Walt Zlotow – Chicago Tribune misleads its readership with Bob Kustra’s imaginary commentary ‘What Ronald Reagan would do today for the people of Ukraine’.
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, 13 July 26
It’s fitting Tribune commentator Bob Kustra would go all the way back to 1980’s “virulent anti-communist” Ronald Reagan to argue Reagan would have squandered another $175 billion to keep Ukraine destroying itself in America and NATO’s lost proxy war to weaken, isolate Russia from the European economy.
Kustra is clearly locked in virulent 1980’s anti-communist ideology that he’s transferred to non-communist Russia, ignoring 35 years of NATO expansion that doubled NATO membership to keep Russia isolated and fearing NATO’s nukes on its doorsteps. This was after the USSR vanished into the dustbin of history.
Kustra imagines Russia had nothing to fear from adding Ukraine to NATO, a red line of Russian security concern that Russian leader Putin had been warning the US and NATO about since 2007. Kustra has apparently erased the US promoted Ukraine coup in 2014 that toppled Russian leaning Ukraine President Victor Yanukovych, provoking a civil war in the Donbas that killed thousands of Russian leaning Ukrainians there. In Kustra’s worldview, Obama didn’t greenlight the coup, Trump didn’t gift Ukraine with hundreds of millions in weapons to polish off the Donbas separatists. and Biden didn’t ramp up NATO membership to Ukraine and tell Russia it was none of their damn business.
Claiming Reagan would still be arming the collapsing, failed Ukraine state is preposterous. Reagan spending $20 million in black market smuggling networks to inundate Poland with “1eaflets, posters, magazines, newspapers and radio break-ins” is a quantum leap away from funding a war with $175 billion that has near utterly destroyed Ukraine in their lost war the US provoked. As conservative as Reagan was. he was foremost a pragmatist in foreign affairs. He was out of office and battling mental decline when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 so everything Kustra offers is conjecture. But Reagan’s record argues strongly he’d never have engaged in the madness Obama, Trump in term one and Biden did to send Ukraine to the scrapheap of nations.
Bob Kustra knows better. So does the Chicago Tribune. Its readership deserves something a tad better than Bob Kustra’s ‘The Russians are coming, The Russians are coming.’
Canada’s Federal Government in Disarray Over Nuclear Waste Project Assessment .
We the Nuclear Free North is an alliance of people and groups opposing a Deep Geological Repository for nuclear waste in Northern Ontario. We oppose the transport, burial and abandonment of this radioactive waste in our northern watersheds.
| Thunder Bay – Intervenors in the federal assessment of a nuclear waste transportation and burial plan are saying that the federal government is in disarray over the assessment of nuclear projects. This follows the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada’s release, last week, of the Tailored Impact Statement Guidelines for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s (NWMO’s) proposed deep geological repository for nuclear fuel waste. The NWMO plan incudes the transportation, processing, burial and abandonment of all of Canada’s high-level nuclear waste in an underground repository proposed for a site between Ignace and Dryden in northwestern Ontario. The Impact Assessment Agency posted the Guidelines to a public registry on July 3rd, following a 30-day comment period in April. The same day, a Notice of Commencement was issued, signaling the start of the assessment statement phase of the multi-year process. In this phase, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization must prepare an Impact Statement and supporting documents to meet the requirements set out in the Guidelines. “Overall, the guidelines set out a reasonable set of requirements. We were pleased to see that the Agency rejected NWMO’s pitch that long-distance transportation and long-term safety of the project should be excluded – those are fundamentally important issues – but we are disappointed that NWMO will not be required to present alternatives to the project,” commented Wendy O’Connor, a volunteer with We the Nuclear Free North. The assertion that the federal government is in disarray stems from the series of overlapping and – in some respects – contradictory messages and announcements issued by them in recent months related to the assessment of nuclear projects. In May, the federal government released a discussion paper proposing that the impact assessment of nuclear projects be handed over to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), rather than conducted by the independent Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. The CNSC is the licensing body for nuclear facilities and is described by both academics and industry observers as a “captured regulator”. CNSC is led by nuclear industry insiders and has never refused a licence application since its inception. In June, the federal government announced that it would potentially designate the NWMO’s Deep Geological Repository (DGR) as a “Project of National Interest” under the Building Canada Act. Such a designation would mean guaranteed approval of the DGR, even in the absence of evidence to support the safety of the project. The announcement defined the implications for the DGR project as including “streamlining” of the review and “issuing a document outlining the conditions under which the project may proceed.” According to the federal government, listing the DGR as a “Project of National Interest” would result in “shifting Canada’s regulatory focus from ‘whether’ the project should proceed to ‘how’ it will proceed.” In July, the federal Impact Assessment Agency issued a Notice of Commencement of a full impact assessment of the NWMO’s proposed deep geological repository to be delivered by the Impact Assessment Agency. “While the Guidelines are imperfect, they do provide at least a fighting chance of the public and Indigenous peoples being able to contribute to a thorough assessment of the NWMO’s project, and to have the NWMO’s proposal tested in front of a (hopefully) impartial hearing panel”, said Brennain Lloyd, project coordinator with Northwatch. “This is a massive and unprecedented project. The risks will be widespread – along the transportation route, in the vicinity of the repository, and downstream from the site – and long-lasting. These radioactive wastes remain significantly dangerous for a million years. Let’s not rush to any unsupported conclusions about the project’s safety”, added Charles Faust, speaking on behalf of Nuclear Free Thunder Bay. The comment period on the May discussion paper closes on July 22nd. The federal government is expected to decide by this fall whether the NWMO project is to be designated as a “Project of National Interest”, which would circumvent the impact assessment process. The NWMO is required to provide the Impact Assessment Agency with a workplan for the development of their Impact Statement by the first week of October. Contacts: Brennain Lloyd, 705-493-9650, brennain@northwatch.org Charles Faust, 807-633-0202, cfaust@tbaytel.net Wendy O’Connor, 807-358-6711, wendywoodswalker@rocketmail.com |
Trump Says Iran Deal Is “Over,” Signals More US Strikes Are Likely Coming
July 9, 2026, By Chris Walker, https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/09/trump-says-iran-deal-is-over-signals-more-us-strikes-are-likely-coming/
“Negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don’t see it,” Trump said on the status of future discussions.
