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Great British Energy -Nuclear (GBE-N) reveals £20bn SMR TP Contract forecast breakdown after saying it didn’t have budget details

Tom Pashby, Sep 03, 2026, https://tompashby.substack.com/p/gbe-n-reveals-20bn-smr-tp-contract?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=6735486&post_id=213980624&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N) has admitted it does have a breakdown of the forecast £20bn initial estimate for its small modular reactor (SMR) technical partner contract (TP Contract), despite having previously said it didn’t have details of the budget.

GBE-N is the UK Government’s body responsible for building the UK’s first government-supported SMRs. Rolls-Royce SMR has been selected by GBE-N to built three of its SMRs at the Wylfa nuclear site in North Wales.

In May, GBE-N announced it had awarded Rolls-Royce SMR stage 1 of the SMR TP Contract. It said: “The forecast Stage 1 price of the TP Contract is £359,000,000. This forecast price may change.

“The forecast Stage 2 price of the TP Contract is approximately £8,168,000,000. This forecast price is indicative only as the pricing mechanism for Stage 2 remains subject to negotiation during Stage 1.”

Taken together, that placed the forecast cost of the total TP Contract at £8,527,000,000. It is worth noting that the TP Contract does not capture the full cost of GBE-N’s Wylfa SMR project.

The contract award announcement also said: “The estimated total value within the tender notice for the two-stage TP Contract was £20,000,000,000 excluding VAT. This value was indicative only and based upon GBE-N’s initial understanding of the potential costs of developing a first of a kind technology.

“This estimated total value was based on the fact that in the tender notice GBE-N reserved the right to make up to four awards, although GBE-N also reserved the right to award three, two or only one contract(s). GBE-N has ultimately decided to award only one TP Contract and the contract award notice value reflects this.”

Given that the notes say GBE-N had an initial estimated £20bn for the TP Contract, and that it reserved the right to make up to four awards, it could reasonably be assumed that it had estimated each contract would have a value of £5bn. However, this was unclear.

Via the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, GBE-N was asked to provide a breakdown of the £20bn figure.

In response, New Civil Engineer revealed that GBE-N said: “Following reasonable and proportionate searches of our records, we confirm that Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N) does not hold the information you have requested.”

20 Working Days challenged this response via a request for an internal review and GBE-N chief financial officer Neil Cooper responded to say that upon further inspection, the organisation did have a breakdown of the figure.

“In our original decision, we concluded that GBE-N does not hold the information requested,” Cooper said.

He went on to say that, following the internal review, GBE-N concluded that it “does hold information within the scope of your request.

“Our review has found that our original decision did not identify this information because it sits within a document whose predominant purpose is not to explain the calculation of the £20bn figure and which was therefore not considered to fall within the scope of your request.

“We consider it was reasonable to have concluded initially that the document did not contain information within the scope of your request. On further review, however, we are satisfied that it does, and we have therefore continued to assess whether the information we hold is disclosable under the EIR (Environmental Information Regulations).”

However, he added: “Our review has concluded that the information held by GBE-N should be withheld from disclosure under the exceptions in Regulation 12(5)(e) (Confidentiality of commercial or industrial information) and Regulation 12(5)(b) (The course of justice and inquiries) of the EIR.”

He went on to explain this further, saying: “We are withholding the requested information in reliance on Regulation 12(5)(e) of the EIR, which permits a public authority to refuse to disclose information to the extent that disclosure would adversely affect the confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where such confidentiality is provided by law to protect a legitimate economic interest.

“The information you have requested includes inter alia vendor cost estimates, government funding assumptions, the approach to negotiation strategies, and assessments of vendor capability relating to the Small Modular Reactor Technology Selection Process.

“Much of this information was obtained through confidential market engagement, and the information is identified as being market-sensitive.”

Cooper did find that he was able to provide an explanation for the £20bn figure without releasing internal documents.

“Although we have concluded that the information that you have requested is exempt from disclosure, we have set out below an explanation of how the £20bn figure was derived,” he said.

“The £20bn estimated total value in the Contract Notice of 2023 was an indicative, best-estimate at the time figure, published to meet the legal requirement to state the total potential value of the contract award including all options on the number of sites and technology providers.

“It was arrived at on an objective basis reflecting GBE-N’s understanding at the time, and anticipating a procurement capable of supporting up to two small modular reactor projects (broadly £10bn per project), across the whole life of a project, from early development through to commercial operation.”

It is unclear whether a single SMR ‘project’ would cover the three Rolls-Royce SMRs which are proposed for the Wylfa site, or whether that would mean a single reactor.

Cooper continued: “Because the technology is first-of-a-kind and yet to be developed, the estimate necessarily carried significant uncertainty, as the Contract Notice made clear.

“The detailed assumptions underpinning the figure comprise commercially sensitive vendor cost information and funding and negotiating assumptions obtained through confidential market engagement, and to the extent that they fall within the scope of your request these are withheld under regulation 12(5)(e) of the EIR for the reasons set out in this response.”

GBE-N was approached for comment.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Trump rules out nuclear weapons against Iran, weighs limited Strait of Hormuz strikes


[your]NEWS, Mon, 31 Aug 2026, https://www.sott.net/article/508207-Trump-rules-out-nuclear-weapons-against-Iran-weighs-limited-Strait-of-Hormuz-strikes

President Donald Trump said nuclear weapons are unnecessary because Iran has been “totally defeated militarily,” while his administration considers limited conventional strikes aimed at protecting U.S. forces and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he has ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran, even as the White House weighs additional conventional military action around the Strait of Hormuz following renewed clashes between U.S. and Iranian forces.

Trump addressed the nuclear question while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, where he was asked whether he would exclude such an escalation from the ongoing conflict.

“Well, I would never say. That, but the answer is yes, I ruled out.I ruled it out there’s no reason for it.”

The president argued that Iran’s conventional military losses made the use of nuclear weapons unnecessary.

“What a stupid question that is. Actually, here they are. They’re totally defeated militarily. So now I defeat him, and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them. What a stupid question.”

Trump’s comments came as his administration considers a different form of escalation focused specifically on protecting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Axios, the president is weighing a resumption of limited strikes following an exchange of gunfire between American and Iranian forces over the weekend.

One U.S. official told the outlet that the contemplated operations would be intended to reduce the threat of Iranian attacks against oil tankers, U.S. Navy vessels and Air Force aircraft operating in the region. The potential strikes would therefore be narrower in scope than a major offensive against Iran and would focus on protecting military assets and commercial navigation through the strategic waterway.

The Strait of Hormuz has become one of the central flashpoints in the U.S.-Iran conflict because of its importance to international oil shipments and the continuing danger posed to vessels operating there. Any sustained Iranian attacks on tankers or U.S. military forces could prompt additional American action even as Trump says the administration sees no reason to consider nuclear weapons.

The White House emphasized that the president continues to retain broad military flexibility:

“The President retains all options at his disposal. The Iranians want to make a deal, but they are always a day late and a dollar short.”

