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Israel Is Preparing for a Permanent Presence in Gaza, Satellite Images Reveal

Since the ceasefire, Israel has constructed at least 13 new military outposts inside Gaza, consolidated existing military infrastructure, built roads, and destroyed more Palestinian property.

Forensic Architecture and Drop Site News. Dec 21, 2025

Since the so-called ceasefire came into effect in Gaza on October 10, Israel has been consolidating its control of over 50% of Gaza and—according to new research by Forensic Architecture—physically altering the geography of the land. Through a combination of the construction of military infrastructure alongside the destruction of existing buildings, Israel appears to be laying the groundwork to establish a permanent presence in the majority of the Gaza Strip.

Israel has constructed at least 13 new military outposts inside Gaza since the ceasefire—primarily located along the yellow line, in eastern Khan Younis, and near the border with Israel, according to analysis of satellite imagery by Forensic Architecture.

“Israel is doing what it always does, and what it historically has done best: establish ‘facts on the ground,’ incrementally rather than spectacularly, and make them permanent once those with influence to force it to reverse course either lose interest, decide that the cost of confronting Israel is not worth the price, or come out in open support of Israeli violations. Israel is in no rush and prepared to play the long game,” Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya and a former UN official who worked as a senior analyst on Israel-Palestine for the International Crisis Group, told Drop Site after reviewing a summary of the Forensic Architecture findings.

The analysis also shows that, between October 10 and December 2, 2025, Israel has:

  • Accelerated the growth and infrastructure development of 48 existing military outposts inside Gaza.
  • Expanded a network of roads connecting military outposts inside Gaza to the Israeli road network, bases and settlements outside of Gaza.
  • Continued construction that began in September 2025 of a new road in Khan Younis, re-routing the Magen Oz corridor to run within Israel’s area of control.
  • Engaged in the systematic demolition and destruction of Palestinian property, particularly in eastern Khan Younis, targeting areas which haven’t already been destroyed. New military outposts and roads have emerged across this area.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/gaza-israel-building-military-outposts-roads-permanent-presence-yellow-line

December 28, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

Israeli Cabinet Approves 19 New Apartheid Colonies in Occupied West Bank

“The ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support,” said one observer.

Brett Wilkins, Dec 21, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-19-new-settlements

Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday finalized approval of 19 new Jewish-only settler colonies in the illegally occupied West Bank, a move the apartheid state’s far-right finance minister said was aimed at thwarting Palestinian statehood.

Cabinet ministers approved the legalization of the previously unauthorized settler outposts throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, bringing the total number of new settlements in recent years to 69.

The move will bring the overall total number of exclusively or overwhelmingly Jewish settlements—which are illegal under international law—to more than 200, up from around 140 just three years ago.

Included in the new approval are two former settlements—Kadim and Ganim—that were evacuated in compliance with the now effectively repealed 2005 Disengagement Law, under which Israel dismantled all of its colonies in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank.

“This is righting a historic injustice of expulsion from 20 years ago,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who is a settler—said on Sunday. “We are putting the brakes on the rise of a Palestinian terror state.”

“We will continue to develop, build, and settle the inherited land of our ancestors, with faith in the righteousness of our path,” Smotrich added.

Following an earlier round of approval for the new settlements last week, Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, “All Israeli settlement activity is illegal and constitutes a violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres earlier this month denounced Israel’s “relentless” settlement expansion.

Such colonization, said Guterres, “continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land, and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, and sovereign Palestinian state.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials—some of whom, including Smotrich, deny the very existence of the Palestinian people—have vowed that such a state will not be established.

While Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—is under pressure from right-wing and far-right government officials, settlers, and others to annex all of the West Bank, US President Donald Trump recently said that “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

Some doubted Trump’s threat, with Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) executive director Sarah Leah Whitson reacting to the new settlements’ approval by posting on X that “the ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support.”

Israel seized and occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem along with Gaza in 1967, ethnically cleansing around 300,000 Palestinians. Many of these forcibly displaced people were survivors of the Nakba, the Jewish terror and ethnic cleansing campaign that saw more than 750,000 Palestinians flee or be forced from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel.

Since 1967, Israel has steadily seized more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while building and expanding colonies there. Settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to around 770,000 today.

Settlers often attack Palestinians and their property, including in deadly pogroms, in order to terrorize them into leaving so their land can be stolen. Israeli colonists have also attacked Israel Defense Forces soldiers they view as standing in the way of their expansion.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice—where Israel is currently facing a genocide case related to the Gaza war—found the occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

As the world’s attention focused on Gaza during the past two years, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,039 Palestinians—at least 225 of them children—in the West Bank. This year, at least 233 Palestinians, including at least 52 children, have been killed so far, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.