In remarks at the NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, President Donald Trump claimed that the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran, negotiated last month, was no longer in effect, citing the resumption of military attacks between the two countries.
Trump’s comments come as the U.S. and Iran have exchanged fire over the past several days, with U.S. Central Command announcing on Tuesday night that they had completed strikes on around 80 targets.
The president was visibly upset when responding to questions from reporters about the war.
“I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore,” Trump said.
The U.S. president engaged in name-calling against Iran’s leaders, calling them “sick people” and “scum” — a noted departure from his positive descriptions of them when negotiations were going better.
The MOU was not a final peace deal, but rather an agreement between the U.S. and Iran that aimed to end hostilities while a larger agreement was being brokered. Trump derided Iran for denying negotiated deals he claimed were being made during those discussions.
“We make a deal. They [Iran] go outside, talk to the press, they say ‘we never even talked about it,’” Trump complained.
Over the past month, Trump has made several baseless claims about the dealmaking process without confirmation from Iran, including that Iran had agreed to give up control of the Strait of Hormuz and that the country would agree to destroy its enriched nuclear materials.
Asked whether he would engage in future negotiations with Iran, Trump demurred. “I don’t care,” he said, adding that he’d let “negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don’t see it.”
He also indicated that the U.S. would conduct more military attacks later on. “We hit them very hard last night. Probably hit them hard again tonight,” Trump said.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that the U.S.’s continued threats and attacks against Iran, which violate parts of the MOU, would impede “negotiations on a final deal.”
CENTCOM said it hit 80 targets on Tuesday, with one U.S. official calling the strikes bigger than previous retaliatory ones. While the U.S. insisted its targets are military posts, the attacks are happening near larger cities and close to civilian infrastructure.
Iran media reported explosions near military targets in Bushehr early on Wednesday morning, a port city near the northern edge of the Persian Gulf that has a population close to 250,000 people. The city is home to the only civilian nuclear power plant in the country.
The U.S. also appeared to bomb the city of Bandar Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz, which has a population of over 526,000 people. Early morning footage showed fires from explosions and large smoke plumes over the city.
And Iranian media said several explosions were seen in Sirik, a port city in the southern part of the country, with attacks reportedly hitting commercial and fishing piers. Several people also suffered injuries from shrapnel due to the attacks.
According to figures compiled by Al Jazeera, around 3,468 Iranians have been killed in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran since February 28. More than 26,500 Iranians have been injured due to the war. The true number of casualties is likely higher, as the figures were last updated in mid-June.
Europe’s Nuclear Plants Can’t Beat the Heat
By Haley Zaremba – Jul 10, 2026, https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Europes-Nuclear-Plants-Cant-Beat-the-Heat.html
- France is cutting output at up to five nuclear plants this week as record heat pushes river temperatures too high to cool reactors safely.
- Last month’s heat wave already knocked out power to 70,000 households on France’s hottest day ever, 44°C, and Germany and the UK both rely on French nuclear exports.
- More than 1,000 heat-related deaths in France and stalled EU adaptation funding show the grid crisis is outpacing the response.
Europe’s blistering heat wave is threatening energy security across the continent as power plants shut down and the risk of rolling blackouts rises. Electric grids are overstressed, and ecosystems are too. Rivers are greatly affected by soaring temperatures, which in turn impacts the energy industry and power plants that rely on that water supply for their cooling systems. Just this week, France announced that it will reduce production at as many as five nuclear power plants, with two already curbing output this week.
France is expected to receive the worst of a coming high-pressure heat dome over the next few weeks, with temperatures soaring to as high as 42 Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) in some parts of the country on Wednesday. When Europe experienced a similar heat wave last month, a transformer failed, leaving nearly 70,000 households without power as temperatures reached deadly levels. The country recorded its hottest day ever on record, with temperatures reaching a blistering 44 °C (111 °F).