That statement leaves open the possibility of additional conventional strikes while simultaneously suggesting Washington believes negotiations remain possible.

Trump’s position therefore separates two questions surrounding the conflict:

On nuclear weapons, he gave an explicit answer that he had ruled them out and argued Iran’s military condition did not justify such an extraordinary escalation.

On conventional force, however, the administration continues evaluating whether further strikes are necessary to protect American personnel and commercial shipping.

The possible Strait of Hormuz operation would be designed around those immediate security concerns rather than the use of substantially more destructive weapons. Trump’s remarks also suggest the administration believes Iran has already suffered significant military setbacks but remains capable of threatening ships and aircraft in the region.

That distinction could shape the next phase of U.S. operations, with Washington continuing targeted military action against specific threats while attempting to avoid an escalation to nuclear warfare.

For now, Trump has publicly closed the door on using nuclear weapons against Iran while leaving conventional military options available if Tehran continues threatening U.S. forces or shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Hey Americans! Escape Debt By Going To War With Iran!

Caitlin Johnstone, Sep 03, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/hey-americans-escape-debt-by-going?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=213955094&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Today in dystopia, war pundits have begun suggesting that the US could recruit sufficient troops for a ground invasion of Iran by offering young Americans debt forgiveness in exchange for enlisting.

I guess it was only a matter of time.

In an article titled “The war with Iran will not be won through airstrikes, so what’s left?”, the Jerusalem Post’s AJ Jaff writes the following:

“Recruitment numbers are running below what a ground invasion of Iran would require. Estimates for a successful ground campaign against Iran’s 31 provincial commands and its Mosaic Defense Doctrine run between 750 thousand and 1.5 million American troops. The current active US Army stands at roughly 452 thousand. The math does not work, obviously.

“Based on American history, however, there is a path forward. Not conscription or a draft in a world war-era sense, but enlistment through a ‘debt forgiveness program.’

“The average American aged 18 to 34 carries more than $40 thousand in non-mortgage debt across student loans, credit card balances, auto loans, and personal loans, with some estimates go as high as $100 thousand.

“This is the cohort the Pentagon needs. A federally administered debt-forgiveness enlistment program that fully discharges student loan, credit card, and loan balances after 24 or 36 months of service, and extends the GI Bill, would produce voluntary enlistment at scale.”

“This is not theoretical.

“It is the American state doing what the American state has always done when it needed staff it could not otherwise generate. World War II offered the GI Bill. Vietnam offered college deferments. The post 9/11 wars offered signing bonuses and citizenship pathways. The Iran war will need to offer debt relief. The economics of the indebted American 20-and 30-something make this the most efficient conversion mechanism available to the Pentagon and the Trump administration.

“The moral reading on this is uncomfortable. But states generate the soldiers they need through the incentives that work on the population they have.”

In a Twitter essay on the same subject published earlier this month, AJ Jaff used more blunt language:

“When the choice is decades chained to $45,000+ in debt, or a few years of service that erases it and hands you a clean start, a huge share of desperate young people will take the offer. Not because they ‘support the war’. Because the debt was engineered into a cage, and service is the ONLY door out.”

The Jerusalem Post says that Jaff is a Canadian who currently serves as the head of security for an unnamed “multinational organization,” describing him in his author bio as “a retired officer of the Canadian Armed Forces and a recognized expert in international security, crisis management, and geopolitical risk.”

There isn’t much publicly available information about Jaff apart from this, and yet here he is being amplified by one of Israel’s largest English-language newspapers. So we can expect we’ll be seeing this idea pop up again elsewhere.

It’s just everything ugly about the US empire all rolled up in one neat little package, isn’t it? Struggling American citizens strapped with mountains of bills because they live in a dystopia which plunges people into debt for the privilege of living on the planet they were born on, desperately enlisting to go kill people in an imperialist war of aggression overseas in the hope of one day getting their heads above water financially.

It just might be the most American idea anyone has ever had.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

IAEA concern over diesel supply for Zaporizhzhia generators


World Nuclear News 1st Sept 2026


The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been relying on emergency diesel generators for more than 11 days, with the International Atomic Energy Agency raising concerns about fuel supplies if the loss of external power continues.

The plant, which has been under Russian military control since early March 2022, lost connection to its last operating external power line on 20 August.

Since then it has been relying on its fleet of emergency diesel generators to provide the power the plant needs, including for the pumps which cool the six reactors and their used fuel ponds.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team at the plant have been told that a planned delivery of diesel to the site in May had been postponed because of military activity. On Thursday and Friday, the IAEA said its experts observed the transfer of “several dozens of tonnes of diesel fuel from two different off-site locations near the ZNPP to the plant”.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said: “The availability of diesel fuel is of paramount importance whenever a nuclear power plant loses off-site power, as is the ability to maintain uninterrupted logistical supply chains to and from the site. The current situation once again shows why reliable external power and secure supply routes are indispensable for nuclear safety and security. Without the restoration of off-site power or additional diesel fuel deliveries in the near future, the plant could face a station blackout within approximately ten days.”

According to the official Russian Tass news agency, the plant operators have said there is enough fuel for the diesel generators. “However, due to shelling of the access roads, it is currently impossible to replenish the reserves,” a spokeswoman is quoted as saying. It also quoted the Director General of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, as saying the fuel delivery operation would be organised “under any circumstances”, potentially with an IAEA escort.

The IAEA is seeking to arrange what would be a seventh localised ceasefire to allow repairs to take place to the external power line, which it said lost connection with the plant on 20 August “following military activity on the northern side of the Dnipro River”.

There have also continued to be incidents involving drones at, or near, the plant – with the IAEA saying it had been informed of a drone incident on 25 August near the cooling pond which injured two plant staff, and two more drone incidents the following day, one of which was in the area of the dry used nuclear fuel storage site……………..https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/iaea-concern-over-diesel-supply-for-zaporizhzhia-generators

September 6, 2026 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

The Finnish President Made Some Surprisingly Solid Points About Russia

Andrew Korybko, Sep 03, 2026, https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-finnish-president-made-some-surprisingly

He argued that it’s not plotting to test NATO’s resolve, its resilience to immense hardships “should never be underestimated”, suggested that the conflict will end without Ukraine recovering its lost territories, praised the CIA chief for visiting Russia, and called for “someone in Europe” to follow suit.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb bucked the trend of fearmongering about Russia in his interview with Bild. Instead of claiming that it’s plotting to test NATO’s resolve like American media reported was the reason why the CIA chief recently paid an unannounced visit to Moscow, he described such talk as part of Russia’s “information warfare” against Europe. Stubb insisted that his intelligence doesn’t indicate any such plans and argued that Russia wouldn’t attack the world’s most powerful military bloc anyhow.

He also pointed to the unlikelihood of Russia “suddenly mobilizing” forces for a two-front conflict with Ukraine and NATO even though he still believes that a mobilization directed towards Ukraine will occur this fall despite United Russia Chairman Dmitry Medvedev recently denying that there’s any need to. Another of the surprisingly solid points that Stubb made about Russia had to do with its resilience to immense hardships and warned that this “should never be underestimated” by its foes.

