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The bomb and the ayatollah: Islamic just war and the nuclear question in post-Khamenei Iran

What gives Khamenei’s death a particular doctrinal significance is that he had, over more than two decades, publicly framed weapons of mass destruction—including nuclear and chemical weapons—as contrary to Islam.

Khamenei extended this logic to the nuclear realm. He first issued an oral fatwa in October 2003 declaring nuclear weapons as forbidden (haram) in Islam, and repeated this position in an official statement at the emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in August 2005.

April 5, 2026 , by Dr Sajid Farid Shapoo, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260405-the-bomb-and-the-ayatollah-islamic-just-war-and-the-nuclear-question-in-post-khamenei-iran/

The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening phase of the US-Israeli war against Iran has generated a striking argument in strategic and theological circles alike: that the killing may have removed not merely a political leader but a normative brake on Iran’s possible march toward nuclear weapons. Reports indicate that Iranian decision-making has since hardened under intense military pressure and an increasingly securitised internal environment.

What gives Khamenei’s death a particular doctrinal significance is that he had, over more than two decades, publicly framed weapons of mass destruction—including nuclear and chemical weapons—as contrary to Islam. If that position represented a genuine religious constraint rather than mere diplomatic rhetoric, then his death may have removed more than a leader: it may have weakened the doctrinal restraint that helped keep Iran a threshold nuclear state.

Islamic just war theory places moral constraints on indiscriminate violence, constraints that Khamenei appeared to project onto state policy. With that authority now gone, the central question is whether a moral tradition can discipline a state that increasingly experiences its insecurity as existential. Whether the next supreme leader can impose doctrinal restraint on a system drifting toward hard security logic.

The Islamic just war theory

The Islamic conception of war begins from a premise different from the caricatures often projected onto it. Classical Islamic thought does not treat war as an unbounded field of religious violence. Rather, it regulates warfare through a moral-legal framework derived from the Qur’an, the practice of the Prophet, and the juristic traditions that developed in subsequent centuries. The foundational Qur’anic injunction is taken from verse 2:190: “Fight in the way of God those who fight you, but do not transgress. Indeed, God does not love transgressors.” The verse both permits fighting and limits it: war is accepted as a political reality, but not treated as morally autonomous.

The duality of permission and restraint thus runs through the Islamic just war tradition. War may be legitimate in cases of defence, resistance to aggression, or protection of the community. But even a just cause does not license unlimited means. Islamic jurists emphasised proportionality, legitimate authority, fidelity to agreements, and the protection of non-combatants—including women, children, the elderly, monks, and peasants— developing a norm of discrimination that restricted violence to active combatants.

It is from this perspective that nuclear weapons become especially difficult to reconcile with Islamic ethics. A weapon whose essence is mass, uncontrolled devastation, sits uneasily with any tradition that treats non-combatant immunity as morally central. In Islamic terms, the problem is not simply the scale of destruction, but the very structure of the act: the means themselves are transgressive.

The fatwa: Genuine constraint or strategic cover?

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s reputed opposition to chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War established an early precedent for this kind of doctrinal restraint. Iraq used chemical agents extensively, and Iran suffered enormously—some 20,000 Iranians were killed and over 100,000 severely injured. Yet the Islamic Republic did not respond in kind on a comparable scale. Whether that restraint was entirely theological or also strategic remains debated. Recent evidence suggests limited Iranian chemical weapons development during the war. Still, the episode reinforced the notion that certain weapons lay beyond the moral threshold that Iran’s clerical leadership was prepared to cross openly.

Khamenei extended this logic to the nuclear realm. He first issued an oral fatwa in October 2003 declaring nuclear weapons as forbidden (haram) in Islam, and repeated this position in an official statement at the emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in August 2005. Over subsequent years, Iranian officials repeatedly invoked his religious decree as evidence of the Islamic Republic’s peaceful nuclear intentions.

But the fatwa’s authenticity and legal weight have always been contested. Some have argued that no formal written fatwa was ever issued and that what Iran marketed as a religious ruling was, in origin, merely the closing paragraph of a message to a 2010 nuclear disarmament conference, later retroactively framed by Iranian diplomats as a fatwa. Others have documented that Khamenei’s pronouncements on nuclear weapons were inconsistent: at times he categorically forbade development, stockpiling, and use; at other times he appeared to permit development and stockpiling while forbidding use.