These temperatures are not only deadly to humans, they are also a huge threat to the ecosystem. Rivers are growing hotter under these conditions, and one of the impacts of that change is that their waters are no longer as effective for cooling down nuclear power plants, which serve as the backbone of France’s energy mix. As a result, the country anticipates needing to curb production at plants around the country at the very same time that demand is surging.
It’s a sad irony that just as electricity is needed more than ever to keep indoor temperatures at survivable levels, the power grid is most likely to fail. “As it gets hotter, things stop working quite so well,” Iain Staffell, associate professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College London, was recently quoted by DW. “I think we do need to adapt the power system to cope with the changing weather,” he went on to add.
The reduction of nuclear power output in France could greatly affect energy availability and affordability within France and in neighboring countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, which import electricity generated by the nation’s sizable nuclear power sector. And nuclear is only part of the story. The heat wave is also impacting the output of hydropower and limiting the cooling abilities of coal and gas plants.
Europe can expect this kind of strain to be the new normal as global warming alters climatic patterns around the world and increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather. Policies will need to be put into place, and enacted quickly, in order to prepare European grids to withstand these kinds of temperatures at regular intervals going forward.
“Utilities can adapt by planning for summer peaks, making cooling demand more flexible, reinforcing grids for high temperatures, deploying batteries and demand response, and climate-proofing power plants’ cooling systems,” Simone Tagliapietra, senior fellow at Bruegel, an economic and policy think tank, recently told MIT Technology Review via email.
However, all of these imperatives are massively costly and difficult to implement, leading to inaction on the part of European leadership and widespread vulnerabilities of the continent’s energy infrastructure. Last year, the European Environment Agency reported that all 27 countries in the European Union have climate adaptation plans, but noted that “insufficient long-term funding” has stifled implementation.
This has led to frustration and resentment amongst the public, not to mention over 1,000 unnecessary deaths. “Everyone is asking, why are we not ready?” Francois Gemenne, an environmental politics professor at French business school HEC Paris, recently told the New York Times. “We are becoming aware of our own vulnerability.”
2009 quake may have prompted data rigging by central Japan nuclear operator
July 10, 2026 (Mainichi Japan),
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260710/p2g/00m/0bu/008000c
NAGOYA (Kyodo) — Chubu Electric Power Co. may have begun manipulating earthquake resistance data for its nuclear power plant in central Japan after a 2009 earthquake subjected one of its reactors to shaking beyond its design limits, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The latest revelation came after the utility admitted earlier this year that it had, by no later than 2012, begun cherry-picking favorable data to set earthquake-resistance standards for the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant, which it has been seeking to restart.
The data rigging was initially believed to have begun under tougher safety requirements imposed after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, which was triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. But the source said the practice may have begun even before the disaster, as part of efforts to restart the No. 5 reactor after it was shut down following the 2009 earthquake.
In the magnitude-6.5 earthquake that struck Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, in August 2009, the No. 5 reactor experienced seismic shaking several times stronger than that recorded at the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors, partially exceeding its design limits.
Chubu Electric found that unusual ground conditions had amplified the seismic waves. After the No. 5 reactor automatically shut down in the quake, the company allegedly began generating seismic data and selecting favorable results to avoid being ordered by the government to implement additional earthquake-resistance measures, according to the source.
The company switched to a different contractor around the same time, allowing it to generate seismic wave data more quickly and “creating the perfect circumstances and motive,” the source said.
The nuclear regulator at the time approved the safety of the No. 5 reactor in late 2010, paving the way for its restart in February 2011.
The fresh allegation could mean Chubu Electric engaged in data manipulation involving the Hamaoka plant’s three operable reactors, further undermining confidence in the country’s nuclear safety screening process.
“Details of what happened will be determined through a third-party investigation. We will cooperate sincerely with the inquiry,” Chubu Electric said in a statement.
Located on the Pacific coast in central Japan, the Hamaoka complex sits near the expected epicenter of a potential massive earthquake in the Nankai Trough. It was shut down in May 2011 at the request of then Prime Minister Naoto Kan over safety concerns.
Chubu Electric applied for state safety screenings between 2014 and 2015 to restart the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors, but the review process has been halted amid the scandal.
According to a report compiled by Chubu Electric in March this year on its data misconduct involving the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors, the utility told regulators it had generated 20 sets of seismic motion data under different conditions and selected the one closest to the average — known as the “representative wave” — to establish a benchmark for earthquake-resistant design.
In reality, however, the company had been generating numerous combinations of seismic motion data and representative waves before selecting a set from among them. In 2018, it began deliberately selecting the representative wave and ensuring the other data were consistent with it.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority also recently revealed it had learned from an external source that Chubu Electric continued manipulating data even after the investigation began in May 2025.
The Patriot Trap
The goal of the West has always been to trap Russia in an endless conflict that saps the economic, military, and moral strength of the nation and its people.
the economic, military and moral collapse it anticipated isn’t transpiring inside Russia, but rather in Ukraine and its European partners.
Donald Trump has given the thumbs up for the licensed production of Patriot missiles by Ukraine. This is a trap that will not end well for those looking to the Patriot missile for salvation.