He also suggested that Ukraine won’t recover its lost territories upon describing victory for it as simply “surviving, remaining independent, and remaining a sovereign state” but still urged its allies to continue supporting it for their unspecified sake of their own security. Wrapping everything up, Stubb praised the CIA chief’s recent unannounced visit to Moscow for expanding bilateral dialogue in “different formats”, which led to his clarion call for “someone in Europe” to “resume dialogue with Russia” too.

Stubb’s last point echoes what he intriguingly told local media a week prior about how “At some point, dialogue will have to be established on the European side, and perhaps the most important role in this will be played by countries that share a border with Russia.” This followed reports that Britain, France, and Germany – collectively known as the E3 – are preparing to resume dialogue with Russia. It was thus analyzed here that the E3 and the Intermarium might open up rival dialogues with Russia.

The Intermarium refers to the modern-day revival of interwar Poland’s vision of an anti-Soviet alliance between their country, the Baltic States, and Finland, all of which border Russia in the present. Therefore, the abovementioned analysis concluded that Stubb might lead the Intermarium’s dialogue with Russia since regional leader Poland’s government is irreparably divided between the conservative president and the liberal prime minister, which makes it unlikely to agree on this ultra-sensitive issue.

Stubb also expressed interest earlier this year in serving as the EU’s envoy for talks with Russia back when this role was first discussed among the bloc’s members, but the problem is that Putin suggested shortly thereafter that this should be “someone who has not badmouthed us”. As it turns out, Stubb was recently condemned by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as a terrorist for justifying Ukraine’s attacks against civilian infrastructure, which might disqualify him from this role.

At the same time, Putin might calculate that it’s better for dialogue to occur with Stubb if he initiates it on behalf of Finland, the Intermarium, or the EU as a whole than to rebuff him in that scenario, so the possibility of him entering into some sort of talks with Russia in the future can’t confidently be ruled out. While all EU leaders apart from Slovakia’s Robert Fico are adversarial to Russia, Stubb is the most pragmatic among them, so he might ultimately be tasked with this role or play it on his own initiative.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | Finland, politics international | Leave a comment

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE UKRAINIAN APOCALYPSE

by Gordonhahn August 31, 2026, https://gordonhahn.com/2026/08/31/the-four-horsemen-of-the-ukrainian-apocalypse/

There have been at least four great deceptions engineered and lost opportunities for ending Ukraine‘s violence intentionally foregone by the West. They are the causes of the ‚Putin’s unprovoked war in Ukraine and the imminent Ruin of Ukraine. The four horsemen of the Ukrainian apocaplypse are:

(1) the violation of the 21 February 2014 agreement to end the Maidan confrontation in Kiev;

(2) the West’s and Kiev’s insincere, indeed simulated participation in the Minsk 2 accords that could have ended the Ukrainian civil war from 2014-2022;

(3) the U.S. withdrawal of Joseph Biden’s December 2021 promise to Putin that the US and NATO would not deploy cruise missiles in Ukraine; and

(4) the West’s subversion of the Istanbul Russo-Ukrainian peace agreement initialed in April 2022. Let us stake each in turn.

The first horseman oft he Ukrainian apocalypse is the violation of February 21, 2014 agreement between Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the Ukrainian opposition of the Maidan to pull back both demonstrators and police and hold early presidential elections late in 2014. Instead of seeing this agreement through, the neofascist wing oft he Maidan opposition carried out a snipers‘ terrorist attack killing both demonstrators and Berkut security police leading to the violent overthrow of Yanukovych, who was blamed by the Maidan opposition and the West for the shootings. The West hailed the putsch as democratic “revolution of dignity“ and never mentioned the February agreement; one brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to then Polish Foreign Minister and agreement participant, Radek Sikorski. The Maidan regime was born of blood and a lie.

Russia responded by giving the West a taste of its own medicine by supporting separatist actors in Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. Kiev responded by declaring an “anti-terrorist operation“ that began the Ukrainian civil war, bringing Russian troops into Donbass to protect the pro-Russian separatists. 

The second horseman of the Ukrainian apocalypse consists of the violations of the Russo-Ukrainian Minsk agreements. Ukraine never fulfilled any of its obligations under the agreement. It did not adopt statues on autonomy fort he Donbass regions nor did it negotiate directly with the Donbas rebels. Ukrainian troops, particularly the ultranationalist batallions routinely bombed civilian areas during the ‚ceasefire‘ agreement. This was nothing other than a Minsk Fake or Feint, which, as numerous Western and Ukrainian officials acknowledged, the Putin-Poroshenko Minsk ceasefire accords were used to buy time for building up Ukraine’s army for an assault on Crimea and Donbass. Thus, the civil war did not end but persisted, with Kiev inflicting more than 10,000 casualties on Donbass civilians in 2015-2021. 

The third horseman of the Ukrainian apocalypse came with the U.S. violation of Joseph Biden’s December 2021 promise to Putin that the US and NATO would not deploy cruise missiles in Ukraine. Instead of holding tot hat promise made in a Biden-Putin phone call, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the US was withdrawing that promise, opening up the possibility of deploying conventional and/or nuclear cruise missiles in Ukraine, with flight times to Moscow of minutes. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, requiring Putin to undertake a military response to the Ukrainian crisis on 24 February 2022—the so-called “unprovoked and full-scale attack on Ukraine.“

The fourth and final horseman of the Ukrainian apocalypse is the Western scuttling of the March-April 2022 Russo-Ukrainian Istanbul process and agreement to end Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. Much has now been written about this, so I will not repeat the details here; I will only provide links to all the sources, confirming this (https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1746596120971673766.html; see also https://x.com/i_katchanovski/status/1750362694949966291?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ; and https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=8229337113762769&set=a.117187214977840).  

These and the key process these ‚horsemen‘ have been intended in the West to facilitate – 
NATO expansion – are the causes of “Putin’s unprovoked war on Ukraine“ and Ukraine’s apocalypse or Second Great Ruin. 
Make no mistake about it.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Blykalla seeks state aid for second SMR plant

Wednesday, 2 September 2026,
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/blykalla-seeks-state-aid-for-second-smr-plant

Sweden’s Blykalla has applied for state support for its proposed small modular reactor power plant at Untra in the Tierp municipality, for which the company applied for governmental approval last week.

On 25 August, Blykalla submitted a proposal to the Swedish government for a nuclear power plant at Untra which would feature up to eight lead-cooled small modular reactors (SMRs) with a total capacity of up to 440 MWe. The application followed an earlier one, submitted in May, for a six-unit project in Norrsundet in the Gävle municipality, which is also in the same region of east central Sweden.

Blykalla has established Untra Nuclear Power AB as the licence holder and financing vehicle for the Untra plant, with strategic and financial investors expected to enter its ownership over time. Blykalla – through Untra Nuclear Power – has now applied for state support for the construction of the Untra plant, having applied in early June for government financing for its planned power plant in Norrsundet.

