones argues that Australia’s antisemitism debate cannot be separated from Israel, Zionism and their political influence.
Submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion
Part 1
General
This submission can be reduced to one word — Israel.
There you have the answer to your inquiry. Dismantle apartheid Israel and see so-called “antisemitism” disappear overnight, save for a small ineradicable but prosecutable fringe
There is really no reason for this Royal Commission at all, as the problem is self-evident. The Commission will not solve the problem that it was formally established to resolve because its agenda is diversionary. Indeed, it will compound the problem because it will, in all probability (as it is seemingly intended to do), reinforce the influence of the Australian Zionist lobby and thus the ongoing impunity of Israel.
The problem arises from the conflation of two forces.
One: Israel is a nation founded on terrorism and wilfully sustained on deep-seated racism.
We know that nation-states are perennially born of violence, expropriation and repression (Australia as a case study), but Israel is a pronounced variation on a common colonialist theme. Israel was born of naked terrorism against an entire (non-Jewish) indigenous population. It was explicitly created and has been sustained as a racist apartheid state. Its borders have never been determined, envisaging ongoing expansion (lebensraum) — “from the river to the sea” (and beyond).
Palestinian Israelis (descendants of those whom the Zionist terrorist gangs failed to expel) are second-class citizens. Palestinian non-Israelis, under Occupation and under martial law, are denied the most basic human rights. Gaza has been a concentration camp since Sharon supposedly “disengaged” from Gaza in 2005.
The sadistic murder of Gazans since October 2023 is reminiscent of the Germans’ feverish pursuit of Jews and Bolsheviks after Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. Israel has long undermined United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) personnel and facilities, which attempt to instil a modicum of humanity into a population long starving from Israeli blockages. Israel endorses carnage by fanatical settlers on West Bank Palestinians, murdering and destroying Palestinian livelihoods at will — for which they enjoy absolute immunity.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) murder children with pleasure. Children are imprisoned indefinitely for throwing stones. Adult prisoners are tortured and murdered. Israel wilfully murders foreign dignitaries (most recently, the Iranian National Security Council chief Ali Larijani, reputed “moderate” and skilled negotiator), which highlights that mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu has put to words what has been the manifesto of all Israeli leadership: there will never be a Palestinian state (September 2025).
Long-term ethnic cleansing has now turned to genocide, ongoing in defiance of the formal “ceasefire”. Israel destroys essential infrastructure, murders aid workers and journalists — because it can. The journalist murder count is now further “totting up” in southern Lebanon.
Representative — this month (March 2026) marks the 23rd anniversary of the crushing of American Rachel Corrie by an Israeli bulldozer.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has delivered the 21-page report, ‘Torture and genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’, dated 19 February 2026. Albanese’s team outline the depths of depravity and inhumanity to which the Israeli regime has now sunk in its attempted destruction of the Palestinian people.
Some excerpts:
Torture has always been a central feature of Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians. Yet, since October 2023, Israel has employed it on a scale that suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent.
Torture is not confined to cells and interrogation rooms. Through the cumulative impact of mass displacement, siege, denial of aid and food, unrestrained military and settler violence and pervasive surveillance and terror, the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has become a space of collective punishment, where the destruction of the conditions of life turns genocidal violence into a tool of collective torture with long-term mental and physical consequences for the occupied population.
During its Mandate in Palestine, Britain used torture as one of the counterinsurgency tactics honed in Ireland and later imparted to Zionist militias; such practices, a colonial legacy, were then absorbed into the Israeli security apparatus before and after 1948 as a tool of repression and a preventive measure against Palestinian resistance. From early State-building and through decades of occupation, Israel has practised and condoned coercive violence as a structural component of its apparatus of domination.
An ecosystem of discriminatory legal frameworks and abusive operational practices has metastasized, encompassing Israeli military detention sites and prisons.
Since October 2023, torture in detention has, been used on an unprecedented scale as punitive collective vengeance — a clear feature of genocide. All Palestinians have been treated collectively as “terrorists” and “security threats”.
For her luminous competence, commitment and courage, Albanese was subject to comprehensive oppressive sanctions by the unhinged U.S. Trump Administration in July 2025.
Israel defies all international institutions and laws that proscribe the abuse of state power. Israel’s lobbying and propaganda regime (hasbara) is probably the most extensive of any state in history. Israeli authorities lie about the state’s forces’ actions without remorse.
The Israeli state is a parasite, receiving over US$300 billion (AU$418.7 billion) in aid from U.S. governments since 1950 (a great deal of which flows back to U.S. weapons manufacturers), supplemented by an estimated US$2 billion (AU$2.8 billion) per annum in donations from overseas Jewish “charities”, propped up at the country taxpayers’ expense. In particular, the Jewish National Fund directs funds to obliterating indigenous history in historic Palestine.
In short, the state of Israel is a pariah state, a barbaric regime, an abomination.
