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Chernobyl, 40 Years Since Disaster: Five Things to Know

 Ukraine on Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the explosion at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant – the worst civilian nuclear disaster in
history. It comes four years into the Russian invasion that has put the
plant once again under threat and raised risks of another radioactive
catastrophe.

Here are five things to know about the disaster and the plant
today: Thousands are estimated to have died as a result of exposure to the
radiation, though assessments of the precise human toll vary. A 2005 UN
report put the number of confirmed and projected deaths at 4,000 in the
three worst-affected countries. Greenpeace in 2006 estimated that the
disaster had caused close to 100,000 deaths. According to the United
Nations, some 600,000 people involved in the clean-up operation — known as
“liquidators” — were exposed to high levels of radiation. The disaster
raised public fears of nuclear energy, fuelling a surge in anti-nuclear
movements across Europe.

 Kyiv Post 24th April 2026, https://www.kyivpost.com/post/74633

April 27, 2026 Posted by | incidents, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Protest Targets Capital One to Demand Bank Ends Loans to Israeli Weapons Company

Activists are urging the bank to not extend additional credit to Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.

By Joseph Mogul , Truthout, April 23, 2026

On the morning of April 21, a dozen community members with the anti-imperialist campaign Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard (DBNY) entered the Capital One corporate offices in Midtown, Manhattan, unfurling two banners that read: “Capital One Pays For Genocide” and “Eject Elbit Systems.” The group quickly installed a “soft blockade” with the banners, partially obstructing two hallways to bring attention to workers. One protester walked across the building lobby, showering the floor in faux cash stained with red paint.

A New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer and two private security guards stationed inside grabbed the banner, shoving protesters and reporters toward the exit. Before forcing DBNY outside — where the protest continued — an NYPD officer shouted at this author: “No freedom of press on private property!”

This action comes days before the expiration of a $545 million loan from a consortium of six banks — including $90 million from Capital One — to Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. As part of a global week of action called by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement to “intensify the BDS campaign against Elbit,” organizers planned actions in New York City, Boston, and the Washington, D.C. area targeting Capital One under the moniker “Eject Elbit.”

“This week, Capital One’s $90 million loan to Elbit Systems is set to either renew or expire, and we came out in multiple cities to let them know that we’re not giving up,” said one Eject Elbit organizer in D.C. who chose to remain anonymous for security reasons. “They’ve heard from us for months, and they will continue to hear until they drop this violent funding.”

According to a Bloomberg financial markets database, the $545 million loan was signed on May 21, 2021, and is set to mature on April 24, 2026. The BDS Global Week of Action overlaps with a pivotal moment of escalation — pressuring Capital One to not extend additional credit to Elbit Systems.

Elbit Systems is one of most complicit actors in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, supplying the Israeli military with weapons such as MPR 500 bombs, which are specifically designed for “densely populated urban warfare.” Elbit also developed border surveillance systems crucial to the maintenance of Israeli apartheid, and repressive immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border, where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Elbit with $23.9 million to install surveillance towers in 2023.

In addition to organizing against two companies operating on city-owned property at the Brooklyn Navy Yard — Easy Aerial and Crye Precision, both with ties to the Israeli military and DHS — DBNY joined the national Eject Elbit campaign last fall.

“Easy Aerial supplies Elbit Systems; they’re collaborators,” said Iman Bowman, a DBNY spokesperson, referencing contracts to retrofit Elbit Systems ground vehicles with Easy Aerial autonomous drones.

DBNY recently celebrated its first victory after successfully pressuring the Brooklyn Navy Yard not to renew Easy Aerial’s lease in February. Now the campaign continues fighting local nodes of the global weapons supply chain to Israel, including Elbit’s financiers…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://truthout.org/articles/protest-targets-capital-one-to-demand-bank-ends-loans-to-israeli-weapons-company/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=01f7de4f88-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_04_23_09_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-01f7de4f88-650192793

April 27, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Staggering amount for guns, bullets, bombs, space superiority

$1.5 Trillion Budget Request Prioritizes Service Members, Modernization

U.S. Department of War, April 21, 2026 

“We are delivering on President [Donald J.] Trump’s commitment to expand American military dominance for decades to come,” said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. “Previous administrations underinvested in our military while our enemies grew stronger and more dangerous, so we are now changing the game. This budget builds this arsenal without compromising readiness that will ensure we remain the world’s premier fighting force, we protect the homeland, and we create peace through strength now and into the future.” 

The FY27 budget request represents a sizable increase over last year’s budget, said Jules W. Hurst III, performing the duties of the War Department comptroller. 

“This is a generational investment in the United States military— the arsenal of freedom,” Hurst said. “This 42% increase will supercharge our defense industrial base by expanding production of major weapon systems, while strengthening supply chains and supporting tens of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. It secures our homeland and military advantage through investments in the Golden Dome missile defense system, drone dominance and space superiority.” 

This year’s budget request puts a huge focus on buying and investing in actual hardware, Hurst said. About 52% of the total budget request is aimed at buying munitions, planes, tanks and ships. 

“The FY27 defense budget will be the largest investment in military capabilities in over a generation,” Hurst said. “This budget allocates over $750 billion … just in capability development and procuring weapons systems.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4465551/15-trillion-budget-request-prioritizes-service-members-modernization/

April 26, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

10 takeaways from Trump’s senseless Iran war


Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL , 23 April 26, https://theaimn.net/ten-takeaways-from-trumps-senseless-iran-war/

1. First time a foreign power, Israel, goaded, indeed demanded America launch a criminal war

2. Trump’s capitulation to Israel’s war demand is destroying his presidency and will likely hand over Congress to Democrats in November

3. Air power alone has not and will not achieve victory over Iran

4. Ignoring Iran’s ability to close Strait of Hormuz gave strategic advantage to Iran to force stalemate, if not achieve outright Iranian victory

5. US has greatly degraded world economy and may spiral it into recession, possibly even depression if it doesn’t end war soon

6. All US Gulf States bases have been damaged or destroyed and may never be rebuilt due to loss of US security credibility to Gulf States

7. Israel has largely destroyed its support among young Americans disgusted with its endless manipulation of US to support both its Gaza Genocide under Biden and war to destroy Iran under Trump

8. If desperate Trump resumes bombing to destroy Iranian infrastructure, Iran will retaliate destroying Israeli and Gulf States infrastructure, possibly all Middle East oil production

9. A peaceful settlement on Iran’s sensible terms is the only path to Middle East peace

10. As long as the war continues, Israeli use of nuclear weapons remains a possibility

April 26, 2026 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | 1 Comment

GOP Senator Suggests Trump Should “Finish” Iran With Nuclear Bomb

The senator, Roger Marshall, said Trump has to “take everything into consideration” if ceasefire progress stalls

.By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, April 22, 2026, https://truthout.org/articles/gop-senator-suggests-trump-should-finish-iran-with-nuclear-bomb/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=9a9827f3a8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_04_22_09_22&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-9a9827f3a8-650192793

epublican Sen. Roger Marshall (Kansas) said in an interview on Wednesday that President Donald Trump faces issues on par with those of World War II with regard to the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, seeming to suggest that Trump should nuke Iran in order to prevent the country from ever having nuclear weapons.

Marshall was asked by a Newsmax anchor if he believes that the U.S. military will “have to go in and finish this job” if negotiations between the U.S. and Iran for a permanent ceasefire continue for several more weeks.

