Why the Nuclear Regulatory Review is flawed – and how itcould turn the nature crisis into a catastrophe.
January 2026, Research commissioned by The Wildlife Trusts
“…………………………………………………. Large nuclear projects, using potentially risky technology, have potential for significant environmental impacts on sensitive places and so it is right for there to be robust environmental assessments of these projects. The Government has an ambitious programme of nuclear
deployment. It has published a new National Policy Statement for nuclear power.3
It has removed the restriction on new nuclear power to eight sites around the UK. It has said it will aid
the completion of Hinkley Point C, provide additional funding for Sizewell C, and consider one
large new nuclear power plant alongside the deployment of Small Modular Reactors. Due to
their requirements and the types of site needed, nuclear projects have often impacted on
ecologically sensitive areas. The new National Policy Statement on nuclear reiterates the
importance of the Habitats Regulations and the protection of legally protected sites and wildlife.
As part of its efforts to boost nuclear deployment, the Government commissioned John
Fingleton to lead a taskforce review of nuclear regulation. The final report of the Nuclear
Regulatory Review was published in November 2025.
It diagnosed environmental regulations
as a blocker to nuclear deployment and included recommendations to water down those
regulations. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have said that the Government accepts the
principles of the Review, that within three months a plan will be published by DESNZ to
implement the Review, and that its recommendations will be implemented within two years
using legislation.6 Environmental groups are very concerned the recommendations will be
adopted for the nuclear sector using legislation and potentially applied to other types of major
infrastructure.
The Nuclear Regulatory Review is part of a wider pattern of the Government adopting the
arguments of developers to pinpoint where delays are coming from; however, it is inaccurate
and does not represent reality. Research by The Wildlife Trusts already shows that – despite
the headlines and claims by the Chancellor and others – bats and newts, for example, were a
factor in just 3.3% of planning appeals.7 This briefing will highlight how the claims made by the
Nuclear Regulatory Review are similarly short on evidence and, if adopted, will do little to speed
up planning decisions but, instead, will turn the nature crisis into a catastrophe. Many industries
already say that the uncertainty caused by constantly changing regulations holds back
development; the Nuclear Regulatory Review threatens to do just that.
Flaws and Inaccuracies in the Nuclear Regulatory Review
The Review, commissioned by the Government, identifies three major areas for reform: risk
aversion, process over outcomes, and a lack of incentives. The Review also turns nature into a
scapegoat for a failure to deliver nuclear projects.
Recommendation 11 calls for various changes to the Habitats Regulations, including removing
the requirement for compensation to be like-for-like. Recommendation 12 calls for nuclear
developers to be allowed to comply with the regulations simply by paying a fixed sum (an
amount per acre), which would be used by Natural England for nature somewhere else. When it
comes to local planning, The Wildlife Trusts remain concerned with the related idea of
payments for Environmental Delivery Plans as a way for developers to meet their legal
obligations. A strategic approach might be appropriate when it comes to, for example, pollution
impacts, but would not be suitable for irreplaceable habitats or species that cannot re-establish
elsewhere easily.8
Recommendation 19 would remove the duty on Local Authorities to seek and further National
Parks and Landscapes, returning to the old language of “have regard to”. The combination of
these changes would not only substantially weaken protections for nature but would also
introduce significant uncertainty in the nuclear sector and for other sectors about whether
standards and regulations that are bedding in and increasingly becoming well understood are in
fact about to change.
The Review was produced without enough environmental expertise – and this shows. It
contains a number of errors when it comes to environmental evidence, which has led to a
misdiagnosis of the problem and to damaging recommendations about environmental
regulations.
The Review relies heavily on the case study of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. It is
quick to use the case study to blame nature without examining the actions and decisions of the
developer. A large amount of confusing and misleading information has been issued to the
media and in the Review itself to further this narrative.
Here are some of the facts:
- Hinkley Point C is on the edge of one of the most highly ecologically protected sites in
Europe and will draw through a swimming pool’s worth of water every second for 70
years of operation. This will have enormous impacts on surrounding ecosystems, fish,
and other species.9 - A £700 million figure has been widely circulated in the press relating to fish deterrents
and is quoted in the Review. This is incorrect. The cost of the fish deterrent system is
£50 million.10 - EDF themselves unilaterally decided in 2017 not to proceed with the fish deterrent
system, despite it being a requirement. They then proceeded to apply for permit
variations, undertake further environmental assessments and initiate a public inquiry to
attempt to remove the requirement. These developer decisions have caused selfinflicted delays.11 - Hinkley Point C’s original budget was £18 billion. It has since risen to an estimated £46
billion. The fish deterrent (at £50 million) comes to just 0.1% of this increased £46
billion budget. Nearly £30 billion in cost increases for Hinkley Point C have nothing to
do with nature.12 - The Nuclear Regulatory Review says (for example) that just 0.08 salmon, 0.02 trout,
and 6 lamprey per year would be saved. This deliberately downplays the impact on
nature. This statement relies on analysis by the developer EDF, who captured fish and
put trackers on them and used old data from Hinkley B power station. Since then ,a
more thorough analysis has been completed for the Environment Agency, who have found that 4.6 million adult fish per year being killed is a more accurate number, or 182 million fish in total over sixty years.13 These fish populations are a foundation stone for the wider ecosystem of the Severn Estuary, supporting internationally important migratory bird populations and other species. Many of the fish are rare or endangered. Damage on the scale suggested by the Environment Agency figures could have calamitous impacts on that ecosystem and the economic and social activities that rely on it………………………………………………………………………………
Environmental Damage of Nuclear Regulatory Recommendations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Conclusion
The Nuclear Regulatory Review recommendations 11, 12 and 19 will harm nature and
biodiversity. They are based on flawed evidence relating to environmental regulations and how
they have been applied. As discussed, the true reasons for nuclear delay lie elsewhere.
Implementing the Nuclear Regulatory recommendations would devastate nature without
speeding up the nuclear planning and delivery process. The Government must reject the three
Nuclear Regulatory Review’s recommendations on environmental regulations and end its
confected war on nature as a barrier to planning.
20th January 2026
Research commissioned by The Wildlife Trusts and conducted by Matt Williams, https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/sites/default/files/2026-01/WhyTheNuclearRegulatoryReviewIsFlawed_TheWildlifeTrusts.pdf
Nature groups question UK’s Fingleton nuclear review
The Engineer, 21 Jan 2026, https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/nature-groups-question-fingleton-nuclear-review
More than a dozen environmental groups and over 60 MPs are questioning the ‘Fingleton recommendations’ set out in the recent Nuclear Regulatory Review.
Led by economist John Fingleton, the Nuclear Regulatory Review made several recommendations designed to ease the path of nuclear development. Among these were proposals to weaken the Habitats Regulations which protect nature sites. But environmental groups, led by The Wildlife Trusts, claim that the review is based on flawed evidence, and that the recommendations could have a catastrophic effect on nature across the UK.
“The dice were loaded from the start – the nuclear review confirms a false narrative that was already being circulated by certain industry lobby groups and think tanks,” said Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts.
“The errors in the review form a clear pattern: repeated exaggeration of the costs of preventing harm to nature – and minimisation of the impact to wildlife of nuclear development without those measures. The fact that no environmental experts served on the panel is a disgrace and the resulting distorted picture obscures the value the natural world delivers for economic stability and net zero.”
A new report from The Wildlife Trusts points to specific examples where it believes the nuclear review falls short. It claims that, rather than £700m, Hinkley C’s much-debated fish deterrent system would actually cost £50m. This is against a total project cost of £46bn, up from an original estimate of £18bn.
The Nuclear Regulatory Review also claims that the fish deterrent system would save just 0.08 salmon, 0.02 trout and 6 lamprey per year. However, The Wildlife Trusts cites a report from the Environment Agency that suggests up to 4.6 million adult fish per year could be killed per year if no protective measures are put in place.