On Saturday, Israeli occupation forces shot and killed two Palestinians in the northern West Bank, including a 16-year-old boy, Rayan Abu Muallah, who the Israel Defense Forces said was shot after he threw an object at its troops.

December 28, 2025 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

One excavator, 10,000 bodies, a sea of rubble: inside Gaza’s effort to retrieve and bury its dead

Under the relative calm of a ceasefire, Civil Defense crews in Gaza are undertaking the monumental feat of recovering thousands of bodies still trapped under the rubble.

By Tareq S. Hajjaj  December 25, 2025 https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/one-excavator-10000-bodies-a-sea-of-rubble-inside-gazas-effort-to-retrieve-and-bury-its-dead/

Fatima Salem waits outside anxiously, as rescue crews dig through the rubble of her family’s home in Gaza City on December 15th. With bated breath, she clings to the hope that all 60 of her family members – brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren – who were buried under the rubble after an Israeli airstrike targeted their building, will be rescued. 

But this was not a typical rescue operation, and Fatima was not waiting for signs of life. She knew everyone was dead. That’s because the airstrike on her family’s home happened almost exactly two years ago, on December 19, 2023, just two months into the genocide. 

The 60 members of the Salem family are some of an estimated 10,000 Palestinians whose bodies remain trapped under the extensive rubble across the Gaza Strip. Due to two years of active Israeli bombardment, the targeting and killing of civil defense crews, and the lack of heavy duty machinery required to excavate the tons of concrete rubble, rescue missions in Gaza have been largely stalled. 

But on December 15, the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced the start of a long recovery process of bodies that have remained under the rubble for two years. The operations are focused only on the areas in the Gaza Strip not actively being occupied by the Israeli military, which accounts for roughly half of the territory. 

The first rescue mission was for the Salem family in Gaza City. 

“Here I lost every person dear to me; they are the closest people to me—my brothers and sisters and their families. I lost everyone in this place,” Fatima Salem cried. When she heard about the rescue mission, she rushed to the scene of the destroyed building, where the souls of her relatives had remained trapped for two years. 

She said that her family was targeted on December 19, 2023, after they fled from northern Gaza to Gaza City due to the intensification of shelling and fighting in their residential area. They found refuge in a building whose residents had evacuated, and gathered there with their children and families. No one who was in the building at the time of the bombing survived. 

“I want to see them, to embrace them, to bid them farewell,” she said as she stood before rows of  bones and skulls wrapped in white plastic shrouds, laid out on the ground in front of her. Some have been identified by their present surviving relatives, while others have not yet been identified.

Omar Suleiman, a member of the forensic department at the Civil Defense, was working at the scene of the Salem family. He described a painstaking process of trying to identify and record the identities of the deceased, saying that crews are documenting descriptions of the condition of the bodies in terms of form, height, and the level of decomposition they have reached, along with preserving a DNA sample when possible.

According to videos published by the Civil Defense on its Telegram channel, what is recovered from the remains of the martyrs is sometimes only bones, not always complete skulls, but rather bones from the chest and the feet, making identification a difficult matter.

According to Suleiman, the level of decomposition in the bodies was very high, which made it difficult for families to identify them. The lack of tools and technology for advanced DNA testing has also made the identification process more difficult. He said that crews were working “with very limited tools and under difficult and exhausting conditions.”

Civil Defense crews say they recovered all the bodies from the building, all belonging to the martyrs of the Salem family, in addition to 17 more bodies buried in the vicinity around the building. After two years, Fatima Salem was finally able to bid farewell. 

Thousands of bodies, limited resources

In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on December 20, recovery operations began in areas of the city, starting with the martyrs of the Abu Hilal family. They were killed on August 13, 2025. 

Huda Abu Hilal, in her 20s, was the sole survivor of a strike that targeted her family’s home on August 13, 2025. Though she was inside the building at the time, just before the airstrike, Huda’s mom had asked her to go downstairs for something. At that moment, the home was bombed, and everyone except Huda was killed. 

“All my family was killed except me—my mother and father, my sisters, and their children—all of them were martyred,” she told Mondoweiss, adding that because her neighborhood remained under an evacuation order after the bombing, crews were not able to access her home to rescue her family. 

At the site, Samah Hamad, head of the forensic department of the Civil Defense, described the challenge ahead for crews. 

He said that in Khan Younis alone, there are 75 destroyed buildings with hundreds of bodies buried under the rubble that need to be recovered. Many of the buildings, he said, are located in the area behind the ‘yellow line’ that are inaccessible to Palestinian crews. But even in the areas that they can access, the rescue mission is slow moving. 

