Covert NATO initiative turns film into anti-Russia battleground

COMMENT. This is an excellent article, but does have some bias. (E.g it doubts the murder of Litvinenko, though the evidence for this murder is convincing)

I accept the total message of this article, warning of NATO’s war-mongering influence on the entertainment media. I also think that the Russian government does exactly the same sort of thing to demonise the WEst

Many members of the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain invited to the upcoming London summit with NATO operatives expressed anxiety about the military alliance’s brazen interference in popular culture. One Irish scriptwriter told The Guardian the “outrageous” meeting amounted to the arts being used to promote war, while presenting NATO “in a positive light” in countries that are not alliance members, including those that “have suffered under wars that NATO has joined and propagated.” Elsewhere, a veteran screenwriter fretted that film and TV industry attendees would be “seduced into thinking they now have some secret knowledge.”

Kit Klarenberg·May 9, 2026 leaked documents on original, https://thegrayzone.com/2026/05/09/covert-nato-film-russia/

A scandal has erupted over covert NATO conferences with the Western entertainment industry. Leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone show how NATO has sought to infiltrate film and TV for decades, with UK intel operatives taking the lead.

On May 3, The Guardian revealed that NATO has held a series of secret meetings with film directors, screenwriters and TV producers in cities from Paris to Los Angeles. The disclosure suggests NATO is seeking to employ the entertainment industry in its propaganda operations as a European war looms.

To date, NATO’s “conversations” with scriptwriters have reportedly “inspired, at least in part” three separate unstated projects, which are already in development. At a forthcoming London summit, NATO operatives are set to meet with screenwriters tied to the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB). In email correspondence, the union told its members the event will focus on the “evolving security situation in Europe and beyond.”

Organizers claim NATO was “built on the belief that cooperation and compromise, the nurturing of friendships and alliances, is the way forward.” The alliance is actively seeking to influence film and TV projects extolling this mantra, stating, “even if something so simple as that message finds its way into a future story,” as a result of the meeting, “that will be enough.”

But collusion between NATO and the entertainment industry has a well-established history. Over recent decades, NATO has covertly sought to employ film and television creatives as psychological operations specialists, while influencing popular culture. A core driver of this push has been Chris Donnelly, a veteran British Ministry of Defence and military intelligence operative, who led alliance expansion into Central and Eastern Europe during the 1990s.

Donnelly later developed the Integrity Initiative to cultivate support for conflict with Russia through covert networks of influential pro-war pundits and operatives. Hidden behind a seemingly legitimate think tank called the Institute for Statecraft, the Integrity Initiative only became known to the public after independent outlets like The Grayzone reported on leaked emails from Donnelly revealing its existence.

In leaked documents discussing NATO expansion, Donnelly stated, “What I needed in the 1990s and did not have” was a major international public relations firm to “scale up successful activities to have real impact,” and achieve “essential behavioural change” in audiences. To address the problem, he proposed “advertising campaigns on TV promoting change, a TV soap opera looking at the problem of corruption” and other innocent-seeming cultural products aimed at enhancing NATO control.

Donnelly expanded NATO – often against significant public opposition – in the former Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and Yugoslavia by penetrating target countries’ governments, militaries and even religious institutions. This ensured a NATO-friendly lobby on the streets, and throughout corridors of power, across the region. This experience was fundamental to Donnelly’s founding of now-defunct ‘charity’ the Institute for Statecraft. Through its subsidiary Integrity Initiative, the Institute constructed clandestine nexuses of journalists, academics, and military and intelligence operatives throughout the Western world, known as “clusters”.

These networks could be mobilized to spread pro-NATO propaganda, and encourage public and state-level antagonism towards Russia. Integrity Initiative played a not insubstantial role in laying the Ukraine proxy war’s foundations. An essay published on the Institute’s website in July 2014 by MI6-connected academic Victor Madeira openly laid out this objective, declaring “economic boycott, breach of diplomatic relations” and “propaganda and counter-propaganda” could produce “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Moscow, “that Great Britain and the West could win.”

In a leaked Institute file, Madeira discusses precisely the kind of “propaganda and counter-propaganda” he meant. “We’ll need to go beyond old-style military ‘romps’ and get entertainment ‘outputs’ that draw out the nature of 21st-century conflict: diffuse, across society, without clear boundaries at times,” he wrote. “That’s the real fight we’re fighting; we can more than hold our own on the military side of things.”

Popular TV show ‘McMafia’ influenced by British intelligence

In February 2018, a veteran writer on US state cultural policy and public diplomacy named Martha Bayles emailed Donnelly to pitch a “multi-episode, multi-season dramatic television series” about Russia in the 1990s. Bayles pointed to a US-UK co-production called McMafia as an example of the “commercial and cultural dominance” of long-form TV with “an avid following among young and old alike.” The widely-watched program drew on former BBC World Service reporter Misha Glenny’s 2008 non-fiction book of the same name.

Bayles believed the “hefty appetite out there for ‘period pieces’ about the recent past” was a “compelling” reason to create a similar series about Russia in the 1990s, when the country descended into neoliberal chaos and oligarchs took control following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The screenwriter was convinced that Russia’s traumatic time then “in many crucial ways set the stage for the world we now inhabit.” She added that a serial about the traumatic period could be supported by “scholarly and journalistic accounts by both Russian and Western participants and observers.” She suggested Donnelly’s “own experience and knowledge of those years would also be invaluable.”

The program needed to “avoid all taint of propaganda,” Bayles insisted, eschewing “black-hatted villains and white-hatted heroes.” Otherwise, audiences might suspect the show had been developed by some powerful outside force with an ulterior information warfare agenda. Bayles was certain there were “a lot of talented people out there” who could produce such a program. And she was clear about the ultimate objective: “an entertainment-based response to Russian propaganda and disinformation.”

By this point, Donnelly and the British military-intelligence veterans who staffed his now-defunct Institute for Statecraft were hard at work weaponizing popular culture to drive public hostility to Russia. In January 2018, the British state broadcaster interviewed a staffer at Donnelly’s Institute, Euan Grant, about “the impact of suspect Russian money” on London, as part of BBC wider series enquiring “How Real is McMafia?”

Grant styles himself as an expert on “geopolitical transnational organised crime.” According to a self-authored leaked CV, he worked closely with senior MI5 and MI6 operatives on the issue. Come 2018, he remained in close quarters with former MI5 chief Jonathan Evans, the agency’s then-chief Andrew Parker, and numerous veteran MI6 officials. They were among an extensive array of contacts that, Granted bragged, could be leveraged to underhandedly flood the airwaves with anti-Russian propaganda.

This included an array of think tankers, intelligence veterans, and mainstream journalists covering Russian organized crime. Grant boasted of “providing source material” to these individuals on “Russian speaking criminal groups.” Recipients included creatives including fiction authors, and award-winning reporters with the BBC, Financial Times, Guardian, and other major outlets. “Material” supplied by Grant informed “radio, TV and print and online media” output, on the purported “impact of Russian influence” overseas.

Popular culture was a key component of the Institute’s information war. Martha Bayles was listed as a contact, “for making use of fictional work for reinforcing messages” about Russia in the mainstream consciousness. A “memorandum of cooperation” had been sent to her by Grant, “about opportunities jointly and separately in North America, UK and elsewhere in Europe for input into media documentaries and fictional entertainment.”

Another listed contact was McMafia creator Misha Glenny. Grant said he had “recently met” Glenny, who requested a further discussion on “‘ideas’ for his next project,” providing the Institute with “possible input” into McMafia’s then-recently commissioned second series.

As part of the proposed collaboration, NATO would be granted “input” into the show’s script. At the time, the Institute for Statecraft was the British representative of NATO’s Atlantic Treaty Association, a “community of policy-makers, think tankers, diplomats, academics and representatives from industry.” The organization described its mission as “inform[ing] the public of NATO’s role in international peace and security and promote democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law through debate and dialogue.”

