One of the persistent claims made by nuclear energy advocates is that nuclear power plants hold a critical advantage over wind and solar facilities due to their significantly longer operational lifespans. This argument frequently serves as justification for continued investment in nuclear, often at the expense of renewable options. News of a 25 year extension to a Danish offshore wind farm, bringing its total life to 50 years, defangs yet another nuclear talking point.
It’s not the only example. Renewables, particularly wind energy, now routinely demonstrate operational lifetimes matching those of nuclear plants. The conventional wisdom that nuclear has a built-in longevity advantage is no longer supported by real-world evidence.
The nuclear industry’s standard operating lifespan is widely cited as between 40 and 60 years, with many reactors initially licensed for 40-year terms. These facilities routinely secure extensions from regulatory bodies, typically for an additional 20 years, bringing total projected lifetimes up to 60 years. In some cases, operators are now pursuing even longer extensions……………………………(Subscribers only0 https://medium.com/the-future-is-electric/the-50-year-wind-farm-that-ended-a-nuclear-myth-9da06d3b528c
n the wake of the United Nations Security Council rubber-stamping Donald Trump’s plans for Gaza — including the creation of a so-called “board of peace” and a militarized “international stabilization force” — the very notion of rebuilding is slipping through the cracks, overshadowed by what is framed as the more urgent need to keep the peace in place. But peace manufactured this way is nothing but an expansion and deepening of the humanitarian crisis already unfolding.
Gaza City was already in a perpetual state of destruction and rebuilding long before the current genocide erupted. It has endured relentless aggression that reduced residential homes to rubble, wiped out entire neighborhoods, and massacred civilians. Five wars — 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, and May 2023 — brutally dismantled Gaza’s infrastructure, economy, agriculture, education, and culture, leaving behind a consumed cycle of devastation.
Yet each time, once the bombardment stopped, reconstruction began, even if it was in a slow rhythm. Gaza would rise again — recovering, thriving even, in forms more vibrantly echoing and picturesque than before. But this genocide has unleashed an unprecedented scale of destruction, so vast and unrelenting that stumbling upon an intact home today feels like witnessing one of life’s seven miracles………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://truthout.org/articles/over-92-percent-of-homes-in-gaza-are-rubble-how-do-we-even-start-rebuilding/
he vast majority of Americans say that the Trump administration hasn’t given proper explanation for potential military action in Venezuela and oppose the idea of strikes in the country, new polling finds as the U.S. builds up its military presence in the region.
New CBS/YouGov polling conducted late last week shows that 70 percent of Americans say that they would oppose the U.S. taking military action in Venezuela, with only 30 percent saying they support such an action.
Yahoo News, Catherine Lévesque, Wed, November 26, 2025
OTTAWA — Pressed on a Crown corporation’s decision to award a contract to a U.S.-based joint venture for the management of the country’s nuclear laboratories, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson suggested his government’s promise of “elbows up” can mean “lots of things.”
The National Post first revealed in June that critics were sounding the alarm on the recent decision by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) to award a contract to sole bidder Nuclear Laboratory Partners of Canada Inc. (NLPC) — a joint venture led by U.S.-based BWXT — for the management and operation of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL).
CNL includes mainly Chalk River Laboratories, the birthplace of the CANDU reactor.
Critics raised national security concerns about giving access to Canada’s homegrown nuclear technology to companies involved with the U.S. Department of Defence at a time when Canada’s sovereignty was seemingly under attack by the Trump administration.
It appeared to be also contrary to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “elbows up” campaign promise, even though AECL awarded the contract independently from the government.
NLPC is spearheaded by Virginia-based BWXT — an important supplier to the U.S. Defence Department. The other partners are Amentum — also based in Virginia — and Kinectrics Inc. — a company based in Toronto but bought by BWXT earlier this year.
Its key subcontractor, Ohio-based Batelle Memorial Institute, is the world’s largest research and development organization and manages national laboratories, including for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Are you against any American company operating in Canada?” the minister asked Tochor, adding that he does not think that view is “consistent” with Conservative thinking.
Tochor shot back: “I think it’s consistent with the ‘elbows up’ campaign you just ran.”
Hodgson replied that “‘elbows up’ means lots of things.”
“Elbows up means negotiating with all of the countries in the world, doubling our exports, creating alternatives to Americans. That’s what we’re doing,” he said.
There are oodles of clueless, stupid leaders governing the world’s 193 countries. But likely none more clueless and stupid than Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky did one smart thing in his public life. He campaigned for president in 2019 promising to implement the Minsk agreements to end the civil war in the Donbas. He also promised to maintain good relations with Russia. That resonated with beleaguered Donbas Ukrainians who carried him to overwhelming victory.
But once in office the Kyiv ultra-nationalists with the real power quickly disabused Zelensky of any thought of sane governance. They encouraged him to continue the Donbas civil war and seek NATO membership by hinting he may be removed from office, indeed life itself, should he persist in making peace in Donbas and with Russia.
Zelensky took the hint. He followed the Kyiv neonazi game plan to the letter…destroy Russian cultured Ukrainians there and bring Ukraine into NATO to weaken, isolate Russia from the West. Massing troops near Donbass in late 2021 to polish off Donbas Ukrainians, he triggered the Russian ‘Special Military Operation’ in February 2022 to stop both the civil war and prevent NATO membership in NATO.