“I think that’s right,” said the senator. “Previous presidents have had the same issues on what to do. Think about President Truman’s decision on dropping the bomb, and D-Day for President Eisenhower.”

“You’ve got to take everything into consideration,” Marshall said, including whether negotiations are “truly making progress or not.”

Earlier in the interview, the senator said that the U.S.’s aggression against Iran is necessary because “Iran can never, never, ever have a nuclear weapon.”

Related Story

“If Iran had a nuclear weapon, gasoline would be $10 a gallon, and for generations to come, Americans’ lives would be threatened,” the lawmaker said.

The statements echo Trump’s genocidal rhetoric toward Iran, including his threat to “blow up the rest of their Country” if negotiations falter on Tuesday. Legal experts have said that Trump’s indiscriminate threats against Iran as a whole, as well as his pledges to target civilian infrastructure like power plants, constitute threats to commit war crimes.

Marshall also bragged about the harm that the U.S. is causing civilians with Trump’s blockade on Iran.

“We also have this embargo working as well, the blockade, and we’re literally starving them,” said Marshall, “both financially and they can’t feed themselves either, very long.”

The use of starvation as a weapon of war is prohibited under international law.

The UN indeed warned last month that an additional 45 million people may be “pushed into acute hunger by price rises” if the conflict and closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue through June, adding to the already record high of 319 million people currently facing acute food insecurity. Iran previously pledged to open passage through the strait as a term of the temporary ceasefire agreement, but is still prohibiting ships from crossing due to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and the U.S.’s blockade of Iranian ports, which Iranian officials have said are both violations of the ceasefire.

Republicans have previously called for the usage of nuclear weapons with impunity. Last May, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida), said that Israel should drop a nuclear weapon on Gaza. “We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here,” he said. “There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture and it needs to be defeated.”

The staunchly pro-Israel lawmaker’s statements were condemned by rights advocates — but, just weeks later, Republican leaders granted him a seat on the high-powered House Foreign Affairs Committee.

This followed a remark by another Republican House lawmaker, Rep. Tim Walberg (Michigan), who said in March of 2024 that Gaza should be attacked “like Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”

April 26, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA | 1 Comment

Westminster keeps nuclear secrets to avoid upsetting Scottish Government

The Scottish Greens argued that the people of Scotland have a “fundamental right” to know the risks they face from hosting weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. Suppressing information that may support arguments against nuclear weapons poses a “clear and present danger” politically, it warned

Rob Edwards, April 10 2023, https://www.theferret.scot/nuclear-secrets-scottish-government/

The UK Government is refusing to say why it is keeping nuclear safety reports secret because it is worried about “anti-nuclear arguments from the Scottish Government”.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) won’t give its reasons for failing to release annual assessments of the safety of nuclear weapons on the Clyde so as not to “prejudice relations between the UK and Scottish governments”.

The secrecy has been condemned by the Scottish Greens as “outrageous, undemocratic and frankly dangerous”. It was akin to nuclear policies in Russia, China and North Korea, according to a campaigner — and it was described as “totally unacceptable” by a former nuclear submarine commander.

The Scottish Government urged the MoD to be “open and transparent” about the handling of nuclear materials in Scotland. The MoD said it had to “strike a balance” between public interest in safety and protecting information about nuclear weapons.

Annual reports from the MoD’s internal watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), were released for ten years, but ceased being published in 2017. A freedom of information appeal to a UK tribunal to force the MoD to again release the reports was rejected in July 2021.

The Ferret previously revealed that the reports for 2005 to 2015 highlighted “regulatory risks” 86 times, including 13 rated as high priority. One issue repeatedly seen as a high risk was a shortage of suitably qualified and experienced engineers.

Now the MoD has rejected another freedom of information request asking for documents that set out the rationale for refusing to release more recent DNSR reports. It disclosed that the decision was taken in 2017 by then secretary of state for defence, Michael Fallon, but has withheld information on why.

In a letter to a campaigner in January 2023, the MoD said it had used an exemption under freedom of information law aimed at preventing damage to relations between UK administrations. The exemption had been applied to information “which relates to the basing of the nuclear deterrent in Scotland”, it explained.

“There is a strong public interest in reassuring the public, especially in Scotland, that the nuclear deterrent is maintained and operated safely. However, any misinterpretation of the information, due to an incomplete picture, could lead to further anti-nuclear arguments from the Scottish Government, which is already strongly in favour of removing the nuclear deterrent from Scotland.”

The MoD concluded that “the balance of public interest” was in favour of withholding the information “as its release would prejudice relations between the UK and Scottish governments.”

The MoD letter also argued that information on reasons for withholding the reports should be kept secret “for the purpose of safeguarding national security”. Secrecy was also necessary so as not to prejudice “the defence of the UK” or “the relationship between the UK and the US” as well as to allow a “safe space” for officials to advise ministers.

A formal memo to officials from Fallon in October 2017 released by the MoD gave a little more detail. “The current threat of the UK deterrent from hostile state actors, including hostile foreign intelligence services [redacted] means we need to tighten up our practice on release of information,” it said.

“Even information which is unarguably unclassified in isolation could help a potential adversary put together a more highly classified picture.”

Nuclear secrecy ‘totalitarian’

The Scottish Greens argued that the people of Scotland have a “fundamental right” to know the risks they face from hosting weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. Suppressing information that may support arguments against nuclear weapons poses a “clear and present danger” politically, it warned.

“The extraordinary admission in this letter that the MoD and UK Government are actively concealing key pieces of information from the Scottish Government is outrageous, undemocratic and frankly dangerous,” said Green MSP, Mark Ruskell.

“The MoD is basically saying they won’t share this information because they are scared Scotland won’t like it and it might upset the US. You simply can’t get any more totalitarian than that and this should be challenged further.”

Ruskell added: “If they want to reassure people that there are no unnecessary added dangers, they should share the information urgently and transparently. If not they should pack up and ship out. Scotland doesn’t want nukes here and they know it.”

The nuclear researcher and campaigner who has been challenging the MoD’s refusal to release the nuclear safety reports is Peter Burt. UK citizens are allowed to know “virtually nothing” about the hazards of nuclear weapons despite paying billions of pounds for them, he said.

“We’re not allowed to know whether the Ministry of Defence’s safety watchdog thinks the nuclear weapons programme is complying with public protection arrangements, and Scottish Ministers are not trusted to know what is going on at the Navy’s nuclear bases in Scotland,” Burt told The Ferret.

“It’s pretty clear that this has more to do with politics than security. While the US government regularly releases information about its nuclear weapons programme, the UK Government has decided to model its own nuclear policies on those of countries like Russia, China, and North Korea.”

Rob Forsyth, a former Royal Navy nuclear submarine commander who now campaigns against nuclear weapons, described the MoD’s justifications for secrecy as “totally unacceptable”.

He said: “The way to avoid any misinterpretation is to be honest and fully transparent over matters affecting public safety and our national defence. The notion that government should not allow public discussion is not conduct expected of a democracy.”

The Scottish Government reiterated its opposition to the possession of nuclear weapons and its support for world-wide nuclear disarmament.

“In order to retain the confidence of this government and the Scottish public, the Ministry of Defence should be open and transparent in its actions around the handling of nuclear materials in Scotland,” said a spokesperson.

The Ministry of Defence insisted that it had “robust safety measures” at nuclear sites and took safety incidents “incredibly seriously”. Nuclear programmes were “subject to regular independent scrutiny and reviews,” it said.