Western popular culture infiltrated by NATO for years

Leaked files show Grant masterminded a dedicated Institute project countering supposed “Russian destabilisation” of “international financial sectors.” Contacts in journalism and the arts provided an ideal delivery mechanism. He argued the broadcast of popular TV shows and films referencing Russian organized crime provided an extraordinary propaganda bonanza for the British military-intelligence apparatus, potentially exposing millions of Westerners to anti-Russian programming.

Grant proposed alerting “press, radio, TV” contacts to the “relevance and authenticity” of the fictional serials “to contribute to publicity and discussion ahead of, and during, broadcasting.” Integrity Initiative “cluster” operatives in NATO member states could secretly “arrange similar domestic articles” about the shows, to maximize international impact. Canadian and US media contacts would provide NATO access to “powerful and influential North American” TV and film networks.

In other leaked documents, Grant strategized a covert propaganda blitz to expose how the NATO protectorate of Moldova was supposedly “exploited” by Moscow, for “building Russian and Russian speaking influence in EU, EU applicant and Eastern Partnership countries.” He noted how recent Hollywood films and the smash French drama series Spiral had featured “Moldovan linked” plotlines, providing “opportunities” to Institute for Statecraft propagandists. He suggested the BBC “might also be interested” in covering recent books about Russian organized crime, “set in Moldova.”

Unfortunately for Grant and his boss, Donnelly, the second season of McMafia failed to materialize. However, other leaked files indicate British intelligence has been disseminating pro-NATO propaganda in Central and Eastern Europe through TV shows and films for some time.

London’s psy-war demonizes Russian speakers in former Soviet states

From 2016 onwards, according to the leaked documents, London exploited the megaphone of popular culture to “make a positive impact on how target individuals perceive the UK/EU/Euro-Atlantic values.”

British intelligence defined “Euro-Atlantic values” according to the NATO Stratcom Centre of Excellence’s own conception: “democracy, human rights, freedom of media, trust to international organisations and freedom of speech.” In practice, this took the form of waging psychological warfare operations to demonize and discredit Russia across the realm of the former Soviet Union. In Baltic states, for example, London’s covert propaganda denigrated Russian speakers, who since ‘independence’ in 1991 have been systematically marginalized and discriminated against, portraying them as “individuals who are susceptible to negative Kremlin-aligned messaging.”

British intelligence simultaneously recruited Russophone influencers as pro-NATO assets, working with programming commissioners at state broadcasters to identify “young Russian speaking talent in the online influencer, stand-up comedy and social commentary spaces.”

The British assisted their hand-picked assets in developing three “content ideas” and TV pilots each, then disseminated the products through state broadcasters’ social media channels and on-demand services in order “to test audience responses and viability.”

In one leaked file, a British intelligence contractor known as Zinc Network boasted that its propaganda operations had demonstrated a clear behavioral change in its target audience.

“Our strategic approach moves beyond ‘messaging’ by influencing not only the attitudes and behaviours of our audiences but also the social networks which they are embedded in and the norms and institutions which shape them,” Zinc Network boasted.

NATO works to “seed online conversations”

NATO supplemented its covert culture war in the Baltics with an online army of bots and trolls. It employed M&C Saatchi, a British public relations agency which claims to be “the world’s largest independent creative network,” to recruit a local “network of online influencers and advocates” to stealthily “seed online conversations” with “Euro-Atlantic” themes. Under this “tailored” strategy, British intelligence inserted messaging into “pre-existing conversations,” conducted by real people on social media. Therefore, “young Russian speakers” could unwittingly become British “agents of change.

This included infiltrating online discussions occurring around “key dates and events of significance” to Russian-speakers, such as Victory Day on May 6th, which commemorates the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany’s genocidal invasion. M&C Saatchi claimed its techniques had “already been employed successfully and sustainably” for major clients, including Britain’s Home Office and Ministry of Defence, the Pentagon, USAID, Facebook, Google, and NATO.

Were these top serials demonizing Russia organic products?

It is uncertain which recent Western cultural productions have resulted from NATO’s covert meddling. However, inexplicably timed historical dramas in recent years, featuring highly negative portrayals of Russia and Russians, raise serious questions.

Chief among them is Chernobyl, the HBO series which broke viewing records after it first appeared, on May 6 2019. Authored by an anti-Russian ideologue, the show’s script contained countless egregious, politicized falsehoods and grotesque mischaracterizations. The many distortions and outright fabrications were deployed to portray the 1986 nuclear accident as the result of the brutality and incompetence of Moscow, while exaggerating the effects of radiation. “Chernobyl” took so many dramatic liberties, even the New York Times accused its creators of “the imposition of a simple narrative on history” and “the twisting of events.”

Chernobyl was followed three years later by a less elegant production, taking aim at Russian President Vladimir Putin. Aired on British streaming service ITVX, a TV drama called “Litvinenko” dramatized the bizarre supposed 2006 assassination of FSB defector of the same name. Though The Guardian panned the show as “unwatchable,” its broadcast led to renewed interest in the incident thanks to coverage from celebrity gossip magazines, not typically read by individuals with an interest in intelligence intrigues.

British writers fret about NATO interference

This March, an influential pro-NATO, London-based think tank called the Centre for European Reform published a report urging member state governments to “engage with cultural institutions and leaders like theatre directors, screenwriters, film producers and museums to better tell the story” of why increased European defense spending was “needed.” It stressed the importance of targeting militaristic messaging at “audiences who may otherwise not engage with international affairs,” with “specific funding for the arts to contribute to the public conversation on defence and security.”

The Centre further recommended European governments consider “unconventional approaches, designed to reach audiences beyond the defence and national security establishment,” in order to trigger “a national conversation on defence” across member states. NATO’s recent series of meetings with film and TV scriptwriters is clearly consistent with this strategy.

As the leaked documents[on original] presented here demonstrate, NATO’s attempts to infiltrate the film and entertainment industry are nothing new. Films and TV serials have been an alliance-dominated battlefield for decades. The Ukraine proxy war was a direct outcome of NATO’s full-spectrum bombardment on the perceptions of Western populations, with film and TV providing an ideal megaphone for anti-Russian resentment.

Now, as Europe formally prepares its citizens for a wider war, NATO is openly enlisting the arts to bring its longstanding script to an apocalyptic conclusion.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, media | Leave a comment

‘Effort to Stifle and Intimidate’: Trump DOJ Subpoenas News Outlets Over Iran War Coverage

Trump has said media outlets who circulate what he baselessly calls “false information” should be charged with treason.

By Jake Johnson , CommonDreams, May 12, 2026, https://www.commondreams.org/news/effort-to-stifle-and-intimidate-trump-doj-subpoenas-news-outlets-over-iran-war-coverage

“The government’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering,” said the newspaper’s publisher.

The US Justice Department has reportedly subpoenaed The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets at the urging of President Donald Trump, who has complained incessantly about coverage of his illegal and disastrous Iran war.

The Journal reported Monday that it received grand jury subpoenas dated March 4 for records of its journalists as Trump pushed the Justice Department—now led by his former personal attorney, Todd Blanche—to investigate war-related leaks. “Blanche vowed to secure subpoenas specifically targeting the records of reporters who have worked on sensitive national security stories,” the Journal reported, citing an unnamed administration official.

During one meeting, the Journal reported, “Trump passed a stack of news articles he and other senior officials thought threatened national security to Blanche with a sticky note on it that said ‘treason.’”

Trump and other top administration officials, including Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, have publicly voiced outrage over the US media’s Iran war coverage and threatened reporters who publish classified information—a common journalistic practice.

In April, Trump said he would work to imprison journalists involved in reporting on a US fighter jet shot down in Iran and subsequent efforts to rescue the warplane’s crew. The previous month, Trump floated “charges for treason” against journalists he accused of circulating “false information” about the Iran war.

Ashok Sinha, the chief communications officer of Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, said in a statement that “the government’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering.”

“We will vigorously oppose this effort to stifle and intimidate essential reporting,” said Sinha.

The subpoena targeting Journal reporters pertained to “a February 23 article that reported that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others at the Pentagon warned the president about the risks of an extended military campaign against Iran,” the newspaper reported Monday.