Hamad notes that the slowdown in these operations is due to the fact that all crews in the Gaza Strip are working with very limited equipment, as only one large excavator is being used in multiple cities and areas in the Strip. 

For the past two months since the ceasefire was announced, Huda said she would pass by the rubble of the home often, even if just to recite a prayer for her family still trapped beneath the rubble, hoping that they would be rescued soon.

“Now I can honor my martyred family by burying them, and we can move them to graves and make visiting them a habit,” Huda said.

December 28, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

Out of a superhero movie: Companies are coming up with plans to block out the sun.

Private companies are jumping into the race to deploy particles to the atmosphere to reduce global warming, prompting enthusiasm from investors and concerns from some scientists, Josh Marcus reports

Independent, 25 December 2025

A secretive team of scientists is working on an unprecedented plan to fill the atmosphere with tiny particles that imitate a volcanic eruption and block out the sun. It might save humanity, or it could spiral out of control. Thousands stand opposed to such a scheme, but these plans may move forward anyway.

This is not the plot of the next Marvel movie, but solar geoengineering, one of the very non-fictional frontiers of climate research.

In October, a start-up called Stardust Solutions announced it had raised $60 million to pursue technology that will bounce the sun’s light back into space using reflective, airborne particles.

It is the largest investment ever for a company pursuing such a strategy to cool our rapidly overheating planet, according to Politico, and builds off the firm’s previous $15 million funding series.

Stardust Solutions is one of a small but closely-watched group of companies and researchers pursuing such ideas in the hopes of making rapid gains on the climate crisis as international action remains perilously insufficient.

The basic idea is to limit how much of the sun’s energy reaches the Earth’s surface. While this won’t tackle the root cause of the climate crisis — still-rising greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels — “solar radiation modification” could reduce the global temperature and slow the melting of the polar ice caps, buying us all some much-needed time.

While the idea has been around since the mid-Sixties, small-scale outdoor experiments have only begun in the last two decades, including cloud seeding in Switzerland and testing salt spray’s impacts on the clouds above the Great Barrier Reef.

For every fledgling experiment, another project has been canceled in the face of public opposition. A 2024 effort spraying sea salt aerosols from a decommissioned air craft carrier in Alameda, California, was quickly shut down because of outrage from community members who said they were not consulted, while the Indigenous Saami people of Scandinavia were among those who opposed the aborted 2021 SCoPEx project in Sweden, arguing the plan to spray calcium carbonate dust into the atmosphere violated both their philosophy towards the Earth and would not be an impactful scientific strategy to stop the root causes of the climate crisis’

Despite these concerns, the daily glut of increasingly dire climate updates – including the recent news of the likely irreversible decline of ocean corals – has given new momentum to this once fringe idea.

A ‘human-safe’ particle spray

Stardust Solutions was founded in 2023 by Yanai Yedvab and Amyad Spector, nuclear physicists who met at an Israeli national laboratory, and particle physicist Eli Waxman, former chief scientist at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/dim-sun-climate-change-b2877722.html

December 28, 2025 Posted by | climate change, Israel | Leave a comment

Politico: Despite the war, France will build nuclear fuel in Germany with the help of a Russian company

Can the ambitious plan to phase out Russian nuclear fuel succeed with Russian expertise? Paris believes it can and is pressing Berlin for approval


Protothema, Newsroom, December 22, 2025

Takeawaysby Protothema AI

  • A Franco-Russian joint venture plans to produce nuclear fuel components in Lingen, Germany, operated by Framatome
  • The project faces scrutiny from German authorities due to security concerns and potential espionage risks
  • Framatome is lobbying German officials for approval, arguing it is a European solution despite Russian components
  • German regional authorities remain skeptical, citing past energy vulnerabilities with Russia
  • A final decision on the Lingen plant’s approval is expected in the coming weeks.

A triangular relationship that is close to becoming a reality, despite the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia, will help France produce nuclear fuel for its reactors.

The Franco-Russian joint venture will manufacture nuclear fuel rods and other components in Lingen, Germany.

The plant will be operated by Framatome, a subsidiary of the French state-owned energy company EDF, using Russian components supplied by TVEL, part of the Kremlin-controlled nuclear giant Rosatom. TVEL will not be directly involved in the operation of the plant but will provide the Russian-made components necessary for producing the nuclear fuel.

The plant will not supply electricity directly; it will focus solely on producing nuclear fuel.

Framatome is putting intense pressure on the German authorities to approve the project, mobilizing the French government at the highest levels. The company argues that what is good for Framatome is good for Europe.