An MoD spokesperson told The Ferret: “The release of information on nuclear safety must strike a balance between recognising public interest in nuclear safety matters and protecting information about our nuclear systems.”

April 26, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Exposed: Israeli operation to help Brits move to West Bank

Undercover investigation reveals charity touted ‘awesome’ illegal settlements and claimed it could benefit from UK tax subsidies

Martin Williams, DECLASSIFIED UK, 13 April 2026

An Israeli organisation has been caught on camera offering to help British citizens move to an illegal settlement in the West Bank.

Declassified can reveal how the group, Shivat Zion, told supporters it could benefit from UK tax subsidies – despite staff bragging about “awesome” settlements.

An undercover investigation saw the group’s “encouragement” officer discussing the support it would give settlers moving to Efrat, in the West Bank.

“You’re next to the Arabs; you’ll hear their mosques,” he was recorded saying. “But apart from this, it’s a great living standard.”

The comments were made during a Zoom call with a Jewish anti-Zionist activist, who asked Declassified to secretly film the conversation.

In February, the UK government promised to take “concrete steps in accordance with international law to counter settlement expansion”.

Foreign minister Hamish Falconer said: “Israel’s illegal settlements and decisions designed to further them are a flagrant violation of international law”. 

But Declassified can reveal how Shivat Zion invited supporters to claim UK Gift Aid when making donations.

Despite being registered in Israel, it directed donations to a separate charity called UK Toremet Ltd, based near London. 

In an email seen by Declassified, a representative from Shivat Zion claimed that donations “go through” the UK Toremet charity, explaining that this “ensures the donations properly reach Shivat Zion”.

If money were to be received this way, it could mean that support for illegal settlers could potentially benefit from British tax subsidies………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ‘Unacceptable’

Human rights lawyer Daniel Machover told Declassified: “Fundamental breaches of international law cannot constitute charitable purposes.”

He added: “It’s just unacceptable, really, for these things to go unhindered when it’s clear that they shouldn’t be taking place. I am really deeply disturbed that this is going on.”………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://www.declassifieduk.org/exposed-israeli-operation-to-help-brits-move-to-west-bank/

April 26, 2026 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Leader in nuclear”? Or leader in repeating harm?

Elaine Cimino, Apr 23, 2026,

Rep. Meredith Dixon stood at a pro-nuclear conference and laid it out plainly: New Mexico is building a “nuclear ecosystem.”

Let’s translate that.

An ecosystem where:
– Public money cleans up yesterday’s contamination
– Public money funds tomorrow’s nuclear expansion
– And communities are told, once again, to accept the risk

$40 million to clean up abandoned uranium mines.
$150 million to build new nuclear technology.

That’s not balance. That’s subsidizing the problem at both ends.

They say this time is “different.”
They said that last time too.

Hundreds of abandoned uranium sites across New Mexico say otherwise.

Navajo communities still living with contamination say otherwise.
Water systems already under stress say otherwise.

Now we’re told uranium can come from “produced water.”
The same toxic waste stream the oil and gas industry is trying to dump into our future.

This is not innovation.
This is expanding extraction under a new label.

And let’s be clear about what’s driving this push:

Data centers. Defense systems. Industrial demand.
Not community need. Not public health.

Meanwhile, local journalism keeps framing this as a “debate”—two equal sides.

There are not two equal sides when one side carries decades of contamination, illness, and broken promises.

That’s not “both sides.”
That’s power vs. people.

We don’t need a nuclear ecosystem.
We need clean water, clean air, and full cleanup—first.

No new uranium.
No expansion.
No sacrifice zones.

Democratic NM representative says state poised to become national nuclear leader • Source New Mexico https://sourcenm.com/2026/04/21/democratic-nm-representative-says-state-poised-to-become-national-nuclear-leader/

April 26, 2026 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Kiev’s 2014 anti-terror operation was a bankers’ war

The war, which left 14,000 casualties, was instigated by IMF’s “key shareholders,” and discussed by Arianne de Rothschild and Jeffrey Epstein

Alex Krainer, Apr 23, 2026, https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/kievs-2014-anti-terror-operation?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1063805&post_id=194384784&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

On 15 April 2026, we passed the 12-year anniversary from the start of Ukraine’s anti-terrorism operation (ATO), which set off a cascade of events leading to a civil war in Ukraine and which made the ultimate clash between Russia and the U.S./NATO all but inevitable. The ATO was a critical part of Western powers’ attempt to take full control of Ukraine, but at the same time, but its nature and intensity was deliberately obscured in the Western media.

The Maidan coup and the breakup of Ukraine

Violent overthrow of the democratically elected President Alexander Yanukovich took place in February 2014 and it provoked strong resistance in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine where the majority of people understood what took place in Kiev.

These were the most populous regions of Ukraine which overwhelmingly supported President Yanukovych. In the 2010 elections in the Donbass he received over 90% of the vote and the people there did not accept his violent overthrow.


Russia seizes Crimea

In the immediate aftermath of the coup, Moscow moved to secure the Crimean peninsula. On 27 February 2014, Russian troops that were stationed in Crimea secured all of the peninsula’s strategic points to prevent a forcible takeover by Kiev junta’s forces. On 16 March, Crimea held a referendum to a very large turnout (83.1%) and 96.77% of the votes (1.23 million) were in favor of the peninsula re-joining Russia. Two days later, on 18 March, the Kremlin officially recognized Crimea as a constituent part of the Russian Federation.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the east and the south of Ukraine demonstrations against the new regime multiplied, disabling Kiev’s attempts to take full control the country. Kiev’s Western sponsors exerted pressure on the new government to crack down on these protests and consolidate control of the whole country. As a result, in early March 2014 Kiev began sending convoys of troops armed with helicopters, artillery and tanks toward the mutinous regions.

However, the people of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk organized to block their advance. Because the ordinary Ukrainian soldiers were reluctant to unleash violence on their fellow citizens, these acts of civilian resistance proved effective and the regime was in danger of losing control of the country’s south and east regions.

The Nazification

On 13 March, the Junta moved quickly to form a more aggressive force, a 60,000-strong National Guard. Led by the new security chief Andriy Paruby, the National Guard would play a similar role in Ukraine as Ernst Roehm’s Storm Troopers played in Germany during the 1930s: it would be to carry through an onslaught against any elements disloyal to the regime.

At the same time, the Interior Minister Arsen Avakov took up the task of spiking up the rest of Ukraine’s armed forces by seeding almost all of their regular units with at least two or three far right radicals to overcome the troops’ scruples about violence. These men were assigned to accompany the regular army units, confront the protesters and enforce the Junta’s commands.

As John Pilger reported in The Guardian at the time, Ukraine was turned into a CIA theme park, run personally by the CIA director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of “special units” from the CIA and FBI setting up a “security structure” overseeing savage attacks on those who opposed the February Coup.


Kiev’s ATO triggers a civil war in Ukraine

In this way, the stage was set for a civil war in Ukraine. What’s important to recognize, however, is that the pressure to consolidate Junta’s control over the Donbass originated with the international banking cartel, the IMF acting as their conduit.

Immediately after the coup, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew indicated that Ukraine’s discussions with the IMF were crucial. Lew held discussions with the junta’s leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk and assured him that his government could count on a broad international assistance coordinated by the IMF.