“There is limited evidence that environmental protections impose undue costs on infrastructure developers,” said Bennet. “In fact, evidence shows that frequently cited examples of expensive mitigation measures originated from developer mistakes and were unconnected to environmental issues. Blaming nature is unacceptable and a way of avoiding accountability.
“The developers of Hinkley C are trying to blame everyone but themselves for their own failure to think about nature from the outset. When developers think about nature too late in the design process, they end up creating bolt-on engineering solutions for ecological problems, which tend to be more expensive and less effective than committing to make infrastructure nature positive from the very start of the designing process. It’s pretty pathetic that the government is now trying to bail out energy infrastructure developers for this failure of commitment and imagination.”
The Wildlife Trusts’ campaign to save the environmental protections that are threatened by the recommendations of the Nuclear Regulatory Review is supported by 14 other organisations: Wildlife and Countryside Link, Rivers Trust, Campaign for National Parks, Marine Conservation Society, Plantlife, Buglife, Bat Conservation Trust, Amphibian Reptile Conservation, Badger Trust, Beaver Trust, Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Butterfly Conservation, Open Spaces Society, and Client Earth.
A Board of Peace built on the rubble of Gaza
22 January 2026 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/a-board-of-peace-built-on-the-rubble-of-gaza/
There are moments in politics when language becomes so detached from reality that it tips from cynicism into a farce. Appointing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” for Gaza is one such moment.
Netanyahu is not a neutral stakeholder. He is not a reluctant participant dragged into a tragic conflict. He is the leader who has overseen the systematic destruction of Gaza: tens of thousands of civilians killed, entire neighbourhoods erased, hospitals flattened, universities bombed, and a population deliberately deprived of food, water, shelter, and hope. He is also the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
That Israel has rejected those charges or dismissed them as political is beside the point. Courts exist precisely because perpetrators rarely accept responsibility for their own actions. The question is not whether Netanyahu agrees with the accusations – it is whether the facts on the ground support them.
They do.
International law defines genocide not by slogans or historical analogies, but by actions and intent. Killing members of a protected group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about a group’s destruction, in whole or in part. Gaza today bears the unmistakable imprint of each of these elements.
Add to this the repeated, dehumanising rhetoric from senior Israeli officials – Palestinians described as “human animals”, Gaza spoken of as something to be “flattened”, “erased”, or emptied – and the claim that this is merely an unfortunate but lawful military campaign collapses under its own weight.
Legal processes move slowly. They always do. Genocide is almost never recognised as such while it is unfolding. Rwanda was denied until the machetes were put down. Srebrenica was minimised until the mass graves were opened. History shows that moral clarity arrives long before judicial finality.
Which is precisely why Netanyahu’s elevation to a “Board of Peace” is so grotesque. Peace is not brokered by those actively prosecuting a war of annihilation. Reconstruction is not overseen by those who created the ruins. And justice is not served by rehabilitating leaders while the bodies are still being pulled from the rubble.
Trump’s board is not a peace initiative. It is a branding exercise – one that launders responsibility, flattens moral distinctions, and asks the world to accept Orwellian doublespeak as diplomacy.
Calling this arrangement a farce is not rhetorical excess. It is an accurate description. When an alleged war criminal is recast as a peacemaker, language itself has been bombed into submission.
And Gaza, once again, is expected to pay the price.
Loosening radiation exposure rules won’t speed up nuclear energy production.
Relaxing radiation safety standards could place women and children at higher risks of health issues
By Katy Huff, 24 Jan 26, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weaker-radiation-limits-will-not-help-nuclear-energy/
Get an x-ray, and you get a small dose of radiation to visualize your bones and body structures to help you medically. Buy a smoke detector, you’re inviting a tiny source of radiation, americium-241, into your home to keep you safe. But we don’t just take on that radiation heedlessly. Until perhaps now.
The U.S. regulates the amount of radiation people are exposed to using something called the linear no-threshold model, which says that every additional dose of ionizing radiation, however small, adds a small risk to health. It’s a simple equation that describes the relationship between dose and risk. For decades it has anchored radiation dose limits for both the public and radiation workers. But by February 23, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is expected to overhaul its regulations, potentially retiring this risk model, per a May executive order by President Donald Trump.
Why loosen this protection? Supposedly to spur nuclear energy production. The administration says that this risk model is too cautious, leading to costly conservatism in reactor design, staffing redundancies and stringency in licensing. The executive order promises that lifting it will accelerate nuclear reactor licensing while lowering the costs of providing nuclear energy to the grid.
As a nuclear energy advocate and former Department of Energy official, I want to see more nuclear energy on the grid soon. But loosening the protections of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model is not supported by current research. Some experts warn that relaxing it could especially place women and children at higher risk of damage from radiation.
The LNT model is based on the idea that exposure to any amount of radiation proportionally increases health risks, including the risk of cancer. From data on high radiation exposures, scientists extrapolate, or predict, what might happen if people are exposed to lower levels of radiation. At low doses, however, it becomes difficult to distinguish the health effects of radiation from the other environmental and lifestyle factors that can affect health. That uncertainty is why regulators rely on a cautious approach like the LNT model, and also why some people question its use.
People are willing to accept the radiation risks inherent in medicine, industry and energy because they trust that standards have been set by credible experts relying on evidence who err on the side of caution and protecting human health. Weakening regulations without new evidence would do the opposite. The last time the question of raising the public dose limit came up, the NRC said no—there wasn’t enough evidence. We must urge the NRC’s current commissioners to demand evidence and heed science over political agenda.
DAVOS: THE RULE OF THE RICH
Jonathon Porritt, 24 Jan2026, https://jonathonporritt.com/davos-rule-of-the-rich/
I’ve always hated the very idea of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos. I’ve never been myself, but that hasn’t stopped me ridiculing former NGO colleagues only too happy to go on squandering their supporters’ money rubbing shoulders with the business world’s ‘great and good’– or, more accurately, the worst of the world’s grasping, greedy, earth-trashing, plutocratic scumbags. And the politicians aren’t that much better either – and I’m not just talking about the increasingly deranged Donald Trump. Which made this year’s Parade of the Plutocrats a real corker.
Organisers and attendees pride themselves on Davos being the place to address the ‘biggest threats’ that the world faces. And, to be fair, its annual Global Risks Report regularly features the climate crisis, ecosystem collapse, and even worsening inequality and social polarisation. But it never mentions the source of all these interlocking crises, namely neoliberal capitalism itself. The Davos elite is far too self-serving ever to go there.
Every year, Oxfam piggybacks on this obscene jamboree by publishing its own annual wealth survey. This year’s report – (“Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power”) provides some mind-boggling insights, including the fact that the twelve richest individuals now hold more wealth than the poorest half of humanity — 4 billion people! Billionaires control more than half of the world’s media companies, and nine of the ten biggest social media platforms are in their hands.
So how does it make you feel to hear that there were more than 3,000 billionaires in 2025, with a combined wealth of $18.3 trillion, representing an increase of 16% over 2024 figures? That increase is 3 times faster than the average 5% annual increase. Since 2020, billionaire wealth has increased by a staggering 81%.
It’s almost beyond comprehension. We’ve seen these statistics moving in the same direction for so long that we’ve become inured to the annual repetition- “for whomsoever hath, more shall be given.” And we’ve simultaneously normalized the inevitability that these statistics will continue in the same direction, accepting that today’s politicians (in both autocratic and democratic countries) appear to have neither the will nor the capacity to do anything to reverse that trend.
Elastic bands immediately come to mind: at some point, however many times one twists that band, it somehow stays intact- until it doesn’t. Overstretched, as it were.
Is that process now underway?