However, as Politico points out, the project comes at a time when the EU is attempting to ban all energy imports from Russia in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, the plan raises concerns among state and federal authorities about potential espionage and other security risks.

The French-Russian joint venture has not yet received approval from Berlin. A final decision is expected in the coming weeks, but no timetable has been set……………………………………………………

France–Russia Nuclear Cooperation

The cooperation between Framatome and Rosatom began in 2021, when the two parties signed a long-term partnership and established a joint venture in which Framatome owns 75% and TVEL 25%……………….. https://en.protothema.gr/2025/12/22/politico-despite-the-war-france-will-build-nuclear-fuel-in-germany-with-the-help-of-a-russian-company/

December 28, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Netanyahu plans to brief Trump on possible new Iran strikes

Israeli officials believe Iran is expanding its ballistic missile program. They are preparing to make the case during an upcoming meeting with Trump that it poses a new threat.

Dec. 21, 2025, By Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, Dan De Luce and Carol E. Lee

WASHINGTON — Israeli officials have grown increasingly concerned that Iran is expanding production of its ballistic missile program, which was damaged by Israeli military strikes earlier this year, and are preparing to brief President Donald Trump about options for attacking it again, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans and four former U.S. officials briefed on the plans.

Israeli officials also are concerned that Iran is reconstituting nuclear enrichment sites the U.S. bombed in June, the sources said. But, they added, the officials view Iran’s efforts to rebuild facilities where they produce the ballistic missiles and to repair its crippled air defense systems as more immediate concerns.

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to meet later this month in Florida at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate. At that meeting, the sources said, Netanyahu is expected to make the case to Trump that Iran’s expansion of its ballistic missile program poses a threat that could necessitate swift action.

They said part of his argument is expected to be that Iran’s actions present perils not only to Israel but also to the broader region, including U.S. interests. The Israeli leader is expected to present Trump with options for the U.S. to join or assist in any new military operations, the sources said.

Asked Thursday about a Dec. 29 meeting with Netanyahu, Trump told reporters, “We haven’t set it up formally, but he’d like to see me.” Israeli officials have announced a Dec. 29 meeting.

The Israeli government declined to comment. The Iranian Mission at the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment…………………..

Israel’s plans to brief Trump on — and give him the option to join — possible additional military strikes in Iran come as the president is considering military strikes in Venezuela, which would open a new warfront for the U.S., and as he is touting his administration’s bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear program and success negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

In an address to the nation on Wednesday, Trump said told Americans he’s “destroyed the Iran nuclear threat and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years, peace to the Middle East.”

The Israeli concerns about Iran come as Tehran has expressed interest in resuming diplomatic talks with the U.S. aimed at curtailing its nuclear deal, which could potentially complicate Israel’s approaching Trump about new strikes………………….

The strikes the U.S. conducted in June against Iran, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, included more than 100 aircraft, a submarine and seven B-2 bombers. Trump has said they “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites, though some early assessments indicated the damage may not have been as extensive as the president has said.

Israeli forces at the same time struck several of Iran’s ballistic missile sites.

Israeli military strikes in April and October 2024 also damaged all of Iran’s S-300 air defense systems, the most advanced system the country operates, clearing the way for manned flights into Iranian airspace months later by dramatically reducing the threat to pilots………………………………………………….. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/netanyahu-plans-brief-trump-possible-new-iran-strikes-rcna250112

December 28, 2025 Posted by | Iran, Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

EU launches inquiry into Czech funding plan for new nuclear

WNN, Tuesday, 23 December 2025

The European Commission “has doubts” that the proposed Czech funding plan for its proposed new nuclear units “is fully in line with EU State aid rules”.

In April last year the European Commission (EC), which is the executive arm of the European Union (EU), approved the funding plan for a single new nuclear reactor at the Dukovany nuclear power plant site in the Czech Republic.

In July last year Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) was selected for the project, and in October this year the Czech Republic officially notified the EC it had expanded its plans to two new nuclear units, each with a capacity of 976 MWe

What is the funding plan?

The EC says: “Czechia plans to support the construction of the new nuclear units through three measures: a low-interest repayable State loan of an initial amount currently estimated between EUR23 billion (USD27.1 billion) and EUR30 billion, which will cover the full construction costs; a two-way contract for difference with a proposed duration of 40 years to ensure stable revenues for the nuclear power plant; and a mechanism to protect EDU II in case of policy changes and adverse impacts, to address the risk arising from the longevity of exposure to policy changes.”