As stupid as that was, Zelensky appeared smart enough to negotiate a quick end to the Russian invasion just 2 months in. It would require Ukraine to end the civil war by granting Donbas regional autonomy, give up NATO membership and pledge neutrality between Russia and the West. In return Ukraine would get back every square inch of Ukraine territory Russia had seized.
That was smart. But then Zelensky pivoted back to stupid. The US and UK sent Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Prime Minister Boris Johnson respectively, to Kyiv to fill Zelensky up with visions of grandeur. ‘Just keep fighting, Volodymyr. You can defeat Russia with our weaponry, technology, logistics and moral support. Trust us. We’ll will never let you fail.’
Austin and Johnson reeled in fool Zelensky. Forty-three months on Ukraine is a failed rump state of its former self. Economy shattered. Tens of millions fled. Over a million dead and wounded. Tens of thousands of troop deserters replaced by hapless souls shanghaied off the streets, terrified teens and aging grandfathers.
President Trump, seeking an out from his predecessor Biden’s folly, has offered a 28 point peace plan largely mirroring Russia’s sensible demands. But Zelensky keeps pushing back, claiming he just needs more tens of billions from the US and NATO to get back all that Ukraine land lost forever.
If you were writing an imaginary movie scrip about Zelensky, the producers would usher you to the door saying ‘Nobody could be that stupid.’ But Zelensky is real life. If they ever do make a movie about his destruction of his beloved homeland, a fitting title might be ‘Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest.’
The resolution incorporates Donald Trump’s “peace plan.” It grants control over Gaza to the U.S.-led “Board of Peace” and it orders the deployment of a U.S.-led occupation force called “International Stabilization Force (ISF).” Trump will oversee both colonial bodies, in collaboration with Israel. Palestinians will not be allowed to participate in their own governance.
“It is a brazen attempt to impose, by threat of continued force against a virtually defenseless population, U.S. and Israeli interests, plain and simple.”
A UN Special Rapporteur has decried the resolution as a violation of Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly committed the UN’s original sin when it partitioned Palestine to create Israel. This launched the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous people, and the establishment of a settler colonial state.
Now, 78 years later, the UN Security Council has committed the UN’s second cardinal sin. It enshrined Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, put its imprimatur on Israel’s genocide, and granted colonial control over the lives of the Palestinians to the United States, which has aided and abetted the genocide.
On November 17, 2025, the Council adopted Resolution 2803, by a vote of 13-0. Russia and China, both permanent members of the Security Council, could have vetoed it. But shamefully they abstained, ostensibly influenced by support for the resolution from several Arab and Muslim states, including Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
The resolution incorporates Donald Trump’s “peace plan.” It grants control over Gaza to the U.S.-led “Board of Peace” and it orders the deployment of a U.S.-led occupation force called “International Stabilization Force (ISF).” Trump will oversee both colonial bodies, in collaboration with Israel. Palestinians will not be allowed to participate in their own governance.
The Board of Peace is designed to function as a transitional administrator of Gaza. It will control all services and humanitarian aid, all ingress and egress into and out of Gaza, and will supervise the financing and reconstruction of Gaza. The resolution “underscores the importance” of humanitarian assistance but does not require the unimpeded provision of aid.
The ISF will not be a peacekeeping force. Since the Council authorized it “to use all necessary measures to carry out its mandate,” the ISF will have the power to disarm Palestinian groups, as Israel insists. There is no provision in the resolution for disarming the Israel Occupation Forces, the body that has been conducting the genocide.
“A military force answering to a so-called ‘Board of Peace’ chaired by the President of the United States, an active party to this conflict that has continually provided military, economic and diplomatic support to the illegal occupying Power, is not legal,” said Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. “It is a brazen attempt to impose, by threat of continued force against a virtually defenseless population, U.S. and Israeli interests, plain and simple.”
“Essentially, it will leave Palestine in the hands of a puppet administration, assigning the United States, which shares complicity in the genocide, as the new manager of the open-air prison that Israel has already established,” Albanese added.
Since October 2023, Israel has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 170,000. Nearly everyone in Gaza has been displaced by Israel multiple times and Gaza has largely been reduced to rubble. Israel has violated the latest ceasefire at least 393 times and killed at least 312 Palestinians since it went into effect on October 10, 2025.
In three recent cases, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found a plausible case of genocide by Israel, that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful, and that Israel has illegally used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Resolution Violates the Palestinian People’s Right to Self-Determination
The Security Council resolution violates fundamental tenets of international law including the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. “The ICJ was clear: self-determination is an inalienable right of the Palestinian people and the UN and all States have an obligation to assist in its realization,” Albanese said…………………………………………………..
Resolution 2803 “rewards the U.S., a co-perpetrator of genocide, with control over Gaza and its potentially lucrative reconstruction process, while simultaneously relieving the Israeli regime of all of its responsibilities as an illegally occupying force,” Yara Hawari wrote in Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian-led think tank. “Palestinian participation is expected to be tightly limited and heavily conditioned. Trump’s plan confines it to ‘technocratic’ and ‘apolitical’ roles, subject to continuous external supervision and effectively excluding any representatives with democratic legitimacy or political agency.”
Hamas and other Palestinian factions rejected the resolution. They wrote in a joint statement that ISF “will turn into a type of imposed guardianship or administration — reproducing a reality that restricts the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and to managing their own affairs.”
“Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation,” Hamas said…………………………………………………………………………
it won’t prevent Israel from carrying out its military operations or aerial bombardments of Gaza. It may even help Israel achieve its goals.”