The Swedish state aid framework is designed to support new nuclear power through a state loan, a two-way contract for difference and a risk-sharing mechanism. The detailed terms of the state aid are agreed between the project company and the Swedish state, and any support would require approval by the European Commission in accordance with EU State aid rules. Negotiations on the terms of state support begin once the government decides to proceed with the application.

Following the receipt last week of Blykalla’s application to establish the nuclear power plant at Untra, the government has tasked the County Administrative Board in Uppsala County with preparing a proposal for a facility plan. This plan will guide how land and water areas should be used when establishing a nuclear facility. According to recent legislation, the government may approve an application if there is a valid facility plan for the facility in question. The proposed construction plan must be accompanied by an environmental impact statement and a plan description. This statement must include a description of the planning conditions and how the plan can be implemented. The plan must be submitted no later than 30 April 2027……………

Blykalla – formerly called LeadCold – is a spin-off from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, where lead-cooled reactor systems have been under development since 1996. The company – founded in 2013 as a joint stock company – is developing the SEALER (Swedish Advanced Lead Reactor). The company’s goal is for its first 140 MWt/55 MWe SEALER-55 commercial reactor to be ready for operation in the early 2030s.

In October 2022, Sweden’s incoming centre-right coalition government adopted a positive stance towards nuclear energy. In November 2023, it unveiled a roadmap which envisages the construction of new nuclear generating capacity equivalent to at least two large-scale reactors (2,500 MWe) by 2035, with the equivalent capacity of up to 10 new large-scale reactors (which may include SMRs) coming online by 2045. A new act on state aid entered into force on 1 August 2025, since when interested companies have been able to apply for the aid.

So far, approval has been sought for nuclear facilities at five sites with a total output of up to 3,700 MWe. In addition, the government has received applications for financial support to build nuclear reactors at two additional locations, with seven projects applying for state aid.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Sweden | Leave a comment

US VASSALS BLOCK UKRAINE PEACE

Jeff Rich on why Britain and Europe cannot end the Ukraine war while Washington still sets the terms

Ian Proud, Sep 02, 2026

I sat down with historian Jeff Rich of The Burning Archive to discuss the seemingly intractable challenge of ending the war in Ukraine. Jeff spent 33 years as an Australian official before turning to global history. I spent 24 years as a British diplomat, including four and a half years at the British Embassy in Moscow after the Ukraine crisis began. We come at the problem from different directions but landed in the same place.

This is not a two-party war. It is a five-party war: Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, the United States and Britain. Each is trying to finish it on its own terms. None of them has built a peace process. That is why the search for a single “deal” keeps failing.

A single peace deal won’t be enough to settle four different conflicts at once, something I wrote about for Responsible Statecraft in June.

Jeff’s answer is similar to mine; a multi-treaty settlement.

He draws on the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 — the practical fact the catastrophe of the Thirty Year War was ended with several treaties, not one.

He also draws on the Cambodia settlement of the early 1990s. That war mixed a civil conflict, an East–West confrontation and a split inside the communist world.

The way out was a UN mandate and a UN transitional authority that gave China a face-saving off-ramp from the Khmer Rouge.

The parallel with Western sponsorship of the present Ukrainian government is uncomfortable, yet unavoidable. Peace for Ukraine will emerge from separate interlocking tracks: Russia–Ukraine terms to end the fighting; a deal on EU–Ukraine accession, which will be as complicated as ending the war; an agreement on the long-term Europe/UK relationship with Russia; neutrality for Ukraine in treaty form; and a long-term settlement between Washington and Moscow.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Reforming nuclear regulation


Innovation News Network, 2nd September 2026

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) explains how it is responding to government recommendations to reform the UK nuclear regulatory framework, and what this means in practice,……………………

 The independent Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, commissioned by the Prime Minister, published its final report in November 2025, setting out 47 recommendations for reform of the nuclear regulatory framework. The government accepted all 47 in its implementation plan, Building Our Nuclear Nation, published in March 2026. ………………

The Taskforce’s central finding was that the UK’s nuclear regulatory framework had become more process-heavy than the actual risks warranted. Safety cases had grown in volume and complexity, regulatory interactions across multiple bodies were sometimes duplicated rather than coordinated. A tendency towards caution had taken hold.……………….

The Taskforce’s recommendation to establish a commission is the long-term solution to this issue. Until legislation can enact the commission, ONR has been designated as the interim lead regulator for the nuclear fission sector, with formal arrangements in place across what we have described as the ’super six’ regulatory bodies. We convened the inaugural Lead Nuclear Regulator Group meeting in early 2026, agreeing terms of reference and identifying priority projects for coordinated action. We are now focused on demonstrating the practical benefits of this approach through delivery on real projects…………………….

ONR Together will transform how we work, outlining the modernisation of processes, leveraging modern technology, and empowering us to make timely and proportionate decisions…………………

Bringing defence and civil nuclear regulation closer together

The government has committed to merging the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator into ONR……………….

International harmonisation

We are investing significantly in further strengthening our international collaboration – one of the areas with the greatest potential for practical benefit to the UK’s nuclear programme.

We are already working with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission on collaborative design assessments, including for the BWRX-300 reactor. …………………………….

Building capacity for what lies ahead

All this reform work sits alongside a very significant expansion in the UK’s nuclear programme – Sizewell C, the Wylfa SMR project, Hinkley Point C, The Dreadnought submarine programme, the ongoing decommissioning of legacy nuclear sites……………………………………………………….. https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/reforming-nuclear-regulation/73452/

September 6, 2026 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

“Merrily we roll along…” – the giddy road to nuclear bankruptcy

Gordon Edwards, Sep 2, 2026

I have often noted that the SMR “rush to market” is first and foremost a “money grab”.
The nuclear industry had performed poorly for a quarter if a century, losing market share steadily,
And yet many governments around the world were putting hundreds of billions of dollars on the table to combat global warming – this provided an opportunity to grab a lot of that public money by making exaggerated and often irresponsible claims that nuclear investment is a winning strategy.

The following document is an easy-to read account of how money gets used by some of the more flagrantly irresponsible companies – the document has to do with the circumstances leading up to the bankruptcy of Ultrasafe Nuclear Corp. (also known as Wind-Down Inc.) which was planning to build a gas-cooled reactor producing 5 megawatts of heat (later upgraded to 15 megawatts) at Chalk River, Ontario. In fact an environmental assessment of the project had already begun, and so far it has been paused but not cancelled….

It is worth reading this eye-popping account of how bankruptcy can be achieved in record time.
www.ccnr.org/Ultrasfafe_Bankruptcy_2026.pdf.

Case 24-12443-KBO Doc 695 Filed 08/13/26 Page 1 of 50

IN THE UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE

Chapter 11 Case No. 24-12443 (KBO) (Jointly Administered)

In re: Reactor Parent Wind-Down, Inc.,1 Debtor.

WILMINGTON SAVINGS FUND SOCIETY, FSB, LIQUIDATING TRUSTEEOF THE RPWI LIQUIDATING TRUST, Plaintiff,
v.