“Other news outlets, including Axios and the Washington Post, published similar stories that day,” the Journal added. “Trump launched the war five days later, on February 28.”

CNN reported Monday that “in addition to The Journal, other news outlets have also received subpoenas in recent months.”

“But some of the news organizations have chosen not to comment on the matter for the time being,” CNN added.

Scott Stedman, an investigative journalist with The Newsground, accused the leaders of targeted outlets of “cowardice” for not speaking out against the Trump administration’s brazen assault on press freedom.

“The president uses the DOJ to target your news organization with subpoenas because he wants to out your sources and you don’t even have the guts to say anything,” Stedman wrote. “Grow a fucking spine!”

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s nuclear message to Iran? Pentagon reveals rare location of missile submarine after rejecting Tehran deal

11 May 26, https://www.ynetnews.com/article/skbelo1kzg

The USS Alaska, one of America’s most secretive nuclear-armed submarines, surfaced in Gibraltar as Trump warned the ceasefire with Iran was on ‘life support’ and dismissed Tehran’s counteroffer as ‘totally unacceptable’.

The Pentagon made an unusually public show of force this week, revealing the location of a U.S. Navy nuclear-armed submarine just a day after President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s latest proposal to end the war.

The Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine arrived Sunday in Gibraltar, the British territory on Spain’s southern coast, the US Sixth Fleet said Monday. Such announcements are rare because the locations of America’s nuclear-armed submarines are usually among the military’s most closely guarded secrets

The Sixth Fleet did not initially identify the submarine by name, but local reports said it was the USS Alaska — one of the largest and most powerful submarines in the US Navy.

“The port visit demonstrates U.S. capability, flexibility and continuing commitment to its NATO allies,” the Sixth Fleet said in a statement. “Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines are undetectable launch platforms for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, providing the U.S. with its most survivable leg of the nuclear triad.”

The timing of the visit immediately drew attention. It came after Trump said the US ceasefire with Iran was on “life support” and described it as “unbelievably weak.” On Sunday, he rejected Iran’s counterproposal to end the war, calling it “totally unacceptable.”

Iran’s reported demands included war reparations, recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and an end to US sanctions. Trump’s rejection has raised fears that Washington and Tehran are drifting back toward escalation.

The public disclosure of the submarine’s location appeared to send a clear signal. Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines are designed to remain hidden at sea for extended periods, forming the most survivable part of the US nuclear triad. Their mission is deterrence: to guarantee that the United States can respond even if its land-based missiles and bombers are targeted.

The Ohio class includes 14 ballistic missile submarines and four guided-missile submarines. Ballistic missile versions can carry Trident II D5 missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Guided-missile variants can carry more than 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The USS Alaska’s arrival in Gibraltar also carried a diplomatic message. The submarine bypassed the nearby US naval base in Rota, Spain, about 141 kilometers away, and instead docked at the British-controlled territory. British Royal Marines were deployed to receive it, and a 200-meter exclusion zone was set up around the vessel.

The move comes amid strained relations between Washington and Madrid. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has criticized the US war in Iran and reportedly refused to allow the United States to use Spanish bases in Rota and Morón as part of its offensive. Trump responded by threatening to “cut off all trade” with Spain and said he would “probably” remove American troops from the country, where about 3,800 US personnel are stationed.

Spain has objected before to US nuclear submarine stops in Gibraltar. In 2022, Madrid protested after US submarines used services there instead of Rota, arguing that the Spanish base had special protocols for nuclear vessels meant to reduce environmental risk and protect public safety.

The USS Alaska has visited Gibraltar before, including in June 2021. Other Ohio-class submarines, including the USS Florida, USS Rhode Island and USS Georgia, also made stopovers there in 2022.

Authorities have not said how long the Alaska will remain in Gibraltar or what the purpose of the visit is beyond the official US statement about capability, flexibility and commitment to NATO allies.

But the message was hard to miss. As Trump weighs his next move on Iran, the United States has chosen to publicly place one of its most secretive nuclear platforms at the edge of the Mediterranean — close enough to be noticed, rare enough to matter, and powerful enough to remind Tehran what is at stake.

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Spain, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s 1-Hour Posting Frenzy Fuels Questions About His Mental Fitness

Trump’s posts included unfounded conspiracy theories, including the false claim that Obama attempted a coup against him.

By Chris Walker , Truthout, May 12, 2026, https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-1-hour-posting-frenzy-fuels-questions-about-his-mental-fitness/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=603e7eec49-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_05_12_09_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-603e7eec49-650192793

On Monday night, President Donald Trump made a series of baseless and erratic accusations against his perceived political enemies, including expressing a desire to charge former President Barack Obama with sedition and treason over a conspiracy theory regarding the 2016 election.

Over the period stretching from 12:00 am ET on Monday through 9:30 am ET on Tuesday, Trump posted or reposted 77 times on his Truth Social account. The enormous volume of content the president shared amounts to nearly 2.3 posts per hour.

For comparison, the average person spends about two and a half hours on social media daily. On average, brands selling products post around once per day, while news media companies make around 12 posts daily.

The bulk of Trump’s posts came in just over one hour’s time. From 10:15 pm ET to 11:30 pm ET, Trump made more than 50 posts and reposts.

As president of the United States of America, Trump could make the case that his posting more often than most people is due to the importance of his position — indeed, during his first term in office, the Trump administration indicated that his posts were meant to be seen as official statements from the president.

But the subject matter of Trump’s recent posts — and his tendency to peddle outlandish, unverified claims — has sparked questions from observers on both the left and the right over whether the president is mentally fit to remain in office.

An alarming number of posts from Trump on Monday night, for example, featured attacks on Obama, including accusing the former president of plotting a coup against him by using the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump also posted half-baked and baseless conspiracy theories alleging that voting machines were altered in the 2020 presidential race, resulting in his loss that year to former President Joe Biden.

In one of his posts, Trump shared a screenshot of a post from a right-wing user. “STRAIGHT-UP SEDITION AGAINST THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT,” the writer said, alleging that Obama had spied on Trump during the 2016 presidential race and had ordered other allied countries to do so, too.

(Trump has, for several years, asserted that an investigation into his campaign staffers, at least one of whom was later convicted of coordinating with Russian actors, amounted to spying on his campaign, with most fact-checking sites deeming his claims as a false portrayal of what actually happened.)

“Arrest them all. Prosecute them all. Incarcerate them all at once for treachery, treason, and seditious conspiracy to overthrow the United States government,” the post continued. “But first, Barack Obama.”

Notably, the federal punishment for treason can include the death penalty.

Other posts from Trump targeting Obama also described the former president as “the most DEMONIC FORCE in American politics.”

Trump also attacked other Democratic figures, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York). Deriding him as “low IQ” (an insult the president disproportionately uses against nonwhite people), Trump shared an AI-doctored picture of Jeffries alongside a fake image of his home district, featuring a decaying city neighborhood covered in trash and crawling with rats.

While Trump went on a multi-post crusade against his political opposition in the evening and into the next day, earlier on Monday, he accused his critics of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” making a wild claim that it is a real, diagnosable condition.

“They’ve got serious Trump Derangement, which actually is a disease. I’m hearing it is actually a disease,” Trump told reporters.

Trump’s bizarre posting spree against his opponents comes just a day after he spent a similar amount of time posting praise for himself. In several missives he made on Sunday night, Trump posted or shared content describing him as the “greatest” president of all time, including AI-created imagery suggesting that he might carve his face into the side of Mount Rushmore.

These posts, along with his public feud with Pope Leo XIV, his calls for genocide of Iranians in the US’s ongoing war with that country, and other examples of erratic behavior, have reignited the debate on the president’s mental health status. What’s different now than in the past, however, is that more Republicans (including former MAGA allies of Trump) are joining the conversation.

“Trump’s golden statue. Trump’s triumphal arch. Trump’s ‘magnificent’ ballroom. They’re all about him. His narcissism is out of control,” read an analysis at The Bulwark.

“I think we have to truly question the mental stability of any president that threatens to wipe out an entire civilization,” former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch Trump supporter, said last month.