Scott Ritter, Jul 10, 2026, https://scottritter.substack.com/p/the-patriot-trap
Persistence pays off, or so it would seem. Less than a week before NATO convened its annual summit in Ankara, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his call for the establishment of a domestic production facility for Patriot air-defense missiles. Zelensky’s plea came in the aftermath of one of Russia’s largest missile attacks on Kiev. Unlike previous Russian attacks, where the Ukrainian side claimed the vast majority of the Russian missiles had been intercepted by Ukraine’s western-supplied air defenses, this attack exposed the harsh reality that Ukraine had no defensive response to the Russian attacks.
Ukraine was out of missiles.
“To reliably protect lives, we need our own production,” Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian President was echoing a call he had been making for months. In May, Zelensky observed “I asked the previous administration, I am asking todays administration, give Ukraine licenses. We will increase the production of Patriot missiles. It will be very helpful for us, it will be very helpful for the Middle East, for everybody whom the United States will decide to help.”
On July 8, during a meeting with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Ankara Summit, Zelensky got his wish.
“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots,” Trump told a beaming Zelensky. “That’s pretty cool, right? This way you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough.”
Trump noted that he still needed to inform the “company” before adding “but that’ll work out all right.”
Problem solved?
Not even close.
Trump and Zelensky had fallen into what can only be called “The Patriot Trap”—the notion that a singular technology can somehow transform the fate of a nation.
The problem faced by Ukraine and their western sponsors—to include an apparently reinvigorated Trump-led United States—isn’t solved by pouring more resources into a war of attrition that favors Russia. This would imply that Ukraine has the potential of prevailing in the ongoing proxy war being waged between the collective West and Russia.
It doesn’t.
The goal of the West has always been to trap Russia in an endless conflict that saps the economic, military, and moral strength of the nation and its people.
The problem faced by the collective West is that the economic, military and moral collapse it anticipated isn’t transpiring inside Russia, but rather in Ukraine and its European partners.
And the other problem is that the United States is more than willing to allow both Ukraine and Europe to further deplete what remains of their respective strength on a gamble that Russia is somehow even more depleted.
A massive information warfare campaign has been underway concurrent with the Zelensky plea for the right to produce Patriot missiles. Centered on a drone-based offensive which has targeted critical Russian infrastructure, this campaign has been paired with a propaganda effort without precedent, designed to transform pleasing visuals of burning Russian oil infrastructure, destroyed trucks, and long-lines at gas stations into an endless thematic declaring Russia unable to defend itself and, as such, the Russian leadership weakened and desperate for an off-ramp to a war which cannot be won.
The purpose of this campaign is straightforward—arm Ukraine.
Give Ukraine the weapons it needs to defend itself.
Ignore the costs accrued by Ukraine to date in terms of lost lives and squandered resources.
Ignore the fact that Russia maintains the strategic advantage across the broad spectrum of issues that define this conflict—on the battlefield, in the defense factories, in the boardroom of companies, and in the hallways of global decision making—Russia is dominating across the board.
Ignore the reality that neither Ukraine nor its western sponsors can win this war.
Just create the perception that they can.
Because perception creates its own reality.
Especially if Russia falls victim to this information warfare campaign, and starts doubting itself.
The problem is that, at least when it comes to the issue of Ukrainian production of the Patriot missile, the perception the perpetrators of this scheme are seeking to manufacture has zero chance of manifesting itself.
It is doomed by the very ineptitude of those who have hatched this scheme to begin with.
Given the realities associated with Patriot production today, the most likely candidate for Ukrainian licensed production is the MIM-104F Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical (GEM-T) interceptors. Under normal conditions, a GEM-T interceptor costs $3-4 million each to manufacture. Accelerated production costs could raise the per-unit cost to between $6–7 million. Licensed production, requiring new facilities, could raise the costs to over $10 million per missile.
A missile which is not designed to shoot down the modern threats posed by Russia, such as the Iskander-M, the Kinzhal, the Zircon, or the Oreshnik.
Which means from the start, the US-Ukrainian license deal is designed not to actually improve the ability of Ukraine to defend itself, but create the impression among those susceptible to such flights of fantasy that Ukraine could actually accomplish this.
If only they were given the resources to to so.
The Ukrainian license will likely closely track with existing licensed production of the GGEM-T by Germany, where a new GEM-T production facility was built in the city of Schrobenhausen. The facility is operated by COMLOG, a joint venture between Raytheon and MBDA Deutschland. COMLOG is designed to handle the production and modernization of Patriot PAC-2 GEM-T missiles for European users, including Ukraine.
It is highly likely that the Ukrainian license will be an extension of the existing German license Such an arrangement would streamline many export control issues.
GEM-T interceptors contain guidance electronics, propulsion components, warhead assemblies, and launcher interface equipment that are sourced from a network of suppliers that already exist when it comes to the German license. Lead times on some of these components exceed six months.