Over the last year or so, we’ve seen uprisings in many different countries, including Nepal, Madagascar, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Peru, Mexico — more often than not led by young people. Rage at the growing influence of the billionaire class is very much part of this ‘Gen Z’ phenomenon — Oxfam’s report highlights the way in which the super-rich have emerged from the shadows in terms of their increasingly brazen interventions in politics. Just think Elon Musk here, with a chainsaw in one hand whilst giving a Nazi salute with the other.
The USA is the epicentre of this deeply disturbing trend. Stubbornly persistent adherence to the myth of the American Dream accounts for an almost inconceivable number of twists in that rubber band. But we’re not immune here in the UK either. Oxfam’s report reveals that the richest 56 people in the UK (all billionaires) now hold more wealth than nearly 40% of the population — 27,000,000 citizens. One in five UK citizens now lives in poverty, and yet the super-rich still pay lower taxes than anyone else – including such illustrious plutocrats as Sir James Dyson, Sir Anthony Bamford, and the utterly loathsome Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
Intuitively, it’s so obvious what the consequences of this look like- even if our political elites (in Labour as much as in the Tories) spurn such insights. A recent report from the Fairness Foundation (“Inequality Knocks”) revealed that more than 60% of UK citizens believe the rich have far too much influence in UK politics, and that poverty and inequality are eroding the living conditions of people up and down the country. Fairness is fundamental to a functional society and democracy: “Growing inequality presents a genuine risk to the UK’s resilience, acting as both cause and amplifier of multiple societal challenges.” As a result, people are losing faith in our democracy, leading to “the very real possibility of societal breakdown.”
Over the top? Possibly. But polling insights are consistently stark: around 20% of UK voters under the age of 45 believe that our country would be “better off with a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother about elections,” compared with only 8% of those over 45.
It’s the failure of the centre-left to confront these issues when in power (in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Holland, and even in Scandinavian countries) that has paved the way for the rise of often xenophobic nationalist movements. As the economist Thomas Piketty puts it, “We seem to have given up on some ambitious continuation of the egalitarian agenda of making the most powerful economic actors accountable to democratic control, making them contribute to the public goods we need to fund.”
Whenever this model of capitalism fails (as it did in 2008, through a combination of economic austerity and populist scapegoating), citizens rightly become frustrated. But it’s the right wing that benefits from this frustration, with their devastatingly effective social media strategies emphasising people’s loss of control and dignity. As well as the basic lack of fairness — caused, as we all know, primarily by the right wing’s own policy prescriptions. Western politicians must address this challenge — before authoritarianism turns into fascism, the kind of fascism “that arrives in fancy dress”, as the poet Michel Rosen puts it. This challenge must be addressed by western politicians — before it’s too late. Before democracy weakens further.
Moreover, that demands one thing above all else: wealth taxes, both globally and in every Western country. The Global Solidarity Levies Task Force (led by France, Kenya, Barbados, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the African Union) is advocating for a targeted tax of 2% for today’s 3,000 billionaires, which would bring in somewhere between $200 billion and $250 billion a year. By some calculations, this would affect no more than 100 extended families around the world- even if, as the Task Force wryly observes, implementation would be “very challenging.”
Here in the UK, the Patriotic Millionaires and New Economics Foundation have also suggested a 2% annual wealth tax on assets of more than £10 million, taxing income from wealth at the same level as income from work, effectively creating an “extreme wealth line” to match the UK’s “extreme poverty line.” Around 20,000 taxpayers in the UK would be affected, generating revenues of between £20 billion and £24 billion a year.
That’s what fair taxation looks like in a country like the UK, filling gaps in our public finances, restoring trust in basic fairness, increasing investment in sustainable infrastructure, and so on. And in the process, reinforcing the first line of defence around the integrity of our democratic processes and institutions keeping authoritarianism at bay.
As you might imagine, I’m absolutely delighted that the case for wealth taxes here in the UK is now being made so articulately by Zack Polanski, leader of today’s resurgent Green Party. It’s already far too late for Labour to distance itself from the Rule of the Rich – Rachel Reeves looked completely at ease mingling with the rest of the Davos elite — raising the very real prospect of the Green Party becoming the principal opposition to today’s neoliberal nexus made-up of the Tories, Reform and Labour at the next General Election. With the Lib Dems taking their customary seat on that ideological fence!
Just think of that!
World’s Largest Nuclear Station or Lower Electricity Bills?
Nuclear Power: The Most Expensive and Slowest Option
Nuclear reactors are the highest cost option to meet Ontario’s electricity needs – up to 10 times higher than energy efficiency, and 2 to 8 times higher than new wind and solar energy.
They are also far too slow. According to OPG, these new nuclear reactors would not come online until 2040 – 2048. That means more than 20 years of construction, cost overruns, and continued reliance on polluting gas.
By contrast, new wind and solar projects can be built in 6 months – 2 years, reducing emissions and lowering bills quickly.
A Risky Dependence on Foreign Fuel
To make matters worse, OPG is considering purchasing American-designed reactors from GE-Hitachi or Westinghouse. These reactors would require Ontario to import enriched uranium from the United States to fuel them. Does that seem like a good idea given the current political craziness unfolding south of the border?
The Better Alternative
OPG’s proposal fails to examine crucial alternatives.
Could Ontario meet its electricity needs more cheaply, more quickly, and more safely by investing in energy efficiency, wind power, solar energy, and energy storage (such as batteries and compressed air storage)?
This is a question that the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) must examine during its mandatory review. That will only happen if the public demands it.
What you can do
Submit Public Comments – Deadline: Midnight, Wed. Feb. 11
The IAAC is accepting public comments on OPG’s application.
Submit your comments through the IAAC portal or email them to: wesleyville@iaac-aeic.gc.ca
Ask the IAAC to direct OPG to evaluate whether energy efficiency, renewables, and energy storage are lower-cost, faster, safer, and more secure ways to meet Ontario’s electricity needs than building a massive new nuclear station at Port Hope
Venezuela, the Revival of Regime Change
And the Decline of Empire
Tom Dispatch By William D. Hartung, January 22, 2026
William D. Hartung, Trump’s Doubling Down on Imperialism in Latin America Is a Formula for Dec
The Trump administration’s exercise in armed regime change in Venezuela should have come as no surprise. The U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean and the attacks on defenseless boats off the Venezuelan coast — based on unproven allegations that they contained drug traffickers — had been underway for more than three months. By the end of December 2025, in fact, such strikes on boats near Venezuela (and in the Eastern Pacific) had already killed 115 people.
And those attacks were just the beginning. The U.S. has since intercepted oil tankers as far away as the North Atlantic Ocean, run a covert operation inside Venezuela, and earlier this month, launched multiple air strikes that killed at least 40 Venezuelans while capturing that country’s president, Nicholas Maduro, and his wife.
Both of them are now imprisoned in New York City and poised to face a criminal trial for narco-terrorism and cocaine importing conspiracies, plus assorted weapons charges. Even more strikingly, President Donald Trump recently told the New York Times that the U.S. could run Venezuela “for years.” On how that would be done, he (of course!) didn’t offer a clue. Naturally, a Venezuelan government forged in the face of a possible U.S. occupation would comply with the whims of the Trump administration — assuming that such a government, capable of stabilizing the country and earning the loyalty of the majority of its people, can even be pulled together.
Trump’s rush to war in Latin America is a phenomenon that, until recently, seemed long over. Its revival should raise multiple red flags, given the history of Washington’s failed efforts to install allied governments through regime change. (Can you spell Iraq?) In fact, given this country’s lack of success with such attempts since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it’s a good bet that regime change in Venezuela will not end well for any of the parties concerned, whether the Trump administration, the new leaders of Venezuela, or the people of our two countries.