Lew then instructed the IMF chief Christine Lagarde that Ukraine needed to quickly begin implementing the requisite “structural reforms.” Two weeks into Kiev’s ATO, on Wednesday, 30 April 2014, the IMF signed off on a $17 billion aid package for Ukraine.

IMF money, with strings attached

This was the very same IMF that only six months prior could come up with only $4 billion in aid, subject to extremely harsh conditions. But for the new regime, $17 billion was doable, only with different strings attached this time. One day after approving the new aid package, the Fund’s staff report pointed to the obvious problem:

“… unfolding developments in the east and tense relations with Russia could severely disrupt bilateral trade and depress investment confidence for a considerable period of time, thus worsening the economic outlook. … Should the central government lose effective control over the east, the program will have to be re-designed. ”

A CNBC article titled, “IMF warns Ukraine on bailout if it loses East” noted that Kiev’s actions were “politically driven by key IMF shareholders to support the Yatsenyuk ‘kamikaze’ administration in its reform efforts.” How important was IMF’s role? On 26 November 2014, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said as follows:

“Our cabinet has resumed the program of activity and cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and other banks. Today international investors are not ready to go to the country but international banks are ready to help us. … We would not have survived without the international assistance.”

However, to earn that vital assistance from western banking cartel, Kiev would have to take full control of the defiant eastern regions which accounted for nearly 80% of the nation’s GDP.

It’s (as always) the collateral, stupid!

Why, we might ask, were the banking interests so keen that their Kiev junta retain control of the Donbas? It all had much less to do with its freedom and democracy and more with its large coal industry, ferrous-metallurgy industry, machine building, chemical industry, construction sector, enormous energy resources, diversified agriculture, and a dense transportation network – all coveted prizes for the western financial interests.

Furthermore, the Donbass accounted for almost 95% of Ukraine’s domestic energy resources and about 30% of her energy use. Some 90% of Ukraine’s coal reserves, which are the 6th largest in the world, are located in the Donetsk basin. This was crucial for Ukraine’s energy diversification plans, as formulated by the OECD in 2011. The plan entailed doubling Ukraine’s electricity generation through 2030 and shifting thermal power plants from gas, which was supplied from Russia, to domestic coal.

Taking control of the Donbas and Crimea was essential for the realization of that plan. Ukraine was also found to have the third largest shale gas reserves, estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters. One of the two large fields, the Yuzivska, falls almost entirely within the Donetsk and Kharkov oblasts. Western energy giants like Chevron, Exxon, Halliburton and Shell had already set their crosshairs on projects in eastern Ukraine oblasts.

The rebellion in Donetsk and Lugansk deprived them of the opportunity to develop those assets, and their bankers of the opportunity to turn those natural resources into their own collateral. Already in June 2014, Royal Dutch Shell had to suspend operations on shale gas exploration projects on Yuzivska due to the fact that Kiev government was unable to secure their control over the field. Six months later, the company had to abandon the project altogether.

Likewise, Chevron had to abandon its own plans to develop Ukraine’s energy resources, estimated to be worth about $10 billion. After Russia annexed Crimea, Exxon Mobil had to shelve its own ambitious plans to develop Black Sea offshore gas fields. Its $12 billion Skifska project with 3 trillion cubic feet of estimated gas reserves was expected to begin producing gas in 2017, only now it was on Russia’s sovereign territory.

The price of democracy and freedom

All these resources could not just be abandoned to the uppity east Ukrainians. There was work to be done and Western diplomats and ‘advisors’ made sure to prod their Kiev agents accordingly. As soon as the Junta was in power a slew of top western officials descended on Ukraine’s capital, including John Kerry, two visits by Vice President Joe Biden, a number of “senior US defense officials,” and no less than seven visits by Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, advising the new government on how to secure the nation.

On 12 April 2014 CIA Director John Brennan made a secret visit to Kiev for a meeting with the Junta’s key officials. Ukraine’s top level intelligence officer Andrii Telizhenko testified that, at the time, he received a call from the U.S. Embassy asking him to help organize the meeting that would include his boss, the First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarma, U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Pyatt, Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, foreign intelligence chief Victor Gvozd, and a few other senior Ukrainian security officials.

Telizhenko said that, “Brennan gave [the] green light to use force against Donbass,” and discussed “how the U.S. could support it… Brennan was talking about how Ukraine should act… A plan to keep Donbass in Ukraine’s hands… Ukraine has to take firm, aggressive action to not let this spread all over.” The very next day, the Junta announced its brutal “anti-terrorist operation” (ATO) against the rebel regions, which then kicked off on 15 April, 12 years ago.

So, who were the IMF’s “key shareholders”?

As CNBC reported, today we know that Kiev’s actions were “politically driven by key IMF shareholders to support the Yatsenyuk ‘kamikaze’ administration in its reform efforts.” Given that Kiev’s ATO triggered a civil war in Ukraine, caused over 14,000 casualties it would be interesting to know who these “key IMF shareholders” were.

Keep in mind, the 2014 coup and Kiev’s ATO created the conflict that ultimately cascaded into a full-scale war between Ukraine in Russia, resulting in well over a million casualties and a near total devastation of Ukraine’s economy and society. Without a doubt, this conflict will continue to metastasize and might, ultimately, lead to another devastating World War on the European continent.

Finding out the “key shareholders” should not be too difficult if we wanted to prevent the war from escalating further. Today we even know one suspect by name, thanks to her correspondence with her pet employee, Jeffrey Epstein: Arianne de Rothschild, CEO of the Edmond de Rothschild Group. Here’s [on orignal] an email exchanged between them only three days after Kiev launched their ATO:

With Ukraine’s estimated $10-12 trillion in money-good collateral, there would indeed be “many opportunities , many”

April 26, 2026 Posted by | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Replay: Israel’s slow ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Holy Land

Israel has used the steady decline in Palestinian Christian numbers to promote a claim that Muslims are hounding them out of the region. But the real blame lies with Israel and the foreign Churches

Jonathan Cook, Apr 21, 2026

The photo of an Israeli soldier striking a statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer in a village in south Lebanon went so viral on social media this week that even establishment outlets like the BBC felt compelled to note the desecration. Its reporting, of course, was peppered with plenty of “allegedly”s and “apparently”s, despite the Israeli military confirming that the image was real.

In fact, though rarely reported, the Israeli state has a long and ugly record of oppressing Christians, most usually Palestinian Christians, as part of concerted attempts to drive them out of the birthplace of Christianity. Why? Because the traditional and central place of Christians in Palestinian national and resistance movements undermines Israel’s efforts to promote a false narrative of an ideological divide between, on one side, a supposed Judeo-Christian civilisation and, on the other, supposed Muslim barbarity.

The very existence of Palestinian Christians complicates a simple narrative Israel needs to justify the erasure of the Palestinian people.

The desecration of the statute, though it has attracted a lot of attention, is far less significant and abhorrent than attacks on churches orchestrated by the Israeli state through its military and its settler militias. Gaza’s three churches were targeted during Israel’s genocidal rampage, part of the wider destruction of religious and cultural sites central to the local population’s identity. In July last year, settlers tried to torch the fifth-century Church of St George in the town of Taybeh, the last exclusively Palestinian Christian community in the West Bank.

Part of the reason why this systematic violence by Israel over decades against Palestinian Christians has gone so unreported is because the foreign Churches have chosen to avoid raising their voices. I explain in the latter section of the essay below why they have been so cowardly.