The Schrobenhausen facility broke ground in 2022. The plan was to build six new buildings at the site by 2026: an assembly building, warehouse, combustion chamber preparation, technical center, extension of the existing technical service building and a new office wing. According to MBDA, a usable area of 6500 square meters will have been created. The Schrobenhausen facility is strictly an assembly facility; over 50 Bavarian and German suppliers are involved in the qualification and series production phase of all of the components used to produce the final product. Among the subcontractors is Bayern-Chemie, whose Aschau, Germany facility has been tasked to produce solid motors for the GEM-T interceptors. Bayern-Chemie produced Patriot motors between 1987 and 1996, and has the infrastructure conducive to resumption of its past work.
The rudder control system of the GEM-T missiles manufactured in Germany will no longer be hydraulic, but electro-mechanical. Modifications a for the upper part of the rocket, the so-called forebody, as well as the installation of a new computer, which will come from Europe, underscore the reality that the German GEM-T is a standalone product, not influenced by the availability of US components—another reason why a modification of the COMLOG license is the most likely path the US will take regarding Ukraine.
But all of this is part of the hype that such a deal is feasible, that there is hope for Ukraine once these Ukrainian-produced missiles start rolling off the production line.
Under ideal conditions, a Ukrainian assembled GEM-T could not manifest itself in reality until 2028 at the earliest.
This is assuming Congress permits this transfer to take place.
But this would require one to believe that Russia would stand by idly while Ukraine builds from scratch a new 6500 square meter facility, or modifies existing facilities to take on the task of assembling GEM-T Patriots.
That Russia would neither identify or seek to violently interdict this assembly facility, or the numerous supporting facilities involved in supporting the importation and/or manufacture of subcomponents.
Russia, simply put, will not be idle.
And any GEM-T production facility built on Ukrainian soil would have a lifetime measured in days—weeks at best.
The Ukrainian GEM-T Patriot will never see the light of day.
And anyone selling this fantasy—including Zelensky and Trump—know this to be true.
The Ukrainian GEM-T is a myth—a chimera—designed to break the spirit of the Russian nation by propagating the myth of a never-ending conflict.
But this is a trap neither the Russian people or their leadership will fall into.
Sadly, the same cannot be said about either Zelensky or Trump.
And the price for their error will be measured in the blood of both Russian and Ukrainian victims.
The UK’s countryside could be filled with small nuclear reactors after billionaire announces £35bn new investment
techradar pro7 July 26, By Rahim Ami
- Polish billionaire Michał Sołowow’s SGE announces £35bn plan to build 14 GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 reactors across three UK sites
- The project aims to deliver 4.2GW of power starting in 2034, effectively powering 8m homes for over 60 years
- The project is looking to secure government backing, with guaranteed prices intended to be locked in for the power producer before it would be offered to investors
…………. Poland-based SGE (Synthos Green Energy) is looking to build up to 14 reactors across three locations in the UK, with six at its primary site and four each at its two secondary sites.
With an estimated build-out cost of £35 billion ($46.5 billion), the project, if approved, is expected to be one of the biggest SMR projects the UK government signs on to as part of its Advanced Nuclear Framework, unveiled earlier this year, to support the development of privately funded projects.
………….. The first disclosed site for SME’s project, Oldbury in South Gloucestershire, is a former Magnox nuclear station that generated up to 434MW of power, is now expected to be home to as many as six 300W SMRs, according to SGE’s plans
While the other two sites are not yet publicly named, they are expected to have a 4+4 reactor split, bringing the total to 14 reactors.
Part of the reason the UK government is interested in outsourcing power generation, even nuclear, to private equity is that it expects a spike in power demand from AI datacenters over the next few years, even as the nation’s overall power needs increase.
This is also why Google Cloud, a key AI data center player, has joined in on SME’s project as a strategic partner that could, as per Michał Sołowow, invest as much as £4.5 billion in data centers in the country to make use of some of the added capacity.
Given that both SMRs (including the proposed GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300) and data centers require access to water and space for construction, one can assume that both will prefer cheap, easily accessible coastal, estuarine, or riverside land, which means that the UK’s countryside could soon see certain areas change meaningfully in terms of aesthetics at the very least.
Smaller rivers, however, might not cut it, as SMRs also require the water bodies they use to act as ‘heatsinks’ for their operation, and 6 or 4 in the same location might overwhelm them, limiting the number of areas that are viable for such buildouts, which means that SME’s proposed project might set the baseline for how privatized nuclear power will shape the UK countryside in the days to come even as AI data center demand is expected to increase pressure on the national grid.
For now, SME’s proposal has yet to be approved by the government, making the £35 billion figure an estimate that may or may not apply, given that it still needs to secure financing and lock in government guarantees on pricing before it moves meaningfully towards construction. https://www.techradar.com/pro/the-uks-countryside-could-be-filled-with-small-nuclear-reactors-after-billionaire-announces-gbp35bn-new-investment
Trump Says He Supports Ukraine’s Long-Range Attacks Inside Russia, Will Allow Ukraine To Produce Patriot Missiles
by Dave DeCamp | July 8, 2026 , https://news.antiwar.com/2026/07/08/trump-says-he-supports-ukraines-long-range-attacks-inside-russia-will-allow-ukraine-to-produce-patriot-missiles/
President Trump heaped praise on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit in Ankara on Wednesday, expressed support for Ukraine’s long-range attacks inside Russia, and said he would allow Ukraine to produce Patriot missile interceptors.