EDU II is Elektrárna Dukovany II, a company set up to develop and operate the new nuclear units, which is owned by the Czech state (80%) and the Czech Republic’s nuclear power plant operator ČEZ (20%).

The contract for difference effectively means that if electricity prices are below the agreed level, the nuclear project will receive a subsidy to make it up to the agreed price, and if electricity prices are above the agreed price, the nuclear project would pay money back to the government…………………………………………………..

 The EC has doubts about whether it is fully in line with EU State aid rules and wants to ensure that “no more aid than necessary is ultimately granted. In particular, the Commission has doubts on whether the proposed package achieves an appropriate balance between reducing risks to enable the investment and maintaining incentives for efficient behaviour, while avoiding excessive risk transfer to the State”.

It also wants to look at the impact of the State aid measures on competition in the market “in particular, the Commission has concerns that several essential design elements of the CfD remain insufficiently specified, preventing the Commission from fully assessing whether the mechanism maintains efficient operational and maintenance incentives”.

…………………………………….. Asked about the status of any investigation into foreign state aid, a European Commission spokesperson told World Nuclear News on Tuesday: “The Commission’s assessment of a complaint by EDF under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation regarding the award of a tender to KNHP is ongoing. We do not comment on ongoing investigations.” https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/eu-launches-inquiry-into-czech-new-nuclear-funding-plan

December 28, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Warning Chernobyl nuclear plant radiation shield is at risk of collapse

By PERKIN AMALARAJ, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER, 24 December 2025

A Russian strike could collapse the internal radiation shelter at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, the plant’s director has warned. 

Kyiv has accused Russia of repeatedly targeting the facility, the site of a 1986 meltdown that is still the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster, since Moscow invaded in February 2022.

A hit earlier this year punched a hole in the outer radiation shell, triggering a warning from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it had ‘lost its primary safety functions.’

In an interview with AFP, plant director Sergiy Tarakanov said fully restoring that shelter could take three to four years, and warned that another Russian hit could see the inner shell collapse.

‘If a missile or drone hits it directly, or even falls somewhere nearby, for example, an Iskander, God forbid, it will cause a mini-earthquake in the area,’ Tarakanov said. 

The Iskander is Russia’s short-range ballistic missile system that can carry a variety of conventional warheads, including those to destroy bunkers.

‘No one can guarantee that the shelter facility will remain standing after that. That is the main threat,’ he added.

The remnants of the nuclear power plant are covered by an inner steel-and-concrete radiation shell – known as the Sarcophagus and built hastily after the disaster – and a modern, high-tech outer shell, called the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure.

Our NSC has lost several of its main functions. And we understand that it will take us at least three or four years to restore these functions,’ Tarakanov added.

The IAEA said earlier this month an inspection mission found the shelter had ‘lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability, but also found that there was no permanent damage to its load-bearing structures or monitoring systems.’

Director Tarakanov said that radiation levels at the site remained ‘stable and within normal limits.’

Daily Mail 23rd Dec 2025, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15409149/Warning-Chernobyl-nuclear-plant-radiation-shield-risk-collapse.html

December 28, 2025 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Radioactive substance leaks from Fukui nuclear power plant in Japan

Jen Mills, Metro 24 Dec 2025

Radioactive water leaked from a disused power plant in Japan today during work to decommission it.

Parts of the Fugen nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture are being dismantled, and while this took place, around around 20ml of water containing a ‘high’ amount of the radioactive isotope tritium leaked from a pipe.

Japanese broadcaster NHK One reported earlier that detailed investigations were underway to see if any workers were splashed with the water, though internal exposure via inhalation had been ruled out.

Citing the Nuclear Regulation Authority, they said no radioactive material had leaked outside the controlled area of the plant.

December 28, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Japan | Leave a comment

The cost of eternity

While the hype for nuclear energy is taking over Europe, radioactive waste remains a challenge: it takes billions to store it safely.

Guillaume Amouret | 17/12/2025,
https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/the-cost-of-eternity

The world’s first deposit of nuclear waste lies 430 meters underground, beneath a dense pine forest on the peninsula of Olkiluoto, on the shores of western Finland. It should store up to 6,500 tonnes of waste.

Finland opted for a deep geological deposit to permanently and securely dispose of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Carved in the granite bedrock, deep below the surface, the storage is conceived to protect the surface from radioactivity for at least 100,000 years.

After a one-year delay due to technical difficulties, the Onkalo (“cave” in Finnish) is now awaiting final approval from the Finnish Nuclear Security Agency, STUK.

Contacted by The European Correspondent, the operator of the Onkalo, Posiva, reaffirmed its goal to start operations in 2026.

Safe until the world’s end?