Earlier this week, more than 30 professional medical experts signed on to a letter calling for Trump’s immediate removal from office, describing him as “unfit” to remain president.

“It is our professional opinion that the behaviors of Donald Trump, tragically, are neither momentary lapses nor political theater…that they reflect a rapidly worsening, reality-untethered, increasingly dangerous decline,” the letter-writers said.

In a Substack post last month, Bandy X. Lee, a forensic and social psychiatrist who has called for more open questioning of Trump’s mental fitness since 2017, described the situation in more alarming terms.

“Presently, there is the emergency situation of Donald Trump continuing to raise the stakes, as he faces multiple situations spinning out of control…What would be painful but tolerable for a healthy person is catastrophic for his limited emotional capacity, and he must be stopped before, in a fit of rage, he ignites the end of the world,” Lee said.

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | PERSONAL STORIES, USA | Leave a comment

The Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce: The wrong questions, the wrong team, the wrong answers

Policy Brief May 2026

The UK government’s 2025 Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, established to cut “red tape” blocking nuclear expansion, is fundamentally misconceived. Historical evidence shows that failed nuclear projects collapsed due to financial risk, not regulatory failure. The Taskforce lacked expertise in radiation science, environment, and economics, its recommendations threaten regulator independence, and its reforms will consume government resources without delivering new capacity before the mid-2040s.

1. Introduction

In February 2025 Prime Minister Starmer announced the setting up of a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce with a press release¹ headed “Government rips up rules to fire-up nuclear power” and sub-headed “More nuclear power plants will be approved across England and Wales as the Prime Minister slashes red tape to get Britain building.” This set the tone for future announcements with emotive language and little substance but designed to generate headlines.

The narrative was clear. The planning and regulatory system had failed: “The industry pioneered in Britain has been suffocated by regulations and this saw investment collapse, leaving only one nuclear power plant – Hinkley Point C – under construction.” Any opposition to nuclear projects was trivial and should be ignored – “saying no to the NIMBYs” and “saying no to the blockers who have strangled our chances of cheaper energy, growth and jobs for far too long.”

In April 2025 the leader of the taskforce, John Fingleton, was announced². In May, the other four members were revealed and the terms of reference³ announced (see Annex 1). An interim report was published in August 2025⁴ with the Final Report published on 24^th November, 2025.⁵ Within two days of its publication, the government had accepted all its recommendations, promising a detailed response in February 2026 and full implementation within two years.⁶ It is not clear whether government had advance notice of the findings or whether it accepted them without detailed consideration.

The barrage of headline grabbing rhetoric continued throughout, for example, at the publication of the Interim Report, Fingleton described the regulatory system as “not fit for purpose”⁷. The Final Report said: “We are looking to recommend fundamental once-in-a-generation change in the regulatory system to enable the UK’s nuclear sector to thrive and take full advantage of the global resurgence of nuclear technology.”⁸

2. Terms of reference

The Review’s terms of reference reflected the clear signals that this was not an open investigation to determine whether delivery of the UK’s nuclear ambitions could be accomplished. The conclusions the government required were signposted and reflected in the terms of reference, which are reproduced in full in Annex 1. In brief, they directed the Taskforce to: gain quick wins by accelerating existing work on international harmonisation, regulatory justification and ALARP; assess whether current practices remain fit for purpose; identify beneficial legislative amendments; reduce regulatory complexity and address resource constraints; refresh expected regulatory outcomes; evaluate regulatory culture and proportionality across the sector; determine how well current arrangements support new and novel nuclear technologies; and explore options for simpler exchange of technologies and companies with advanced nuclear states with aligned priorities.

Most of these are too non-specific to have any analytical value. The one that deserves comment is the first. Its title ‘quick wins’ is strange as what follows does not appear to lead to quick wins.

The specific mention of the application of the concept of keeping risk As Low as Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) is significant. It came in the same month as President Trump instructed the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to effectively ignore the assumption every credible national and international regulatory and expert body makes, that there is no safe dose of radiation and that the risk increases in a ‘linear’ way with increased exposure: the Linear No Threshold (LNT) assumption. Trump said⁹:

“Adopt science-based radiation limits. In particular, the NRC shall reconsider reliance on the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for radiation exposure and the “as low as reasonably achievable” [ALARA] standard, which is predicated on LNT. Those models are flawed, as discussed in section 1 of this order.”

This is an extraordinary claim by a US President asserting that the assumption made by every credible regulatory body, LNT, was not science-based. There are detailed differences in emphasis between ALARA and ALARP (ALARP is used more in the UK) but for these purposes they are very similar. Starmer was not as explicit as Trump in questioning LNT but mention of ALARP made it clear that was precisely what he was doing. Making such an instruction calls into question a fundamental principle that should be behind every nuclear safety regulator, that it should be independent of the government.

At first glance, the final reference point, international harmonisation, seems common sense. However, given the record of regulatory bodies not anticipating any of the major accidents or safety challenges – Three Mile Island (1978), Chornobyl (1986), the 9/11 Terror Attack on New York (2001), Fukushima (2011) and now the risk to Zaporizhia from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the plurality of separate regulatory bodies coming to their own conclusions, albeit with reference to the work of other regulators, would seem to be a strength worth retaining.

In practical terms, the new reactor designs under review by the UK – the Holtec, GE Vernova, and Rolls Royce Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) – were first reviewed in detail by the UK and are not yet under detailed review by France or the USA. The GE Vernova design only started review in Canada less than a year ago, well behind the UK. So, the demand for international harmonisation is a strawman.

3. Did the Taskforce have the required skills?

The Taskforce comprised five members:

John Fingleton, Taskforce Lead. He is an economist with much of his career spent in government competition authorities and with a strong record of advocating for the increase in reliance on competitive mechanisms.
Andrew Sherry. Professor of Materials and Structure at Manchester University with a history of working with UK government-owned bodies such as the National Nuclear Laboratory.
Mark Bassett. A career in national and international regulatory bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Office of Nuclear Regulation.
Sue Ion. Nuclear engineer with a career primarily in government owned nuclear bodies such as British Nuclear Fuels and a vocal advocate for nuclear power.
Mustafa Latif-Aramaesh. Planning lawyer with a history of drafting UK laws.

The skills offered by the Taskforce only make some sense if the Terms of Reference are an accurate representation of the issues that have impeded various UK government’s nuclear ambitions. There is no mention of economics or competition in the terms of reference, so it appears the Taskforce Lead did not bring any specific skills to the team. There are references to changes to laws so if it is the legal structure that is holding back nuclear deployment, Latif-Aramesh’s appointment has some logic. Otherwise, the strong impression is of a team comprising members with no record of bringing a critical perspective to the nuclear industry.

Only one member of the Taskforce appears to have specific experience of regulation, and none has any experience of building or operating nuclear plants. The first of the Terms of Reference, so-called ‘quick wins’, relies on a judgement on the Linear No Threshold assumption, yet there is nobody in the Taskforce with the fundamental scientific credentials to make such judgements. There is also considerable discussion of modifying environmental requirements, yet the Taskforce has no expertise in environmental issues. Only Latifah-Aramesh has experience in planning and as a lawyer.

4. What is the evidence and where is the Taskforce’s analysis of it?

The government has been pushing a narrative that the UK is uniquely bad at building nuclear power plants, and that inefficiencies in the planning and regulatory system are to blame. We are told that the UK was a world leader in nuclear technology in the 1960s and reforms to planning and regulation would allow us to reclaim that position in a ‘globally resurgent nuclear industry’ and launch a ‘Golden Age’ for nuclear. What is the evidence for this diagnosis?

In Annex 4 we look at the first two decades of nuclear power in the UK, up to the mid-70s, portrayed as the period when the UK was a world-leader with nuclear power. The analysis shows after the two first Magnox stations, it was a period of decline from, at best, mediocrity. In 1977, Henderson an economist with experience at the UK Treasury stated¹⁰ that the AGR and Concorde programmes were “two of the three worst civil investment decisions in the history of mankind.”