Two: All self-described “official” Jewish representative organisations in Australia support and lobby for Israel unreservedly. It is a full-time occupation.
Such “representative” organisations oppose basic human rights for Palestinians under Israeli control. They socialise their children into “a love of Israel” in Jewish “faith” schools. Some of their children are currently enrolled with the IDF to kill Palestinians.
Such organisations lobby Australian governments to support Israel, inhibiting Australian governments from adopting a principled stance towards Israeli criminality. They harass media management and editorial, thus gaining privileged access to and biased coverage from media outlets that the public relies on for supposedly unbiased information and opinion. Their ridiculous defences of Israel (op-eds, letters, buying off journalists) are published with great regularity. Anti-Zionist Australian Jews (vide Louise Adler and so on) and their organisations (the recently formed Jewish Council of Australia) are pilloried, indeed “excommunicated”.
In essence, Australian Jewish “representative” organisations act as a fifth column for a foreign state against Australian national interests – naturally antagonistic to ‘social cohesion’.
One and two in combination.
The Australian Jewish community, by virtue of its “official” representatives, courageous dissenters excepted, is complicit in Israeli genocide. And not just passively but actively. There has been no mea culpa on the part of executives of the key Jewish organisations (such as ECAJ, ZFA, AIJAC). Nobody in the Jewish community that underpins these organisations has sought to overturn the leadership of these key organisations in order to reorient their agenda and priorities.
In short, Israel and the “official” Australian Jewish community are joined at the hip.
It is not unrealistic to infer that the Bondi attack (and multiple incidents simply labelled “antisemitic”) is blowback for Israel’s character and actions and its local support network. The Israeli machine thus puts the security of global Jewry at risk (indeed, its own Jewish population) and doesn’t care.
A Zionist foot soldier is published in The Sydney Morning Herald (22 March), in denial regarding the intimate connection:
‘While David Leser’s article (SMH & Melbourne Age, 20 March [2026]) raises some thought-provoking points, it falls into the trap of attributing antisemitism in Australia to the actions of the Israeli Government. No other national or ethnic group in Australia is held to account for the actions of governments in countries overseas. So why is it considered reasonable for Jews in Australia to be relentlessly discriminated against for the actions of the Netanyahu Government?’
After the Bondi Beach murders, Israeli flags were well represented among the flower collections and mourners. Israel is apparently seen as the mother ship, the source of solace for those suffering, yet it is the ultimate cause of that suffering.
This bizarre anomaly is enhanced when the Zionist Federation of Australia (as befits its name) initiated the idea of inviting the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, to Australia, subsequently legitimised and authorised by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and dragging the Governor-General into the sordid process.
Another foot soldier grasps the connection but declines to understand the implications (SMH, 9 January 2026):
‘President Herzog is the legitimate head of state of the internationally recognised democratic state of Israel, rightfully invited to commiserate with Australians after the appalling terrorist atrocity at Bondi, in which predominantly Jewish people were murdered and injured.’
One notes in passing that Israel is not a democracy but an ethnocracy — no amount of affirmation is going to change the lie and the blind spot in the letter writer’s eye. To repeat, Israel is apparently seen as the mother ship, the source of solace for those suffering, yet it is the ultimate cause of that suffering. ‘Rightfully invited’ — really?
Herzog is not a passive head of state but an active participant in Israeli barbarism. Herzog comes to Australia, spends a token moment with victim families and survivors, declines to visit the fire-bombed Orthodox (non-Zionist) Adass Israel synagogue (“for reasons of security”) and spends the bulk of his time playing Israeli politician (‘not the time for a two-state solution’, meets with ASIO and so on).
The implication is ugly. Those murdered at Bondi are being instrumentalised (as with Netanyahu’s treatment of Hamas’ Israeli hostages) in the defence of the state of Israel and its current genocidal agenda. Appalling, no?
Antisemitism and Israel: A challenge to the Australian narrative (Part 2)
By Evan Jones | 27 April 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/antisemitism-and-israel-a-challenge-to-the-australian-narrative,20974
Part 2
The Commission’s Terms of Reference
‘AND the determination of the Australian Government to respond to the attack, and the factors leading up to the attack, as a matter of urgency by addressing antisemitism within the Australian community, including since 7 October 2023.’
Investigating the factors leading up to the attack could and should have been the responsibility of the mooted and more suited Richardson review. A royal commission is not the most appropriate vehicle towards this end.
Any investigation regarding “antisemitism” in Australia has to put Israel front and centre. The “official” Jewish community, AKA the Zionist lobby, naturally wants to exclude it.
The appalling Segal Report contains no substantive reference to Israel (my dissection here and here), thus being not merely worthless but disingenuous (vide Gwenaël Velge’s summary of the counter-Segal Greenslade and Briskman report, Not in Our Name: Jewish Australians Speak Out) and dangerous. Ditto the absence of any substantive reference to Israel in the most recent annual report (December 2025) of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (sic) (dissected here).