For now, spent fuel elements are usually stored in temporary above-ground facilities next to the reactors or collected in a central storage facility such as La Hague in France.

However, the disposal of radioactive materials has not always been well-thought-out. After the war and until the 1990s, 200,000 barrels of nuclear waste were dumped in the deep sea without consideration for the environmental consequences by the Nuclear Energy Agency.

Today, the Onkalo is pioneering the ”permanent” underground disposal method. Posiva adopted the Swedish KBS-3 system: spent fuel rods are placed in an 8-meter-long copper canister, which is then embedded in bentonite clay and inserted in holes drilled directly into the crystalline rock deep underground.

The remaining free tunnels are eventually filled with bentonite too. All combined, copper bentonite and granite constitute a three-stage protection against radiation.

Billions for projects that locals don’t like

The construction of the Onkalo site has cost around €1 billion so far, Posiva told TEC. The operations and the site’s closing, in a hundred years from now, are further evaluated at an additional €4 billion, bringing the total cost to €5.5 billion. For context, decommissioning a wind turbine in Finland costs between €10,000 and €85,000.

In Forsmark, on the Swedish side of the Gulf of Bothnia, SKB started the construction of a similar deposit in January this year.

The Swedish project should have twice the storage capacity of the Onkalo. And so does its budget. In a recent calculation update, SKB mentioned a global cost of €11 billion from cradle to final closing.

The Swedish and Finnish repositories are not the only ongoing projects in Europe – France and Germany have the most (running or shut down) nuclear reactors in Europe, 71 and 33 respectively. Things get a bit trickier there, however, when it comes to waste storage.

Exit the granite in France, the spent nuclear fuel will be buried in clay rock in Bure, a small village situated in a rural area of eastern France. Originally estimated at €25 billion, the global budget of the French deposit has been recently revised to between €26 and 37 billion.

Asked by TEC, the operator, Andra, justifies the increase through “the extension of schedule, and extra costs due to additional workforce in management and the security of the site”.

This summer, Andra started the construction of a dedicated building for the police squad in charge of monitoring and cracking down on local opposition to the project since 2019.

So far, the trophy for the most chaotic process goes to Germany. In 1973, the first site was selected to build a final repository: Gorleben’s salt mine in Northern Germany. But after decades of fierce opposition from environmental activists against the infrastructure, the site was declared unsuitable five years ago.

In fact, the search for an adequate location restarted from zero at the beginning of the 2010s. And while the search process is still ongoing for a few more years, the German authority for nuclear security, BASE, hopes to open a new site by 2050.

Who pays?

Following the principle ”polluter pays”, nuclear energy companies should fully fund the permanent storage construction. In addition, they are subject to two different taxes to fund the construction of the deposit site: a research and a design tax.

Finland and Sweden work with a relatively similar finance concept. In both Scandinavian countries, the nuclear industry contributes to a dedicated nuclear waste fund every year.

In both cases, the annual fee is determined by the costs of the remaining work for the final disposal. In Finland, this accounts for about 9% of the production cost of nuclear electricity, and around 6% in Sweden.

Germany tried to create a unique public foundation to finance nuclear waste management: KENFO. In 2017, the energy companies E.ON, Vattenfall, EnBW and RWE transferred together €24 billion to the fund.

KENFO then should have developed the fund further by investing parts of it in financial products, but registered a loss of €3 billion in 2023, due to the loss in value of governmental bonds and real estate investment trusts (REIT).

December 27, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, wastes | Leave a comment

$264million scheme could transform RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk into a nuclear facility

$264million scheme could transform RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk in order for
it to be capable of storing nuclear weapons. Reports claim the US Pentagon
has carried out “detailed assessments” of RAF Lakenheath’s suitability as a
nuclear facility. It follows prolonged speculation the Suffolk air base
already holds specialist weapons.

A plane from the US Air Force’s nuclear
weapon storage facility arrived at RAF Lakenheath in July, fuelling rumours
among experts. The US withdrew its warheads from RAF Lakenheath in 2008.

Eastern Daily Press 23rd Dec 2025 ,By Ben Robinson, West Suffolk & Sudbury Reporter, https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/25721309.264million-scheme-transform-raf-lakenheath-suffolk/

December 27, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel’s growing role in Taiwan’s air defense alarms Beijing.

Israel’s expanding ties with Taiwan, particularly in missile defense, are quietly reshaping regional geopolitics and alarming Beijing. In this context, even small defense transfers could undermine years of careful diplomatic calibration.

Uriel Araujo, BRICS, Monday, December 22, 2025

Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.