WAQAR ZAIDI, RITESH BUDREE, and THE ESTATE OF FRANCESCO VENNERI, -Defendants.

Adv. Proc. No. 26-________ (KBO)

COMPLAINT

Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB, solely in its capacity as trustee (the “Liquidating Trustee”) of the RPWI Liquidating Trust (the “Trust”) formed pursuant to the First Amended Joint Chapter 11 Plan of Liquidation for Reactor Parent Wind-Down, Inc. and Its Affiliated Debtors [Dkt. No. 486] (the “Plan”) of the above-captioned debtor and its affiliated debtors (collectively, the “Debtors”),2 respectfully alleges as follows:

1
The Debtor and the last four digits of its federal taxpayer identification numbers is as follows: Reactor Parent Wind-Down, Inc. (f/k/a Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation) (9774) (“RPWI”). The Debtor’s mailing address is 500 Delaware Ave, Wilmington, DE 19801.
2
The Court previously entered an order [Dkt. No. 597], closing certain of the cases jointly administered with the above-captioned debtor’s case. Those affiliated Debtors, the last four digits of their federal taxpayer identification numbers and the associated case numbers are as follows: Reactor Sub One Wind-Down, Inc. (f/k/a Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation – Technologies) (9815) (Case No. 24-1244 (KBO)); USNC-Power Ltd. (6500) (Case No.

SUMMARY OF THE ACTION

  1. In late 2023 and early 2024, Reactor Parent Wind-Down, Inc. (f/k/a Ultra
    Safe Nuclear Corporation) and its affiliates (“USNC” or the “Company”) were on the precipice of bankruptcy. The Company—once a promising enterprise in the burgeoning nuclear industry with an estimated valuation of over $250 million—had squandered over $150 million in investments and was struggling to raise the capital necessary to satisfy unchecked liabilities and keep the Company afloat. As liquidity tightened, USNC was forced to cease paying key employees and critical vendors. Failure to pay these mission-critical expenses stifled any further investment, resulting in an inevitable death spiral. Eventually, in late 2024, the Company ceased operations and was sold for parts—netting $41 million in the aggregate—destroying hundreds of millions of dollars in value.
  1. The Company’s staggering fall from grace was caused by its ChiefExecutive Officer and founder, Francesco Venneri. Dr. Venneri intentionally disregarded red flags repeatedly raised by his executive team regarding the Company’s reckless spending—which, at nearly $7 million per month, far outpaced the Company’s available capital and any reasonable investment expectation. For example, in January of 2024, a critical moment in the Company’s life (when liquidation was not a fait accompli), the Company’s Chief Financial Officer wrote to Dr. Venneri and other key members of the executive team that “we are, at a minimum, 90 days away from any meaningful investment, yet no meaningful reduction in costs has occurred . . . best case scenarios fund us at a rate that is half of our current budget.”
  2. This was a common refrain, both well before January 2024 and well after.
    Dr. Venneri, however, did nothing. A reasonably prudent manager would have cut costs and focused on the Company’s key, profit-making initiatives. Instead, Dr. Venneri provided frivolous payouts and out-of-market benefits to his “inner circle” of favored executives, including a $750,000 payment to the Company’s former Chief Commercial Officer, Waqar Zaidi. In a fleeting moment of self-awareness on the eve of bankruptcy, Dr. Venneri conceded his culpability, writing “it’s easy to point fingers to the former CEO who overspent . . . I have a lot to answer for.”
  3. USNC’s nuclear fission technology was, as one potential investor described
    it, “remarkable.” Founded in 2011 by Dr. Venneri, USNC was a pioneer in developing safe and commercially accessible nuclear fuel and reactor technology. In 2023, USNC was on the cusp of large-scale production of its proprietary Fully Ceramic Micro-encapsulated (FCM®) Nuclear Fuel
    (“FCM Fuel”), which utilized state-of-the-art Tri-structural ISOtropic (“TRISO”) fuel particles in a uniquely contained format that could withstand extreme heat and explosive impacts. The Company was also developing nuclear plants in Canada and Illinois to demonstrate the viability of its proprietary Micro Modular Reactors (“MMR”), nuclear fission “batteries” utilizing its FCM Fuel that could be linked together to accommodate different business sites and needs. The
    Company’s “remarkable” technology and its value, however, was torpedoed by Dr. Venneri’s failures as a manager. The same potential investor remarked in February of 2024 that “[a] company that has received $170M of capital to date should be lightyears ahead in commercial traction and institutional fundraising progress, not be scrambling for last minute change….” The investor prophetically concluded that “I see the most likely outcome being USNC going bust and
    someone acquiring the tech for a few million.” The downfall was entirely foreseeable and avoidable.
  4. Like other technology companies, USNC primarily relied on investors—in
    particular, the Company’s controlling stockholder, Richard Hollis Helms—to fund its operations. The Company was targeting 2026 to begin commercial fuel production and sales after opening fuel manufacturing facilities and receiving qualification of its fuel. Further, USNC expected to commercialize its MMR technology beginning in or around 2028, following completion of its demo projects in Canada and Illinois. Management projected these business lines to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue per year.
  5. The Company never achieved these milestones. Instead, USNC’s upward
    trajectory was cut short by Dr. Venneri’s reckless stewardship and his deliberate disregard of the advice of his executive team, advisors, and the Chairman of the Board. Throughout 2023 and early 2024, management repeatedly urged Dr. Venneri to prioritize the Company’s key value-creating initiatives (i.e., fuel and its MMR demo projects) and to drastically cut costs, so that the Company
    could survive long enough to bring in critical capital—whether through sales or third-partyinvestment.
  6. Rather than address these concerns, Dr. Venneri pursued expansive
    business development plans, including potential projects and satellite offices across Europe, Asia, and Australia. As explained in further detail below, Dr. Venneri repeatedly and falsely promised that significant financing was imminent, or that he would obtain additional funds from Mr. Helms—a well that was running dry due to growing concerns regarding the Company’s increasing spend.
  7. Dr. Venneri concurrently provided lavish, above-market benefits and payouts to former CCO Waqar Zaidi, who was a member of Dr. Venneri’s “inner circle” alongside former-CFO and Vice President of Finance Ritesh Budree. This included, among other things, causing the Company to pay approximately $750,000 to Mr. Zaidi pursuant to a purported “finder’s fee” agreement that Dr. Venneri and Mr. Zaidi signed in secret, during a time when payroll for non-executive employees was being withheld and vendors were not being paid, endangering the Company’s key operations relating to USNC’s fuel production and MMR demo projects. Dr. Venneri also agreed to an amended employment agreement that provided Mr. Zaidi with egregious severance benefits, including, among other things, a cash payment of at least $1 million if Mr. Zaidi was terminated for any reason other than a chargeable criminal offense that was proven in state court.4
  8. In October 2024, the Debtors filed voluntary petitions for relief under
    chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. Several months later, the Company’s assets were sold for a total of $41.0 million—hundreds of millions of dollars less than the Company had been valued in recent years.
  9. Dr. Venneri’s gross negligence and recklessness as CEO—and the
    misconduct perpetrated by his inner circle—must be remedied. The Liquidating Trustee thus brings claims against Dr. Venneri’s estate, as well as Messrs. Zaidi, and Budree, for (1) breach of fiduciary duty; (2) declaratory judgment that Mr. Zaidi’s finder’s fee agreement and Messrs. Zaidi’s and Budree’s amended employment agreements are void; (3) in the alternative, avoidance
    of fraudulent obligations allegedly incurred under those agreements pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 548(a)(1)(B); (4) the avoidance and recovery of the payments made under the finder’s fee agreement as (i) constructively fraudulent transfers pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 548(a)(1)(B); or (ii) in the alternative, preferences pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 547; (5) avoidance and recovery of a sign-on bonus paid some 11 months after Mr. Zaidi’s hiring as a preference pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 547;(6) unjust enrichment; (7) equitable subordination of Defendants’ claims in the Debtors’ bankruptcy proceedings; and/or (8) disallowance and/or reclassification of Defendant Zaidi’s and Budree’s claims in the Debtors’ bankruptcy proceedings.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Despite frequent warnings to adhere to corporate formalities, the Company held no formal Board meetings and did not keep minutes, decisions were largely undocumented, and, upon information and belief, the Board never formally met with its executive team or outside advisors.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..The establishment of a wholly-owned subsidiary of USNC in Italy in July
2023, at a time when the Company was clearly experiencing severe financial distress and escalating liabilities, was emblematic of Dr. Venneri’s folly.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....F. The Company Crumbles in Early 2024