I was based in Nazareth, the largest Palestinian Christian community inside Israel, for 20 years. I had plenty of time to reflect on the issues I report on below. This essay was written in summer 2020 in the early stages of a Covid pandemic that left the West Bank even more isolated – and at the mercy of Israeli malevolence – than normal. But the experiences of Palestinian Christians are essentially unchanged since I wrote the piece, which is why I am republishing it now.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Like the plague-bearing Greeks, visitors to Bethlehem could not avoid mixing, even if perfunctorily, with a few locals, mostly Palestinian Christians. Guides showed them around the main attraction, the Church, while local officials and clergy shepherded them into queues to be led down to a crypt that long ago was supposedly the site of a stable where Jesus was born. But unlike the Greek visitors, most pilgrims did not hang around to see the rest of Bethlehem. They quickly boarded their Israeli coaches back to Jerusalem, where they were likely to sleep in Israeli-owned hotels and spend their money in Israeli-owned restaurants and shops.

For most visitors to the Holy Land, their sole meaningful exposure to the occupation and the region’s native Palestinian population was an hour or two spent in the goldfish-bowl of Bethlehem.

A taste of occupation

In recent years, however, that had started to change. Despite the wall, or at times because of it, more independent-minded groups of pilgrims and lone travelers had begun straying off grid, leaving the Israeli-controlled tourism trail. Rather than making a brief detour, they stayed a few nights in Bethlehem. A handful of small, mostly cheap hotels like the Angel catered to them, as did restaurants and souvenir stores around the church.

In tandem, a new kind of political tourism based in and around Bethlehem had begun offering tours of the wall and sections of the city, highlighting the theft of the city’s land by neighboring Jewish settlements and the violence of Israeli soldiers who can enter Bethlehem at will…………………………………………………………

………………………………………… Shrinking population


Bethlehem’s plight – a microcosm of the more general difficulties faced by Palestinians under occupation – offers insights into why the region’s Palestinian Christian population has been shrinking so rapidly and relentlessly.

The demographics of Bethlehem offer stark evidence of a Christian exodus from the region. In 1947, the year before Israel’s creation, 85 percent of Bethlehem’s inhabitants were Christian. Today the figure stands at 15 percent. Christians now comprise less than 1.5 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank – some 40,000 of a population of nearly 3 million – down from 5 percent in the early 1970s, shortly after Israel occupied the territory in 1967.

In 1945 Bethlehem had nearly 8,000 Christian residents, slightly more than the 7,000 who live there today. Natural growth should mean Bethlehem’s Christian population is many times that size. There are, in fact, many times more Palestinian Christians overseas than there are in historic Palestine. The 7,000 Christians of Beit Jala, next to Bethlehem, are outnumbered by more than 100,000 family members who have moved to the Americas.

Israel ostensibly professes great concern about this decline, but actually it is only too happy to see native Christians depart the region. Their exodus has helped to make Israel’s clash of civilizations narrative sound more plausible, bolstering claims that Israel does indeed serve as a rampart against Muslim-Arab terror and barbarism. Israel has argued that it is helping Christian Palestinians as best it can, protecting them from their hostile Muslim neighbors. In this way, Israel has sought to mask its active role in encouraging the exodus.

The rapid decline in the numbers of these Christians reflects many factors that have been intentionally obscured by Israel. Historically, the most significant is that Palestinian Christians were nearly as badly impacted as Palestinian Muslims by the mass expulsions carried out by Zionist forces in 1948. In total, some 80 percent of all Palestinians living in what became the new state of Israel were expelled from their lands and became refugees – 750,000 from a population of 900,000. Those forced into exile included tens of thousands of Christians, amounting to two-thirds of the Palestinian Christian population of the time.

Palestinian Christians who remained in historic Palestine – either in what had now become Israel or in the territories that from 1967 would fall under Israeli occupation – have naturally shrunk over time in relation to the Muslim population because of the latter’s higher birth rates. Palestine’s Christians mostly lived in cities. Their urban lifestyles and generally higher incomes, as well as their greater exposure to western cultural norms, meant they tended to have smaller families and, as a result, their community’s population growth was lower……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Struggling under occupation

Israel’s oft-repeated claim that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are responsible for the exodus of Christians out of the Holy Land is given the lie simply by examining the situation of Palestinian Christians both inside Israel, where neither Hamas nor the PA operate, and in East Jerusalem, where the influence of both has long been negligible. In each of those areas, Israel has unchallenged control over Palestinians’ lives. Yet we can see the same pattern of Christians fleeing the region.

And the reasons for Gaza’s tiny Palestinian Christian population, today numbering maybe only 1,000, to leave their tiny, massively overcrowded enclave, which has been blockaded for 13 years by Israel, barely needs examining. True, it has been hard for these Christians – 0.0005 percent of Gaza’s population – to feel represented in a territory so dominated by the Islamic social and cultural values embodied by the Hamas government. But there is little evidence they are being persecuted.

On the other hand, there is overwhelming proof that Gaza’s Christians are suffering, along with their Muslim neighbors, from Israel’s continuing violations of their most fundamental rights to freedom, security and dignity.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Zionism, Israel’s state ideology, draws heavily on a Christian Zionism that became popular among British Protestants more than 150 years ago. Today, the heartland of evangelical Zionism is the United States, where tens of millions of believers have adopted a theological worldview, bolstered by prophecies in the Book of Revelation, that wills a Jewish “return” to the Promised Land to bring about an apocalyptic end-times in which Christians — and some Jews who accept Jesus as their savior — will be saved from damnation and rise up to Heaven.

Inevitably, when weighed against a fast-track to salvation, the preservation of Palestinian Christians’ 2,000-year-old heritage matters little to most US Christian Zionists. Local Christians regularly express fears that their holy sites and way of life are under threat from a state that declares itself Jewish and whose central mission is a zero-sum policy of “Judaization”. But for Christian Zionists, Palestinian Christians are simply an obstacle to realizing a far more urgent, divinely ordained goal.

US evangelicals have, therefore, been pumping money into projects that encourage Jews to move to the “Land of Israel,” including in the settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Their leaders are close to the most hawkish politicians in Israel, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The political clout of the evangelical movements in the US, the world’s only superpower and Israel’s chief patron, has never been more evident. The vice-president, Mike Pence, is one of their number, while President Donald Trump depended on evangelical votes to win office. That was why Trump broke with previous administrations and agreed that the US would become the first country in modern times to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, effectively killing any hope for the Palestinians of securing East Jerusalem as their capital.

Given this international atmosphere, the isolation of Palestinian Christians and their leaders is almost complete. They find themselves marginalized within their own Churches, entirely ignored by foreign evangelical movements, and an enemy of Israel. They have therefore tried to break out of that isolation both by forging greater unity among themselves and by setting out a clearer vision to strengthen ties to Christians outside the Holy Land……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

srael introduced the option of registering a new nationality, “Aramaic”, on Israeli identity cards. Israel has always refused to recognise an “Israeli” nationality because it would risk conferring equal rights on all Israeli citizens, Jews and Palestinians alike. Instead many rights in Israel are accorded to citizens based on their assigned nationalities – with the main categories being “Jewish”, “Arab” and “Druze”. “Jewish” nationals receive extra rights unavailable to Palestinian citizens in immigration, land and housing, and language rights. The new “Aramaic” category was intended to confer on Christians a separate nationality mirroring the Druze one……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/replay-israels-slow-ethnic-cleansing


April 26, 2026 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

New report lays bare media bias on Gaza

DECLASSIFIED UK, Hamza Yusuf, 23 April 26

A comprehensive, data-rich report released today by UK media monitoring group NewsCord puts hard numbers on the UK media’s failings in reporting on Israel’s crimes in Gaza.The study analyses coverage from Al Jazeera, BBC, The Guardian and Sky News across 686 articles and 11,295 classified excerpts.The findings illustrate how the UK mainstream media methodically sanitises genocide, shields the public from reality and marginalises Palestinian experience.

For example, when civilians are killed in Gaza, the BBC attributes the attack to Israel in only 50% of cases, with the Guardian only marginally better with 54%.

The BBC also labels Gaza’s health ministry as “Hamas-affiliated” in 60% of death toll citations, but mentions that the United Nations considers these figures credible in only 0.6% of cases. Al Jazeera names the perpetrator at nearly twice the rate of the BBC and Guardian.


References to “genocide” in UK outlets are notably limited in the dataset – 15 mentions by the BBC, 12 by Sky News, and 21 by the Guardian – compared to 58 by Al Jazeera.
Just as important as how a story is told is whose story is heard: Sky News gives Israeli perspectives nearly double the space of Palestinian ones.
Meanwhile, when Israeli officials declared explicit genocidal intent, this went practically unreported. The BBC never covered such statements by Israeli figures like Benjamin Netanyahu, Isaac Herzog or Yoav Gallant.

This is despite some of those statements being cited in proceedings at the International Court of Justice in the case against Israel.
Reflecting on the report’s findings, NewsCord founder Nima Akram said: “The data is not opinion, it’s the result of classifying thousands of articles to measure bias. These aren’t isolated incidents, they’re structural patterns that shape how millions understand the genocide in Gaza, and whose suffering deserves attention.”

Their report demands the outlets publicly review their Gaza coverage against the evidence and to disclose and revise their editorial practices.
Simply put, the mainstream media has failed in its duty to report Israel’s actions with accuracy, fairness and integrity. The new data leaves little room for denial.

April 25, 2026 Posted by | Gaza, media, UK | Leave a comment

Plaintiffs Tour the Savannah River Site’s Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Plant -Most Expensive Building in U.S. History is Key to New Nuclear Arms Race

Tom Clements, Director, SRS Watch, Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, Shelby Cohen, Comms Manager, SC Env. Law Project, 23 April 26, https://nukewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Plaintiffs-Tour-the-Savannah-River-Sites-Plutonium-Pit-Bomb-Core-Plant.pdf

Columbia, SC – On April 21, plaintiffs Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs toured the plutonium “pit” bomb core production plant at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina. They were accompanied by their attorney from the South Carolina Environmental Law Project and a science consultant from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Plutonium pits are the core components of all U.S. nuclear weapons. The NNSA is seeking to expand production to at least 30 plutonium pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at SRS, which has never previously produced pits. NNSA pushed forward with the project without required public review, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Plaintiffs sued in federal court in Columbia, SC and won, requiring the NNSA to complete a nationwide programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS), with public hearings to be held this May (listed below). The court-approved settlement agreement also required an inspection of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility by plaintiffs to ensure that no production begins before the completion of the final PEIS and simultaneous Record of Decision, which NNSA now says is expected in early 2027. NNSA officials also informed plaintiffs that 90% design and “rebaselined” costs will not be completed until September 2026, which means that once again Congress will be appropriating taxpayers’ money without knowing full costs.


The SRS pit plant will be the most expensive buildings ever built in the USA, with a current NNSA estimate of up to $30 billion even before all total costs are known (includes at least $5 billion in sunk costs for SRS’ failed MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility being “repurposed” to pit production). The agency’s recent budget request for FY 2027 (pp 17-19) reveals an 87% jump in combined pit production funding for LANL and SRS, averaging $5 billion for each of the next six years.

Despite the staggering costs, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly found that NNSA has no credible cost estimates. In fact, the NNSA and its parent Department of Energy (DOE) have been on the GAO’s High Risk List for project mismanagement and waste of taxpayers’ dollars since 1991. In August 2025 the DOE Deputy Secretary ordered a “special assessment” of the troubled program completed by mid-December. Despite repeated Freedom of Information Act and congressional requests, DOE has yet to publicly release it. Finally, NNSA’s FY 2025 Performance Evaluation Report for SRS specifically notes that the managing contractor underperformed in project execution of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, likely adding yet more delays and costs.

NNSA released the Draft Pit Production PEIS on April 10, 2026. It declares that:

“NNSA missions are conducted fully consistent with current treaty obligations. The SSMP [Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan] is fully consistent with and supports the U.S. commitment to the NPT [NonProliferation Treaty].” (Volume I, p. 1-5)

Article VI of the U.S. constitution enshrines international treaties as the “supreme Law of the Land.” The 1970 NonProliferation Treaty required the nuclear weapons powers to “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…” After more than a half-century that has never even begun. The next NPT Review Conference, held every five years, is scheduled to begin April 27 at the United Nations. It is widely expected to fail for the third time over fifteen years to make any progress whatsoever toward nuclear disarmament. To the contrary, expanded plutonium pit production is key to the U.S.’ $2 trillion “modernization” program to keep nuclear weapons forever.

The draft PEIS also declares:

“Over time, the materials that make up the pit change in ways that reduce the pit’s functionality… Building the manufacturing capacity to produce at least 80 ppy [pits per year] before the end of the decade is essential to maintaining a reliable nuclear deterrence. Many of the aging pits will have to be replaced with new ones in the coming years to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear stockpile and deterrence.” (Volume I, p. 1-3.)

NNSA completely omits that in 2006 independent experts concluded that plutonium pits have reliable lifetimes of at least 85 to 100 years, with no stated expiration date (the average age of pits is now around 43 years). Despite congressional directives, NNSA has yet to release a fully updated pit life study since then. In fact, no future pit production is scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile. Instead it is all for new-design nuclear weapons that could prompt a return to testing.

Tom Clements, SRS Watch Director, commented:

NNSA completely omits that in 2006 independent experts concluded that plutonium pits have reliable lifetimes of at least 85 to 100 years, with no stated expiration date (the average age of pits is now around 43 years). Despite congressional directives, NNSA has yet to release a fully updated pit life study since then. In fact, no future pit production is scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile. Instead it is all for new-design nuclear weapons that could prompt a return to testing.

Tom Clements, SRS Watch Director, commented:

“This PEIS process, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, gives the public the power to be engaged in democratic decision-making processes and voice their concerns on nuclear weapons projects – ones that historically have been cloaked in secrecy. This particular public comment period is crucial. Because of the current administration’s dismantling of NEPA regulations, this could be the last nuclear weapons project that the public has the opportunity to adequately scrutinize.” 

Dylan Spaulding, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, observed:

“The scope and pace of pit production are frequently justified due to concerns about plutonium aging, but pits in the existing stockpile should not require replacement for decades. Newly produced pits are to furnish new types of weapons, not to maintain the ones we have. Plutonium aging is simply not a credible motivation for a rushed pit production program at this time.”

Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented:

“It’s ironic that plutonium pit production’s exorbitant costs could lower national security instead of enhancing it. New untested designs could lower confidence in the existing, tested stockpile. Or these new-designs could prompt the U.S. to return to testing, after which other nuclear weapons powers would surely follow. It’s time to end the cover up of the NNSA’s deeply troubled pit production program and to expose everything from its runaway costs to its role in a new nuclear arms race that endangers us all.”

In closing, Attorney Ben Cunningham, commented:

“South Carolina Environmental Law Project lawyers fought for years in federal court to win this programmatic environmental impact statement – a significant victory for public participation and transparency. Now, South Carolinians have a voice in this legally required environmental and public safety review that the federal agency must take into account before deciding whether our state is used to produce nuclear weapon components along with their inevitable radioactive wastes. If you care about the future of our land, water and safety, please submit your comments on the programmatic environmental impact statement before the July 16 deadline.”

The Draft PEIS was released by NNSA on April 10, 2026 with a 90-day public comment period. Comments can be submitted by email to PitPEIS@nnsa.doe.gov until July 16. Please include the document number “DOE/EIS-0573” in the subject line. For more please see https://www.energy.gov/nepa/articles/doeeis-0573-draft-environmental-impact-statement-april-2026

Five required public hearings:

All hearings with the exception of the Washington, DC, hearing are scheduled for 5:00-5:30pm Open House Poster Session, 5:30-8:00pm Formal Public Hearing, in their respective time zones.

North Augusta, South Carolina: Tuesday, May 5, 2026, North Augusta Community Center, 495 Brookside Dr, North Augusta, SC 29841, Virtual: https://bit.ly/PitPEIS5May, Meeting ID: 267 103 716 263 892, Passcode: Wb2RJ9zA, Join by Phone: 571-429-4592, Phone conference ID: 297 381 326#

Kansas City, Missouri: Thursday, May 7, 2026, Hillcrest Community Center, Community Room, 10401 Hillcrest Road, Kansas City, MO 64134, No virtual meeting option.

Livermore, California: Tuesday, May 12, 2026, Garré Vineyard & Winery, Santa Rosa Room, 7986 Tesla Road, Livermore, CA 9455, no virtual meeting option.

Santa Fe, New Mexico: Thursday, May 14, 2026, Santa Fe Farmers Market Institute, 1607 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501, Virtual: https://bit.ly/PitPEIS14May, Meeting ID: 278 752 885 654 34, Passcode: W9Bt96vN, Join by Phone: 719-283-1404, Phone conference ID: 311 183 140#

Washington, DC: Wednesday, May 20, 2026, 2:00-2:30pm Open House Poster Session, 2:30-5:00pm Formal Public Hearing, Eastern Standard Time, Southwest Library, Large Meeting Room, 900 Wesley Pl, SW, Washington, DC 20024, no virtual meeting option.

April 25, 2026 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Podcast: Oh Christian Zionists

April 25, 2026 Posted by | Israel, Religion and ethics | 1 Comment

Trump the God

 

Trump’s portrayal of himself as Jesus, or anointed by Jesus, is typical of cult leaders.

Chris Hedges ScheerPost,  April 21, 2026  https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/21/trump-the-god/

During the two years I spent writing “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America,” I encountered numerous mini-Trumps. These self-proclaimed pastors — very few had any formal religious training — preyed on the despair of their congregants. They were surrounded by sycophants and could not be questioned. They merged fact with fiction, peddled magical thinking and enriched themselves at the expense of their followers. They claimed their wealth and ostentatious lifestyle, including mansions and private jets, was a sign of being blessed. They insisted they were divinely inspired and anointed by God. They were, within their hermetic circles of their megachurches, omnipotent.

These cult pastors promised to use their omnipotence to crush the demonic forces that had created misery in the lives of their followers — unemployment and underemployment, evictions, bankruptcies, poverty, addiction, sexual and domestic abuse, and crippling despair. The more power the cult leaders possess — according to their followers — the more certain is a promised paradise. Cult leaders stand above the law. Those who desperately place their faith in them want them to be above the law.

Cult leaders are narcissists. They demand obsequious adulation and total obedience. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claim that Donald Trump is able to draw a “perfect map” of the Middle East, or White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s statement that Trump is always the “most well-read person in the room,” are two of innumerable examples of the abject fawning required by those in a cult leader’s inner circle. Blind loyalty matters more than competence.

Cult leaders are immune from rational and fact-based critiques amongst those who invest hope in them. This is why Trump’s hardcore followers have not abandoned him and will not abandon him. All the chatter about fissures in the MAGA universe misreads Trump cultists.

All cults are personality cults. They are extensions of the prejudices, worldview, personal style and ideas of the cult leader. Trump, with his faux “Trump crest,” revels in Louis XVI-inspired tasteless kitsch awash in gold Rococo and glittering chandeliers. The women in Trump’s court have “Mar-a-Lago Faces” – overinflated lips, taut, wrinkle-free skin, silicone gel-filled breast implants and chiseled cheekbones, capped off by gobs of make-up. They wear stiletto heels and garish outfits that Trump finds appealing. Trump’s men, who in his eyes must be telegenic and from “Central casting,” dress like 1950s advertising executives. They sport Trump-gifted Florsheim black shoes, specifically $145 Lexington Cap Toe Oxfords.

Cults impose dress codes that mirror the style and taste of the cult leader.

The followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, dressed in red and orange robes, often combined with a turtleneck and beads. Heaven’s Gate members wore Nike Decade trainers and black jogging bottoms. Men in the Unification Church, known as Moonies, wore crisp white shirts and pressed slacks. Women wore dresses. They looked as if they were on their way to Sunday School.

Like Jim Jones, who convinced or forced over 900 of his followers — including 304 children aged 17 and younger — to die by ingesting a cyanide-laced drink, Trump is aggressively courting our collective suicide.

Trump dismisses the climate crisis as a hoax. He unilaterally withdraws from nuclear arms agreements and treaties. He antagonizes nuclear powers, such as Russia and China. He impetuously launches wars. He alienates and insults U.S. allies. He dreams of annexing Greenland and Cuba. He embraces holy crusade against Muslims. He attacks his political opponents as enemies and traitors, belittling them with crude insults. He slashes social programs designed to sustain the vulnerable. He expands an internal security apparatus — masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) goons — to terrorize the public. Cults do not nurture and protect. They subjugate, annihilate and destroy.

Trump employs the U.S. military without oversight or constraint. He presides, for this reason, over what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton called a “world-destroying cult.” Lifton lists eight characteristics of “world-destroying cults” that implant what he calls “totalistic environments.”

These eight characteristics are:

1. Milieu control. The total control of communication within the group.

2. Loading the language. Using “groupspeak” to censor, edit and shut down criticism or opposing ideas. Followers must mouth the mindless Trump-approved clichés and cult jargon.

3. Demand for purity. An us-versus-them view of the world. Those who oppose the group are wrong, unenlightened and evil. They are irredeemable. They are contaminants. They must be eradicated. Any action is justified to protect this purity. The goal of all cult leaders is to widen and make irreconcilable social divisions.

4. Confession: The public confession of past wrongs. In the case of Trump supporters, this includes the disavowal, as U.S. Vice President JD Vance and others have done, of past criticism of Trump, with public admission of their former wrong-thinking.

5. Mystical manipulation. The belief that those in the group are specially chosen with a higher purpose. Those in Trump’s orbit act as though they are divinely elected. They convince themselves that they are not coerced to embrace Trump’s lies and vulgarities — or repeat cult jargon — but do so voluntarily.