Israeli-Taiwanese cooperation, long discreet and underreported, is now moving into far more sensitive terrain. Recent reports indicate that Israeli know-how has been quietly feeding into Taiwan’s emerging missile-defense architecture, the so-called “T-DOME,” a system explicitly inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome. As a matter of fact, this development has already triggered a blunt diplomatic rebuke from Beijing, raising uncomfortable questions about Israel’s long-standing balancing act between rival global powers.

A detailed account of this growing cooperation comes from Nadia Helmy, Visiting Senior Researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), who notes that Chinese intelligence agencies have detected expanding Israeli assistance to Taiwan’s missile shield, particularly in radar integration, command-and-control architecture, and layered interception concepts. According to Helmy, Beijing views this cooperation not as an isolated commercial exchange but as a strategic signal, thereby crossing a political red line.

Taiwan’s T-DOME project is ambitious enough. Taipei plans to spend over USD 40 billion on a multi-layered air and missile defense system combining indigenous technology with foreign expertise, drawing lessons from Israel’s battlefield experience.

What makes the situation more delicate is not simply the technology itself but the political choreography surrounding it. Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister reportedly made a secret trip to Israel in December 2025 to discuss defense cooperation, a visit confirmed by multiple outlets. Israeli lawmakers have also traveled to Taiwan, prompting a formal condemnation from China’s embassy in Israel.

There is a context to such moves. Taiwan’s political discourse has increasingly framed Israel as both a security model and a civilizational reference point. One may recall that Taiwanese officials have even invoked biblical imagery when criticizing authoritarianism, explicitly citing Israel as an example. Meanwhile, pro-Israel lobbying networks linked to AIPAC have been expanding their presence in Taiwan, a fact documented but rarely discussed in mainstream Western media.

Israel, for its part, has historically prided itself on its ability to balance competing global relationships. Thus far, it has managed to maintain workable ties with Russia and Ukraine simultaneously, for instance, while also navigating relations with both the US and China.

Be as it may, Taiwan represents a different category of sensitivity altogether. Unlike commercial technology transfers or infrastructure investments, missile defense cooperation touches the core of China’s security concerns. Suffice to say, Beijing’s reaction has been measured rather than escalatory, but unmistakably firm nonetheless. In any case, from China’s perspective, Israeli involvement in Taiwan’s air defense is not neutral, regardless of how it is framed in Tel Aviv.

Some analysts, such as geopolitical expert Sergio Restelli, have already warned that this (and other developments) could mark the end of Israel’s careful balancing with China.

Others argue that Israel is simply responding to pressure from Washington, especially under the Trump administration, which has doubled down on strategic competition with China while encouraging allies to “choose sides.” I’ve written before about how the Trump administration has been pressuring, “sidelining” and “leveraging” the Jewish State in a number ways, including through its Gaza Plan, apparently as part of an effort to rebalance the complex US-Israeli relationship………………………………….. https://infobrics.org/en/post/74234

December 27, 2025 Posted by | Israel, Taiwan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Budour Hassan Sounds Alarm as Israeli Settlements Expand, Deepening Apartheid and Threatening Palestinian Statehood

 December 23, 2025 , Joshua Scheer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1CvbfpeSVg

srael’s far-right government has recently approved the construction of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. These settlements are considered illegal under international law, as the West Bank is recognized as occupied territory and the expansion of settlements undermines Palestinian rights.

Amnesty International researcher Budour Hassan describes this policy as reinforcing an “apartheid system” in the West Bank, meaning a system of segregation and discrimination that favors Israeli settlers over the Palestinian population.

Experts warn that continuing to build settlements makes it increasingly difficult to establish a viable Palestinian state, further entrenching the Israeli occupation and threatening any future peace agreements.

In short, the move intensifies the occupation, worsens inequality, and complicates prospects for Palestinian self-determination.

For more on Budour Hassan’s work: Budour Hassan, a Palestinian feminist, international lawyer, and human rights researcher at Amnesty International, played a central role in the landmark December 2024 report that concluded Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza—the first such finding by an international human rights organization.

Hassan’s journey is deeply personal. Once a blind 19-year-old law student navigating the streets of Jerusalem, she defied her family’s expectations to become a leading voice for justice. Today, she delivers a powerful call to action: “Solidarity is naming the perpetrator, rejecting silence, refusing the passive voice… Solidarity is not just a word; it’s an action repeated over and over.”

Here Hassan offers a powerful reflection in her essay, “’A Fear of Negation’: Reading Edward Said in the Time of Genocide,” examining Said’s ability to remain critically engaged—with Arab and Palestinian leadership, societal challenges, and his own role as narrator—while honoring the full complexity of Palestinian life.

Hassan writes, “Even though it was under a blockade, Gaza was a living reenactment of what Edward Said would describe as the drama of Palestinian existence.” Drawing on Said’s insight, she highlights how grief can be transformed into a political tool, allowing us to honor not only Gaza’s martyrs but the city itself, with all its beauty and contradictions.

“This is the strength of Edward Said’s writing: that he was able to see the full spectrum of Palestinian humanity.”

Budour Hassan is a vital voice for the world—an indispensable voice on the global stage whose insights and advocacy resonate far beyond her community. She is a critical voice the world needs to hear, calling attention to human rights, justice, and the urgent struggles facing Palestinians today.

December 27, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

UK to restart nuclear submarine defuelling in 2026

By Lisa West, -UK Defence Journal 23rd Dec 2025 https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-to-restart-nuclear-submarine-defuelling-in-2026/

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that defuelling of the UK’s decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines is set to restart in 2026, as preparations continue at specialist dock facilities in Devonport.

In a written parliamentary answer, defence minister Luke Pollard said the twelve remaining first-generation submarines powered by pressurised water reactors would be handled through a tightly regulated process overseen by the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

He said the submarines would dock in “a specialised, licensed dock in Devonport”, where “the used fuel will be removed, loaded into a qualified transport container and transported to Sellafield prior to long-term storage in the Geological Disposal Facility.”

Pollard confirmed that dismantling of each vessel would only take place once defuelling is complete, adding that “work is underway to prepare the dock facilities and associated resources in line with plans to recommence defueling in 2026.”

The update also set out progress on the UK’s first full submarine dismantling programme. HMS Swiftsure, the demonstrator vessel for the Submarine Dismantling Project, began dismantling at Rosyth in 2023.

According to Pollard, the project “will refine the disposal process and is on track to be dismantled by the end of 2026, achieving the commitment given to the Public Accounts Committee in 2019.”

He said lessons from Swiftsure and the Devonport defuelling programme would be used to firm up timelines for the remaining fleet, stating that “lessons learned from these defuel and dismantling projects will provide more certainty around the schedule for defueling and dismantling the remaining 22 decommissioned submarines.”

The UK currently has 27 decommissioned nuclear submarines awaiting defuelling or dismantling, a long-running issue highlighted repeatedly by the National Audit Office and parliamentary committees concerned about safety, cost and delay.

December 27, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Sweden’s Vattenfall Seeks State Funding for New Nuclear Reactors

By Michael Kern – Dec 23, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Swedens-Vattenfall-Seeks-State-Funding-for-New-Nuclear-Reactors.html

Sweden’s power giant Vattenfall announced on Tuesday it is applying for state aid for an investment in small modular reactors (SMRs) as part of a plan by industrial giants to bet on new nuclear power in the country. 

Last month Sweden’s biggest industrial firms signed an agreement with Vattenfall to become shareholders in the power giant’s new company, Videberg Kraft AB, which plans to build SMRs in the country.

One of Europe’s top electric utilities, Vattenfall, created Videberg Kraft AB in April this year as a separate entity to be able to apply for government support.   

Now the company and the industry organization, Industrikraft, plan joint investment and collaboration enabling the development of new nuclear power in Sweden.  

Industrikraft, whose members include Volvo Group, Saab, Alfa Laval, and Hitachi Energy, will become a shareholder in Videberg Kraft with a 20-percent stake. 

The government has previously announced that the state also intends to become a shareholder in the new company. 

The Swedish government moved to phase out nuclear power completely in 1980, but that decision was reversed by Parliament in 2010. Five years later, four aging reactors were shut down. Six of 12 reactors remain in operation in Sweden today.   

The country is now betting on SMRs to expand its nuclear fleet as Stockholm seeks to further reduce emissions with low-carbon 24/7 energy. 

Sweden has tweaked its renewable energy policy, which had called for 100% renewable electricity by 2040, changing the terminology to “100% fossil-free” electricity, paving the way for the construction of more nuclear power plants.

Now Videberg Kraft’s CEO Desirée Comstedt has submitted an application for financing and risk-sharing to the Swedish Government.    

When an agreement between the state and Videberg Kraft has been reached, the government may initiate a formal state aid process with the European Commission, Vattenfall said. 

Videberg Kraft is planning a project with either five BWRX-300 reactors from GE Vernova Hitachi or three reactors from Rolls-Royce SMR, which will provide a total nuclear power output of about 1,500 MW. There is currently an intensive evaluation process of the two remaining suppliers, and a decision on the final supplier is planned for 2026. 

December 27, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics, Sweden | Leave a comment

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