4.1. The Thatcher Programme: Sizewell B………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://policybrief.org/briefs/the-nuclear-regulatory-taskforce-the-wrong-questions-the-wrong-team-the-wrong-answers/

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | Leave a comment

The schism between the Pentagon and the Vatican

In the days that followed, the doors of the Pentagon were closed to “the family” (including the Catholic Church). Only pastors of the Communion of Evangelical Reformed Churches (CREC), the Christian Zionist Church of Pete Hegseth, are now authorized there, for the monthly religious service of the Armies. Also, during the next service, on March 18, 2026, Secretary of War Pete Hegsteh delivered the homily himself.

He prayed that U.S. troops would inflict “overwhelmingly violent action against those who deserve no mercy… We ask this with bold confidence in the name of Almighty Jesus Christ.

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 9 May 2026

Seen from the outside, we do not perceive the metamorphosis of the United States: in four months, it has changed its political ideology (they are no longer “Jacksonians”), its military doctrine (they no longer apply the “Rumsfled-Cebrowski” strategy), and faith (they no longer believe in the plurality of religions). We are publishing a study on this change which requires us to completely revise our perception of this country.

In January 9, 2026, Pope Leo XIV presented his New Year wishes to foreign ambassadors. He declared in particular: “These days, the weakness of multilateralism on the international level is particularly worrying. Diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all is replaced by diplomacy by force, individuals or groups of allies. War has come back into fashion and warlike fervor is spreading. The principle established after World War II, which prohibited countries from using force to violate other people’s borders, was violated. [1]. We no longer seek peace as a gift and a desirable good in ourselves “in the pursuit of an order willed by God, which implies a more perfect justice between men”, auto_awesome [2] but we seek it by arms, as condition for asserting one’s own domination. This seriously threatens the rule of law which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence. ” [3].

This speech greatly displeased the United States Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. He is a Christian Zionist, member of the Communion of Evangelical Reformed Churches (CREC), the sect of Pastor Douglas Wilson. Since September 30, 2025, he has been reforming the Pentagon, dismissing officers who had been appointed in favor of woke ideology and the rules of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) [4]. Above all, he questioned the role of “the family”, International Christian Leadership, within the Pentagon itself. This association of military chaplains of all faiths was created in 1935 by the Methodist pastor Abraham Vereide. It had become, after the Second World War, the main justification for the Cold War: the struggle of the armies of the United States, defenders of the Faith, against the atheist communist armies. All the chiefs of staff were part of it until last year, and many politicians, American and allied, frequented it [5]. For 73 years, Pastor Billy Graham was its spokesperson. It was in this capacity that he was the spiritual advisor to twelve presidents of the United States, from Truman to Obama [6]. In France, the President of the Senate, Alain Poher, prayed within this group.

Also, on January 22, the Secretary of War summoned the apostolic nuncio to Washington, the French Cardinal Christophe Pierre. In principle, only foreign ministers can summon the ambassador of the Holy See. This was an exception. The prelate was not received by the secretary, but by his deputy, Elbridge Colby.

It is common knowledge that Pete Hegseth is more concerned with the culture war against the woke movement than with military issues. Elbridge Colby, for his part, is responsible for the strategy of the United States armies. He is a Catholic, grandson of William Colby who was director of the CIA during the Nixon mandate and knight of the Sovereign Order of Malta. Elbridge played a central role during Donald Trump’s first term and wrote a strange book: The Strategy of Denial: American defense in an age of great power conflict [7]. He explains that, to be free, the United States must prevent any other state from becoming more powerful than itself. There he developed a strategy to stop China’s development, not by waging war directly against it, but by waging war against its suppliers of energy and raw materials.

Elbridge Colby explained to His Eminence Christophe Pierre that the Holy See must have known for a long time that the United States is its best allies and that the pope should be more “loyal” (sic). The tone of the discussion escalated and Colby reminded the prelate that when a pope came into conflict with a king of France, the latter had a second pope elected. From 1378 to 1417, two popes, that of the Vatican and that of Avignon, mutually excommunicated each other within the framework of the “great Western schism”. Similarly, when it came to Protestant churches when they were the majority in the United States, his own grandfather, William Colby, launched the International Congress on World Evangelism with Pastor Billy Graham to compete with the World Council of Churches (WCC) which spoke out against the Vietnam War. At the end of the interview, Elbridge Colby manifested the schism, in a gesture of defiance, by placing his pistol on the table.

The scene was recounted in different ways by several news outlets after The Free Press reported on it. [8]. The version that I am giving you was previously explained to me by a collaborator and friend who played a role in the Vatican. April 9, on the occasion of the new apostolic nuncio taking office in Washington, His Eminence Gabriele Caccia, the spokesperson for the Holy See, the British Matteo Bruni, confirmed that this meeting did take place, but did not wish to report on its progress. He just said the media reports were “absolutely false”. For his part, the United States Ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Birch, “categorically refu His Eminence ted” the reconstruction of the events presented by The Free Press.

Regardless, the Holy Father canceled his planned trip to the United States.

[10]. Later in the day, his department announced that the number of religions accepted in the armies would no longer be 200 or so, but 31. In addition, military chaplains would no longer wear their rank on their uniform and would instead wear religious insignia [11]. It seems that the Secretary of War wishes on the one hand to refocus the work of chaplains on the propagation of their faith and no longer on the personal problems of their flock [12] and, on the other hand, to gradually impose a particular conception of religion, breaking with current diversity [13]…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The poison of the political instrumentation of religion is spreading. On April 12, 60 Minutes (CBS) broadcast a report in which three US cardinals support Pope Leon XIV’s statements against the war in Iran and President Trump’s anti-migratory policy. President Trump responded the next morning on Truth Social with this declaration of war: Pope Leo XIV is weak on crime, and terrible on foreign policy. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

On April 15, the third religious service of the new system was broadcast on YouTube. The Secretary of War alluded to the heroic rescue operation of a pilot shot down in Iran. In reality, it was an operation aimed at seizing stocks of enriched uranium. The pilot was not saved. He is still a prisoner of the Revolutionary Guards. Never mind. Hegseth cited a prayer from the Sandy 1 team of the combat search and rescue unit. He said, referring to the Book of Ezekiel: The path of the righteous man is assailed on every side by the injustices of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, guides the weak through the valley of darkness………………. And you will know that my name is the Lord when I unleash my vengeance on you. “Alas! the quote does not refer to the Bible, but to the script of the film Pulp Fiction.

………………………………….A few hours later, Leo XIV published on X: “Woe to those who manipulate religions and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political ends, dragging what is sacred into darkness and filth!” [17]………………………………

The “Kulturkampf” has just begun. The “fight for civilization” was a policy of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to sever ties between the German Empire and the Catholic Church. This time, it is a break between the United States and the Holy See, while, due to Mexican immigration, the country’s population is now 40% Catholic [19]. It is also a backlash after Pope Francis’ support for Democratic President Joe Biden [20].

(To be continued…) Translation
Jean-Sébastien La Tour https://www.voltairenet.org/article224466.html

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Israel Accuses The New York Times Of Antisemitic Journalism, And Other Notes

Caitlin Johnstone, May 12, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-accuses-the-new-york-times?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=197296942&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The Israeli government is currently accusing The New York Times of antisemitic blood libel for publishing a report on Israel’s already well-documented systemic rape of Palestinian prisoners.

Contrary to popular belief, the highest award in journalism is not the Pulitzer. The highest award in all of journalism is being accused of antisemitism by the Israeli government for factual reporting.

But the New York Times is unworthy of this award. The Times has been running cover for the Gaza holocaust from the very beginning with extensively documented biases in its reporting, and played a leading role in promoting the atrocity propaganda about mass rapes on October 7. Israel’s abuses were actively facilitated by the New York Times, including its systemic sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners.

The Times didn’t even run the report as a news story; they put it in the “opinion” section. You can see their bias on its surface by the fact that they ran their notoriously discredited “Screams Without Words” piece as a hard news story.