In the meantime, Trump has already suggested that he might entertain the idea of launching military strikes on neighboring Colombia. After a White House phone call between that country’s president Gustavo Petro and him, however, Time Magazine speculated that, when it comes to “who’s next?,” it might not be Colombia but Cuba, Mexico, Greenland, or even Iran. What’s not yet clear is whether Trump and crew will use the U.S. military, CIA-style covert action, economic warfare, or some combination of all of them in pursuit of their goals (whatever they might prove to be).
The one thing that should be clear by now is that pursuing such global regime-change campaigns would be sheer madness. Going that route would sow chaos and instability, while harming untold numbers of innocent civilians, all in pursuit of a futile quest for renewed U.S. global supremacy.
When, long ago, President Trump first started using the term “Make America Great Again,” I assumed he was thinking of the 1950s, when a surge of post-World War II economic growth and government investment lifted the prospects of a select group of Americans (while pointedly excluding others). That period, of course, was when the efforts that produced the modern civil rights, women’s rights, and gay and trans rights movements were in their early stages. Prejudice was the norm then in most places where Americans lived, worked, or got an education, while McCarthyism cost untold numbers of people their jobs and livelihoods and had a chilling effect on the discussion or pursuit of progressive goals.
Such a return to the 1950s would have been bad enough. However, Trump’s fixation on actually grabbing territory and his hyper-militarized interpretation of the 200-year-old Monroe (now, Donroe) Doctrine suggest that perhaps he wants to take America back to the 1850s. If so, count on one thing: we’ll pay a high price for any such exercise in imperial nostalgia.
Intervention as the Norm: The History of U.S. Aggression in Latin America
The Trump administration’s attempt to control Latin America and intimidate its leaders and citizens is, of course, nothing new. At the start of the twentieth century, President Teddy Roosevelt announced his own “corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which went well beyond the original pronouncement’s warning to European powers to avoid challenging Washington’s dominance of the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt then stated that “chronic wrongdoing… may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”
The Office of the Historian at the U.S. State Department points out that, “[o]ver the long term, the [Roosevelt] corollary had little to do with relations between the Western Hemisphere and Europe, but it did serve as justification for U.S. intervention in Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.”
In fact, there were dozens of U.S. interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean in the wake of Roosevelt’s statement of his doctrine. Later in the century, there were U.S.-aided coups in Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973); invasions of Cuba (1961), the Dominican Republic (1983), and Grenada (1983); armed regime change in Panama (1989); the arming of the Contras in Nicaragua (1981) and death squads in El Salvador (1980 to 1992); and support for dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay in the 1970s and 1980s.
In all, according to historian John Coatsworth, the United States intervened in the Western Hemisphere to change governments 41 times from 1898 to 1994. Seventeen of those cases involved direct U.S. military intervention.
In short, the Trump administration is now reprising the worst of past U.S. policies towards Latin America, but as with all things Trumpian, he and his cohorts are moving at warp speed, and on several fronts simultaneously.
The Perils of Regime Change
Although Trump officials are no doubt celebrating their removal of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, the battle there is far from over. When the U.S. drove Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in a six-week military campaign in 1991, there was a great deal of celebratory rhetoric about how “America is back” or even that the United States was the single most impressively dominant nation in the history of humanity. But as historian Andrew Bacevich has pointed out, the 1991 Gulf War was just the start of what became a long war in Iraq and the greater Middle East. In Iraq, the ejection of Hussein was followed by relentless bombing, devastating sanctions, and a 20-year war of occupation that ended disastrously………………………………….
Why Venezuela? Oil, Ego, and the Quest for Dominance
………………………………………………..Donald Trump has since stated repeatedly (as in a January 3rd press conference), that the intervention he ordered was, in fact, about seizing Venezuela’s oil resources and developing them to the benefit of the U.S. through the activities of American oil companies.
…………………………………The Venezuelan debacle — which is surely what it will be considered once all is said and done — is but another sign that the Trump administration’s tough-guy rhetoric and bullying foreign and economic policies are, in fact, accelerating the decline of American global power. The question is, given the administration’s costly and dangerous military-first foreign policy, how much damage will this country do to people here and abroad on the way down?
It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. …………………………………………………………………………………….. https://tomdispatch.com/venezuela-the-revival-of-regime-change/
Is the end now in sight for the war in Ukraine?
James WhiteJanuary 22, 2026.
German companies have already begun negotiations with their connections in Russia to resume trade once the sanctions are lifted. Thus German business leaders plainly ignore Chancellor Merz and his bellicose provocations toward Russia.
Funding and arms for Ukraine from NATO countries have all but dried up. The pipeline of conscripts in Ukraine has likewise run short of victims.
Zelensky continues to flit from one European capital to another seeking more billions in handouts. But his veneer of propaganda has grown thin at best. The warm wet kisses and embraces he received from neocons and Democrats in the U.S. as well as the WEF puppets of Europe, Macron, Starmer, Merz, Von der Leyen no longer present the same appeal.
Kiev Mayor Klitschko has advised everyone to evacuate the capital city, as electrical power has been cut off. This can only increase the flow of Ukrainians into Europe, already weary from hosting millions of Ukrainians for the past 4 years.
Anyone paying attention has seen the wretched excess of corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs in expensive sports cars with Ukrainian license plates in Monaco and various other luxury European holiday locales.
The U.S. has cut off the Ukraine grift while all of Europe is tapped out.
Von der Leyen’s insatiable greed for more billions from Europeans and her plans to steal ‘frozen’ Russian assets have petered out once the European banks understood that doing so would be an existential threat to the Euro and themselves.
Momentum for the end of the war in Ukraine keeps building.
The only question that remains is if Ukraine can negotiate any of their surrender terms with Russia or if the government will finally collapse as the economy collapses and the battle front recedes toward Kharkiv, Odessa and Kiev.
The secret nuclear influencer in the heart of Moscow.
Dr Eva Stegen 21st Jan 2026
Nuclear energy does not appear in any of the 19 EU sanctions packages, thanks to a key individual. Former nuclear power executive Henri Proglio has maintained several consulting offices in Moscow, the heart of Putin’s power, for the past 10 years. The former head of the state-owned Électricité de France (EdF) still sits on the international advisory board of Putin’s nuclear power conglomerate Rosatom.
Déjà vu: A wave of outrage swept through Germany when the “family business owners” tested the boundaries by extending an invitation to the AfD. The business lobby group eventually backtracked. The German “corporate families” may have been inspired by French far-right extremists who have been casting their nets into corporate boardrooms for some time. The French trial balloon was launched two years ago, a few months before the elections, and provoked a media frenzy. Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate of the National Rally (RN), orchestrated a meeting with an extremely polarizing manager: Henri Proglio. He was one of the country’s most powerful business leaders until he was deemed inferior at the nuclear power company Électricité de France (EdF).
Critics consider the self-proclaimed Putin supporter, who calls himself a “killer ,” to be “not as successful as he would have people believe .” They claim he has “developed a system of clans, gangs, and sinecures” that promoted nuclear technology exports to crisis regions. Under his leadership (2009-2014), he forged ties with Chinese rulers, the Libyan dictator Gaddafi , the Saudi Bin Laden Group, and other dubious business partners. His mentor, Nicolas Sarkozy, was imprisoned over the Libya affair. Another key figure in this corrupt clique, the secret protector of Proglio’s career, “Monsieur Alexandre,” also received a prison sentence. Proglio’s enforcer, a former gang leader from the Parisian suburbs , knows prison from the inside. The middleman rose from the underworld to the highest circles of politics and business: “I hold them all by the balls .”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Proglio and the National Rally (RN) are advocating for a “Frexit,” wanting to withdraw from the EU electricity market and give preferential treatment to French companies. These ideas of European division are welcomed by the Kremlin. ………………………………
the fact that “the fuels that power our nuclear power plants largely
come from Russia” amounts to nothing less than import dependency . And this is with a high-risk technology of civil-military relevance.