Uniting for Peace
……………………………………………..In adopting Resolution 2803, the Security Council did not discharge its responsibilities under the Charter to act on behalf of Palestine, a permanent observer state, which is undergoing the first live-streamed genocide in history. Nor is the Council discharging its responsibility to maintain international peace and security by memorializing an illegal occupation and an ongoing genocide.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has declared that he will introduce a Uniting for Peace resolution in the UN General Assembly to establish a multinational protection force for Palestinians and levy sanctions and an arms blockade to end the genocide and liberate Palestine from the unlawful Israeli occupation.
In retaliation, the U.S. government has revoked Petro’s visa, imposed sanctions against him, raised punitive tariffs on Colombia, and threatened the use of military force against Colombia.
People opposed to the U.S.’s colonial takeover of Palestine can join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, lobby for arms embargoes, and support accountability for Israeli and U.S. leaders responsible for perpetrating the genocide.
This war could have been avoided. A diplomatic pathway to peace existed in 2015 and in 2022. If the West had done what was right and needful on both occasions things would have been very different.
Russia has prevailed against the collective might of the West. Those who still retain their illusions and self-blinding prejudices concerning this are now totally irrelevant and unable to influence events now occurring. This includes the entire political elite of Europe apart from those in Hungary, Slovakia and since the recent presidential election, the Czech Republic.
We now stand before events which could herald the end of a conflict Russia never wanted. The last three and three quarter years of bloody warfare became inevitable following a catastrophic failure by the western political elites. The Russian president and his team walked every last mile and for six long years to achieve a diplomatic solution to the situation in Ukraine’s eastern regions following the West-supported insurrection and coup in Ukraine. The ultraviolent insurrection removed the democratically-elected president and government with full U.S., EU and UK support in 2014. Following the outbreak of hostilities when the new coup government irresponsibly and recklessly sent the Ukrainian army to quell unrest in the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine a diplomatic initiative between Russia and Ukraine began. This also included the then leaders of Germany and France. This process, which came to be known as ‘The Minsk Accords’ began in 2015.
The Minsk Accords began due to things going badly wrong for the Ukrainian army in Ukraine’s south-eastern region of the Donbass. They were begun after a plea by Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany at the time, to Vladimir Putin. These accords were meant to find a diplomatic solution to the question of the Russian-speaking population retaining their right to retain their language and democratic rights in the face of the removal of the president and government they had elected being illegally removed from office. The population of the Donbass saw gaining a semi-autonomous status as the way to achieve this and this is the outcome Putin sought to achieve for them.
The process to find a peaceful way through to a good outcome for both sides through diplomacy stretched on through th next six years to 2021 without success. The coup government in Kiev through its parliament refused to implement the steps that would have ensured a peaceful outcome. Instead of being willing to agree the way forward to the peaceful outcome visualized in Minsk they actively sought a military outcome favorable to them. Back in Minsk and throughout this period western leaders constantly attempted to put pressure on Russia and exerted virtually none on the Ukrainian regime in Kiev. This failure to put pressure on Kiev was the crucial missing ingredient that brought about the ultimate failure of the Minsk process by 2021. The two Kiev regimes since 2015 having felt no significant pressure from its western allies to implement Minsk finally abandoned it completely by late 2021. This set the stage for war
The Ukrainian army and the fortifications built to contain and attack the Russian-speaking populations of the Donbass which lay siege to the Donbass region had been built up and equipped massively by the West from 2014 to 2021. And in the first months of 2022 the number of attacks on the Russian-speaking population by the Ukrainian army rose significantly. It was clear that a major military push by the Ukrainian army against the population there was imminent. All this and all that came thereafter from February 24th 2022 could have been prevented if the West had been willing to put pressure on presidents Poroshenko and subsequently Zelensky, to agree the diplomatic solution which arose from the negotiations in Minsk. All the years of horrendous bloodshed could have been avoided. The western leaders could have applied massive pressure on Kiev but failed to apply any discernible pressure at all
Only now, after these years where over a million have died and countless numbers have experienced grievous injuries do we at last see significant pressure being applied to the Ukrainian regime. The new, 28-point Trump peace plan has been supplied to Zelensky and he has been told in no uncertain terms that he must agree to it or lose U.S. support. He has until November 27th to do this.
The big question is this: Why did we wait all the way from 2015 to now for the western powers to apply pressure on Kiev to settle?
The political leadership of the West concentrated solely applying pressure on Russia during the entire time from 2015 to now. If pressure had been applied to the degree possible and necessary by the West on the Ukrainian authorities they would have had to agree to the diplomatic peace initiatives, first in Minsk and if not then, in Istanbul. In Minsk the western leaders utterly failed in their duty to pressure BOTH sides, choosing to put pressure on Russia alone. In Istanbul we saw Boris Johnson, UK prime minister of the time, arrive in Kiev to urge Zelensky to abandon the road to peace and instead to instead choose war.
It has been the western leaders and their failure to apply this pressure where it would have been most effective that has precipitated the start and continuance of the fighting. It i the western leadership of this period and their anti-Russian strategies that are primarily responsible for this conflict and all the deaths and injuries that have occurred since 2015.
Now, as Russia achieves ever greater success on the battlefield, with the Kiev regime locked within a huge corruption scandal and its military forces in dissaray, lacking manpower, suffering massive desertions and in retreat, with western financial support to Ukraine failing, now at last pressure is being put where it should have been all along, on the Kiev regime and on Zelensky in particular. He must no decide by November 27th whether to sign up to the 28-point peace plan or lose the U.S. as ally. At long last pressure is being applied where needed as it ought to have been done all the way back in Minsk in 2015 and once again in Istanbul in 2022. Zelensky must now put up or shut up. Agree to a peace where Russia achieves th preponderance of its goals or reject that peace, fight on, and lose even MORE lives and land in the future.
the escalation that Trump claims is the latest battle in the “War on Drugs” comes two years after he explicitly announced his desire to take control of Venezuela’s oil,
War would deliver “not security but a torrent of bloodshed,” said a letter signed by dozens of political leaders.
ith thousands of US troops patrolling the Caribbean, at least eight warships deployed in the region, and the BBCreporting that it tracked four US military planes that flew near Venezuela Thursday night, lawmakers and other leaders from across Europe on Friday issued a unified demand for the Trump administration to deescalate the tensions it has ratcheted up in recent weeks.
The administration’s “show of force has already proved lethal,” said the leaders, with more than 80 people — including fishermen and an out-of-work bus driver — having been killed in the US military’s strikes on more than 20 boats, which the administration has insisted were trafficking drugs to the US. The White House has publicized no evidence of the claims.
President Donald Trump has not taken further military action against Venezuela since he was presented with “options” for potential strikes last week by officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, nor has he followed through with threats he’s made against Mexico and Colombia.
But the European leaders — including British Members of Parliament Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, and Spanish Member of European Parliament Irene Montero Gil — noted that Trump “severed diplomatic channels with Caracas and approved covert [Central Intelligence Agency] operations in Venezuela” as the military buildup continues in the region.
The Trump administration has insisted it is engaged in a legal “armed conflict” with drug cartels in Venezuela, which it has accused of trafficking fentanyl to the US — though experts say drug boats originating in Venezuela are “are mainly moving cocaine from South America to Europe,” and analysis by both the United Nations and US intelligence agencies have shown the South American country plays virtually no role in the production or transit of fentanyl.
The US Congress has not authorized any military action against drug cartels or Venezuela’s government, and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have attempted to pass war powers resolutions blocking the US from striking more boats or targets on land in Venezuela, only to have the resolutions voted down.
In his second term, Trump has sought to tie Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to drug cartels — despite a declassified US intelligence memo showing officials rejected the claim — and designated Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organization last week, giving the White House what Hegseth called “new options” to go after the group.
But the escalation that Trump claims is the latest battle in the “War on Drugs” comes two years after he explicitly announced his desire to take control of Venezuela’s oil, and following years of condemnation of Maduro’s socialist government from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The European leaders said the administration’s narrative about the threat Venezuela poses to the US and the escalation is simply the “latest attempt to threaten and undermine the sovereignty of Latin America and the Caribbean nations.”
“Declassified documents have confirmed the CIA’s hand in overthrowing democratically elected governments in Latin America, such as Salvador Allende’s Chile in 1973, João Goulart’s Brazil in 1964, and Jacobo Árbenz’s Guatemala in 1954. The human cost of these regime change operations was catastrophic, and their political legacy endures,” reads the letter, which was organized by Progressive International.
A military intervention by the US in Venezuela “would mark the first interstate war by the United States in South America,” the leaders said, yet “the pretext for intervention is as tired as it is familiar.”
“Under the banner of combating the ‘narco-terrorists,’ Trump celebrates lethal strikes against peaceful fishermen arbitrarily labeled as carrying drugs,” the leaders said.
As in the past, they added, moving the War on Drugs to Venezuela would deliver “not security but a torrent of bloodshed, dispossession, and destabilization.”
Therefore, we condemn in the strongest terms the military escalation against Venezuela,” they said. “Our demand is clear and our resolve is firm: No war on Venezuela.”
As Peoples Dispatchreported Thursday, many European leaders have “subordinated” themselves to Trump and have avoided speaking out against the US escalation with Venezuela, but left-wing political parties have led the way in denouncing the US deployment of soldiers and warships to the region.
The Workers’ Party of Belgium said recently that the world is “witnessing an unprecedented military escalation in 20 years, a multifaceted aggression that threatens not only Venezuela, but any project of sovereignty and social justice in Latin America.”
LSE Shefali Khanna, Stephen Jarvis, November 21 2025
Nuclear energy’s capacity to help Britain meet its net-zero targets makes it a potentially attractive part of the energy mix. But do the high cost and complicated logistics of building new plants, as well as the emergence of renewable alternatives, make the government’s plans unviable? Shefali Khanna and Stephen Jarvis analyse whether ambition can be realised through delivery.
After decades of stagnation, nuclear energy is staging a comeback. The British government has called its plans for nuclear power a “renaissance”, with a goal to quadruple nuclear capacity by 2050. Projects like Hinkley Point C, under construction in Somerset, and the proposed Sizewell C, in Suffolk, dominate headlines, while small modular reactors (SMRs) promise to make nuclear energy cheaper, faster to deploy and safer. But Britain’s nuclear revival raises questions about how old technologies fit into a rapidly changing energy landscape.
From decline to revival
Britain was a nuclear pioneer. Its first commercial reactor, Calder Hall, opened in 1956 and symbolised postwar scientific ambition. Yet by the 1990s, nuclear energy had lost political and public support………………………………
The nuclear policy push
The British Energy Security Strategy , published in 2022, set an ambitious target of up to 24 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050, meeting roughly a quarter of projected electricity demand. To deliver this the government created Great British Nuclear, a body tasked with accelerating nuclear project approvals and supporting innovative technologies……………Much of the optimism centres on small modular reactors, nuclear units with capacities typically under 500 megawatts, compared with the large gigawatt scale reactors at traditional plants. SMRs can be factory built, reducing on site construction delays and costs that have plagued conventional reactors. In November 2025 a domestic firm, Rolls-Royce SMR, was chosen to build three SMRs in Wylfa, in Wales. And several foreign developers, including NuScale and GE Hitachi, based in America, are vying for contracts. If successful, Britain could become a global exporter of modular nuclear technology, a rare case of industrial strategy aligning with energy policy.
SMRs are still unproven at scale, however. While prototypes exist, none have yet achieved commercial operation in a liberalised electricity market. Cost estimates remain speculative and nuclear waste management challenges persist. The modular approach may simplify construction but not necessarily long-term decommissioning or waste storage.
Economics and financing are the biggest barrier
Despite renewed enthusiasm, nuclear power remains expensive. The cost of Hinkley Point C has risen from £18 billion ($23.6 billion) to over £35 billion ($45.9 billion), with completion delayed from 2025 until as late as 2031. Financing such large projects in a deregulated market is daunting, especially when renewables and battery-storage technologies have seen such rapid cost declines.
Britain is experimenting with a Regulated Asset Base model, which allows developers to recover some costs from consumers during construction, reducing investor risk but increasing public exposure. This approach could make projects like Sizewell C more viable, yet it effectively shifts financial risk from corporations to consumers, reigniting debates about fairness and affordability.
Safety, waste and trust
Nuclear energy’s social licence remains fragile. Surveys show rising support for nuclear power as part of Britain’s low carbon mix, but opposition can intensify when communities face the prospect of new plants or local waste storage. The government’s search for a geological disposal facility for radioactive waste has struggled. Transparent governance, community benefit schemes and clear communication about risks are vital.
A deeper question is how nuclear fits into a net-zero electricity system increasingly dominated by renewables. Wind and solar costs have fallen dramatically, making them the backbone of Britain’s decarbonisation strategy. But their intermittency creates a need for flexible backup and firm supplies, particularly during dark, still winter days. Here nuclear advocates see an opportunity. Yet the future grid may evolve differently. Advances in battery storage, demand flexibility and even low-carbon thermal sources (such as hydrogen or gas with carbon capture) could provide reliability without the inflexibility and long lead times of nuclear projects. From a systems perspective, nuclear’s value depends on whether it complements or crowds out other low-carbon sources of power.
A combination of offshore wind, interconnectors with Europe and demand-side management could offer cheaper resilience than large scale nuclear expansion. National Grid ESO’s Future Energy Scenarios suggest multiple credible pathways to reliability that do not rely heavily on new nuclear power.
The global dimension
……………………………… Britain wants energy sovereignty but depends on foreign partners for both capital and technology. Balancing national security with project viability will require deft diplomacy and strategic clarity.
From renaissance to realism
Nuclear energy could play a valuable role in Britain’s net-zero transition, but not at any cost. Policymakers must avoid treating it as a silver bullet or a national vanity project. Nuclear should be evaluated within a whole systems framework that considers economic efficiency, environmental impact and technological diversity. A pragmatic approach would prioritise completing current projects (such as Hinkley and Sizewell) efficiently before scaling new builds; rigorous cost transparency in SMR development; integrated planning with renewables and storage; and public engagement to rebuild trust through co-benefits, not just compensation.
The rhetoric of a “nuclear renaissance” is powerful, evoking a return to industrial confidence and scientific progress. But the real test lies in delivery. If Britain can demonstrate that modern nuclear projects are on time, on budget and publicly legitimate, it could indeed reclaim some global leadership. If not, this revival may join a long list of grand plans that stumbled on the realities of cost, complexity and public trust. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2025/11/21/the-promise-peril-and-pragmatism-of-britains-nuclear-renaissance/
On November 17, 2025, the UN Security Council betrayed the Palestinian people by adopting a resolution that endorsed Donald Trump’s criminal and fraudulent “peace plan” for Gaza.
That resolution, Resolution 2803, is by no means the first time that the UN Security Council has stabbed Arab and Muslim peoples in the back.
Another notorious example of the Security Council’s contempt for the rights and interests of Arab and Muslim peoples is UNSC Resolution 1973.
Adopted on March 17, 2011, Security Council Resolution 1973 approved a no-fly zone over Libya. This led directly to NATO’s destruction of the once-prosperous, African country.
Few people are as knowledgeable about NATO’s destruction of Libya, and the UN Security Council’s complicity in Libya’s destruction, as Canadian researcher and author, Owen Schalk.
A new book by Owen examines the role of Canada – a NATO member – in the destruction of Libya. The book is titled “Targeting Libya – How Canada went from building public works to bombing an oil-rich country and creating chaos for its citizens.”
A Washington Post story headlined the “White House Blew Past Legal Concerns in Deadly Strikes on Drug Boats,” reported that “There is no actual threat justifying self defense — there are not organized armed groups seeking to kill Americans.” The Post quoted a former senior official saying, “The question is, is it legal just to kill the guy if he’s not threatening to kill you … There are people who are simply uncomfortable with the president just declaring we’re at war with drug traffickers.”