Non-western and non-mainstream media sources have been covering the facts about Israeli sexual abuse for years. Human rights groups have been warning about the systemic rape of Palestinian prisoners since long before the onslaught in Gaza began. The only reason we’re hearing about it from the mainstream press now is because they got the destruction of Gaza they were seeking, and now the crosshairs of the war machine have moved on to places like Lebanon and Iran.

The New York Times does not deserve credit for its too-little, too-late, ass-covering reporting, and it does not deserve the honor of being accused of blood libel by the Israeli government. It deserves nothing but scorn and derision for failing to cover this completely unhidden story until May 2026.

There’s orders of magnitude more evidence for the systemic rape of Palestinian prisoners than there ever was for mass rapes on October 7, and there always has been. Anyone who claims otherwise is a hasbarist.

❖

It’s downright poetic all the different words that Reuters editors can find to avoid saying Israel violated a ceasefire.

A Reuters headline from May 10 reads “Israeli strikes kill three people in Gaza, medics say, testing fragile ceasefire”.

One from May 7 reads, “Israel strikes Beirut for the first time since the ceasefire”

April 27: “Israeli strikes hit east Lebanon, expanding scope despite ceasefire”

April 22: “Attacks in south Lebanon strain ceasefire on eve of Washington talks”

It’s such a trip how all these dusty old newsroom liches who’ve never created an ounce of art in their lives can spontaneously transform into wildly creative wordsmiths when they need to run cover for Israeli abuses.

Speaking of headlines, The New York Times recently altered the title of an article by House Democrats Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan L. Jackson about their visit to Cuba, wording it to remove blame from the United States for the suffering created by the US blockade on the island. The original headline read “What We’re Doing to Cuba Isn’t Just Unlawful. It’s Cruel.” New York Times editors changed it to “What We Saw in Cuba Shocked Us”. They deliberately shifted it to a passive-voice observation without a named perpetrator.

One of the silliest contradictions in the Zionist narrative is that it is simultaneously (A) antisemitic to criticize Israel and (B) antisemitic to conflate Israel with all Jews.

Zionists will officially claim that it is possible to criticize Israel without being antisemitic, but that’s not actually their position in practice. We know this because there is not a single vocal and forceful critic of Israel who isn’t regularly accused of antisemitism by Zionists. Not one. They might let you get away with a rare timid critique of individual Israeli officials, but consistently and vocally criticizing the apartheid state of Israel itself (and your own government’s alliances with it) is strictly forbidden.

When you consistently slam literally all of Israel’s critics as antisemites, you are communicating that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, and that Israel therefore represents all Jews. You are therefore necessarily doing the very thing you decry as antisemitic.

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, media, USA | Leave a comment

The Global Laser Weapon Wave

The UAE offers vivid proof that high-energy laser weapons are proliferating faster than anyone predicted — and the Iran war revealed a looming challenge on the horizon

Jared Keller, Laser Wars, May 12, 2026

On April 30, the Financial Times reported Israel had sent a version of its 100 kilowatt Iron Beam high-energy laser weapon to the United Arab Emirates to help Abu Dhabi fend off hundreds of missiles and drones fired by Iran since the beginning of the US military’s Operation Epic Fury. The FT notes the deployment is one of the first examples of major defense cooperation between the two countries since the 2020 Abraham Accords — a display of “the value of being Israel’s friend,” according to a regional official.

There is little information publicly available on Iron Beam’s performance in the UAE. But on May 7, Defence Blog reported a Chinese-made vehicle-mounted laser weapon had been spotted at Dubai International Airport. Tentatively identified as consistent with the Guangjian-21A system first displayed at the Zhuhai Airshow in 2022, there was no announcement of the systems’ export from Beijing or an acknowledgement of its arrival in the country from Abu Dhabi.1

The sudden appearance of laser weapons in the UAE isn’t a total surprise: the government has previously expressed interest in procuring foreign directed energy systems through both direct sales and strategic partnerships and even pushed to develop its own indigenous research and development ecosystem. But neither story mentioned that the Abu Dhabi was already in the process of acquiring an American laser weapon system as well. A notification to Congress published on April 15 revealed that the UAE had asked to buy 10 counter-drone Fixed Site-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat Systems (FS-LIDS) from the US Defense Department for $2.1 billion — and, notably, the system’s command and control (C2) architecture was being specifically scoped to integrate an unnamed laser weapon “being purchased” by Abu Dhabi through direct commercial sales.2

Three laser weapons. Two geopolitical blocs. One customer. This is the state of the global laser weapons race: a competitive, proliferating market where systems from rival powers increasingly coexist in the same inventory and even the same operational theaters……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://www.laserwars.net/p/military-laser-weapon-arms-race-uae-israel-china-united-states?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3569396&post_id=197062483&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=rq5yc&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | United Arab Emirates, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Are Trump’s nuclear plans illegal?

“Fifty years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission was abolished because they became too much of a promoter and lost the confidence of Congress and the public over safety,” said Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project at Beyond Nuclear. “The NRC was established to provide a regulator that prioritizes safety and is obligated not to take shortcuts for a production agenda. Instead, half a century later, we are on the same dangerous collision course, casting aside the NRC in favor of the DOE, which doesn’t have the experience or the staff to get the industry in line with safety and security. This capitulation to the Trump agenda could lead to the NRC being abolished altogether, because nobody will have confidence in them.”

May 11, 2026, https://beyondnuclear.org/are-trumps-nuclear-plans-illegal/

13 organizations, including Beyond Nuclear and Nuclear Information & Resource Service, have filed comments to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, suggesting Trump’s nuclear “orders” may violate long-standing legislation

The so-called “Rubber-Stamp Rule”, an effort by the Trump administration to “Make America Nuclear Again”, violates key components of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and Energy Reorganization Act, according to comments filed this week by 13 organizations including the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Beyond Nuclear. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) proposed rule will allow reactor designs that the Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Defense (DOD) have approved to bypass required safety reviews by the NRC.

In a separate comment filing in March, 11 state attorneys general concurred with the organizations’ findings that the Department of Energy ‘s new policy to exclude “pilot reactors” from both NRC licensing and environmental reviews violates existing law. In that case, the Department of Energy announced, in violation of federal law, that it would exempt previously untested reactors that it approves to be built and operated from any review of their environmental impacts.

“Along with the DOE’s environmental ‘free pass’ policy, the whole ‘expedited licensing’ regime the administration is attempting to set up appears to be illegal,” said Tim Judson, executive director of NIRS and co-author of comments filed to the NRC. “The White House is trying to create a ‘regulatory tunnel’ around NRC’s safety regulations. That would mean DOE’s biases and obviously false assumptions about the safety of nuclear power plants become the new normal, exposing the public to unacceptable dangers to our health and safety.”

The NRC’s proposed regulation would allow companies that want to build a nuclear reactor of the same design as one DOE has previously approved to merely submit documentation of that approval and claim that the previously built reactor “is safe.” Such companies would likely never have to go through a detailed safety review by NRC to build and operate such reactors. In 1974, Congress amended the Atomic Energy Act to prohibit such a scheme.

The groups also told NRC that it cannot simply “rubber-stamp” reactors that the military builds, either. “And while the law allows the DOD to build its own nuclear reactors,” said Tim Judson of NIRS, “it does not allow the NRC to skip safety reviews for civilian nuclear plants just because they use the same designs. The military routinely exposes its personnel to dangers that civilians are supposed to be protected from.”

“In its eagerness to short-circuit reactor safeguards, the Trump administration is once again doing what it does best – demonstrating a complete disregard for the law,” said Linda Pentz Gunter, executive director of Beyond Nuclear. “But nuclear technology is too inherently dangerous to operate as an outlaw. Ignoring those dangers will put millions of Americans at risk of another catastrophic nuclear accident.”

NIRS, BN, et al comments on NRC Proposed Rule — https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/DocketID_NRC-2025-1503_Comments_-BeyondNuclear-NIRS-etal.pdf
Comments on DOE Categorical Exclusion Policy — https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2026.03.04-NIRS-et-al-Comments-re-DOE-categorical-exclusion-for-advanced-nuclear-reactors.pdf

Download the press release

May 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

No case for nuclear in Scotland

When the lobby group Britain Remade, proclaimed support for nuclear power in Scotland last year, they declined to disclose that 89% of their own poll supported home-grown energy within our own borders – that desire for self-sufficiency kills nuclear stone dead. Scotland has no uranium mines.