When asked about Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries, the president said, “It’s an escalation, but it’s also an escalation that could help lead to an end.”
Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks rely on intelligence provided by the US, and Ukrainian officials told The Financial Times this week that the Ukrainian military was able to strike multiple Russian oil refineries recently because US intelligence has allowed it to find the optimal flight path for its drones to get through Russia’s air defenses.
On top of Ukraine’s success in striking Russian oil refineries, there has also been a significant spike in Russian civilian casualties in Ukraine’s drone attacks. Russian officials have cited the civilian deaths when justifying Russia’s ramped-up bombardments of Ukrainian cities, which have led to an increase in Ukrainian civilian casualties.
Discussing the Patriot missiles, Trump told Zelensky, “We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriot missiles. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough. I said, ‘Make them yourself.’ We haven’t informed the company of that yet, but that’ll work out all right.”
Trump’s approval of Ukraine manufacturing Patriots marks another escalation of US support for Ukraine, and Russia will almost certainly attempt to target any Patriot factories that are established on Ukrainian territory.
Overall, Trump spoke very highly of Zelensky, a reversal from the start of his administration when the two clashed during a contentious Oval Office meeting. “We’ve actually developed a good relationship. It’s hard to believe,” Trump said, adding that Zelensky has “done an amazing job” and “been very effective” in the war.
UK has ‘no future’ if it fails to act on ecosystem collapse threatening national security
Members of parliament have demanded full publication of an explosive
report by the UK’s spy leaders that found the collapse of ecosystems
overseas would have catastrophic consequences for the UK’s national
security, warning that the UK has “no future” if the findings are not
urgently acted on.
Despite growing concerns for the UK’s food security,
likely to be worsened by the third heatwave this summer currently
afflicting the UK and swathes of the northern hemisphere, the government
has refused to publish the full report, which has circulated among defence
officials for more than a year.
The report paints a devastating picture of
severe food shortages, price rises, migration, political destabilisation
and possible war, resulting from the collapse of ecosystems, fuelled by the
human-induced climate crisis and over-exploitation, as the Guardian has
previously revealed. Food shortages could result within five years.
Guardian 8th July 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jul/08/uk-report-ecosystem-collapse-national-threat-food-security
Almost forgotten? the Church Rock nuclear tragedy
On July 16, 1979, the worst accidental release of radioactive waste in U.S.
history happened at the Church Rock uranium mine and mill site. While the
Three Mile Island accident (that same year) is well known, the enormous
radioactive spill in New Mexico has been kept quiet. It is the U.S. nuclear
accident that almost no one knows about. Just 14 weeks after the Three Mile
Island reactor accident, and 34 years to the day after the Trinity atomic
test, the small community of Church Rock, New Mexico became the scene of
another nuclear tragedy.
Beyond Nuclear 16th July 2023, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/07/16/a-90-million-gallon-nuclear-tragedy/
America’s AI War Has No Civilian Stop Rule
July 10, 2026, Brian Hudson Foreign Policy in Focus, https://www.juancole.com/2026/07/americas-civilian-stop.html
When the Pentagon made Palantir’s Maven Smart System a formal “program of record” in March, it did more than approve software. It gave long-term status to a platform that analyzes data from satellites, drones, radars, sensors, and intelligence reports to identify potential targets. Maven supported almost all of the 13,500 U.S. strikes in Iran. The designation is meant to secure funding and extend its use across the military.
That decision came while the United States was still investigating the February 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, Iran. An initial U.S. military inquiry found that U.S. forces were likely responsible, but the Pentagon has not released a final public conclusion. Iranian authorities have reported between 155 and more than 175 deaths, most of them students and teachers. The question is why a military system designed to move faster from information to action has no equally clear public requirement to slow down after grave civilian harm.
In software engineering, an “error budget” is meant to protect users. When a service exceeds an agreed level of failure, new releases stop until the problem is understood and fixed. War is obviously not software. But in Washington’s AI-assisted operations, civilian deaths do not automatically trigger a temporary suspension of the relevant tools, an independent review of the data, or a public account of the decisions that led to the strike.
Advocates of military AI argue that better data and faster analysis can make attacks more precise. That is possible in principle. But precision is not something software simply possesses. It depends on the quality and age of the data, what a system treats as suspicious, and whether people have enough time to challenge its output.
AI does not turn stale or biased information into truth. It can make bad information travel faster. Human Rights Watch has warned that Israeli digital tools used in Gaza relied on incomplete data and inexact estimates that could raise the risk of civilian harm. The lesson is not that every use of AI is unlawful. It is that speed can magnify the consequences of a bad premise before anyone can catch it.
The familiar assurance that a “human remains in the loop” does not solve this problem. A person who sees only a final recommendation, cannot inspect the data trail, and has seconds rather than hours to decide is not exercising meaningful independent judgment. AI can shape lethal force without pulling a trigger. It can determine what appears urgent, which people or places rise to the top of a list, and which facts never appear at all.