For a more critical perspective on Venezuela, we turn to Venezuelanalysis.com and their conversation with Atilio Borón (Borón is an Argentine sociologist, political scientist, professor, and essayist, he holds a doctorate in Political Science from Harvard University), Their conversation examines the administration’s military expansion in the country. Some key takeaways include:
“Venezuela remains a strategic target … global oil markets are more strategic than ever, and geological surveys confirm that Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world … greater even than those of Saudi Arabia!”
“Latin America has long been described as a continent in dispute, and today that dispute is sharper than ever. … What we are witnessing now, however, is an open display of brute military force.”
“This is the largest imperialist air–naval military buildup in our region since the October 1962 Missile Crisis.”
“New actors have emerged with decisive weight, fundamentally reshaping geopolitics … China is here to stay.”
I also recommend checking out this graphic also from Venezuelanalysis.com — it details the scale of weaponry in the region:
Here’s the reporting from CNN on the situation, including Trump’s discussion about attacking Mexico, with a chilling interview at the end between Jake Tapper and GOP House member Carlos Gimenez.
From yesterday, former ambassador James Story discussed the situation. I’ll add that it still doesn’t pass the smell test. It feels like we’re being pushed toward a conflict — framed through what the former ambassador called Venezuela’s relationship with our “strategic competitors.” At this point in world history, can’t we find a way to get along? Naive or not, I don’t want the world to melt down.
Of course I’m posting this video from a mainstream source, but where are the questions for our leaders and former leaders that push back — even slightly — against the status quo narrative? Honestly, it brings me back to an old classroom discussion about nuclear war: If a nation is treated as an enemy, or labeled a “strategic competitor,” and you make it clear you want them weakened or destroyed, why wouldn’t they stockpile weapons? Or, more simply put: if your neighbor hates you and has an axe, maybe you go get an axe too.
I guess I’m still wishful enough to hope that the United States could be the bigger person and put the axe down — especially when, in our case, we have the Fifth Fleet. Here is former Ambassador Story:
Since Russia began its SMO in 2022, Western media have repeatedly accused Russia of an “unprovoked invasion” and of “war crimes”.
Honest observers, however, state that Russia has acted with considerable restraint in Ukraine—targeting military and logistics sites, not civilians—and remind of Ukraine’s eight years of warring on the civilians in the Donbass prior to the commencement of the SMO in 2022. Further, they emphasize that once again, in December 2021, Russia made clear its concerns in hopes of a diplomatic solution. These were, again, steadily ignored by Western governments and media.
Likewise ignored is Ukraine’s deliberate, shelling and drone striking of medical and rescue personnel. Under international law, medical and rescue personnel and their vehicles are protected and must not be targeted. Ukraine and its ally Israel are guilty of routinely, deliberately, targeting medics and other rescuers, maiming and killing them. These are war crimes, but the West remains mute, instead concocting stories of “Russian war crimes” in the face of Ukraine’s very real ones.
In September 2019, when I first visited the Donbass, in a village in the Gorlovka region I met an elderly resident of living alone in a home falling apart from previous Ukrainian shelling. During our conversation she said that ambulances wouldn’t be able to reach her if she was injured by the shelling, it would be too dangerous for them to try.
I was likewise told by Zaitsevo administration that ambulances could not reach the villagers.
“The paramedics don’t go farther than this building; it’s too dangerous. If somebody needs medical care near the front lines, someone has to go in their own car and take them to a point where medics can then take them to Gorlovka. The soldiers also help civilians who are injured. A woman died due to huge blood loss because no one could reach her house to take her away in time. She was injured in the shelling and bled to death.”
This is one sordid reality for civilians living in villages heavily bombarded by Ukraine.
But the medics heroically do go to potentially dangerous areas to rescue civilians, and they have for years been deliberated targeted by Ukrainian forces when doing so.
In 2022, I interviewed numerous medics and Emergency Services workers in Donetsk regions, and subsequently made a short video about Ukraine’s deliberate targeting of rescue personnel.
The windows of the building had already been blown out and were sand-bagged to attempt to protect the workers. The Chief of the centre, Andrey Levchenko, told me how five days prior his office had been impacted with shrapnel from the shelling. He thankfully had just stepped of his office before the blast and was not injured or killed.
The day prior to my visit, when out on a call to rescue civilians trapped in a building set ablaze by Ukrainian shelling, rescuers were shelled, resulting in one of them being hospitalized in critical condition.
The survivors told me that, prior to the shelling, they saw a drone overhead, which makes it credible to believe that Ukraine deliberately targeted the rescuers.
Levchenko told me that Ukraine routinely double and triple strikes rescuers.
“As soon as we go out to help people the shelling resumes.” The double or triple strike tactic often means that rescuers who have come to help those injured in the first strike are then themselves targeted, depriving civilians in need of urgent medical assistance as a result.
I also spoke with Sergei Neka, Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. He reiterated what I’d been told.
“Our units arrive at the scene of the accident and Ukraine begins to shell it. A lot of equipment has been damaged and destroyed.”
Two female medics I interviewed told me coming under repeated Ukrainian shelling is normal. They spoke of their fear, bu said, “How about the patients? They’re hurt and even more scared, they’re waiting for our help. If I don’t help, who will help if everyone runs away?”