By early 2024, the Company was in severe financial distress, had no near-
term investment prospects, and had yet to engage in any meaningful reduction in costs………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

ED. This case goes for 50 pages.

September 6, 2026 Posted by | USA | Leave a comment

Taxpayers Must Not Be on the Hook for Bailing Out the AI Industry

If AI goes south, we should expect major pressures from the Trump administration for a debt- or taxpayer-funded bailout.

 SCHEERPOST, September 3, 2026,By C.J. Polychroniou

Hundreds of billions of dollars are flooding the AI industry. Economist Gerald Epstein says this bubble could burst.

The U.S. economy is heading toward uncharted territory. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming business operations and all areas of finance, the national debt is on an unsustainable fiscal path, and most middle-income Americans cannot keep up with rising costs. Moreover, as hundreds of billions of dollars are flooding into artificial intelligence, there are serious concerns that an AI bubble could trigger another bailout with taxpayer money.

In the interview that follows, leading progressive economist Gerald Epstein, who initiated and directs the Game Changers project at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, talks about AI’s impact on finance and the bailout problem and how a transformative public finance strategy can revive democracy, promote equity and social justice, and build strong and sustainable communities. Epstein is professor of economics and founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute. 

C.J. Polychroniou: AI is possibly the fastest-growing technology in history and is already reshaping the U.S. economy in innumerable ways as organizations of all kinds are deploying AI tools across every functional area. But there are many public concerns surrounding AI, including whether it is becoming “too big to fail.” If so, taxpayer money may be used yet again to bail out private companies and institutions from collapse. What are the dangers here?

Gerald Epstein: There are indeed many public concerns about the economic and financial implications of AI. But let me focus on AI’s impact on finance as there are legitimate fears that the government may be asked at some point to bail out the AI industry, especially given the close ties of the Trump administration to AI firms.

As Marc Jarsulic and I argue in our Game Changers policy analysis “No More Bailouts,” the AI investment boom is increasing the level of risk for AI-related firms. The reason is that for these investments to be profitable, AI revenue will need to grow substantially. But some financial analysts doubt that the revenue will materialize. For example, in Bain’s Technology Report 2025, it is estimated that capital expenditures of $500 billion per year would be required to cover anticipated AI demand. To fund this investment, annual AI revenue would need to increase to $2 trillion. However, after accounting for likely cost reductions at the AI firms, Bain’s research concluded that their annual revenues would fall $800 billion short of that mark.

In that context, some of the risks of the AI-led investment boom have been shifted to financial markets as the AI boom is relying increasingly on debt. The revenues of the tech monopolies are extraordinary, but they are insufficient to pay all the costs of data centers. In 2025, the capital expenditures of the top five hyperscalers were more than 30 percent of their total revenue. They are projected to rise to more than 40 percent by the end of 2026. This has forced these companies to turn to debt and equity markets for finance. In 2025, major tech hyperscalers alone issued $120 billion in debt, but the figure was pushed toward $175 billion in 2026 and is expected to rise to $300 billion annually in the coming years.

A distorted government response to an AI-bust is in the cards. A rational policy response to an AI bust would not include bailouts of AI-related firms or their creditors. The investment boom, and the debt that helps finance it, have been engineered by sophisticated actors aiming to dominate a potentially lucrative innovation. There is no ex ante (“before the event”) government safety net for financial bets of this kind. Caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) applies to the firms playing the AI domination game if it ever applied to anyone. Unfortunately, we cannot count on a rational response from the current administration. Extensive conflicts of interest and cronyism mean that government bailouts for insiders would be on the table. Hyperscalers and other AI-related firms have received extraordinary government support. The Trump administration has taken over 90 federal actions to help the AI industry, including executive orders easing permitting for massive data centers, federal support for AI exports and reducing regulatory barriers for the industry. The Trumpian transactional quid pro quo is apparent. Nvidia and Intel have given the government equity to curry favor. A number of major AI companies contributed several million dollars to Trump’s White House demolition — a.k.a. his “ballroom” — fund. And AI firms continue to finance MAGA. This is business as usual for Trump.

If AI goes south, we should expect major pressures from the Trump administration for a debt- or taxpayer-funded bailout.

Bailout operations are a trademark of neoliberalism. That being said, what is the actual problem with bailouts, and how do we put an end to the bailout problem?………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://scheerpost.com/2026/09/03/taxpayers-must-not-be-on-the-hook-for-bailing-out-the-ai-industry/

September 5, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, politics, technology, USA | Leave a comment

US Hubris Caused the Ukraine War

A conversation with Professor Jonathan Haslam on Hubris: The Origins of Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Ian Proud, Sep 03, 2026, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/us-hubris-caused-the-ukraine-war?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=213955256&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The war in Ukraine did not begin because nobody saw it coming. It began because too many people in Washington decided the warnings did not matter.

That is the argument of Professor Jonathan Haslam’s book, Hubris: The American Origins of Russia’s War Against Ukraine. After reading it, and after talking to him at length, I think the title is earned. Not because Russia bears no responsibility for launching a war. It does. But because the road to that war was paved, over three decades, by American policy after the Cold War — and by a Western inability to understand responses from Moscow that were, in fact, highly predictable.

Haslam did not set out to write a book about Ukraine. His publisher asked a simpler question: why, after the end of the Cold War, did things not get better?

The answer he found in the archives was not a mystery of Putin’s psychology. It was a record of American decisions.