The Iran campaign makes this concern immediate. Maven and Anthropic’s Claude were used to process classified intelligence, suggest coordinates, rank targets, and turn planning that once took weeks into real-time operations. That does not establish that AI independently chose every target or that every AI-supported strike was unlawful. Reuters later reported that Palantir faced the task of removing Anthropic technology from Maven. But the larger point remains: the Pentagon is institutionalizing systems built to compress the time for human deliberation before force is used.
The Minab tragedy represents the human cost of treating speed as a virtue in itself. The school had a public website, posted student photographs, and was visible in satellite imagery. It also reported that targeting officials appeared to have used outdated intelligence. The exact role of AI in the strike has not been disclosed. But information apparently did not distinguish the school clearly enough from the adjacent military compound, and the Pentagon has not publicly explained how that failure traveled through the targeting process. That is an accountability problem, not just a technical one.
Congress should establish a civilian stop rule for AI-assisted targeting. Credible evidence of grave civilian harm should trigger a temporary suspension of the relevant system in comparable missions, an independent review of the data and approval process, and a public explanation of the system’s role. This would not treat every civilian casualty as proof of a crime or ban every military use of AI. It would mean families do not have to wait through months of secrecy to learn whether a database, a contractor, or a command decision helped turn a civilian site into a target.
Congress has begun to consider broader guardrails. The House Armed Services Committee’s FY2027 defense bill would direct the Pentagon to extend its AI policy to systems that support or materially influence operational planning, target development, weaponeering, and engagement recommendations. That is a start. But it is not a civilian stop rule. It does not automatically pause a system after a devastating incident or guarantee a public answer.
Such a rule would reinforce the law of war. Customary international humanitarian law requires militaries to take all feasible precautions to verify targets and reduce foreseeable civilian harm. It also requires them to cancel or suspend attacks when it becomes clear that a target is not military or an attack would be unlawful. The Red Cross has recommended after-action reviews and re-testing or suspending AI systems when reliability, safety, or legal compliance concerns emerge. Recent scholarship points in the same direction. Renato Wolf emphasizes precaution throughout AI-assisted target verification, while Jessica Dorsey warns that over-reliance on computational systems can weaken the human judgment needed to protect civilians. If an AI-enabled process makes verification harder because it rewards speed, the problem is a failure to meet an existing legal duty.
Palantir can say it supplies the platform. The Pentagon can say software only supports decisions. An operator can say the data arrived already ranked.
But people grieving outside a destroyed school are left with no clear answer about who is accountable. Until Washington creates a publicly disclosed civilian stop rule, “precision warfare” will remain a technical phrase that conceals a political choice: to accelerate force without a meaningful way to stop, inspect, and answer for its failures.
North Korea vows boost to nuclear buildup, military intelligence
North Korea will strengthen its nuclear force “both in quality and
quantity” and expand the role of its military intelligence agency focused
on South Korea, state media said Friday.
Pyongyang is under widespread
sanctions over its nuclear programme, and the two Koreas remain technically
at war as their 1950-53 conflict ended without a peace treaty.
The announcement comes after North Korea has repeatedly spurned South Korean
President Lee Jae Myung’s dovish overtures, labelling Seoul its “most
hostile” enemy and declaring itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.
Daily Mail 10th July 2026,
https://www.dailymail.com/wires/afp/article-15967405/North-Korea-vows-boost-nuclear-buildup-military-intelligence.html
Great British Energy appoints Amentum and Cavendish in £360M SMR deal
06 Jul, 2026 By Gavin Pearson, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/great-british-energy-appoints-amentum-and-cavendish-in-360m-smr-deal-06-07-2026/
Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE‑N) has awarded a long-term Owner’s Engineer (OE) contract worth up to £300M to two contractors.
Amentum Clean Energy and Cavendish Nuclear were signed to the role in a 14‑year contract which formally runs from 23 April 2026 to 23 April 2040.
The contract notice also states the possibility for an extension that could take it to October 2041.
The total value for the contract including VAT is listed as £360M and £300M without VAT, although GBE‑N said the contract’s final value is uncertain and depends on how the project progresses.
This will include timetables and milestones agreed with the SMR technology partner but the procurement notice envisages the OE supporting the client up to the completion of the first fuel cycle for the initial reactor.
The OE role will provide independent technical assurance and oversight to GBE‑N’s “Intelligent Customer” and “Intelligent Client” teams as the SMR programme moves through design stages and towards a final investment decision.
Responsibilities will include specification, audit, review and advice on design, scope, budgets, risk, delivery and contract compliance and acting as a subject matter expert delivering “Line of Defence 2” assurance on major design and build contracts.
Amentum and Cavendish are both established contractors in energy and nuclear services. Cavendish Nuclear is part of Babcock International Group, known for nuclear construction and engineering work in the UK and Amentum is an international engineering and technical services company.
The contract includes monthly reporting against key performance indicators such as deliverable quality, core team availability and social value measures, including targets for female apprenticeships.