May 10, 2026 by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/05/10/no-case-for-nuclear-in-scotland/

What the country needs is the flexible, affordable power delivered by renewables, writes George Baxter

Editor’s note: With the sweeping victory in last week’s Scottish elections by the pro-independence Scottish National Party, the country’s moratorium against new nuclear power plants, that the SNP leads and supports, remains secure. The London-headquartered UK Labour Government has been pushing Scotland to lift the ban, an approach rightly viewed in Scotland as yet another example of Westminster treating Scotland as a vassal state.

I’ve been through every argument that the nuclear industry makes promoting new nuclear power stations – but scratch the surface and they just melt through the floor.

New nuclear is fundamentally not needed – numerous studies, including by Stanford University and renowned energy modellers at LUT show that the UK, and indeed most, if not all, other countries can meet their energy needs with 100% renewables. Politicians’ fears about the wind and sun and the rain and the waves and tides being unable to meet all our needs are misplaced. Renewables, energy storage, energy efficiency and flexible power with a modern upgraded grid can do it all – cheaper, quicker, safer and a hell of a lot cleaner, and create many more thousands of jobs.

The cost of nuclear power is eye-watering. Look at Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C – nearly £100bn to build them both with massive delays and cost -over-runs. That is enough to install a 5kWh battery in every one of the 28 million homes in Britain, and leave £44bn for other things. Combine that with solar and every home becomes a power station with its own ‘baseload’. Alternatively, £100bn could fund planned upgrades to the grid needed to facilitate large and small renewables, twice over. The Coire Glas pumped hydro storage project in the Highlands could be built 50 times over. £100bn spent on a nuclear-free transition could be revolutionary.

What a renewable based system needs is flexible power, energy storage and a smart, modern grid. Surplus renewable electricity could also be used to generate ”green hydrogen” to generate electricity on calm, dull days. It could also be used to power heavy transport and industry.

Battery systems, including compressed air and pumped storage hydro, alongside vehicle to grid technology, can all be parts of the bedrock of energy security and an energy system that would be cooking with green power 24/7.

Nuclear does nothing to help any of this. Indeed, it is worse, it directly causes wind and solar plants to be switched off when green power is plentiful, because nuclear is so inflexible. Not only does nuclear cost an arm and a leg, it adds cost to the consumer for renewables.

We only have to look at the recent history of nuclear power to see how dangerous and polluting it is. Fukushima remains a slow motion disaster for the region as they scramble to deal with millions of gallons of radioactive water and melted reactor cores. Chornobyl’s 40 year anniversary is another timely reminder, that when things go wrong, they can go very wrong. At least when a wind turbine breaks down – you don’t need an exclusion zone for decades and mass public health measures – you just get some engineers with a crane and some spanners to go fix it. And despite what the ‘nuke, baby, nuke’ lobby says, there is no solution for the waste yet, other than to store and guard the most highly radioactive cores for hundreds of years to cool down out of the way somewhere. That’s the solution!

The hype about Small Modular Reactors is just that, hype. In fact, the only two operational SMRs are in China and Russia, and both have been beset by delays and cost increases. The economies of scale are lost, and studies have shown that they produce more highly radioactive waste for the same generating capacity than their slightly larger cousins.

These projects are pure spin, a clever wheeze by industry lobbyists intended to promote nuclear acceptability- small, click and collect, a kind of middle-aisle at LIDL feel to it. In the words of energy expert Amory Lovins on SMRs: “This illusion neatly fits the industry’s business-model shift from selling products to harvesting subsidies.”

The Rolls Royce SMR – chosen by Great British Energy–Nuclear to be built at Wylfa in North Wales – is a 470MW reactor, not much smaller than the two Torness reactors, which are about 600MW each.

And then there is the fuel – uranium ore is needed and we don’t have any, (and the mining of it is handily missed out in nuclear promotional graphics comparing its land use to renewables, which also fail to point out that the land around solar arrays and turbines can still be used for traditional purposes).

Mind you, there is some recoverable uranium ore on the Orkney mainland – and when it was proposed to dig it up to use it at Dounreay last century, all hell broke loose and Orcadians stopped it by popular protest. So we would have to rely on imports of this global commodity – a market that is dominated by Russia and associates. Pete Roche of SCRAM put this well when commenting on a recent poll indicating only 14% of Scots thought we should focus on uranium fuelled nuclear reactors for our long term energy security needs: “Relying on a uranium-fuelled nuclear future is like jumping out of the oil and gas frying pan and into a nuclear fire – it makes no sense and Scots seem to get that.”

That Survation poll, surveyed 2000 Scots in the middle of the current election campaign, and found an overwhelming public preference to focus on a renewable energy future that would lower energy bills and tackle climate change more effectively. Only 12% of those polled thought the nuclear industry was the most trustworthy about its products, costs, pollutants and safety record.

We should just get on with building a country that is a renewable energy powerhouse so that future generations can look back and thank us for choosing a green, clean and sustainable energy route. Nuclear is NOT a natural partner with renewables, indeed, it is a delaying tactic, holding back rapid decarbonisation, and adds extra and unnecessary cost to a renewables-based energy system.

George Baxter is the director of Green Power. He leads Green Power’s team delivering greenfield wind and solar developments both in the UK and Ireland.

May 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Japan faces tough road ahead over nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant

Japan Times, 10 May 26,

Japan still faces a tough road ahead over the construction of a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori Prefecture, whose completion date has been moved back 27 times.

With less than a year to go until the current deadline at the end of next March, Japan Nuclear Fuel is in time-consuming exchanges with the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) over the plant.

The completion “will definitely be delayed” again, Aomori Gov. Soichiro Miyashita has said. Meanwhile, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara has said that the deadline remains unchanged.

Japan Nuclear Fuel began the construction of the plant, a key component of the country’s nuclear energy policy, in the village of Rokkasho in 1993, originally planning to complete it in 1997.

Delays primarily stemmed from a series of problems, including those with some equipment, before northeastern Japan was struck by the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

After the triple disaster, Japan significantly tightened nuclear safety standards. The NRA’s lengthy regulatory review to ensure the Rokkasho plant’s compliance with the standards led to delays in recent years.

The regulatory watchdog finished examining the plant’s basic design in 2020 and then started a detailed design review, which is still going on.

When Japan Nuclear Fuel announced its 27th postponement in the summer of 2024, it said it would complete its submissions to the NRA by November 2025 and win the body’s approval by March this year, but the plans have not progressed as scheduled………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/05/10/japan/japan-nuclear-fuel-reprocessing/

May 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, technology | Leave a comment

Fires break out in exclusion zone around Chernobyl nuclear plant

Arpan Rai & Maira ButtFriday 08 May 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/chernobyl-fires-radiation-russia-ukraine-b2973234.html

A forest fire burns in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (AP)

Russia has said it is carrying out enhanced radiation monitoring after fires broke out in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Friday.
The country’s national public health agency said that enhanced radiation monitoring was being conducted and the situation was now “stable”.
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster is considered to be the world’s worst civil nuclear accident.
It spread Iodine-131, Caesium-134 and Caesium-137 across parts of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, northern and central Europe.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has continued its long-range attacks on Russia with a drone strike one of the country’s largest oil refineries, located in Yaroslav

May 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Fears Royal Navy nuclear submarine docks will be built overseas

A multibillion-pound nuclear submarine maintenance contract is at risk of
being awarded to a foreign shipyard, despite safeguards that normally
dictate that high-security work must be performed at secure sites in the
UK. The Ministry of Defence is preparing to kick off a tender for the Royal
Navy’s Additional Fleet Time Docking Capability (AFTDC) programme to build
floating dry docks that are pivotal to national security. The scheme would
double the availability of nuclear submarine docks at HM Naval Base Clyde.
The new docks would allow concurrent dry-dock maintenance of two submarines
at the base, also known as Faslane.