‘AND that the Australian Government has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.’
This submitter is frankly gobsmacked to find that this fraudulent “definition” has been officially adopted. The definition has been widely criticised, including by one of its originators, Kenneth Stern. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition is essentially about demonising criticism of Israel. Any proposed definition of antisemitism that attempts to delineate the terms on which one is allowed to criticise Israel without censure is automatically illegitimate.
The adoption of the IHRA definition nullifies any legitimacy that the paraphernalia of a royal commission might have and destroys any prospect of an honest analysis and a substantive functional prognosis. This adoption of the IHRA definition gives the impression that the Royal Commission, even inadvertently, will serve as yet another front for the pro-Israel lobby.
With the Royal Commission proceeding based on the IHRA definition, it can only turn into an inquisition. It can have nothing intelligent or ethical to offer about real antisemitism and can have nothing to offer in terms of genuinely dealing with it. It will be remembered as a squandering of the significant money that funds it and for the farcical theatre that is its essence.
‘AND recognising that strengthening the national consensus in support of democracy, freedom and the rule of law (social cohesion) provides the strongest defence against antisemitism and other forms of religious and ideologically motivated extremism.’
This sentence reads like it was written by AI. Who wrote this rubbish? One cannot have social cohesion as long as a particular Australian community coheres and operates actively as a fifth column in support of a foreign rogue state and influences Australian politics, both foreign and domestic, and media towards that end.
AND that hearing from the Jewish Australian community will be important to informing the recommendations of your inquiry and recognising concerns relating to educational and cultural institutions, and other sections of Australian society.’
Which ‘Jewish Australian community’? Is this obscurantism a product of naivete or of cynical contempt? Is the pro-Israel lobby running this show? Will anti-Zionist Jews and their organisations be consulted? Will anti-Zionist non-Jewish organisations (which have Jewish membership), such as the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, be consulted?
‘…and recognising concerns relating to educational and cultural institutions…’ Meaning? Which and whose concerns? Is this an oblique reference to forthcoming censorship, sackings, institutional defunding and hasbara implants as foreshadowed in the Segal Report?
To the Honourable Virginia Bell AC
We do… appoint you to be a Commission of inquiry, and require and authorise you to inquire into the following matters:
(a) tackling antisemitism by:…
This section is at the heart of the Commission’s Terms of Reference misdirection. Misdiagnosed symptoms are highlighted rather than causes.
The authorities need to cut the umbilical cord between the Australian Jewish community (including demolishing the pernicious influence of its Zionist leadership) and the criminal state of Israel.
In particular, (a)(iv) deserves comment. The ‘mental health and wellbeing of Jewish Australians’? No doubt the Commission hearings will consider the mental health of anti-Zionist Australian Jews who experience the mental anguish of seeing Jewish Israelis acting like Nazis (and supposedly in the name of global Jewry), but who also suffer the obloquy of abuse by the Australian Zionist Jewish establishment for their ethical stance.
As for the mental health of Australian Zionist Jews, tied inexplicably to a racially supremacist Israel, it is a psychopathology and to their own account — save that their aberrant mental state has the Palestinians (and now the Iranians and, once again, the Lebanese) as its ongoing victims.
Zionist Jewish University students, fresh from their “faith” schools with their “love of Israel” and now nurtured in the bosom of the Zionist Australasian Union of Jewish Students, find their “sensitivities” affected by campus protests against Israeli genocide. So as not to upset these sensitive souls, inured to the genocide of lesser ethnicities, campus protests have to be shut down.
If the Commission is concerned with shoring up the ‘mental health and wellbeing of [Zionist] Jewish Australians’, it is not an agenda that any Australian imbued with ethical sympathies (which includes anti-Zionist Jewish Australians) could have any tolerance for.
‘(b) making any recommendations to assist law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies…’
Is this code for inhibiting access to refugee status of people escaping Israeli onslaughts and who naturally take a dim view of Israel’s modus operandi?
‘(c) examine the circumstances surrounding the antisemitic Bondi terrorist attack…’
This was supposed to be the focus of the Richardson review, but that was merged inappropriately into the Royal Commission’s framework. Now Richardson has retired, recognising the Commission’s structured dysfunctionality. The most important subject for investigation is now without a suitable home and personnel to proceed.
‘(d) make any other recommendations… that would contribute to strengthening social cohesion…’
The means to strengthening social cohesion is to dismantle the pro-Israel lobby in Australia and for the Albanese Government to develop and sustain a principled foreign policy. By contrast, the Terms of Reference of this Commission appear to direct the Commission’s operations to enhance that lobby’s influence and to ignore and to implicitly condone the Government’s cowardice.
Methinks that the Royal Commission’s slip is showing. One gets the strong impression that one is in for more than farce. Rather, the Australian public is in for an authoritarian state run in the interests of an Australian Zionist mafia, with which the current Australian Labor Government is already in cahoots (and the Liberal Opposition even more craven).
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