Labour MP Brian Leishman opposes new nuclear energy near Clacks
10th July, By Hannah Emma Shedden,
https://www.alloaadvertiser.com/news/26259252.brian-leishman-opposes-new-nuclear-energy-near-clacks/
BRIAN Leishman MP says he “cannot support” new nuclear power plants – despite his party earmarking Fife and Stirling for future development.
Last Tuesday, a UK Government report identified six locations across Scotland where the Labour administration would like to develop as part of their drive towards alternative energy sources.
To the east of Clackmannanshire, “the north coast of the Forth” was listed, which many local politicians understood as referring to Longannet, a site next to Kincardine and just over seven miles from Alloa town centre.
West of the Wee County, the “south bank of the Forth” near Stirling, was identified, though the exact location remains unclear.
Currently, through devolved powers, the Scottish Government have the power to block planning, and said they would not permit the building of any nuclear sites.
Mr Leishman, Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, said: “On balance, I simply cannot support plans to expand nuclear power plants, including any potential sites in Scotland.
“The reasons for this are numerous and even if issues such as the huge construction costs to the taxpayer were resolved, the problem of nuclear waste remains.”
He said it is often ignored that there are “considerable” carbon emissions from nuclear fuel and waste disposal cycles, adding: “We also need to look at the sky-high cost of decommissioning, Sellafield being a prime example.
“We are yet to deal with all the waste from previous nuclear programmes, and I do not see how nuclear would help us with the climate emergency, considering the length of time it takes to plan and build such power plants.
“I believe that pound for pound, renewables such as wind and solar offer much better value for money as we look to achieve net zero.”
Nuclear power costs billions. Here are seven better ways to use that money – Martin Roche
Given Scotland’s renewables capacity and reserves of oil and gas, opting for expensive nuclear is daft, argues Martin Roche
There’s an energy project in Britain that will take twice as long to build as originally planned. It will at least double its forecast construction costs and require a UK bill-payer subsidy of £1 billion a year.
. Given Scotland’s renewables capacity and reserves of
Toil and gas, opting for expensive nuclear is daft, argues Martin Roche.
There’s an energy project in Britain that will take twice as long to build
as originally planned. It will at least double its forecast construction
costs and require a UK bill-payer subsidy of £1 billion a year
. It’s the nuclear power station being built by the French state-owned company EDF at
Hinkley Point in Somerset. Begun in 2017, its opening date has been pushed
back to 2030. The plant’s cost, unadjusted for inflation, stands today at
£35bn but the final total may reach £50bn.
The argument of the nuclear
power lobby is that we must have wholly reliable ‘baseload’ energy for
when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. I saw one
nonsensical argument that nuclear would be there when renewable energy went
into decline. This is desperate nonsense. The wind will continue to blow
off Scotland’s coast and high places on most days of the year, for as
long as there is a Scotland.
That’s not to say we should rely entirely on
renewables. We must have wholly dependable sources of power. Scotland has
options for both reducing its energy demand and building an energy economy
that can have much more impact over decades than nuclear. We should be
working to reduce energy costs for households and create a far bigger
energy employment sector than anything nuclear can offer.
And we can start
now. No need to wait decades for new nuclear stations. Nuclear generation
may enrich some giant companies and provide jobs in operation and
construction, but the numbers are modest when compared with smarter
thinking.
Labour’s policy may be good for US tech giants that want to
gobble up Scotland’s abundant energy to drive data centres, but it’s
not yet clear what’s in these facilities for the Scottish economy, jobs
or the public purse. Nuclear is a naïve 20th-century solution to complex
21st-century problems.
Nuclear power stations are also big targets and at
the mercy of drones, as we know from Ukraine. So much for energy security.
There is a far better way to spend our money than shovelling public cash
into the board rooms of energy giants or the pockets of California tech
bros billionaires.
It’s called the broader public good. Here are some
thoughts: One, a ten-year programme to bring Scottish homes up to the
highest possible thermal performance standards, so they are more efficient
and cheaper to run in deep winter and high summer. Better homes at less
cost and using less energy. Two, all new buildings – homes, schools,
offices, factories – to be built to the world’s most exacting energy
performance standards.
Three, grid connection costs to be slashed so that
small generation projects in rural areas, like mini-hydro and biogas,
become economically viable.
Four, every tenement building in Scotland to be
made suitable for solar panels, with owners benefiting from their share of
the income to help maintain properties. Our tenement homes can become our
own energy production factories.
Five, localised generation such as
tenement solar means that a network of small battery storage facilities can
be created across Scotland. Connected to the National Grid, they can be the
first line of defence on the odd days when wind can’t do the job.
Six,
some 12 per cent of Scotland’s energy comes from hydro power. We can
double that. Seven, all this will cost money. There are opportunities here
to create new long-term projects and consumer finance products, perhaps
with state guarantees (rather than being a cash cow for nuclear). Better
ways can be found of encouraging community energy firms. A new Scottish
private sector capital markets organisation can be established to provide
start-up and growth capital for new energy sector businesses.
Scotsman 9th July 2026, https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/nuclear-power-costs-billions-here-are-seven-better-ways-to-use-that-money-8786542
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PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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