Fear of being pushed out of Europe

The United States did not greet the Soviet collapse as an unalloyed gift. George H. W. Bush and his advisers feared that the rationale for American power in Europe would disappear with the enemy.

NATO had been the instrument that kept Washington in the European security order.

If that order no longer needed an American security umbrella, the United States might be edged out of a market and a political theatre it considered essential.

Haslam’s point is not that Europeans were clamouring to evict America. They were not.

It is that Washington acted as if they might — and concluded that NATO had to be preserved, then enlarged, then given a purpose beyond the defence of Western Europe.

When Bush floated the idea of expanding NATO’s remit globally, François Mitterrand’s reaction was blistering. The Soviet Union had just collapsed. Why expand the alliance’s mission across the planet?……………………………………………………..

NATO expansion appealed to migrant communities in the United States whose families had suffered under Soviet domination. It also appealed to a bureaucracy that, Haslam argues, had learned to need enemies………………….

The people who did know Russia were cut out. George Kennan — the architect of containment, no romantic about Moscow — opposed enlargement as a provocation that would end in confrontation……………………….

Strobe Talbott, Clinton’s own point man on the former Soviet Union, wrote that putting Ukraine on a NATO membership list was dangerous and would lead to conflict.

Haslam found that memorandum in the files. Read it now and the hair goes up on the back of the neck.

Almost everything Talbott feared came true…………………………………..

From the mid-1990s, Washington was already contemplating Ukraine as a future NATO member, even while selling Moscow the Partnership for Peace as something other than enlargement by another name. The Russians noticed the gap between the language of partnership and the practice of expansion.

They were meant to.

Or rather, they were not meant to be taken seriously when they did.

To Russian military planners, Ukraine and Crimea were not sentimental extras. They were part of the southern strategic depth of the state — as Canada or Mexico are to American security thinking, as Cuba was in 1962…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

None of this is an argument for Russian victory, or for pretending the invasion of 2022 was a policing action. It is an argument for ending the habit of describing a war as unprovoked while refusing to study the provocations that were obvious to every serious Russia specialist from Kennan onwards.

Haslam’s conclusion is the one many officials still cannot say in public: the United States did not start the fighting. It started the reasons for the fighting.

If that is even half right, then more weapons and more slogans will not substitute for a settlement. They will only prolong the economic cost and the human misery.

I have spent enough years on the Russia account, including in Moscow, to know how unpopular that message is in Whitehall. It remains no less true.

Policy built on the assumption that the other side will not respond is not moral clarity.

It is negligence with a press office.

Haslam’s book is the archival case for that view. Our conversation just scratches the surface of what is a meticulously researched work that should be essential reading for politicians, policy makers and pundits in the west.

Read Hubris.

Then ask why the people who were right in the 1990s were treated as old men who did not understand the new world — a world that has since delivered exactly the confrontation they described.

You can watch conversation here:

September 5, 2026 Posted by | media, resources - print, Ukraine | Leave a comment

The historical fascists are preparing to take their revenge

SOTT – Signs of the Times, Thierry Meyssan, Voltairenet.org, Tue, 01 Sep 2026

Before our very eyes, the historical forces of fascism are reorganizing.The losers of World War II, those who massacred millions of Soviets, Chinese, and Jews, are once again in power in Japan, Israel, and Ukraine. They hope to take their revenge. It is up to us to denounce their preparations and prevent them from unleashing the apocalypse.

The losers of World War II are demanding revenge. They have no interest in it. They just want to win and reorganize the world hierarchically, with themselves at the top. Here’s what they have to say.

For the “militarists,” Japan never lost the war.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is a staunch supporter of the Emperor. Every August 15th, the anniversary of the surrender, she visits the Yasukuni Shrine. This shrine honors all those who gave their lives for the Emperor during the “Fifteen Years’ War” — that is, the invasion of the Far East and World War II. She regularly pays her respects at the graves of those convicted of crimes against humanity, something she is legally prohibited from doing since becoming Prime Minister.

This year, unable to attend, she sent offerings. Four of her ministers and about one hundred and fifty parliamentarians who were able to go, did so.

For them, the crimes of the Imperial Army never existed. They are merely fabrications by Japan’s enemies. But Koreans and Chinese have a different memory: the Imperial Army treated all those who did not acknowledge the Emperor’s divinity as subhuman.Japanese conscripts were trained to massacre and torture these individuals, and if they refused, they were severely beaten. In Nanjing, 100,000 women and children were raped and enslaved to satisfy the Emperor’s soldiers, and then 300,000 people were massacred. In Korea, Unit 731 performed vivisections on prisoners without anesthesia; crimes that inspired Dr. Mengele at Auschwitz.

The same crimes were repeated in Singapore, Malaysia, Indochina and Thailand, although the population did not have as strong a memory of them as in Korea and China.

The Japanese militarists are not seeking to repeat their crimes. They know full well that in modern times, they cannot demand the worship of an emperor who has acknowledged that he is no longer a god. But they are rearming their country.

While commemorating the massacres of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, Sanae Takaichi carefully avoided mentioning that they had been perpetrated by the United States under President Harry Truman. Similarly, unlike her predecessors, she expressed neither remorse nor offered any apology for Japan’s role in World War II.

Japan only admitted its defeat in 1945 with the declaration of socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the 50th anniversary of the event, on August 15, 1995. This was called into question by liberal-democratic Prime Minister Shinzō Abe on the occasion of the appointment of the Minister of Self-Defense Forces on August 3, 2016. This is now the official position of Japan, defended by Shinzō Abe’s protégé, Sanae Takaichi [ 1 ] .

It was with full knowledge that Mrs. Takaichi violated the pacifism of the Japanese constitution and supplied military trucks to Ukrainian “integral nationalists” and soldiers to NATO HQ in Wiesbaden on May 29 [ 2 ] .

For the “revisionist Zionists,” it is time to resume the war against the “Zionists.”

The Kahanist (that is, the disciple of the terrorist rabbi Meir Kahane) Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, announced on August 28 that his men had located the wreck of the Altalena. This was a ship, chartered by the “Revisionist Zionists,” with nearly 900 militiamen on board, which the “Zionist” Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had sunk before it reached Israel on June 22, 1948.

The “revisionist Zionists,” that is, the followers of the Ukrainian Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, and the “Zionists” proper, that is, the followers of the Hungarian Theodor Herzl, engaged in a fierce hatred. Herzl wanted a homeland where Jews would escape pogroms, while Jabotinsky wanted a Jewish empire like the Italian and German empires………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………And now

We can no longer ignore what is happening. The forces of historical fascism — not some nostalgic eccentrics clinging to parades in uniform, but those who aspire to continue the Second World War — have awakened. They have begun to rewrite history. They have used our indifference to erase the memory of their crimes.

Our immediate responsibility is to deny them any political responsibility before they attempt to take their revenge and trigger the apocalypse. We must demand immediate elections in Ukraine and Japan. Elections have been called in Israel, but we must ensure that the election campaign is fair.