“Why is the nuclear industry spared?”
Investigate Europe and Tagesspiegel asked back in 2022. Nuclear power does not appear in a single one of the (now 19) EU sanctions packages. In their joint research, they show:
“ The close connection between the French and Russian nuclear industries is exemplified not least by Henri Proglio , the former CEO of the French state-owned electricity supplier EDF, who still sits on the international advisory board of Rosatom ,” the Russian nuclear conglomerate used by Vladimir Putin as a geopolitical instrument to expand his influence in Europe.
No nuclear sanctions – thanks to import dependency and a key personnel decision
In addition to his position at Rosatom, Proglio has maintained several consulting offices in Moscow for the past ten years, profiting handsomely from Putin’s war in Ukraine and orchestrating shady deals, including in the nuclear sector. This is particularly sensitive because he is privileged to the most closely guarded secrets of France, a civilian-military nuclear power. While he can keep secrets—he even concealed the lucrative activities of companies like ‘Henri Proglio Consulting’ and ‘HP Energy Advisory’ in Moscow from the parliamentary inquiry committee—it is highly questionable whether this is always in the best interests of France or Europe.
……………………….He believes the existing reactors should be allowed to operate until a medium-power reactor (1000 MW) is developed. He himself is responsible for the sale of the intellectual property rights for precisely this technology to China. That was the death knell for the French reactor manufacturer Areva.
ts engineers were stunned when they discovered a Chinese pirated copy of their plans, developed with Japanese colleagues for a 1000 MW reactor. Proglio was behind it:
“We will build Franco-Chinese reactors. And we will also build Franco-Russian reactors.” He himself was present at the clandestine signing of far-reaching contracts , which amounted to a ticket into the heart of France’s highly sensitive nuclear infrastructure. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Rosatom’s geostrategy for global dependence
According to its own statements, “Rosatom is the only company worldwide that possesses all technologies of the nuclear fuel cycle .” The nuclear giant, with its 450 arms, employs around 420,000 people and aims to establish itself as the world market leader in the entire nuclear process chain, from uranium mining through conversion, enrichment, fuel element production, reactor construction, operation, maintenance and decommissioning, to waste management…………………………………………………………………………………….https://www-eva–stegen-de.translate.goog/blog/atom-Influencer-im-herzen-moskaus.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Mayors for Peace Joint Appeal
January 20, 2026, https://www.mayorsforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/file-2601-MfP_Joint-Appeal_January-2026_E.pdf
The milestone year of 2025—marking 80 years since the end of World War II and the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first use of nuclear weapons in human history—has come
to a close, and a new year, 2026, has begun. Over the past year, Mayors for Peace undertook a wide
range of peace initiatives. In particular, in August, the 11th General Conference of Mayors for Peace
was convened in Nagasaki City, where member cities from around the world engaged in extensive
discussions and renewed their shared determination to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.
Yet today, as power struggles over territory and economic influence initiated by nuclear-armed major
powers intensify, the global situation is growing ever more precarious. Distrust among states is
deepening, regional tensions are worsening in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, and
armed conflicts continue to spread, claiming the lives of countless innocent civilians. Moreover, as
the long-standing taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is being seriously eroded, momentum
toward nuclear disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons has stagnated.
Under these circumstances, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START Treaty)—the
only remaining nuclear disarmament and arms control treaty in force between the United States and
the Russian Federation—is set to expire in February 2026. We strongly urge both governments, which
together possess approximately 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads, to continue to honor the
limits of the treaty on an agreed basis and to demonstrate commendable leadership by advancing
nuclear disarmament. At the same time, we are gravely concerned that the collapse of this significant
arms control framework between the world’s nuclear superpowers could trigger an intensified global
arms race, including in nuclear weapons.
January 22 of this year marks five years since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
entered into force in 2021. This treaty, a powerful international norm that prohibits the development,
testing, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons, is a ray of hope amid the present depressing
situation. It was born from the heartfelt appeal of the hibakusha— “No one else should suffer as we
have.” We call upon all states to acknowledge the catastrophic and inhumane consequences of nuclear
weapons and to sign and ratify the treaty without delay.
Comprising local government leaders responsible for protecting the safety and security of their
citizens, Mayors for Peace now includes approximately 8,600 member cities in 166 countries and
regions worldwide and has worked for over 40 years toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. We
urge all policymakers to make every possible diplomatic effort to pursue the peaceful resolution of
conflicts through dialogue and to take concrete steps toward the realization of a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons.
MATSUI Kazumi , Mayor of Hiroshima , President of Mayors for Peace
SUZUKI Shiro
Vice President of Mayors for Peace
Mayor of Nagasaki
Zionism: The Etymological and Ideological Unpacking of a “Political Pathogen”
22 January 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, P https://theaimn.net/zionism-the-etymological-and-ideological-unpacking-of-a-political-pathogen/
The term “Zionism,” the modern political ideology advocating for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, is often analysed through the lenses of history, politics, and conflict. However, to understand its full potency and impact – to see it as a “political pathogen” – we must first dissect the linguistic and cultural DNA from which it was synthesised. This paper posits that Zionism is a European ideological construct, born of a specific historical moment, which instrumentalised ancient religious and cultural symbols to forge a modern nationalist movement. Its power and subsequent global impact stem from this fusion of the ancient and the modern, a fusion that has proven both resilient and, in the view of its critics, deeply destructive.
I. The Etymological Core: From Sacred Hill to Nationalist Ideology
The linguistic root of “Zionism” is the Hebrew word “Zion” (Ṣîyyôn), originally referring to a specific hill in Jerusalem. Over millennia, particularly following the Babylonian Exile, “Zion” transformed from a geographic location into a potent synecdoche and poetic symbol for the entire Land of Israel and the Jewish people’s spiritual yearning for return. This meaning was deeply embedded in Jewish messianic belief, envisioning a future redemption.
The transformation into a modern political “-ism” occurred in late 19th-century Europe. The term “Zionism” (Zionismus) is first credibly attributed to the Austrian Jewish intellectual Nathan Birnbaum in an 1890 article. It was coined in reference to the activities of the Hovevei Zion (“Lovers of Zion”), proto-Zionist groups that promoted Jewish agricultural settlement in Ottoman Palestine. The movement was catapulted onto the world stage by Theodor Herzl, whose 1896 pamphlet Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) and the subsequent founding of the Zionist Organization in 1897 popularised the term and defined its political objectives. The choice of “Zion” was deliberate: it grafted the new secular nationalist project onto the deep-rooted, sacred longings of Jewish tradition, providing an immediate and powerful historical legitimacy.
II. The European Crucible: Birth of an Ideology
Zionism did not emerge in a vacuum. It was a direct product of, and reaction to, the specific conditions of European society in the 19th century.
The “Jewish Question” in Europe: Zionism arose as one answer to the pervasive “Jewish Question” – the problem of how Jews, perceived as an unassimilable minority, could exist within European nation-states defined by ethnic homogeneity. Faced with persistent antisemitism, from violent pogroms in Eastern Europe to institutional discrimination in the West, thinkers like Herzl concluded that assimilation was impossible and that Jews constituted a distinct nation requiring sovereignty in their own land.
The Influence of European Nationalism: Zionism was fundamentally shaped by the Romantic nationalist movements sweeping Europe, which argued that every “people” or “nation” (Volk) required a state for its full expression. Zionists applied this model to Jews, asserting their right to national self-determination. The movement also internalised contemporary colonial and racial thinking, with early leaders at times explicitly framing a Jewish state in Palestine as a European outpost or “colonial” endeavour that would bring progress to the region.
Internal Jewish Debates: It is critical to note that Zionism was a contested ideology from its inception. Significant Jewish movements, most notably the socialist Bund in Eastern Europe, vehemently opposed it. These anti-Zionists argued that fleeing antisemitism validated the persecutors’ logic, that the diaspora was a legitimate and rich Jewish homeland, and that the future lay in fighting for socialist revolution and equality within Europe.
III. The Ideological Structure: Core Tenets and Internal Divergence
While unified by the core goal of a Jewish homeland, Zionism was never monolithic. Its internal structure comprised several competing strands:
Political Zionism (Herzl): Focused on achieving a Jewish state through high-level diplomacy and international legal charters.
Practical Zionism: Emphasized the “conquest of land” through immediate agricultural settlement in Palestine.
Labor Zionism: Merged socialist principles with nation-building, promoting collective enterprises like the kibbutz and forming the ideological backbone of Israel’s early leadership.
Revisionist Zionism (Jabotinsky): Advocated for a more militant, maximalist approach to establishing a Jewish state on both banks of the Jordan River, emphasizing military strength and capitalist development.
Cultural Zionism (Ahad Ha’am): Prioritised the creation of a new Jewish spiritual and cultural center in Palestine over immediate political sovereignty.
Religious Zionism: Fused Jewish religious messianism with nationalist politics, viewing the Zionist project as the beginning of divine redemption.
Despite these differences, a critical consensus emerged across most Zionist thought: the necessity of establishing a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine. This demographic imperative, confronting the reality of a majority Arab population, led to the conceptualisation of “transfer” – a euphemism for the removal or ethnic cleansing of Palestinians – as a logical, if debated, solution within mainstream Zionist discourse from the movement’s early decades.
IV. The “Pathogen” Metaphor: Mechanisms of Global Impact
Viewing Zionism through the lens of a “political pathogen” requires examining its replication and impact beyond Palestine/Israel. Its global influence operates through several key mechanisms:
The Logic of Domination: Scholar Vincent Lloyd reframes Zionism’s outcome as a transition from a movement seeking liberation from European domination to one that institutes a new structure of domination over Palestinians. This system is maintained through military occupation, legal discrimination, and the systemic denial of Palestinian dignity and political rights.
Christian Zionist Symbiosis: A critical vector for the ideology’s spread is Christian Zionism, particularly within Protestant evangelicalism. This theology supports Jewish return to Israel not out of solidarity with Jews, but as a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Christ, after which non-converted Jews are often envisioned to be destroyed. This creates a powerful, theologically motivated political lobby (especially in the United States) that reinforces Israeli state policy.
Global Export of “Security” Models: Israel has leveraged its experience controlling Palestinian populations to become a leading global exporter of surveillance technology, weapons, and counter-insurgency tactics. This “laboratory” of repression markets its products to other states and regimes, embedding Zionist-derived models of population control into global security infrastructures.
Conflating Critique with Antisemitism: A potent defensive mechanism has been the strategic effort to equate criticism of Zionism or Israeli state policy with antisemitism, as seen in debates over definitions like the IHRA working definition. This conflation seeks to immunise the ideology from political critique by framing opposition as a form of racial or religious hatred.
Conclusion: A Tale That Found a Home
Zionism is indeed “a tale that found a home.” It is a modern European nationalist tale, constructed from the ancient lexicon of Jewish prophecy and the contemporary grammar of 19th-century racial and colonial thought. It found a home through a deliberate and violent process of settlement and state-building, necessitating the displacement and continued subjugation of another people.
Its “pathogenic” quality lies in its resilience and adaptability – its ability to graft itself onto different host ideologies, from socialist pioneering to evangelical Christian millennialism, and to replicate its core logic of ethnic dominance in new contexts. The language that shaped it provided a bridge between deep history and political modernity, creating an ideology of immense persuasive power and tragic consequence. To understand the ongoing conflict and its global resonances, one must first understand this foundational synthesis of word, idea, and power.
References…………………………..
They’re Trying To Sneak Israel’s President Into Australia Without Anti-Genocide Protests
And Other Notes
Caitlin Johnstone, Jan 23, 2026, t.one/p/theyre-trying-to-sneak-israels-president?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=185482225&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Israeli president Isaac Herzog is expected to visit Australia at the invitation of the Australian government, with anonymous sources telling the Israeli press that he’s scheduled to arrive on February 7, but so far Canberra itself has been very opaque about the time and nature of the visit. We can surmise from this that they’re currently trying to come up with a strategy for how to sneak the president into the country without the spectacle of him getting confronted by throngs of anti-genocide protesters.
Again: they’re trying to sneak the president into the country for a visit to protect him from anti-genocide protesters. Really think about what that means, and what it says about Australia as a country.
When you are doing things like this, you’re on the wrong side of history.
As soon as the UK listed Palestine Action as a terrorist group it was made clear to the entire western world that there is no limit to how far our governments will go to stomp out speech that is critical of Israel. Literally no limit. Once you’re arresting old ladies in wheelchairs for holding a sign that says “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” you’re making it clear that there’s nothing you won’t do to bludgeon the populace into line regarding this one particular foreign state.
That was a real turning point for western society, in retrospect. Up until then it’d been horrific genocidal depravity in Gaza and some ugly shenanigans with TikTok and university campuses, but actually proclaiming that an activist group is a terrorist organization and arresting anyone who supports it was a wildly unprecedented escalation. From that point on it’s been clear to every decent person throughout the western world that we’re in the imperial crosshairs now.
They’re coming for us directly. Our rights are on the chopping block. There’s no limit to how dark and dystopian things can get from here.
I’m not trying to be antisemitic or anything but I personally think it should be legal to voice criticisms of the military activities of a foreign state.
❖
One of the many reasons I’m so hostile to authoritarian efforts to stomp out pro-Palestine speech in Australia is because there’s something deep inside me that would find it intolerable for us to be worse than the Brits.
There should be a mandatory six-month “cooling off period” between any mass shooting or act of terrorism and any legislation purportedly put out in response to it, because the emotional immediate aftermath is always when lawmakers try to roll out their most authoritarian agendas.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: nobody actually believes the Bondi attack had anything to do with Palestinians or pro-Palestine protests. Anyone who claims they believe that is lying. They’re just pretending there’s a connection in order to stomp out pro-Palestine speech and activism in Australia.
International social media has rediscovered video footage of the Sydney Harbour Bridge protest last year, and it is very impressive to revisit. A massive line of hundreds of thousands of people holding umbrellas and Palestinian flags in opposition to their government’s complicity in the holocaust in Gaza.
It must have left a mark, because the Israel lobby has been on the warpath frantically trying to crush our right to protest ever since. People sometimes knock the effectiveness of peaceful demonstrations, but if they didn’t make a difference tyrants wouldn’t hate them so much.
The reason I’ve been talking about the Australian Israel lobby so much lately is because it has made itself my problem. Kwame Ture said “If a white man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem. If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem.” I find his logic sound.
The Israel lobby in Australia has shown it has the power to successfully pressure governments to advance laws and policies which threaten the speech of people like myself who speak critically of the state of Israel. That makes them my problem.
There are more important and urgent things going on in the world than the lobbying efforts of an apartheid state in a peripheral nation of the imperial core, to be sure. I’d rather be writing about those matters. But the Australian Israel lobby has made itself my problem, so I need to mention its abusive behaviors from time to time.
I know my name has appeared on lists. I know I’ve been the subject of private discussion among people I’d have preferred not to receive attention from. I know I share a country with people who would openly celebrate if I was imprisoned for the things I have said about Israel and Zionism. So I’ve got a vested interest in calling attention to the forces that are working to assault the civil rights of people like myself, and to my government’s inexcusable advancement of those agendas.
And all decent Australians have that same vested interest, to be clear. Every person of conscience who wishes to be able to speak out against their government’s facilitation of mass murder and abuse has a personal stake in this debate. Because we’ve each got a target on our voice box now. We all need to speak out while we still can.
The brave journalists of the old-fashioned media.
21 January 2026, Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.net/the-brave-journalists-of-the-old-fashioned-media/
It’s not easy being a journalist in a paid job in corporate print, TV or radio media. You have to toe the corporate line. It’s best to be writing on a specialised topic where you’re likely to not offend the powerful. Cooking, gardening, sport -are good, though even in them, hazardous aspects can arise – like race, religion, gender, sexuality.
But when it comes to environment, current affairs, politics, business – the prudent journalist needs to tread warily, lest he/she loses the job.
This is an awful pity. Although writers have always had to be careful about offending business owners and governments, It hasn’t always been as dangerous as it is now. And for us, the “consumers of media”, the advantages of “mainstream” media are great. There is funding to enable strong investigative journalism. There is fact-checking, meaning that the readers/viewers, listeners, can have confidence in the facts of the story. Heck! the editors even check grammar and spelling (well, mostly). And these are the reasons why I still like “mainstream” media.
And so, as I’m pondering on journalists and their contributions to society, I am very aware of those journalists who, still hanging on to their corporate-controlled jobs, manage to sneak in, or even state boldly, some unwelcome realities.
Nowhere is the media’s craven subservience to the powerful more obvious than in journalism’s coverage of the nuclear industry. Any day at all, if you bother to search “nuclear” on Google News, there will be a stream of articles describing the nuclear industry in positive terms, even with breathless enthusiasm.
I think that the nuclear lobby has done a fine job in teaching the world that no-one but nuclear industry experts can possibly understand nuclear issues – so journalists find it easiest and prudent to just regurgitate nuclear industry handouts. (Heaven forfend that we should fall for the message of a Dr Helen Caldicott – explaining that nuclear power is just an expensive way to boil water. Albert Einstein thought the same thing).
It’s not a Russia-China versus the West thing, as ALL these powerful governments are enthusiasts for nuclear power. So the critics of nuclear power are not “Left” or “Right”: they are simply critics of nuclear power.
So, in this climate of journalists playing safe, and not upsetting government or industry, I have to admire those who stay on in their media jobs, try not to offend, but communicate the facts, and manage to include some negative aspects of nuclear power.
Here’s one example, although he did not last long in his job in Russia. Vladimir Slivyak, a patriotic Russian, taught at the Moscow School of Economics. And that was alright for a while. But the coal and nuclear industries are highly treasured in Russia, and Slivyak wrote powerful articles, criticising them. You can’t get away with attacking Russian government policies for long, and the government eventually classified him as a foreign agent, and he had to emigrate to Germany. Silvyak is an unfailing critic of bad environmental policies of whatever government, so, now in the West, he continues to expose bad nuclear policies of the European countries, particularly France, and their continued dependence on Russian uranium.
It should be easier for writers in the West, with our famed “freedom of speech, freedom of the press”, but it’s not, really. Fearful not only of the disapproval of authorities, but also of showing their ignorance of matters nuclear, journalists find the publicity handouts and worthy utterances of nuclear experts to be the safest bet for informing the public. Hence, even if they do have their doubts, the vast majority of journalists practise self-censorship on those doubts.
Once a writer has become known as an opponent of the nuclear industry, he or she becomes not only unemployable in the mainstream media, but is widely disparaged as an eccentric, a ratbag, a communist tool, or like Dr Helen Caldicott: “hysterical” “crazy”. It doesn’t matter if, like Arnie Gunderson, they’re a nuclear engineer – they’re still a crank and not to be trusted.
So, the admirable skill, is to be able to write authoritatively on nuclear matters, and still sneak in those damning questions, those subtle criticisms. Physicist Dr Edwin Lyman managed this for a long time, actually advising the nuclear industry and USA Government on safety matters. But in more recent years, he’s gone a bit too definite in his views on nuclear unsafety:
“Be wary of new ‘smaller’ kinds of nuclear power plants“, with the result that nuclear expert Dr Al Scott and others have judged Lyman to be extreme in his views.
My favourite journalist within this narrow category of “staying inside media respectabilia” is a Canadian data journalist. I hesitate to name him – I’d hate to cast a gloom on his career. He writes for the Globe and Mail, and his articles are not anti-nuclear. They’re factual, but he’s inclined to point out things like:
“In a January report, the International Energy Agency said costs must come down; Small Modular Reactors need to reach US$4.5-million per megawatt by 2040 to enjoy rapid uptake, far less than Ontario Power Generation (OPG)’s estimated costs.”
“… the commissioners heard concerns from intervenors that GE-Hitachi hadn’t yet finished designing the reactor, raising questions about how its safety could be analyzed properly.”
His series on Canada’ s nuclear developments are detailed, and certainly not opposing the industry. It’s just that his facts on the need for taxpayer support, on fuel supply problems and costs, on the comparative economics of renewable energy – these facts are not encouraging for nuclear power.
I ponder that these kinds of critics, just gnawing away at the edges of the nuclear industry’s gospel, might be more effective opponents of that industry than the many articulate and impressive anti-nuclear activists. A subtle “Trojan horse” style of journalism?
What Canada’s nuclear waste plan means for New Brunswick
by Mayara Gonçalves e Lima, January 20, 2026, https://nbmediacoop.org/2026/01/20/what-canadas-nuclear-waste-plan-means-for-new-brunswick/
Canada is advancing plans for a Deep Geological Repository (DGR) to store the country’s used nuclear fuel. In early 2026, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) entered the federal regulatory process by submitting its Initial Project Description — a major step in a project with environmental and social implications that will last for generations.
The implications of this project matter deeply to New Brunswickers because the province is already part of Canada’s nuclear legacy through the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. The proposed repository in Ontario is intended to become the final destination for used nuclear fuel generated in New Brunswick, currently stored on site at Point Lepreau.
If the project goes ahead, highly radioactive nuclear waste would be transported across New Brunswick. Current NWMO plans envision more than 2,100 transport packages of New Brunswick’s used nuclear fuel travelling approximately 2,900 kilometres, through public roads in the province and across Canada, over a period of 10 to 15 years.
For many residents, the project raises long-standing concerns about safety, accountability, and cost — especially as NB Power continues to invest in nuclear technologies and considers new reactors. Decisions about the DGR will influence how long New Brunswick remains tied to nuclear power, carrying the risks of waste that remains hazardous far beyond any political or economic planning horizon.
This is a critical moment because public input is still possible — but the comment period window is narrow. Environmental organizations and community advocates are calling for extended consultation timelines, full transparency on transport risks, and meaningful consent from affected communities. Several groups have organized a sign-on letter that readers can review and support.
How New Brunswickers respond now will help determine whether these decisions proceed quietly — or with public accountability.
Unproven science and public concerns
Globally, no deep geological repository for high-level nuclear waste has yet operated anywhere on the planet. Finland’s Onkalo facility is often cited as the first of its kind, but it remains in testing, relies on unproven assumptions about geological containment, and will not be fully sealed for decades.
The lack of proven DGR experience matters for Canada because the proposed repository would be among the world’s earliest attempts to isolate high-level radioactive waste “forever,” despite the absence of any real-world proof that such facilities can perform as claimed. Canada’s decision therefore sets not only a national course, but a global precedent built on uncertain science and long-term safety assumptions.
The proposed DGR would be built 650 to 800 metres underground in northwestern Ontario, near the Township of Ignace and Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation (WLON), in Treaty #3 territory. Its purpose is to bury and abandon nearly six million bundles of highly radioactive used nuclear fuel, attempting to isolate them from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization describes the site selection as “consent-based,” but this framing raises difficult questions. Consent in economically marginalized regions — particularly where long-term funding, jobs, and infrastructure are promised — is not the same as free, prior, and informed consent, especially when the risks extend far beyond any western planning horizon.
In 2024, the Assembly of First Nations held dialogue sessions on the transport and storage of used nuclear fuel. Communities raised serious concerns that the proposed DGR could harm land, water, and air — all central to Indigenous culture and way of life.
Guided by ancestral knowledge and a duty to protect future generations, the Assembly warned that the DGR threatens sacred sites, ecosystems, and groundwater, including the Great Lakes. Climate change and natural disasters heighten these risks, exposing the limits of the current monitoring plan and prompting calls for life-cycle oversight.
A token consultation for a monumental project
As anticipated, the Initial Project Description raises serious concerns about the DGR process itself. One of the most serious flaws is the stark mismatch between the project’s scale and the time allowed for public input. Although the DGR is framed as a 160-year project with risks lasting far longer, communities, Indigenous Nations, and civil society groups have been given just 30 days to review the Initial Project Description, with submissions due by February 4.
Thirty days to read dense technical documents, consult communities, seek independent expertise, formulate questions, and respond meaningfully to a proposal that will affect land, water, and people for generations. This is not a generous consultation — it is the bare legal minimum under federal impact assessment rules.
While regulators emphasize that the overall review will take years, this early stage is crucial in shaping what will be examined and questioned later. Rushing public input at the outset risks reducing participation to a procedural checkbox rather than a genuine democratic process, particularly for a decision whose consequences cannot be undone.
The overlooked threat of waste transport
Another serious shortcoming in the project proposal is a failure to adequately address the nationwide transport of radioactive waste. Transporting highly radioactive material through communities by road or rail is central to the project and carries significant safety and environmental risks that remain largely unexamined.
By excluding radioactive waste transportation from the Initial Project Description, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization is effectively removing it from the scope of the comprehensive federal Impact Assessment. If transport is not formally included at this stage, it will not receive the same level of environmental review, public scrutiny, or interdepartmental oversight as the repository itself.
Instead, transportation would be left primarily to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Transport Canada to assess under the existing regulations — an approach that is fragmented and insufficient given the scale, duration, and risks of moving highly radioactive waste through communities.
The transport of radioactive waste is a critical yet often overlooked issue. As Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility notes, Canada has no regulations specifically governing the transport of radioactive waste — only rules for radioactive materials treated as commercial goods. This gap matters because radioactive waste is more complex, less predictable, and potentially far more dangerous.
Transporting high-level nuclear waste is inherently risky: the material remains hazardous for centuries, and accidents, equipment failures, extreme weather, security breaches, or human error can still occur despite careful planning. Unlike other hazardous materials, radioactive contamination cannot be easily contained or cleaned up, leaving land, water, and ecosystems damaged for generations. Even a single transport incident could have lasting, irreversible consequences for communities along the route.
Radiation risks extend beyond transport workers. People traveling alongside shipments may face prolonged exposure, while those passing in the opposite direction are briefly exposed in much larger numbers. Residents and workers along transport routes can experience repeated exposure, and accidents or unplanned stops could result in localized contamination. Emergency response is further complicated by leaks or hard-to-detect releases, with standard spill or firefighting methods potentially spreading contamination.
These risks are not hypothetical. Last summer, Gentilly-1 used fuel was transported from Bécancour, Quebec, to Chalk River, Ontario, along public roads — without public notice, consultation, Indigenous consent, or clear evidence of regulatory compliance — underscoring the ongoing risks to our communities.
According to the 2024 Assembly of First Nations report, at least 210 First Nations communities could be affected by shipments of radioactive waste traveling from nuclear reactors to the repository via railways and major highways, though the full scope may be even larger when considering watersheds and alternative routes.
Given this reality, it is unacceptable that the DGR Project Description largely ignores waste transport. Any credible assessment must examine how waste will be moved, who will be affected, what rules apply, who is responsible for oversight, and how workers, communities, and the environment will be protected in emergencies. It is the job of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to examine these plans in depth.
A high-stakes decision that demands public voice
Canada’s proposed Deep Geological Repository is one of the most ambitious and high-stakes projects in nuclear waste management. Framed as a permanent solution, it remains untested — no country has safely operated a deep repository for used nuclear fuel over the long term. Scientific uncertainty and multi-decade timelines make its risks profound and enduring.
Dr. Gordon Edwards warns: “The Age of Nuclear Waste is just beginning. It’s time to stop and think. […] we must ensure three things: justification, notification, and consultation — before moving any of this dangerous, human-made, cancer-causing material over public roads and bridges.”
Now is the moment for public voices to be heard. Legal Advocates for Nature’s Defence (LAND), an environmental law non-profit, has prepared a sign-on letter and accompanying press release calling for a more precautionary, transparent, and democratic approach to the Deep Geological Repository. This is your chance to have a say in decisions that could expose you, your neighbours, and your communities to serious environmental and health risks.
The letter urges federal regulators to extend public consultation timelines, require that the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada conduct a comprehensive Impact Assessment that includes the transportation of radioactive waste, and uphold meaningful consent and accountability.
New Brunswickers and allies across the country are encouraged to read the letter, add their names, and speak up before decisions are finalized. How Canada handles nuclear waste today will shape risks borne by our communities for generations.
The DGR is more than a technical project; it is a test of democratic process, scientific caution, and intergenerational responsibility. Canadians deserve a transparent, thorough, and precautionary approach to ensure that decisions made today do not compromise the safety of future generations.
Mayara Gonçalves e Lima works with the Passamaquoddy Recognition Group Inc., focusing on nuclear energy. Their work combines environmental advocacy with efforts to ensure that the voice of the Passamaquoddy Nation is heard and respected in decisions that impact their land, waters, and future.
Danish MP Warns US Takeover of Greenland Will Start a War
by Kyle Anzalone , January 21, 2026 , https://news.antiwar.com/2026/01/20/danish-mp-warns-us-takeover-of-greenland-will-start-a-war/
Trump has placed tariffs on Europeans nations that oppose the US seizing Greenland
Amid threats from President Donald Trump to take over Greenland, a Danish politician said that if the US seized the colony, a war would break out.
Danish MP Rasmus Jarlov said that if the US military invades Greenland, “it would be a war, and we would be fighting against each other.”
“There’s no threat, there’s no hostility. There’s no need, because the Americans already have access to Greenland, both militarily and in all other ways.” He continued, “There are no drug routes. There is no illegitimate government in Greenland. There is absolutely no justification for it– no historical ownership, no broken treaties, nothing can justify it.”
In recent weeks, President Trump said the US will take control of Greenland. The President argues it is a matter of national security, as Russia or China will seize Greenland from Denmark if the US does not gain control first.
In response to Trump’s threats, Denmark has begun increasing its military presence in Greenland.
Trump’s plan to take Greenland has met stiff opposition in Europe. The President has slapped 10% tariffs on eight European countries. Trump said the tariffs would increase if those nations did not change policy and support the US seizure of Greenland.
An executive at Deutsche Bank suggested that European countries could pressure the US to back away from Greenland by refusing to buy US bonds. George Saravelos, head of FX research, explained, “For all its military and economic strength, the US has one key weakness: it relies on others to pay its bills via large external deficits.”
Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed the risk of a currency war with Europe. “The media has latched on to this. I think it is a completely false narrative. It defies any logic,” he said Tuesday.
“If you look, the US Treasury market was the best-performing market in the world, or the best G7-performing bond market, and we had the best performance since 2020. It is the most liquid market.” Bessent continued,” It is the basis for all financial transactions, and I am sure that the European governments will continue holding it.”
The President said he did not expect Europe to push back too much if he annexed Greenland. “I don’t think they are going to push back too much,” he said, adding, “We have to have it.”
-
Archives
- February 2026 (233)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 