6. Doctrine over person. The rewriting and fabrication of personal history to conform to Trump’s interpretation of reality.

7. Sacred Science. Trump’s absurdities — global temperatures are declining rather than rising, the noise from wind turbines cause cancer and ingesting disinfectants such as Lysol is an effective treatment for the coronavirus — are presented as grounded in science. This scientific patina means Trump’s ideas apply to everyone. Those who disagree are unscientific.

8. Dispensing of existence. Nonmembers are “lesser or unworthy beings.” Meaningful existence means being part of the Trump cult. Those outside the cult are worthless. They do not deserve moral consideration.

Trump is no different from past cult leaders, including Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles — the founders of the Heaven’s Gate cult — the Rev. Sun Myung Moon — who led the Unification Church — Credonia Mwerinde — who led the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Uganda — Li Hongzhi — the founder of Falun Gong, and David Koresh, who led the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas.

Cult leaders are deeply insecure, which is why they lash out with fury at the slightest criticism. They mask this insecurity with cruelty, hypermasculinity and bombastic grandiosity. They are paranoid, amoral, emotionally crippled and physically abusive. Those around them, including children, are objects to be manipulated for their enrichment, enjoyment and often sadistic entertainment.

Cults are characterized by pedophilia and sexual abuse. Those, including Trump, who were frequently in the orbit of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, replicated the abuse endemic in cults.

“People’s Temple children were frequently sexually abused,” writes Margaret Singer in “Cults In Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace.” “While the group was still in California, teenage girls as young as fifteen had to provide sex for influential people courted by Jones. A supervisor of children at Jonestown had a history of child sexual abuse, and Jones himself assaulted some of the children. If husbands and wives were caught talking privately during a meeting, their daughters were forced to masturbate publicly or to have sex with someone the family didn’t like before the entire Jonestown population, children as well as adults.”

Cults, Singer writes, are “a mirror of what is inside the cult leader.”

“He has no restraints on him,” she writes of the cult leader:

He can make his fantasies and desires come alive in the world he creates around him. He can lead people to do his bidding. He can make the surrounding world really his world. What most cult leaders achieve is akin to the fantasies of a child at play, creating a world with toys and utensils. In that play world, the child feels omnipotent and creates a realm of his own for a few minutes or a few hours. He moves the toy dolls about. They do his bidding. They speak his words back to him. He punishes them any way he wants. He is all-powerful and makes his fantasy come alive. When I see the sand tables and the collections of toys some child therapists have in their offices, I think that a cult leader must look about and place people in his created world much as the child creates on the sand table a world that reflects his or her desires and fantasies. The difference is that the cult leader has actual humans doing his bidding as he makes a world around him that springs from inside his own head.

The language of the cult leader is rooted in verbal confusion. Lies, conspiracy theories, outlandish ideas and contradictory statements, often made in the same statement or only minutes apart, paralyzing those attempting to read the cult leader rationally. Absurdism is the point. The cult leader does not take his or her statements seriously. They often deny ever making them, although they are documented. Lies and truth are irrelevant. The cult leader is not seeking to impart information or truth. The cult leader is seeking to appeal to the emotional needs of cult members.

“Hitler kept his enemies in a state of constant confusion and diplomatic upheaval,” Joost A.M. Meerloo wrote in “The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control and Menticide.” “They never knew what this unpredictable madman was going to do next. Hitler was never logical, because he knew that that was what he was expected to be. Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot – it confuses those who think straight. The Big Lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal in a cold war than logic and reason. While the enemy is still searching for a reasonable counterargument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault him with another.”

It does not matter how many lies uttered by Trump are meticulously documented. It does not matter that Trump has used the presidency to enrich himself by an estimated $1.4 billion over the last year, according to Forbes. It does not matter that he is inept, lazy and ignorant. It does not matter that he stumbles from one disaster to the next, from tariffs, to the war on Iran.

The traditional establishment, whose credibility has been destroyed because of its betrayal of the working class and subservience to the billionaire class and corporations, has little power over Trump’s supporters. Their vitriol only increases his popularity. Political cults are the bastard children of a failed liberalism. Trump’s approval rating may be at around 40 percent, as of April 20 — according to an average of multiple polls collated by The New York Times — but his base remains unmovable.

The Democratic Party, rather than pivot to address the social inequality and abandonment of the working class — which it helped orchestrate — has hit upon tax cuts as a road to regaining power. It will, once again, reduce our social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It will offer no reforms to rectify our failed democracy. This is a gift to Trump and his followers. By refusing to acknowledge responsibility for inequality and proposing programs to ameliorate the suffering it has caused, Democrats engage in the same kind of magical thinking as Trump cultists.

There is no way out of this political dysfunction unless popular movements rise to cripple the machinery of government and commerce on behalf of a betrayed public. But time is running out. Trump and his goons are serious about invaliding or cancelling the midterm elections if they perceive defeat. If that happens, the cult of Trump will be unassailable.

April 25, 2026 Posted by | Reference, Religion and ethics, USA | 1 Comment

No Peace, Only Escalation: The Push Toward Total War With Iran

April 22, 2026 , https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/22/no-peace-only-escalation-the-push-toward-total-war-with-iran/

As ceasefire talks collapse, retired Col. Douglas Macgregor warns that Washington is not negotiating—it’s preparing for a devastating, infrastructure-targeting war that could reshape the global order.

The language of peace still lingers in official statements—but on the ground, the machinery of war is accelerating.

In this stark and deeply unsettling conversation, retired U.S. Colonel Douglas Macgregor joins Glenn Diesen to dismantle the illusion of diplomacy surrounding the Iran conflict. What’s being sold as negotiation, he argues, is little more than theater—designed to calm markets, not stop bombs.

Behind the headlines, a far more dangerous reality is taking shape: a coordinated buildup for what Macgregor describes as a potential “total war” scenario, one that moves beyond military targets and toward the destruction of an entire state’s infrastructure.

If he’s right, the question is no longer whether the war will escalate—but how far it will go, and how much of the world it will drag with it.

A cause for major concern—one that cannot be repeated enough—is this warning from Macgregor:
“There was no real path to an agreeable solution—because there was no real negotiation. When the vice president steps out mid-meeting to take a call from Netanyahu, it tells you everything. These aren’t negotiations. It suggests that Netanyahu—not Trump—is effectively calling the shots on whether we go to war.”

Highlights

  • “There were no real negotiations.”
    Macgregor argues the so-called peace talks were never genuine, describing them as political theater meant to project stability while preparing escalation.
  • Power behind the scenes:
    He suggests decision-making is not fully in Washington’s hands, pointing to Israeli influence shaping U.S. military direction.
  • From war to state destruction:
    The next phase, he warns, targets not just military assets—but bridges, power plants, oil infrastructure, and civilian systems—a shift toward dismantling Iran as a functioning state.
  • A global economic shockwave:
    Disruptions in the Persian Gulf could trigger fuel shortages, fertilizer collapse, and famine risks across the Global South.
  • The limits of U.S. power:
    Fighting thousands of miles from supply lines while Iran operates defensively at home creates what he calls a “home court advantage” that undermines U.S. strategy.
  • End of the old order:
    Macgregor frames the conflict as part of a larger collapse of U.S. dominance—warning that the petrodollar system and global unipolarity may already be breaking down.
  • No clear path to victory:
    Even with overwhelming force, he sees no realistic military outcome that delivers control—only deeper instability.

April 25, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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