By September 2022, Ukrainian forces targeted and killed 19 Donbass rescuers, injuring over 50 more.
Ukraine continues killing medics
Fast forward to the present. Following are just some of Ukraine’s more recent attacks on medics and other rescue workers.
On August 11, a Ukrainian drone targeted an ambulance in Gorlovka, killing two medics and seriously injuring the driver.
In May, a Ukrainian drone strike killed two Emergency workers who had come to the site of a first drone strike in Lugansk. In an Israeli-style second strike, Ukraine targeted the rescuers deliberately after the arrived at the scene.
In March, Russian Emergencies Ministry employees came to extinguish a car on fire following a Ukrainian drone strike in Gorlovka. A Ukrainian drone targeted them, injuring the deputy head of the firefighting service and damaging a fire truck.
There are tragically many more such instances which I could list. However, the point is that it is beyond clear that Ukraine’s shelling and drone targeting of Russian medics, firefighters and other rescuers has been a deliberate policy since before 2022.
It is also clear that Western concern for medics allegedly targeted elsewhere (think the fake rescuers of the al-Qaeda aligned White Helmets in Syria during the global war on Syria) will never extend to any concern for Russian rescuers actually targeted by Ukraine.
Japan, like most of the countries in the world, officially recognizes Taiwan as part of China. Both the countries signed an agreement in 1972 according to which Japan recognizes the one-China policy.
Though Japan recognizes the “one-China policy”, earlier this month its prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, threatened military intervention if China tried to unify Taiwan with the mainland.
China reiterated its demand that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi retract her statement threatening military intervention in the event that China tries to forcefully integrate Taiwan into the mainland. It warned of strong counter measures otherwise.
The “Japanese prime minister’s erroneous remarks on Taiwan have fundamentally eroded the political foundation of China-Japan relations and triggered strong outrage and condemnation from the Chinese people,” said official spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao Ning, in response to a question on Wednesday, November 19.
“Retract the erroneous remarks, stop making provocations on issues concerning China, take practical steps to admit and correct the wrongdoing, and uphold the political foundation of China-Japan relations,” Mao reiterated.
Speaking in the country’s parliament, newly elected Takaichi had said on November 7 that her country may respond militarily to any “situation threatening Japan’s survival” including an attempt to force the unification of Taiwan with China.
She also added that if a US warship sent to break a possible blockade on Taiwan is attacked it would invite a similar Japanese military response.
Japan hosts the largest contingent of American forces anywhere outside the US territory.
Despite strong Chinese protests and a diplomatic spat last week, Takaichi is still refusing to retract her comments, claiming that they were “hypothetical” in nature. She also said she would not repeat them in future.
However, China has demanded a complete retraction, saying Takaichi’s statement violates the fundamental principle of China-Japan relations and amounts to interference in its domestic affairs, a red line.
Indications of Japanese militarism
Mao also objected to Takaichi’s invocation of phrases such as “survival threatening situation” and “collective self defense” in the case of Taiwan, saying that it is a pretext for “Japanese militarism to launch aggression” in the region.
Takaichi, of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), is widely seen as an ultra nationalist and a hawk who wants to reverse the demilitarization of Japan imposed post the Second World War.
After assuming power in October she pushed the country’s defense budget up and even talked about revisiting Japan’s long held no-nuclear policy and manufacture of heavy weapons.
Takaichi’s Taiwan statement is based on the country’s military strategy, which provoked widespread popular protests in the country when it was adopted in 2015.
Mao reminded that similar aggressions and excuses had been used by the Japanese to justify its occupation of Chinese territories in the last century and to bring the Second World War into the region.
“In 1931, Japan called its seizure of Manchuria as ‘survival-threatening’, and used that as a pretext to carry out the September 18th incident and invaded and occupied Northeast China,” Mao reminded.
“Japan later claimed that to defend ‘the greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere’ was an existential battle” for it and expanded its war of aggression to the entire Asian region, Mao pointed out, asking “whether to attack Pearl Harbor was also deemed as survival-threatening to Japan, which ignited the Pacific War.”
“As we mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War the international community must guard against and firmly thwart any attempt of reviving militarism, jointly uphold the post-WWII international order and safeguard world peace,” she emphasized.
Chinese counter measures
Japan, like most of the countries in the world, officially recognizes Taiwan as part of China. Both the countries signed an agreement in 1972 according to which Japan recognizes the one-China policy.
On November 12, China had underlined that Taiwan is the core of its national interest and a red line which no external force should cross. It asked the Japanese to respect the agreement signed between the two countries, including adherence to the “one-China policy”.
Since Takaichi’s remarks, China has taken several counter measures, including issuing a travel advisory asking its citizens to avoid traveling to Japan and restricting the sale of Japan’s seafood products in the country, among others.
China and Japan had a mutual trade of around USD 300 billion in 2024. Chinese visitors to Japan bring substantial revenue to the Japanese economy, according to one estimate, around USD 14 billion dollars each year.
“If Japan refuses to retract them or even continue to pursue the wrong course, China will have to take strong and resolute countermeasures and all consequences arising therefrom will be borne by Japan,” Mao warned.
Members of the Trump administration and Russian officials have secretly been hashing out a revised plan to end Moscow’s 45–month-old invasion of Ukraine — but the deal is riddled with unacceptable provisions that would in part force Kyiv to dramatically shrink its military, The Post can reveal.
Comment: Moscow didn’t “invade” Ukraine. After many warnings to the Kiev regime, it took action to protect Donbass Russian speakers who had endured eight years of shelling by their own country, because they wouldn’t bend to the neo-nazi coup in 2014. After all this time, The Post is still following the approved narrative. Sad.
The 28-point framework calls for Ukraine to shrink its Army to 2.5 times smaller than it is now; forces Kyiv to turn over long-range missiles “or any kind that can reach Moscow or St. Petersburg”; and bans any international brigades within Ukraine — which has long been considered the best way to ensure a halt to Russia’s assault would remain in place, a source familiar with the plan told The Post.
The proposed plan would also target NATO, requiring Ukraine to ban allied countries from keeping any military aircraft in Ukraine — instead backing them up to at least the Polish border.
The plan would also force Ukraine to fork over the entirety of the Donbas region — including territory Russia has been unable to occupy, according to a report by Financial Times.
Comment: Notice the framing. As Putin patiently explained to Tucker Carlson (and presumably Witkoff and Trump) Donbas had been part of Russia since the 17th century and then part of Ukraine for a measly two decades. There is no ‘forking over’.
Axios reported that the deal was inspired by President Trump’s 20-point road map for ending the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, citing US and Russian officials.
However, that plan famously calls for an international force to keep the peace in Gaza until a Palestinian state can be established.
Predictably, Moscow appears to be fond of the blueprint, with Kirill Dmitriev — the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund who is reportedly drafting the plan with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff — telling Axios “we feel the Russian position is really being heard.”
Still, the Kremlin on Wednesday denied that there had been any new developments in what Moscow wants to see in a peace deal since Trump met with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August.
“There has been nothing new in addition to what was discussed in Anchorage,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, responding to a question about the Axios report.
The plan is purportedly meant to be a sweeping blueprint that not only ends the war in Ukraine but also hashes out questions about security guarantees for the Kyiv government and the rest of Europe, as well as future ties between Washington and the two warring nations.
However, the main security guarantees that Europe and the US have sketched out for Ukraine has been the international security force, which has been scrapped in the new plan.
Further, the plan would have to be accepted by Ukraine, whose people have been fighting and dying for nearly four years to protect Kyiv’s independence and prevent Russian overreach described in the sketched-out plan.
Comment: The beleaguered citizens of Ukraine have been fighting and dying to preserve the two decade-old elite money-laundering machine that is “country” of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian official told the outlet that Witkoff discussed the plan with Kyiv’s national security adviser, Rustem Umerov.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Turkey on Wednesday to meet with the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Foremost, we will discuss maximum capabilities to ensure that Ukraine achieves a just peace,” Zelensky told reporters of the plans for his discussion with Erdogan, adding: “We see some positions and signals from the United States, well, let’s see tomorrow.”
Zelensky’s office declined to comment on the reported content of the plan.
For now, the conflict rages on. Overnight, Russian drones and missiles blitzed the western city of Ternopil, striking two nine-story apartment blocks and killing at least 20 people, including two children, and injuring at least 66 others.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump told a Saudi investor summit on Wednesday afternoon that he was frustrated with Putin for how long it has taken to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
“I have a good relationship with President Putin, but I’m a little disappointed in President Putin right now,” Trump said. “He knows that.”
Comment: Analyst Alexander Mercouris highlights other provisions in the draft document that have received little attention: the enshrining of Russian as a “state language”, thus protecting Russian speakers, and the restoration of the persecuted Russian Orthodox Church to its former status, including the return of all looted properties. These may be minor points to the West, but are immensely important to Russia, as it formed a part of the decision to initiate the SMO.
Vladimir Zelensky has barred the Ukrainian military from admitting the loss of key towns to Russia, Moscow’s envoy to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, has said. This is being done to hide the actual situation on the ground in the hopes that the flow of Western aid to Kiev remains unhindered, he suggested.
On Thursday, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov,told President Vladimir Putin that Russian forces have liberated the key logistics hub of Kupyansk in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region.
The Ukrainian General Staff, however, has claimed that the city remains under the control of Kiev’s troops.
Zelensky had previously denied the encirclement of Ukrainian forces in Kupyansk and as well as in Dmitrov-Krasnoarmeysk (Mirnograd-Pokrovsk), an urban area in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), accusing Moscow of exaggerating its gains on the battlefield.
During his speech at a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, Nebenzia insisted:
“The situation on the front line for Ukraine “remains dire, if not catastrophic. Russian troops are successfully advancing on essentially all fronts.
“Despite the encirclement of a significant number of Ukrainian troops, massive losses, forced mobilization, and threats to civilians, the head of the Kiev regime forbids acknowledging the loss of cities, orders his troops to hold their positions ‘until the last soldier,’ and bans retreat.
“The policy pursued by the Kiev government has nothing to do with military reality and is purely political in nature. Zelensky wants to show his Western sponsors that the front is holding, because he counts on continued funding for his war with Russia. He needs billions of dollars to keep the war going for him and his cronies to line their pockets and stay in power.“
Last week, the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced a probe into a “high-level criminal organization” allegedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky. Its members are suspected of siphoning around $100 million in kickbacks from state-owned nuclear operator Energoatom.
The graft scandal has led to the sacking of Ukraine’s energy and justice ministers, with other prominent figures such as Zelensky’s right-hand man, Andrey Yermak, and the head of the National Security Council Rustem Umerov also being linked to the scheme.
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