References:……………………………………………….. https://www.sott.net/article/508192-The-historical-fascists-are-preparing-to-take-their-revenge

September 5, 2026 Posted by | Japan, politics international | Leave a comment

Part II — No Blank Check for the War Machine

The Pentagon’s missile shortage will not be solved tomorrow. But its long-term answer is already being built beside our communities. Project Ranger approved without us—but the Pentagon, Castelion and New Mexico officials still must answer to the people.

Elaine Cimino, Aug 29, 2026

The Pentagon’s missile shortage will not be solved tomorrow. But its long-term answer is already being built beside our communities.

Part I asked what government kept from the public while it assembled the deal. Part II asks what the emerging federal weapons record now tells us about the scale and purpose of what was approved without us.

A national weapons emergency is being converted into a private investment opportunity—and New Mexico has been selected as one of the places where the consequences will be imposed.

The August 21 Defense One investigation, “There’s No Shortcut to Replenish U.S. Munitions Stockpiles,” describes a Pentagon racing to replace missiles being consumed in the Iran war while defense companies pitch a new generation of cheaper weapons. Buried inside that national story is a name New Mexico residents must recognize: Castelion.[1]

Castelion is constructing Project Ranger, the massive solid-rocket-motor and hypersonic-weapons manufacturing complex west of Rio Rancho in Sandoval County. Its Blackbeard missile is being offered as something the Pentagon has long wanted but struggled to obtain: a hypersonic strike weapon inexpensive enough to manufacture not by the dozen, but by the hundreds and eventually the thousands.

That mention changes the frame around Project Ranger. This is not simply another economic-development project, an isolated factory or a collection of buildings on remote State Trust Land. It is being positioned inside a long-term restructuring of the American war industry.

The federal government wants cheaper missiles, more suppliers, faster testing and industrial-scale production. Castelion wants to become one of the companies that supplies them. Project Ranger is where much of that ambition is supposed to become physical reality.

And while the Pentagon, investors and public officials discuss speed, scale and deterrence, the people living beside the factory are still waiting for something far more basic: full disclosure of what will be manufactured, burned, tested, stored, transported and released near their homes and water.

Blackbeard will not solve the immediate Iran stockpile crisis

The first fact must be stated precisely. Blackbeard is not a replacement for the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors being depleted in the Iran war.

Patriot and THAAD missiles are defensive weapons intended to destroy incoming missiles or aircraft. Blackbeard is an offensive, long-range hypersonic strike weapon intended to hit targets on land or at sea. Producing one does not replenish the other.

That is why the Defense One article warns that the Pentagon’s low-cost weapons campaign will not quickly repair the immediate stockpile crisis. New missiles must still be developed, tested, evaluated, certified, placed under contract and manufactured. That takes years, not weeks. Experts quoted in the article describe a continuing window of vulnerability while the military attempts to rebuild inventories depleted not only by Iran, but by years of global commitments.[1]

Blackbeard is therefore not the emergency cure being delivered to today’s battlefield. It is part of the arsenal the Pentagon wants for the wars it is preparing to fight in 2027, 2028, 2029 and beyond—particularly a possible conflict with China.

That distinction does not make Project Ranger less consequential. It makes it more so. A temporary emergency might end. A permanent industrial strategy can expand for decades.

The Pentagon is building a high-low arsenal

The larger strategy is a “high-low mix”: retain a smaller inventory of extraordinarily expensive weapons while acquiring far greater numbers of cheaper missiles for missions that do not require the most sophisticated system available.

Castelion is marketing Blackbeard as the hypersonic expression of that strategy. It is advertised as a weapon capable of exceeding Mach 5 but designed from the beginning for lower-cost, industrial-rate production.

Reuters reported in April that Navy planning documents contemplated the purchase of 4,500 air-launched hypersonic missiles for F/A-18 aircraft over five years, at an average projected price of about $384,000 each. The same report explained that a $105 million Navy award would fund Blackbeard’s integration onto the F/A-18, including flight tests, safety work and airworthiness certification.[2]

That is not the same as a funded order for 4,500 Blackbeards. But it shows what the Pentagon is testing: whether a weapon once treated as an exotic, multimillion-dollar rarity can become a routinely deployed instrument of war.

If that experiment succeeds, Project Ranger will not be a boutique research site. It will be an arsenal factory………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://elainecimino652909.substack.com/p/part-ii-no-blank-check-for-the-war?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3194544&post_id=213199756&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=281p2&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

September 5, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UKRAINE DEAL DEAD

Russia, in his view, would still prefer a compromise closer to Istanbul and the later Anchorage discussion than the occupation of the whole of Ukraine.

Governing a hostile country is not Moscow’s first choice.

George Beebe on Iran, Trump’s shrinking leverage, and the crash coming in Ukraine

Ian Proud, Sep 01, 2026, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/ukraine-deal-dead?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=213666173&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

George Beebe was CIA Director for Russia analysis and is now Director of the Grand Strategy Programme at the Quincy Institute. In this conversation he describes a Trump Administration that wrote a coherent National Security Strategy and then walked away from it. This has left prospects for a credible peace deal for Ukraine remote at best.

“………………………………………………………………………………………. The United States is now in a cul-de-sac: damaged reputation, strained forces, a distracted White House, and no clean exit that does not involve concessions.

That matters for Ukraine because attention and political capital are finite within the Trump White House.

Beebe’s strategic case for ending the war has not changed. A forever proxy war leaves Europe unstable, incentivises a tighter Russia-China partnership, and makes a China-first American strategy impossible.

Russia, in his view, would still prefer a compromise closer to Istanbul and the later Anchorage discussion than the occupation of the whole of Ukraine.

Governing a hostile country is not Moscow’s first choice.

What has changed is Washington’s ability to deliver.

Iran has taken the oxygen out of the room.

Trump needs political juice to force a deal through a hostile Senate and a permanent bureaucracy that still treats detente with Russia as heresy.

Beebe does not think he has that juice.

Midterms loom.

The president is fighting an unpopular war with a precarious economy. Other countries are already pricing him as a lame duck.

If Moscow concludes the administration is not agreement-capable — cannot lock in NATO limits, cannot move sanctions — Plan B is the battlefield.

That is not the conquest of Kyiv. It is a rump Ukraine, too weak to be rebuilt as a Western military outpost, and a worse peace for Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans alike.

Then comes what Beebe calls it a hard crash.

Time is not on Ukraine’s side.

Manpower is failing.

Energy infrastructure is already in tatters ahead of another winter.

Russia can hit harder than Ukraine can endure.

When the gap between Western media victory narratives and the facts becomes undeniable, Washington does not usually say “we did our best.”

It goes into “do-something” mode.

That is how mismanaged wars become direct NATO-Russia crises.

I agree with him.

Europe has no plan.

It has a reflex: ask for more Patriots, flatter Trump, keep Kyiv fighting.

That is not friendship.

It is spending Ukrainian lives to delay an admission of failure.

Beebe’s alternative is old-fashioned and unfashionable: a concert among the United States, Russia and China, starting with Iran and Ukraine, based on self-interest rather than trust.

Whether this White House can still do that is the live question.

September 5, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

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