Times 9th May 2026,
https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-markets/article/royal-navy-nuclear-submarine-docks-programme-euston-v22btzbm3

May 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Will Trump’s failed Iran war provoke his break from Netanyahu’s ironclad grip?

10 May 2026 AIMN Editorial – Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, https://theaimn.net/will-trumps-failed-iran-war-provoke-his-break-from-netanyahus-ironclad-grip/

On Iran war day 71 it’s clear Trump has not only lost his war, he’s blundered the world into a looming economic catastrophe. As horrendous as that is, it wasn’t even Trump’s idea. Trump was simply following orders from his real boss, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On February 11, Netanyahu arrived at the White House with Mossad Director David Barnea. They encouraged – if not demanded – invasion. The Netanyahu-Barnea tag team argued Iran would collapse within a couple of days from a combination of assassinating Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei, massive bombing, Mossad-fomented civil unrest and ground incursions by Kurdish fighters.

That couple of days has morphed into 71 days of arguably the greatest military disaster in US history. Instead of collapsing within a couple of days, Iran retaliated against the massive US, Israeli bombing onslaught with their own. Result? All 13 US bases in the neighboring Gulf States are damaged or destroyed. Gulf States infrastructure has suffered massive damage. So has Israel, suffering its worst bombing in its 78 years.

Worst of all, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, choking off a fifth of world oil supply which may cause a worldwide recession, if not depression. The Netanyahu-Barnea presentation was a blizzard of lies Trump swallowed whole in spite of Intelligence assessments to the contrary.

As the world careens toward economic catastrophe, Trump is completely out of options to achieve any of his war goals. Check that. Friday he alluded to striking Iran with nuclear weapons. Trump told reporters on whether the ceasefire if off: “If there’s no ceasefire you’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran.”

Assuming he either doesn’t order nuclear strikes, or his military commanders disobey this directive to do so, Trump is facing the worst military defeat in America’s 250 years, all brought on by his fealty to Benjamin Netanyahu. What motivated Trump’s caving to the Israeli Prime Minister? Was it the hundreds of millions in campaign cash showered upon Trump and his Republican Congress? Was it the ‘Epstein Button’, damaging evidence related to the Epstein pedophile enterprise that Trump dare not risk being exposed? Is Trump simply an ardent Zionist believing that any Israeli murder and mayhem to further Israeli expansion and Middle East dominance is worthy of Trump’s enabling?

While we’ll likely never know, Trump must be contemplating the enormity of the disaster he’s inflicted on the Middle East, and very soon the US and entire world. The one benefit that may result from Trump’s immoral, criminal war is he may be rethinking his special relationship with the man who brought on the greatest calamity of his life, Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump needs to truly become the peace president he campaigned to be in 2016. He can do that by quitting his senseless and lost Iran war. He needs to jettison his subservience to Netanyahu’s vision of Greater Israel. He needs to cut off all US military aid to Israel till Netanyahu or his successor end the genocide in Gaza, near genocide in Lebanon and quest to destroy its hegemonic rival, Iran.

If Trump refuses to do the right thing, events on the battlefield and the world economy may push Trump aside and hopefully implement that peace initiative without him.

May 12, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Christiane Amanpour Lays Out Her Fear for CNN With Blistering Attack on David Ellison’s CBS ‘Realignment’

David Gilmour, May 6th, 2026, https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/christiane-amanpour-lays-out-her-fear-for-cnn-with-blistering-attack-on-david-ellisons-cbs-realignment/

Veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour pointed to the “ideological realignment” at CBS News on Wednesday as she expressed her “concern” at what her own network might look like under the oversight of incoming owner David Ellison.

Speaking in London at the Truth Tellers Sir Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Summit on Wednesday, Amanpour voiced “concern” over Ellison’s influence on CBS News and what it potentially meant for CNN as his Paramount Skydance acquisition of the network’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, moves forward.

The deal would place Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder and Trump donor Larry Ellison, in control of the network where Amanpour has worked since 1983, alongside CBS News, which has already undergone sweeping changes under Paramount and Skydance leadership.

“[Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth, the world’s favorite frat boy supremo, has said that the sooner David Ellison owns CNN, the better. And CNN has become this sort of lightning rod, hasn’t it, for this administration?” asked moderator Emily Maitlis, as the topic of corporate ownership takeover came up. “Does it change what you do? Do you fear what is coming at you now in terms of a change?”

“Clearly I’m concerned, and I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say about a corporate thing that’s underway, but I am, obviously, as a person, as a journalist with a record, concerned,” Amanpour said. “And I’m concerned based on what’s happened to the other things that he’s taken over already like CBS News right? I mean, do I have to list what’s happening there?”

Amanpour then delivered a blistering takedown of the CBS News under Ellison’s leadership.

“I mean hemorrhaging viewers, probably hemorrhaging money, this ideological realignment of CBS and the destruction potentially of 60 Minutes,” she said.

In a passionate case for 60 Minutes, she praised the show as “one of literally the legacy” programs in American television journalism, adding: “Nobody can match 60 Minutes for a brilliant television magazine show that’s been doing hard news and cultural news, and for decades and decades.”

The comments come amid mounting scrutiny over the future editorial direction of major news outlets as billionaire-backed consolidation reshapes the media landscape.

Amanpour suggested staff at CNN were anxious about preserving newsroom autonomy under new ownership.

“I would like to think that we would have the very basic, which is editorial independence, I’m hoping for that,” she said. “I know many of us at CNN are incredibly – including leadership – are very, very committed to that clearly.”

May 12, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries Next Entries »

Archives
- September 2026 (219)
- August 2026 (330)
- July 2026 (355)
- June 2026 (287)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (267)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (375)
Categories
- 1
  - Arclight's Vision
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
  - business and costs
    - employment
    - marketing
  - climate change
  - culture and arts
  - ENERGY
    - renewable
      - decentralised
      - energy storage
  - environment
    - oceans
    - water
  - health
    - children
    - psychology – mental health
    - radiation
    - social effects
    - women
  - history
  - indigenous issues
  - Legal
    - deaths by radiation
    - legal
  - marketing of nuclear
  - media
    - investigative journalism
    - Wikileaks
  - opposition to nuclear
  - PERSONAL STORIES
  - politics
    - psychology and culture
      - Trump – personality
    - public opinion
    - USA election 2024
    - USA elections 2016
  - politics international
  - Religion and ethics
  - safety
    - incidents
  - secrets,lies and civil liberties
    - civil liberties
  - spinbuster
    - Education
  - technology
    - reprocessing
    - Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
    - space travel
  - Uranium
  - wastes
    - – plutonium
    - decommission reactor
  - weapons and war
    - Atrocities
    - depleted uranium
  - Women
- 2 WORLD
  - ANTARCTICA
  - ARCTIC
  - ASIA
    - Burma
    - China
    - India
    - Indonesia
    - Japan
    - Malaysia
    - Mongolia
    - North Korea
    - Pakistan
    - South Korea
    - Taiwan
    - Turkey
    - Vietnam
  - EUROPE
    - Belarus
    - Bulgaria
    - Denmark
    - Finland
    - France
    - Germany
    - Greece
    - Ireland
    - Italy
    - Kazakhstan
    - Kyrgyzstan
    - Russia
    - Spain
    - Sweden
    - Switzerland
    - UK
    - Ukraine
  - MIDDLE EAST
    - Afghanistan
    - Egypt
    - Gaza
    - Iran
    - Iraq
    - Israel
    - Jordan
    - Libya
    - Saudi Arabia
    - Syria
    - Turkey
    - United Arab Emirates
  - NORTH AMERICA
    - Canada
    - USA
      - election USA 2020
  - OCEANIA
    - New Zealand
    - Philippines
  - SOUTH AMERICA
    - Brazil
- ACTION
- AFRICA
  - Kenya
  - Malawi
  - Mali
  - Namibia
  - Niger
  - Nigeria
  - Somalia
  - South Africa
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
  - thorium
- Reference
  - Reference archives
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope