Scotland could freeze datacentre projects in challenge to UK’s AI strategy
Scottish government to consider SNP national council motion for moratorium on all new datacentres
The Scottish government is about to consider a sweeping moratorium on building new datacentres, putting a key plank of the UK’s AI strategy at risk.
Last Sunday the Scottish National party (SNP)’s national council passed a motion to freeze all new datacentres in Scotland. That motion has been sent to the Scottish government to consider.
It could apply to all datacentre projects that have not yet received planning permission – although its exact implementation is up to the Scottish government to decide.
Lesley Backhouse, a local councillor from one of the constituencies that put forward the motion, said that Scotland’s current datacentre plans amounted to “overdevelopment” and were “intrusive and not keeping with the local environment”.
The move emerged as the Guardian on Monday revealed how the developer and the UK government misrepresented the technical feasibility of a massive datacentre hub in Scotland in the face of community fears that their land would be subsumed by the development, and promised jobs and investments would never materialise.
This site, in Lanarkshire, was to be an “AI growth zone”, a key element of the government’s strategy to build national AI infrastructure in rural areas of Britain.
The SNP’s resolution came amid signs of a wider upheaval in the UK’s AI strategy as Andy Burnham prepares to replace Keir Starmer in Downing Street. He is reportedly considering a review of several critical planks of Starmer’s technology policy.
The Guardian previously reported that an “AI growth zone” in North Tyneside was more of a publicity stunt than a viable project, despite being supposedly backed by the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI. Several other big UK AI projects have been found to be “phantom investments” after the government failed to audit investment numbers or jobs claims.
“I don’t think anyone is arguing that we should not have any datacentres in the UK or Scotland,” said Graham Simpson, a member of the Scottish parliament representing North Lanarkshire.
“But there needs to be a proper piece of work at the government level to decide how many the country needs and what is our capacity for them, in terms of our resources.”
A moratorium on datacentres in Scotland could strike at the heart of the UK’s wider AI strategy. British officials have pushed Scotland as the prime location for datacentres due to its access to plentiful renewable energy. The SNP’s resolution could halt projects such as the Lanarkshire AI growth zone.
The SNP resolution suggests that the number of massive datacentres planned in Scotland could overwhelm its renewables capacity.
It says there are 24 “hyperscale” datacentre projects in various stages of planning in Scotland. Combined, they would use more than one-and-a-half times the power Scotland uses at peak demand.
“It is extreme overdevelopment. I’m very supportive of the local community and their endeavours to prevent this from happening,” said Backhouse.
Meanwhile, the chair of the Commons science and technology select committee, Chi Onwurah, on Monday criticised the UK’s broader AI investment strategy, saying that without a proper plan for achieving sovereignty it has been “very opportunistic”.
UK Government scraps public consultation on data centres and major infrastructure projects
Scrapping mandatory pre-application consultation requirements for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects will “disenfranchise” locals and “embed resentment”, experts say. Christine Murray reports
Christine Murray, Editor-in-Chief of The Developer and Director of the Festival of Place 03/07/26, https://www.thedeveloper.live/reportage/government-scraps-public-consultation-on-data-centres-and-major-infrastructure-projects
Just days after hundreds of people gathered near Great Torrington to oppose a £13bn data centre and battery energy storage project in the North Devon UNESCdata centre and battery energy storage project in the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere, the government has announced it is scrapping mandatory public consultation for major infrastructure projects including data centres, wind, solar, reservoirs and nuclear plants.
The changes confirmed on Friday will come into effect later this month on 24 July, before the completion of a government inquiry into the sustainability of data centres in the UK.
re-application consultation requirements for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects will be replaced by “earlier technical support and meaningful advice from the Planning Inspectorate before applications are submitted” through a redesigned pre-application service for developers.
The changes are delivered in the Planning and Infrastructure Act which also places limits on legal challenges to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.
The news comes amidst calls for increased scrutiny of AI growth zone plans with concern that developers are misrepresenting their plans and making misleading claims about data centres. The government has announced five AI growth zones including sites in Lanarkshire and North Tyneside.
Oral evidence presented to the Environmental Audit Committee for the government’s data centre inquiry has already highlighted that local people don’t feel sufficiently heard in the planning process and that claims being made about the job creation may be misleading.
Presenting evidence on 10 June, Oliver Hayes, Head of Policy at Global Act Plan said: “The jobs benefits really don’t seem to be what the developers are claiming.”
“The data centre in Blythe, Northumberland… said this would lead to 4,000 jobs and the slightest bit of interrogation drew an admission that this actually would be 100 jobs. This is a £10bn investment in Blythe and that means you’re getting 1 job for every £100m pounds.”
“This change is essential given the need to build our own resilience in places across the country in an increasingly uncertain world”
Just days after hundreds of people gathered near Great Torrington to oppose a £13bn data centre and battery energy storage project in the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere, the government has announced it is scrapping mandatory public consultation for major infrastructure projects including data centres, wind, solar, reservoirs and nuclear plants.
The changes confirmed on Friday will come into effect later this month on 24 July, before the completion of a government inquiry into the sustainability of data centres in the UK.
Pre-application consultation requirements for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects will be replaced by “earlier technical support and meaningful advice from the Planning Inspectorate before applications are submitted” through a redesigned pre-application service for developers.
The changes are delivered in the Planning and Infrastructure Act which also places limits on legal challenges to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.
The news comes amidst calls for increased scrutiny of AI growth zone plans with concern that developers are misrepresenting their plans and making misleading claims about data centres.
The government has announced five AI growth zones including sites in Lanarkshire and North Tyneside.
Oral evidence presented to the Environmental Audit Committee for the government’s data centre inquiry has already highlighted that local people don’t feel sufficiently heard in the planning process and that claims being made about the job creation may be misleading.
Presenting evidence on 10 June, Oliver Hayes, Head of Policy at Global Act Plan said: “The jobs benefits really don’t seem to be what the developers are claiming.”
“The data centre in Blythe, Northumberland… said this would lead to 4,000 jobs and the slightest bit of interrogation drew an admission that this actually would be 100 jobs. This is a £10bn investment in Blythe and that means you’re getting 1 job for every £100m pounds.”
“This change is essential given the need to build our own resilience in places across the country in an increasingly uncertain world”
Internal correspondence obtained by The Guardian showed the government and developers of the £82bn AI data centre complex in Lanarkshire knew they would not be delivering new on-site renewable energy infrastructure even as they promised it to the public. Instead the data centre will connect to the grid. With an average 8-10 year wait for a grid connection, prioritising data centres could potentially delay electricity for housing developments.
The Scottish government is considering a moratorium on building new data centres, which would affect all data centres that have not yet won planning, as reported by The Guardian.
Fergus Charlton, planning partner with national law firm Michelmores is concerned about the removal of mandatory public consultation: “Cutting the ability of the public at large and more importantly the local inhabitants – with their special connections to the land and knowledge of their milieu – to inform the design of nationally important infrastructure will further disenfranchise them from the planning process leading to embedded resentment to the system as a whole and the proposed development in particular.
The existing consultation requirements for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects does place a burden on the developer, but it helps strike a fair balance for the local community engaging in an infrastructure planning system that greatly favours the developer,” says Charlton.
“Local residents are getting very concerned and are feeling like they’re not able to participate in that planning process and not able to have their voices heard,” said Hayes. “I think that is a big risk for government.”
“There needs to be real interrogation of what it means to be living in AI growth zones and less of a laissez-faire approach,” Hayes said.
The government claims cutting consultation will speed up planning applications by as much as 12 months and that infrastructure projects will enter the pipeline at a faster rate.
Housing Secretary Steve Reed said: “Our reforms will get work started quicker on wind farms, solar panels and transport links to connect our communities and grow our economy.”
Energy Minister Michael Shanks said: “Britain cannot afford to wait years for the clean energy infrastructure needed to strengthen our energy security and grow the economy.”
The government says that data centres can opt into the National Significant Infrastructure Projects with three data centre proposals being included: Wapseys Wood in Buckinhamshire, Ampthill Road in Bedford and New Barn Lane in Dartford.
The government says it will encourage the earlier submission of Local Impact Reports alongside relevant representations.
SNP call for temporary ban on AI data centre developments.
THE SNP are set to back calls for a temporary ban on AI data centre
developments, The National can reveal. It comes after months of community
protest against proposed sites across the country, as well as pushback from
several MSPs from various parties. The SNP will now join the Scottish
Greens in calling for a Scottish Government-led moratorium on AI data
centre developments after a vote of the party’s National Council, a key
decision-making body in the party’s organisation.
The two parties hold a
clear majority in Holyrood, so if a moratorium is formally proposed by
either party it would likely pass, especially as figures from Labour, the
LibDems, Conservatives and Reform UK have all raised concerns about data
centre projects in their areas. However, it could be challenged on a point
of law from the developers.
The National 6th July 2026, https://www.thenational.scot/news/26257080.snp-call-temporary-ban-ai-data-centre-developments/
Wildfire in southern France forces evacuation of 10,000 people
Neil Murphy
A wildfire has forced the evacuation of thousands of people in southern
France as the country grapples with the impacts of an early summer heatwave
that scorched much of Europe. More than 10,000 people have been ordered to
leave more than a dozen small towns and villages in the foothills of the
French Pyrenees, near the border with Spain. The fire, located in
Trévillach near Perpignan, has burned at least 4,600 hectares (11,366
acres), local prefect Pierre Regnault de la Mothe said in a post on X.
BBC 6th July 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crlwweye9glo
Last Energy nabs $40M to realize vision of super-small nuclear reactors
These investors are joining the wave in public and private financing of nuclear energy that has swelled to $14 billion so far this year — double last year’s total, according to Axios. Investment in new fission technologies, such as microreactors, has increased tenfold from 2023.
The startup wants to mass-manufacture 20MW nuclear reactors that can be built and shipped within 24 months. It’s looking to get its first reactor online in Europe.
By Eric Wesoff, 29 August 2024
A startup looking to build really small nuclear reactors just announced a big new funding round.
Last Energy, a Washington, D.C.–based next-generation nuclear company, announced that it closed a $40 million Series B funding round, a move that will add more financial and human capital to the reinvigorated nuclear sector.
The startup aims to eventually deploy thousands of its modular microreactors, though to date it has not brought any online. The first reactor might appear in Europe as soon as 2026, assuming Last Energy manages to meet its extremely aggressive construction, financial, and regulatory timelines — not a common occurrence in the nuclear industry. Venture capital heavyweight Gigafund led the round, which closed early this year but was revealed only today. The startup has raised a total of $64 million since its 2019 founding.
Last Energy is part of a cohort of companies betting that small, replicable, and mass-produced reactors will overcome the economic challenges associated with building emissions-free baseload nuclear power — and restore the moribund U.S. nuclear industry to its former glory. But the microreactor dream has yet to be realized; few of these small modular reactors (SMRs) have been built worldwide. None have been completed in the U.S., though one design from long-in-the-tooth startup NuScale Power has gotten regulatory approval.
The 20-megawatt size of Last Energy’s microreactor stands in stark contrast to that of a conventional nuclear reactor like the recently commissioned Vogtle units in Georgia, which each generate about 1,100 megawatts. A Last Energy microreactor, the size of about 75 shipping containers, might power a small factory, while a Vogtle unit can power a city.
Instead of the cathedral-style stick-built construction of modern large reactors, SMRs and microreactors are meant to be manufactured at scale in factories, transported to the site, and assembled on location. Rather than develop an advanced reactor design with exotic fuels — an approach taken by other SMR hopefuls, including the Bill Gates–backed TerraPower — Last Energy chose to scale down the well-established light-water reactor technology that powers America’s 94 existing nuclear reactors.
“We came to the conclusion that using the existing, off-the-shelf technology was the way to scale,” CEO Bret Kugelmass said in a 2022 interview with Canary Media. “We don’t innovate at all when it comes to the nuclear process or components — we do systems integration and business-model innovation.”
The startup claims that its microreactor is designed to be fabricated, transported, and built within 24 months, and is the right size to serve industrial clients. Under its business model, Last Energy aims to build, own, and operate its power plant at the customer’s site, avoiding the yearslong wait times to plug a new generation project into the power grid.
Like an independent power producer, Last Energy doesn’t sell power plants; instead, it sells electricity to customers through long-term power-purchase contracts.
“Data centers and heavy industry are trying to grapple with a very complex set of energy challenges, and Last Energy has seen them realize that micro-nuclear is the only capable solution,” said Kugelmass, who claims in today’s press release that the startup has inked commercial agreements for 80 units — with 39 of those units destined to serve power-hungry data center customers.
Last Energy isn’t the only microreactor company attracting venture funding. There are several other examples from this month alone: Aalo Atomics raised $27 million from 50Y, Valor Equity Partners, Harpoon Ventures, Crosscut, SNR, Alumni Ventures, Preston Werner, Earth Venture, Garage Capital, Wayfinder, Jeff Dean, and Nucleation Capital to scale up a 85-kilowatt design from the U.S. Department of Energy’s MARVEL program. While Deep Fission, a startup aiming to bury arrays of microreactors 1 mile underground, just raised $4 million led by 8VC, a venture firm founded by Joe Lonsdale.
These investors are joining the wave in public and private financing of nuclear energy that has swelled to $14 billion so far this year — double last year’s total, according to Axios. Investment in new fission technologies, such as microreactors, has increased tenfold from 2023.
Investors happen to be backing startups in a heavily subsidized market. Tens of billions of dollars from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the U.S. DOE’s Loan Programs Office, and the Inflation Reduction Act support the development of a non-Russian supply of enriched uranium; the IRA also introduced a ridiculously generous $15-per-megawatt-hour production tax credit, meant to keep today’s existing nuclear fleet competitive with gas and renewables, as well as a similarly charitable investment tax credit to incentivize new plant construction.
The flood of funding comes as nuclear power enjoys the most public support it has had in years. Nuclear now has a favorable public opinion, with the majority of Americans supporting atomic energy and its record of safety and performance. And nuclear energy is one of the few topics that Democrat and Republican politicians have been able to agree on in recent memory.
Still, despite the rising financial, political, and public support, the U.S. nuclear industry remains frozen, plagued by a legacy of cost and timeline overruns for conventional reactors and regulatory challenges around new designs. It’s unclear when the country will get another nuclear reactor online — as of last year, the leading contender was an SMR project from NuScale, but that fell apart due to cost. In all likelihood, the next reactor to plug into the grid will be the mothballed Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, which won government support for an unprecedented effort to recommission the plant by the end of next year.
For its part, Last Energy is not banking on the U.S. to lead the charge; it’s targeting industrial customers in Poland, Romania, and the U.K. for its initial sites, in the hopes that it will find a more favorable regulatory and financial environment.
Ryan McEntush of investment firm a16z suggests in an essay that “the success of nuclear power is much more about project management, financing, and policy than it is cutting-edge engineering or safety.”
That’s Last Energy’s philosophy too — and it’s going to need more money and more years to prove it’s the right one.
Israel isn’t leaving Lebanon and Syria may be next
Israel’s refusal to withdraw, Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm, and new strikes near the Golan Heights point to a conflict that is expanding, not endingPublished 5 Jul, 2026
By Farhad Ibragimov , 5 July 26, https://www.rt.com/news/642508-israel-isnt-leaving-lebanon/
Israel has no intention of leaving Lebanon. At least, it won’t do so now and on terms that would suit Beirut (not to mention Hezbollah and Tehran). Moreover, in parallel with the Lebanese campaign, West Jerusalem is reactivating operations in Syria: Israeli forces launched an artillery strike on the village of Abidin in the western part of Syria’s Daraa Governorate, and, according to regional sources, Israeli aircraft conducted flights over the rural areas of Daraa and Quneitra governorates near the Golan Heights.
At first glance, it appears that yet another breakthrough has occurred on the Lebanese front. The US, Israel, and Lebanon signed a trilateral framework agreement in Washington (although three agreements have already been reached in the past two months). US Secretary of State Marco Rubio presented it as a step toward the restoration of Lebanon’s sovereignty, the disarmament of Hezbollah, and the dismantling of its infrastructure. But upon careful examination of the agreement, it becomes clear that it cannot ensure lasting peace; it only creates a diplomatic pause during which each side will attempt to consolidate its own position.
This is a ‘framework’ agreement – and that says it all. It’s not a full-fledged peace treaty or a final settlement, but a set of principles that have yet to be transformed into a working mechanism. The agreement provides for the gradual restoration of control over the Lebanese army, the start of Hezbollah’s disarmament, and the eventual withdrawal of Israeli troops after the elimination of the threat to Israel. In other words, Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon is not immediate and unconditional, but is tied to a condition that is nearly impossible to fulfill quickly.
This is the crux of the matter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly stated that Israel will not leave southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah remains armed and poses a threat. This effectively means that Israel’s presence is not a temporary measure, but a permanent instrument of pressure. As long as Hezbollah exists, Israel remains in Lebanon; but as long as Israel remains, Hezbollah has a reason not to disarm. It becomes a vicious circle, in which each side justifies its actions by the actions of the other.
Lebanon finds itself in the most difficult position. Formally, Beirut has committed itself to regaining control over southern Lebanon. But Hezbollah is not simply an armed group that can be disarmed by administrative action. It is an independent military-political force that is firmly integrated into the Lebanese system; it has a social base, infrastructure, and external support. Therefore, the demand to disarm Hezbollah may sound good on paper, but in practice, instead of a peace mechanism it could become a pretext for a new internal crisis.
It is no coincidence that Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri, a staunch Hezbollah ally, has already criticized the agreement and stated that it will not be implemented. As expected, Hezbollah rejected the agreement, perceiving it as a form of capitulation. This is the biggest problem: the agreement was signed by three nations, but the main armed player – Hezbollah – which is directly responsible for stabilizing the situation in southern Lebanon, is not a party to the agreement.
At the same time, Israel is reopening the Syrian front. The attack on Abidin in Daraa Governorate is not a random incident. Southern Syria, Daraa, Quneitra, and the area near the Golan Heights have long been perceived by Israel as a potential threat. Following the weakening of the Syrian state and the shift in the regional balance of power, Israel has changed its defense strategy and is actively forming buffer zones around its borders. West Jerusalem explains its role in maintaining a security zone in southern Syria by the need to prevent attacks by armed groups.
This is why Syria is again becoming part of Israel’s overall strategy. Israel demonstrates that if it is forced to make concessions in Lebanon, it can still expand pressure along other perimeters – through Syria, the Golan Heights, Daraa, and Quneitra. This is a signal not only to Damascus, but also to Tehran and Hezbollah: Israel will not wait for the threat to fully materialize; it will act preemptively.
The ultimate goal of all these maneuvers in Lebanon and Syria is to ‘squeeze’ Iran. Having failed to achieve its objectives in 2025 and in the spring of 2026, Israel wants to take revenge presently. According to Tehran, the signed US-Iran memorandum specifically mentions the cessation of military operations, including in Lebanon, and the parties’ commitment to respect Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. For Tehran, this is an attempt to include Lebanon in a broader bargaining process with Washington and to demonstrate that the stabilization of the region is impossible without taking Iranian influence into account.
The situation is complex: The US attempts to portray the agreement as a diplomatic success even though the sides continue to exchange blows and the ceasefire could come to an end at any moment; Israel is given the chance to maintain a military presence in Lebanon until its conditions are fully met; Lebanon receives the promise of restored sovereignty – but with no means of immediate control over Hezbollah, this becomes largely impossible. Meanwhile, Iran attempts to integrate the Lebanese issue into its dialogue with Washington; and Syria is becoming an additional pressure point, playing the role of a ‘whipping boy’.
In such circumstances, peace remains elusive. This is merely a managed tactical pause before the next round of war. Israel will not leave Lebanon because the threat of Hezbollah persists; Hezbollah will not disarm because Israel remains; and Lebanon cannot fully control the south because state institutions are weaker than the Hezbollah movement on the ground. Apparently, the US is trying to freeze the conflict without resolving its main contradiction.
The strike on Abidin, Syria, shows that Israel is not thinking solely in terms of the Lebanese front. It is building a broader security belt from southern Lebanon to southern Syria. And while US President Donald Trump is telling the world about agreements, a completely different reality is taking shape on the ground: a reality of buffer zones, artillery strikes, air patrols, and the constant expectation of a new round of escalation.
Even if we assume that Trump genuinely seeks to end the war and reach a peace agreement with Iran, including in the context of the Lebanon crisis, he will find this extremely difficult to achieve; the stakes are too high, and in many ways, he was the one who raised them. Therefore, the framework agreement looks less like the beginning of peace and more like an attempt to legally formalize a temporary balance of power. And the longer this temporary balance is presented as a peace settlement, the greater the likelihood that Lebanon will once again become the arena of a major war and a bargaining chip in the struggle between the opposing sides.
The clear winner of Trump’s war in the Middle East is… China, says new report
By Amy Hawkins | Analysis, Article | July 4, 2026, https://thebulletin.org/2026/07/the-clear-winner-of-trumps-war-in-the-middle-east-is-china-says-new-report/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Winner%20of%20Trump%20s%20war%20in%20the%20Middle%20East%20is%20%20%20China%2C%20says%20new%20report&utm_campaign=20260702%20Thursday%20Newsletter%20%28Copy%29
China has emerged as the sole winner in Asia from the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to a report published on Tuesday.
The report by the geopolitical consulting firm Asia Group concluded that China had weathered the storm of the global commodities crisis resulting from the closure of the Middle Eastern waterway, and also stood to gain from the economic and geopolitical trends sparked by the wider conflict.
Iran virtually closed the strait, a vital waterway through which much of the world’s oil and gas flows, after the US and Israel launched joint strikes on February 28, targeting government and military sites and killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The ensuing crisis has sent global energy prices soaring, with Asia particularly exposed.China has emerged as the sole winner in Asia from the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to a report published on Tuesday.
The report by the geopolitical consulting firm Asia Group concluded that China had weathered the storm of the global commodities crisis resulting from the closure of the Middle Eastern waterway, and also stood to gain from the economic and geopolitical trends sparked by the wider conflict.
Iran virtually closed the strait, a vital waterway through which much of the world’s oil and gas flows, after the US and Israel launched joint strikes on February 28, targeting government and military sites and killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The ensuing crisis has sent global energy prices soaring, with Asia particularly exposed.
The report noted that before the strait’s closure, roughly 80 percent of the oil and nearly 90 percent of the liquefied natural gas transiting the waterway was destined for Asian markets, along with a significant share of other critical commodities.
The report looked at Asia’s largest economies—China, India, Japan and South Korea—as well as emerging markets across south-east Asia. The researchers mapped the economic and political repercussions of the crisis and its impacts across key sectors including manufacturing, energy and agriculture.
They concluded that China was a clear winner from the crisis caused by Donald Trump’s foray into the Middle East.
The country’s large stockpiles of oil and the hugely ambitious rollout of renewable energy mean it has been less exposed to the energy shock than other countries.
China has long maintained strategic reserves of energy, and last year took advantage of cheap prices to build up even bigger stockpiles. Its crude imports grew from 11.1 million barrels a day to 11.6 million in 2025, with over 80 percent of that increase being sent to stockpiles, according to analysis by Erica Downs, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy. As of January, China had enough stockpiled to cover 104 days of imports at the 2025 level.
The country has also been building massive amounts of renewable energy infrastructure in recent years. Last year it installed 315 gigawatts of new solar capacity, more than half of the world’s new solar. The year before, it added 277 gigawatts. Beijing is aiming for half of China’s energy to come from non-fossil sources by 2030, with the share from wind and solar reaching 30 percent, up from 22 percent in 2025.
Although China’s energy mix is still largely based on coal, which accounts for more than 50 percent, renewables’ share is increasing rapidly.
The Asia Group’s report said: “With 1.4 terawatts of operating renewable capacity already online and a reported 90-110 days of crude import cover in reserve, China weathered the initial shock better than any regional peer.”
China has also benefited from other countries reacting to the crisis by accelerating its clean energy buildout. Beijing dominates the global supply chain in solar and other clean technology industries and in recent years has been pushing much of this production overseas at low prices, to the chagrin of western leaders worried about their own industries.
China’s electric vehicle exports soared by more than 110 percent in May compared with the previous year, while solar shipments in April increased by 60 percent.
Beijing has called for a ceasefire in the Middle East, and when Trump visited in May and met China’s president, Xi Jinping, he claimed the two countries were united in wanting to find a settlement. But the Asia Group report noted: “The crisis allows Beijing to cast the United States as the destabilizing actor whose Middle East entanglements impose costs on the world.”
There are some risks to China from the instability. Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said: “It’s tempting to see any loss of credibility in the US as a benefit for China, but that’s not necessarily the case for Beijing, which does not want to supplant Washington as a Middle East hegemon or provider of security for the region.”
Wen-Ti Sung, a non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, based in Taiwan, said the crisis could also make Beijing think twice about a future military assault on Taiwan because it showed the difficulty of navigating ships through hostile territory.
The Asia Group’s report concluded: “Ultimately Beijing views the pain points not as existential threats, but as challenges to be managed and even opportunities to be exploited.”
£8.2bn Scottish datacentre development running out of steam?
by Chris Newbould, July 6, 2026,
https://www.prolificnorth.co.uk/news/8-2bn-scottish-datacentre-development-running-out-of-steam/
A huge Scottish datacentre development has misrepresented its plans to channel a nuclear reactor’s worth of power to a site in rural Scotland, according to a new Guardian investigation.
When the £8.2bn AI datacentre complex in Lanarkshire was announced in January, built by the US firm CoreWeave and the Scottish company DataVita, the government promised that it would be powered entirely from on-site renewables and built by 2030 – indeed, a central plank of the viability of the project, designed to help with Britain’s ambitions to keep up in the global AI race, was its ability to power itself.
CoreWeave, meanwhile, claimed that CoreWeave Lanarkshire would become “one of the most advanced AI sites anywhere in the world” following the completion of their plans.
Documents obtained by The Guardian under an FoI request, however, suggest the datacentre has virtually no chance of meeting that goal.
Internal correspondence obtained by the paper, however, suggest that the government and the site’s developers were privately acknowledging that the site had an “issue” with “power provision” and that this would not happen, even as they publicly promised that the Lanarkshire site would have up to 1GW of “new energy infrastructure”.
The government told The Guardian that the Lanarkshire complex would connect to the national, meaning it would join a years-long queue alongside housing and hospitals, although a government spokesman insisted the site’s needs would still be met “overwhelmingly” with renewables.
Energy is a particular issue for power-hungry data centres in the UK, where it is more expensive than anywhere else in Europe and there is an eight to 10-year queue for new developments to connect to the grid.
DataVita said it will power the site in Airdrie with more than 1GW of renewable energy, including 400MW of solar power and 800MW of wind. That is more than one and half times the wind energy produced by Whitelee, the UK’s largest onshore windfarm, also in Scotland, which occupies an area half the size of Bristol. It is roughly the power needed to supply 800,000 Scottish homes, although where this power is coming from for the Lanarkshire development remains unclear at this point.
The Heat Is the Story—Climate Change Is the Cause
As extreme heat forces Fourth of July and America 250 celebrations to cancel or scale back across the country, the real story isn’t the weather—it’s the accelerating climate crisis reshaping American life.
Joshua Scheer,July 4, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/04/the-heat-is-the-story-climate-change-is-the-cause/
The climate crisis has become so normalized that much of the corporate media now reports its consequences while refusing to name their cause.
We recently highlighted this failure through FAIR’s incisive analysis, “Covering the Impact of Climate Change—Without Mentioning Climate Change.” This latest reporting from USA Today does exactly what FAIR warned about.
Across the United States, Fourth of July and America 250 celebrations are being canceled, postponed, or scaled back because temperatures have become simply too dangerous. More than 120 million Americans are under extreme heat warnings. Another 62 million are under heat advisories. Parades have been canceled after floats were already lined up. Historic celebrations in Philadelphia have been abandoned. Fireworks have been delayed, festivals shut down, and even events on the National Mall now require cooling tents, misting stations, hydration centers, and emergency precautions just to proceed.
And yet the story is framed as though this were simply an unfortunate spell of bad weather, It isn’t this is what climate change looks like in real time.
According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, extreme heat is becoming both more frequent and more intense as the planet warms. What was once considered unusual is increasingly becoming routine. The organization notes that U.S. cities experienced an average of just two extreme heat events per year in the 1960s. Between 2010 and 2020, that number had risen to ten. At the same time, the nation’s heat-wave season has expanded by 46 days.
The trend is accelerating. The year 2024 was the hottest ever recorded globally, and the last decade has been the warmest on record. Looking ahead, the Fifth National Climate Assessment projects that much of the United States will experience 15 to 30 additional days above 95 degrees each year if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius. In some states, including Florida, that increase could reach 50 additional days annually.
Extreme heat is already the deadliest weather-related hazard in the United States, killing more Americans each year than hurricanes, floods, or tornadoes. Heat-related deaths have risen by more than 50 percent since 2000, while prolonged high temperatures increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, kidney damage, and heat stroke. Older adults, children, outdoor workers, and low-income communities without reliable access to cooling face the greatest risks.
The consequences extend far beyond public health. Extreme heat strains the electric grid as air-conditioning demand surges while reducing the efficiency of power lines and power plants. It damages crops, stresses livestock, worsens drought, fuels larger wildfires, and intensifies the urban heat island effect, making many cities several degrees hotter than surrounding areas.
Against that backdrop, the cancellation of parades, fireworks, festivals, and outdoor gatherings across the country is not simply a holiday inconvenience. It is another visible reminder that climate change is reshaping everyday American life.
Yet too much media coverage still treats these events as if they were disconnected episodes of bad weather. When hundreds of Independence Day celebrations are canceled because it is unsafe to be outside, the story is not simply that it is hot. The story is why it is hot—and why these dangerous heat waves are becoming America’s new normal.
The economic costs of climate change are no longer theoretical—they are arriving in real time.
As seen by a recent July 1st Wall Street Journal analysis argues that extreme heat has become a chronic drag on the global economy, disrupting everything from construction and transportation to agriculture, public events, and energy systems. As temperatures soar across the United States ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, more than 150 million Americans have been placed under heat alerts, while Europe continues to experience deadly temperatures that the World Health Organization estimates contributed to roughly 1,300 excess deaths in a single week.
Read more: The Heat Is the Story—Climate Change Is the CauseThe article notes that economists are increasingly treating climate change not as a distant environmental concern but as a central economic force. George Buckley, chief European economist at Nomura, told the Journal that climate change is becoming impossible for economists to ignore, comparing it to other long-term structural challenges such as aging populations. What once appeared to be an issue for future generations is now affecting quarterly growth, inflation, productivity, and government budgets.
Extreme heat carries immediate economic consequences. Outdoor construction slows or stops altogether. Transportation systems are disrupted as rail lines, roads, and infrastructure strain under prolonged high temperatures. Schools close, public events are canceled, and businesses lose productivity as workers are forced indoors or face dangerous working conditions. While some sectors—such as movie theaters and air-conditioning manufacturers—may temporarily benefit, economists emphasize that these isolated gains are dwarfed by the broader losses.
The financial toll is already measurable. Research cited by the Journal estimates that last year’s European heat waves and floods caused approximately $43 billion in economic damage. Allianz modeling suggests that if years of record-breaking heat become the norm, some countries could lose between 5 and 7 percent of their gross domestic product over a five-year period. Those losses come not only from reduced economic output but also from mounting public expenditures to repair damaged infrastructure, strengthen emergency services, and retrofit schools and public buildings with cooling systems.
The article also highlights another consequence often overlooked in public debate: inflation. Extreme heat damages crops, reduces agricultural yields, and pushes food prices higher. One study found that Europe’s 2022 heat wave added roughly two-thirds of a percentage point to food-price inflation. As these events become more frequent, economists warn that climate-related inflation will become harder for central banks to dismiss as temporary, complicating efforts to stabilize prices and manage economic growth.
Perhaps the most significant conclusion is that climate disasters no longer arrive as isolated emergencies. Repeated heat waves compound one another. Construction projects delayed by one event are interrupted again weeks later. Infrastructure weakens under repeated stress. Emergency services remain stretched. Businesses and governments find themselves spending more simply to maintain existing systems rather than investing in future growth.
For years, climate change was framed primarily as an environmental issue. Increasingly, even the financial press is recognizing that it is also an economic one. Every canceled festival, delayed construction project, damaged harvest, overloaded power grid, and record-breaking electric bill represents another reminder that the costs of a warming planet are no longer hypothetical. They are already being paid.
When Americans can no longer safely celebrate Independence Day outdoors because of relentless, life-threatening heat, that is not merely a weather story—it is one of the defining climate stories of our time. Every article that catalogs canceled events without confronting the underlying cause helps normalize what should instead shock us.
Journalists rightly ask who is responsible after floods, hurricanes, or wildfires devastate communities. Why should record-breaking heat be treated any differently? Reporting the consequences while refusing to name the crisis leaves readers informed about the symptoms but blind to the disease.
The cancellations themselves are news. The real story is why they are becoming the new normal.
The climate crisis is no longer something our children will inherit. It is something we are living through right now. It is changing how we work, where we live, what we grow, how much we pay for food and energy, and now even how we celebrate.
The tragedy is not only that the planet is warming. It is that too many of our institutions—including much of the corporate media—continue to describe the symptoms while refusing to confront the disease. By treating record-breaking heat as another unfortunate weather event instead of what it is—a predictable consequence of decades of fossil fuel dependence and political inaction—they normalize a catastrophe that should be demanding urgent action.
Perhaps the most patriotic act today is not waving a flag while pretending everything is normal. It is refusing to accept that this is normal at all. The greatest threat to America’s future is not acknowledging the climate crisis—it is continuing to look away from it. Until we are willing to name the problem honestly, we will never summon the courage to solve it.
May we never forget this moment. And to those of us in the older generations: we cannot pretend this crisis belongs only to the young. People are already dying from extreme heat and the accelerating impacts of climate change—that is a documented fact. The greatest burden, however, will fall on those who must live with the consequences long after today’s leaders are gone.
If we continue down this path, future generations may well look back and ask why we accepted a slow-moving catastrophe that unfolded in plain sight. Nuclear war remains one of humanity’s greatest fears because of its speed and devastation. Climate change is different. It kills more slowly, more unevenly, and often out of the headlines—but it is no less real for those already suffering its consequences.
The question is no longer whether the crisis has arrived. It has. The only question that remains is whether we will finally find the courage to act before today’s warning becomes tomorrow’s irreversible tragedy.
May we never forget Zach from the DNC and the Hilary post election meeting in which he said
“Why should we trust you as chair to lead us through this?” two people in the room told The Huffington Post. “You backed a flawed candidate, and your friend [former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz] plotted through this to support your own gain and yourself.”
“You and your friends will die of old age and I’m going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this happen, which is going to cut 40 years off my life expectancy,” he said, according to the report.
While Zach was booed and repeatedly told to sit down, he refused to back down, continuing to call Brazile “part of the problem.”
It all leads back to the same moral failure we have witnessed with Gaza, the drive toward war with Iran, and now the climate crisis. On genocide, too many Democratic leaders have not merely been silent—they have been complicit. They have armed it, funded it, defended it, excused it, and attacked those who dared to call it by its name.
That same cowardice runs through their response to war and climate catastrophe. Again and again, Democratic leaders offer speeches about democracy and humanity while backing policies that destroy both. They condemn cruelty when it is politically convenient, but when real power demands a choice, too many choose donors, weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel interests, and empire over human life.
As we honor Ron Kovic, Mike Prysner, and now Zach, we are reminded that conscience rarely comes from the people sitting comfortably in power. It comes from those willing to speak the truth even when party leaders, pundits, and careerists tell them to sit down.
We need more people in positions of power with that courage. Because when leaders fund genocide, march us toward war, and ignore a climate crisis already killing people, they are not simply failing us. They are helping lead us toward death.
History will not remember their carefully worded statements. It will remember whether they stood against genocide, war, and climate collapse when it mattered.
We’re being asked to save two buckets of water a day. Meanwhile data centres drink a town’s worth
England is heading for a 5bn-litre daily water shortfall by 2055 – so why is the government fast-tracking one of the most water-hungry industries there is, and letting it keep its consumption private, asks campaigner Adele Walton
Adele Walton, Jul 8, 2026, https://www.thenerve.news/p/adele-walton-heatwave-data-centres-water-shortage?utm_source=www.thenerve.news&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=farage-under-fire-tuesday-edition&_bhlid=8b1d393304f745e4dafb1328c154dd5ec4a3e882
Lying on my bedroom floor in front of a fan with a wet flannel on my head, desperately trying to cool down in the middle of the UK’s historic heatwave last month, I couldn’t stop thinking about one thing. Data centres.
Every time I had a cold shower for a temporary relief, I was haunted by the knowledge that AI data centres are already gobbling up millions of litres of water that they require for cooling, and I became fearful of a day where I might turn on the tap and not be able to get a drop. I would go to my local park to seek shade and a cool breeze to no avail and have pressing visions of superscale data centres that endlessly whir and hum and churn out emissions. This is dystopian, but it’s not unrealistic. Lying on my bedroom floor in front of a fan with a wet flannel on my head, desperately trying to cool down in the middle of the UK’s historic heatwave last month, I couldn’t stop thinking about one thing. Data centres.
Every time I had a cold shower for a temporary relief, I was haunted by the knowledge that AI data centres are already gobbling up millions of litres of water that they require for cooling, and I became fearful of a day where I might turn on the tap and not be able to get a drop. I would go to my local park to seek shade and a cool breeze to no avail and have pressing visions of superscale data centres that endlessly whir and hum and churn out emissions. This is dystopian, but it’s not unrealistic.
England is predicted to reach water shortages of 5bn litres a day by 2055. Data centres are increasingly becoming one of the most water-intensive forms of infrastructure and the AI hype is rapidly exacerbating the speed at which our natural resources get stolen by Big Tech. Research by the campaign group Global Action Plan reveals that 84% of projected data centre developments in the UK are expected in areas already water-stressed or projected to be water-stressed by 2040.
What makes this even more scandalous is the fact that the UK government classified data centres as critical infrastructure in September 2024, ranking them as important as essential services such as water, energy and even emergency services systems. Far from proceeding with caution, the government is bending over backwards to appease AI companies and attract their investment, at the expense of our planet.
Andy Burnham’s recent appointment of James Purnell – the former chief executive of corporate lobbying firm Flint Global, whose clients included Apple, Google, Amazon and other tech giants – as his chief of staff highlights the revolving-door relationship between lobbyists and government. The EU, which had previously seemed to be taking a stronger stance on regulating the AI industry, is caving in to pressure, and is already preparing to water down plans to rate data centres on energy and water use, after pressure from tech lobby groups.
It’s vital that the next prime minister prioritises public need over private greed if we are to avoid heading straight into a climate crisis sponsored by Silicon Valley
How can we trust that our government will act in our interests when they consistently prioritise Silicon Valley’s financial motives? Eager to position itself as a global leader in the space race unfolding across the AI industry, the UK government is fast-tracking £14bn of private investment into data centres and AI growth zones.
Quite frankly, it’s insulting that the government has launched their biggest ever campaign to encourage the British public to reduce water usage in a heatwave, while charging full steam ahead with data centre expansion. The government campaign urges Brits to cut their daily use by 28 litres; meanwhile, hyperscale data centres consume the equivalent of 10,000 people’s daily needs in a single day. Time and time again, the onus is put on individuals to make lifestyle changes that will barely make a dent, while tech corporations are given a get-out-of-jail-free card by our governments.
As it stands, data centres are not required to disclose their water usage, and tech companies that do consistently underestimate their environmental impact. In May, Google’s developers were found to have understated by a factor of five the carbon emissions of two proposed AI data centres in Essex, again highlighting the lack of transparency within the industry. This is why climate charities and local communities are calling for a moratorium on all new data centre developments until necessary environmental regulations are in place. Our politicians ought to be managing data centre development, making decisions that protect our communities from the extractive nature of the AI boom.
Just a few weeks ago, I helped organise a protest at London’s historic Truman Brewery venue on Brick Lane with Pull The Plug and Global Action Plan, because while the AI hype was being championed locally at the SXSW festival, lots of people weren’t aware of the current plans to turn part of this popular social and creative hub into a data centre. AI data centre development is being rushed through, right under our noses, while we get no say in where they’re built, what resources they access and how they’ll affect our lives. But now, the difficulty of just existing in a heatwave makes the need to push back against AI data centre development in the UK more urgent.
It’s vital that the next prime minister prioritises public need over private greed if we are to avoid heading straight into a climate crisis sponsored by Silicon Valley. Unquestioned AI expansion is directly in conflict with the planet’s limits, and the burden of political shortsightedness will fall on us if our government presses on – manifesting in unbearable temperatures, water and energy scarcity, and loss of life. Across the political spectrum the general public want stronger regulation of AI; politicians ought to see taking a bold stance on AI governance as a political opportunity, not a problem.
Adele Walton is a journalist and online safety campaigner. She is the author of Logging Off: the Human Cost of our Digital World and co-founder of Logging Off Club
Scottish climate campaigners condemn new nuclear power plans.
By Nan Spowart, 5 July 26
CLIMATE activists have poured scorn on the UK Government’s attempts to foist new
nuclear power stations on Scotland. Last week saw the publication of a
report by Great British Energy Nuclear, ordered by Energy Secretary Ed
Miliband, which identified multiple sites in Scotland which could be used
for new reactors.
However, this will not fix the energy crisis Scots are
facing, according to climate campaigners, and also flies in the face of
Scottish Government policy which is firmly against new nuclear. Arguments
against new nuclear power stations include their huge expense, the amount
of time it takes before they are operational and the problems regarding
waste disposal.
“Instead of sinking billions of pounds into nuclear
power, investment should be channelled into renewable energy and other
projects that tackle climate change and benefit society,” said Fraser
Sutherland, coalition manager for Stop Climate Chaos Scotland. “We must
ensure Scots get their fair share of the wealth that comes from our natural
resources by increasing community and municipal ownership of renewables
schemes and building a solid Scottish manufacturing industry for the
sector.”
He pointed out that while nuclear power is often described as
“clean”, this ignores the climate emissions and resources used in
construction and operation of the plants. “Additionally, there are
significant uncertainties and lack of long-term plans relating to the
disposal of radioactive waste and decommissioning, meaning these reactors
are not a sustainable solution to our energy needs,” said Sutherland.
The National 5th July 2026, https://www.thenational.scot/news/26253766.scottish-climate-campaigners-condemn-new-nuclear-power-plans/
As in Gaza, the Israel-Lebanon ‘peace’ agreement is designed to fail
Qassam Mijaddi, Mondoweiss,Thu, 02 Jul 2026 , https://www.sott.net/article/507264-As-in-Gaza-the-Israel-Lebanon-peace-agreement-is-designed-to-fail
Israel’s conditioning of its withdrawal from southern Lebanon on the disarmament of Hezbollah mirrors its strategy in Gaza:
Insist on terms that are impossible to implement to justify its constant state of war.
Israel has finally reached an agreement to end its war on Lebanon after ambassadors from both countries signed a “framework” agreement in Washington, D.C. last week that laid out conditions for Israel’s phased withdrawal from southern Lebanon. There’s just one problem: the party that signed the deal from the Lebanese side isn’t the same party doing the fighting, and the terms of the withdrawal are conditioned on the disarmament of the very party that wasn’t a part of the negotiations to begin with.
As a result, it’s hardly surprising that a section of the Lebanese political establishment regards the U.S.-brokered trilateral agreement with skepticism. The agreement ostensibly charts a pathway to ending Israel’s war, but conditioned on Hezbollah’s disarmament — and without it being a part of the agreement. Instead, the agreement calls on the Lebanese army to disarm the group, a feat which the Israeli army itself has been unable to achieve.
So the question becomes: whywould Israel insist on terms that make the entire agreement impossible to implement? The answer becomes clearer when considering Israel’s treatment of Gaza’s so-called “ceasefire.”
Israel has conditioned its withdrawal from Gaza on the total disarmament of Hamas and every other faction in Gaza. Such a condition, even if Hamas were willing to implement it, is practically impossible given the ubiquitous presence of arms in Gaza and the presence of Israeli-armed gangs. But as has been pointed out, the impracticality of these terms is a trap meant to ensure Israel’s continued occupation of most of the Strip.
When we examine the contents of the recent agreement between Israel and Lebanon, it’s hard not to reach the same conclusion.
What’s in the agreement?
The agreement stipulates the end of the state of war between Israel and Lebanon and the formation of a task force to begin the drafting of a comprehensive peace accord. But more immediately, the agreement introduces a particular framework for how Israel would withdraw from occupied Lebanese territory.
Israel’s withdrawal, which would ostensibly be accompanied by the redeployment of the Lebanese army in all of Lebanon’s territory, starting with two “pilot zones,” is all hinging on the Lebanese army disarming “non-government groups” — mainly Hezbollah — and dismantling their military infrastructure. In exchange, the agreement previews a package of U.S. economic aid to Lebanon aimed at reconstruction and boosting the country’s economy, and the creation of a special “security coordination team” between Israel and Lebanon, supervised by the U.S. This is the part of the agreement that is being publicly celebrated. But there is more.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, the agreement includes a secret security annex, as later confirmed to the media by sources close to the Lebanese government, that would give Israel “freedom of military action” within the area still occupied by Israel. According to the leaked information, the annex also ties Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory to the success of the disarmament process, rather than according to a fixed timetable.
The terms of the agreement — both the public part and the leaked annex — explain the polarized reaction from Lebanese political forces.
A recipe for internal bloodshed
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has hailed the U.S.-brokered framework as a “major diplomatic achievement” and a first step toward restoring Lebanon’s full sovereignty. The head of the right-wing Phalange party, Sami Gemayel, a prominent opponent of Hezbollah, called the agreement “an achievement” that “guarantees the monopoly of arms by the state.”
But other parts of the Lebanese political landscape, including allies with Hezbollah, blasted the agreement as unworkable. The speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, described the agreement as “dictations” by the U.S., while a leading member of the Lebanese Communist Party, Hanna Ghareeb, rejected it as “a step towards normalization” of relations with Israel. Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader and former head of the Progressive Socialist Party, slammed the agreement as “trilateral in form but unilateral in substance,” adding that it ignored the 1949 armistice agreement with Israel, which he argued weakens Lebanon’s position and legitimacy. Most importantly, the party directly concerned by the agreement, Hezbollah, categorically rejected it.
Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem,said that the agreement is a “concession over Lebanon’s sovereignty,” stressing that conditioning Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon on the disarmament of Hezbollah “crosses all red lines” and “legitimizes the occupation of Lebanese lands for many long years to come.” Qassem declared that Hezbollah did not recognize the agreement and considered it void, calling on the Lebanese state to back down.
Lebanese critics of the agreement have also warned that the stipulation calling on the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah directly is a recipe for internal conflict and would result in intra-Lebanese bloodshed.
Even Israeli critics have pointed out the fact that Hezbollah, which has remained intact as a fighting force in the face of Israel’s military pressure, would be put in a position to consolidate itself regardless of what Israel does: if Israel withdraws from Lebanon,Hezbollah will claim victory and use it as an argument to keep its arms,and if Israel does not withdraw,Hezbollah will claim that it needs to keep its arms to push Israel out.
In other words, since the agreement sidelines Hezbollah and makes the Lebanese state the main actor, implementing the agreement appears impossible without devolving into something resembling a civil war. The Lebanese state might give Israel all the security guarantees that it demands on paper, but neither Israel nor the Lebanese state has been able to wrest any such concessions from Hezbollah.
So while the rhetorical concessions made to Israel are politically significant (given that they are made by the Lebanese state), they have no apparent way of being implemented on the ground.
This discrepancy, then, might indicate that the entire agreement was designed to fail. This becomes easier to understand once we look at where Israel has tried such agreements elsewhere. And one doesn’t need to look very far.
The Gaza déjà vu
When the ceasefire agreement in Gaza was reached last October, it stipulated three phases for Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip, which was supposed to be accompanied by an increase in the entry of humanitarian aid and the start of reconstruction. Only the first phase was partially implemented, with Israel withdrawing its forces to the so-called “Yellow Line” that divided Gaza roughly in half. Israel has since conditioned its move to the second phase on the full disarmament of Hamas and other resistance groups in Gaza — an almost identical arrangement to the Lebanon agreement. And just like in Lebanon, the Gaza ceasefire terms, as originally conceived in Trump’s 20-point plan, remained deliberately vague on what disarmament would look like, making it easy for Israel to claim at any time in the future that the conditions for disarmament haven’t been met.
During recent months, Israel has shifted toward pushing for a maximalist vision of disarmament, which first surfaced last March during direct talks between the head of Trump’s “Board of Peace,” Nikolay Mladenov, and Palestinian factions in Gaza. In subsequent talks, Mladenov issued an ultimatum to Hamas and other Palestinian factions that Gaza must be fully disarmed as a precondition for Israeli withdrawal and the beginning of reconstruction, down to the last rifle and pistol.
Hamas leaders have since characterized Mladenov’s conditions as an almost verbatim repetition of Israel’s maximalist terms, regarding Mladenov as a biased and compromised actor.
Such a demand is impossible to meet due to the ubiquity of light personal weapons in Gaza, which are privately owned by families and clans, while several factions other than Hamas are also in possession of light weapons. Moreover, Gaza’s Israeli-backed militias are heavily armed and have vowed to destroy Hamas, meaning that any voluntary disarmament would leave the group vulnerable to its rivals and result in chaos and a security vacuum. For Israel, chaos and internal Palestinian strife would be a welcome consequence that allows it to maintain the occupation of Gaza indefinitely.
Even if Hamas were to attempt to comply with these terms, Israel could easily claim the inevitable continuation of light weapons possession in Gaza as evidence that Hamas has not fulfilled its end of the bargain.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continue to demolish Palestinian homes and other structures in the part of Gaza that they directly control, which now comprises over 65% of the Strip, destroying any chance of Palestinians returning.
It’s almost as if, in both Lebanon and Gaza, the impossibility of implementing the agreements is the point: Israel uses the lack of disarmament as the pretext to continue occupying Lebanese and Palestinian territory, and it justifies its constant state of war with the need to disarm Hezbollah and Hamas.
For Netanyahu, who is months away from elections and whose chances of winning remain uncertain in the polls, continued war is a political necessity.
Dunfermline MSP speaks out at possible Longannet nuclear site
By Hannah Emma Shedden, 3rd July, https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/26250982.dunfermline-msp-speaks-possible-longannet-nuclear-site/
A DUNFERMLINE MSP has called on the UK Government to rule out any future nuclear development at the former Longannet Power Station site in West Fife.
Shirley-Anne Somerville’s call follows a UK Government assessment of potential sites for new nuclear development, which appeared to identify the former power station as a candidate location.
Currently, through devolved powers, the Scottish Government have the power to block planning, and has said it would not permit the building of any stations.
So far, MSPs David Barratt and Mark Ruskell have come out against the plans, while MP Graeme Downie has said it would be “a wasted opportunity” to ignore nuclear energy.
Ms Somerville has now written to the UK’s Minister of State for Energy, Michael Shanks, urging him to remove the site from consideration.
She said: “Longannet should not be considered for a new nuclear power station, and I’ve told the Labour UK Government this directly.
“The SNP’s position on this is a long-standing one; we do not support new nuclear power stations in Scotland and communities in West Fife should not have one imposed on them.
“What this process really looks like is Labour’s much-hyped GB Energy searching for a mission to justify the money that’s been ploughed into it, rather than backing the clean industries Scotland is actually good at.
“Longannet powered Scotland for decades, and I want that site to go on playing a role in our energy future.
“However, that future must be built on clean energy, not on a technology that’s slow, expensive, and leaves radioactive waste behind for future generations to manage.
“I’ve therefore asked the UK Government to take Longannet off the table and to respect Scotland’s clear and consistent opposition to new nuclear development.”
Flatteries and falsehoods – A multi-million dollar PR campaign can’t hide nuclear power’s ugly truth
Apparently there is at least one issue BOTH parties in these divided states of America seem to wholeheartedly agree on. How perverse that it is support for the dying nuclear power industry that can only survive through massive government subsidies and a slick propaganda campaign designed to deceive the American public into believing it’s clean and safe.
Sharleen Leahey, by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/07/05/flatteries-and-falsehoods/
Consider for a moment being a ‘fly on the wall’ silently viewing the goings-on among a bunch of NukeBros at a recent Holtec* Meetup. Andrew Zwicker, a New Jersey State Senator, is in attendance. Casually co-opting language from the environmental movement, a PR guy declares, “Our young people are increasingly embracing nuclear power as the key to a clean energy future!”
You have entered a room occupied by men who speak with forked tongues. No million dollar PR campaign can alter the awful truth: Nuclear power is not clean. It is not safe, not affordable, nor is it the solution to our climate crisis.
Nuclear power has shown itself over many decades to be a ticking time bomb. What the nuclear industry and its promoters do not want to discuss is the high-level radioactive waste generated by each and every nuclear reactor they plan to build. This waste has nowhere to go. It will be lethal for hundreds of thousands of years. The plain fact they cannot deny is that no permanent storage repository exists where high-level radioactive nuclear waste can be safely sequestered for thousands of generations into the future.
To State Senator Zwicker, also a Science Professor, I pose two simple questions: How can you ignore the mountain of scientific and historical evidence proving that nuclear power technology poses a grave danger to living beings and the environment? Why are you failing to “follow the science”?
Marie Curie was one of history’s most renowned scientists. Her groundbreaking discovery of radioactivity led to the invention of the first x-ray equipment for medical use. She personally saved the lives of many soldiers during WWI by enabling battlefield surgeons to locate and remove bullets and shrapnel from their wounded bodies. Tragically the radioactive elements Marie Curie utilized to save lives, eventually killed her.
The French Government buried Marie Curie with honors. They placed her remains in a lead coffin to protect the public and environment from her contaminated body. If Marie could see us now I imagine she’d be shocked that after almost one hundred years since her untimely death caused by radiation poisoning, our heedless political leaders are failing to protect us from its now well-documented deadly effects.
After the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor meltdown in 1979, the American public became alerted to the threat nuclear power posed. Armies of citizen activists mobilized to oppose the construction of new reactors. They organized grassroots alliances throughout the US to resist the power of the nuclear lobby. They educated the public through teach-ins, demonstrations and nonviolent civil disobedience.
Musicians including Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen formed Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE). They performed live concerts attended by thousands. Millions of Americans recognized that nuclear power poses a threat to the health of living beings now and to future generations not yet born. It had to be stopped. And it was.
Despite a massive cover-up by the industry and government agencies, after the accident at TMI no new nuclear plants were built in the U.S. until President Obama approved new funding in 2010.
Over six decades later our nuclear power nightmare is returning. It is being unleashed on us by an industry counting on the American public’s infamous historical amnesia. A so-called “nuclear renaissance” is being propelled by voracious energy consuming AI Data Centers. Public Citizen founder and long-time nuclear power critic Ralph Nader warns of dire consequences for our health, our environment and our economy if the “big fools” are allowed to push on.
After the TMI accident in 1979, two catastrophic nuclear reactor meltdowns at Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) caused untold thousands of people (including children) to develop fatal cancers. Many villages in Ukraine, Belarus and Japan were evacuated, their residents forced to flee. Homes, businesses, farms, possessions and pets were abandoned. The extent of the devastation on the lives of people, and animals can never be fully known but authors, filmmakers and independent researchers still strive to tell their tragic stories.
In light of the dark history of nuclear power, you would think that our Governor and legislators representing the people of the State of New Jersey would decisively say “no” to this dangerous technology. You would be wrong. On April 8, 2026 Governor Mikie Sherrill signed Senate bill S3780 into law. This legislation overturned a 50-year moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power reactors in our State. The law was fast-tracked through committee hearings in both chambers of the Legislature in record time (less than a month total). Unanimous approval by both Republicans and Democrats ensued.
Though each and every one of our elected State officials solemnly swore an oath to protect their constituents, it’s plain to see that in this case party bosses, corporate lobbyists and resident pay-to-players are calling the shots. Yet I refuse to believe that objections to nuclear power by voters and grassroots activists can continue to be ignored. The people who live here, work here, raise children and grandchildren here, pay utility bills and taxes here (and the salaries of our elected officials), are the ones who will ultimately bear the risks of increased radioactivity. The struggle to protect our air, water, land and the health of our families and neighbors (including our wildlife), make it increasingly urgent that the voices of residents who oppose the funding, building and siting of new nuclear reactors here in our State be heard and heeded.
Apparently there is at least one issue BOTH parties in these divided states of America seem to wholeheartedly agree on. How perverse that it is support for the dying nuclear power industry that can only survive through massive government subsidies and a slick propaganda campaign designed to deceive the American public into believing it’s clean and safe. It’s time for taxpayers and ratepayers everywhere to demand that the officials we voted into office prioritize our health and safety and that of our environment (including our dwindling wildlife population), over the profits and agendas of the morbidly wealthy .001%!
NJ Governor Mikie Sherrill appointed a paid Holtec Lobbyist to sit on her newly created Nuclear Task Force.
This is NOT what Democracy looks like!
*Holtec claims to specialize in nuclear waste management and reactor decommissioning. They are based in Camden, NJ. If the CEO gets his way, Holtec is poised to construct NJ’s new crop of nuclear reactors known as SMRs (Small Modular Reactors). Holtec is the very same company now being sued by New York State’s Governor Hochul and Environmental groups to stop Holtec’s horrifying plan to dump over one million gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Hudson River. The contaminated water resulted from Holtec’s ongoing decommissioning of the now shuttered Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. The notorious plant was forced to close after years of unrelenting grassroots activism and lawsuits by NY residents.
Sharleen Leahey is a peace and justice activist and writer. She can be reached at: women4justicecoalition@gmail.com
Japan begins 21st release of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into ocean
TOKYO, July 6 (Xinhua) Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)– https://en.people.cn/n3/2026/0706/c90000-20474742.html
Japan on Monday began a new round of discharge of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the sea, marking the 21st such release since the controversial operation began in 2023.
The discharge started at 11:41 a.m. local time. According to the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), the latest round, scheduled to continue through July 24, will release about 7,800 tonnes of wastewater into the ocean, containing approximately 1.3 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium.
Struck by a 9-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear plant suffered core meltdowns that released radiation, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.
Despite concerns and opposition from the international community, Japan unilaterally launched the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant into the ocean in August 2023. So far, TEPCO has completed 20 rounds of discharges, and around 157,000 tonnes of wastewater have been released into the sea.
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