None of this entirely strips the fatwa of significance. In political systems where legitimacy is partly theological, a public prohibition articulated by the supreme jurist, even if ambiguous in its legal form, raises the political and doctrinal cost of reversal. As one scholar observes, such declarations make it costly for the Islamic Republic to overturn the publicly stated position even if they do not constitute binding juridical rulings in the formal sense.

Succession and the question of doctrinal inheritance


The critical question of whether Khamenei’s successor would inherit his political and moral authority looms large. On March 9, 2026, the Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of Ali Khamenei as Iran’s third supreme leader. Whether he would inherit his father’s doctrinal commitments, especially on nuclear weapons, is far from clear. Not known as a jurist of comparable standing to his father, Mojtaba’s authority derives primarily from his revolutionary and security credentials rather than from the depth of his theological learning, a fact noted critically within Iran’s clerical establishment, which has historically resisted father-to-son succession as uncomfortably monarchical.

Khamenei’s nuclear prohibition carried weight because it came from the state’s highest religious authority. Mojtaba’s standing is far more contested, which means that any comparable prohibition would likely carry less doctrinal force—while any tacit relaxation would accelerate the erosion of the barrier his father maintained. The IRGC commanders who manoeuvred his appointment to power have long been among those pressing for a reassessment of Iran’s nuclear posture.

Rented Power, Borrowed Strength: The Illusion of Gulf Power in War

Islamic restraint vs strategic realism

This leads to the final and perhaps hardest question: would Iran, if acting as a pure realist state, pursue nuclear weapons regardless of the Islamic just war tradition? The realist answer is straightforward. States seek survival in an anarchic international system. When a state faces stronger adversaries, recurring coercion, and the credible prospect of regime-change violence, it has every incentive to pursue the ultimate deterrent. From this perspective, the logic of nuclear acquisition is not theological but strategic: a bomb would promise not battlefield utility but regime survival, deterrence, and insulation from future attack.

And yet Iran is not a pure realist state in the abstract. It is a political order where ideology, clerical authority, national security, and regime survival have long coexisted in uneasy combination. The more interesting possibility, therefore, is not that realism simply replaces theology, but that realism gradually colonises it. In that scenario, doctrine is not openly discarded; it is reinterpreted and subordinated to necessity, allowing the state to retain Islamic language while moving toward a posture that the older Khamenei publicly resisted.

The greater danger is that the Islamic Republic’s language of restraint may cease to anchor policy and instead begin to trail behind it. If so, Iran’s nuclear future will be decided not only in centrifuge halls or command bunkers, but in the struggle between theological limits and strategic fear.

April 11, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

WHO warns of catastrophic risks after strike on Bushehr nuclear plant


April 6, 2026 , Middle East Monitor,

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned of catastrophic consequences following the targeting of Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, amid escalating conflict in the region.

In a statement posted on X, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation said he shares the concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding the safety of nuclear facilities in Iran.

He stressed that any attack on a nuclear site could trigger a nuclear accident, warning that such an event would have long-term and far-reaching health consequences.

“The recent attack on the Bushehr nuclear plant is a stark reminder,” Tedros said, adding that the risks are increasing with each passing day of the ongoing war.

He called for urgent de-escalation, stating that peace remains “the best medicine” to prevent further deterioration.

The Bushehr facility was reportedly targeted on Saturday, marking the fourth such attack since the start of the US-Israeli offensive against Iran on 28th February……………………………………………………. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260406-who-warns-of-catastrophic-risks-after-strike-on-bushehr-nuclear-plant/

April 11, 2026 Posted by | Iran, safety | Leave a comment

Blocking Iran’s Other Option: A Plutonium Bomb

By Henry Sokolski, April 03, 2026, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2026/04/03/blocking_irans_other_option_a_plutonium_bomb_1174454.html

America and Israel want to prevent Tehran from getting a bomb. That’s why the Pentagon and Israel Defense Forces continue to target Tehran’s ability to make weapons uranium. Washington and Jerusalem claim they have obliterated Tehran’s uranium enrichment capability. Perhaps. But, Iran has another pathway to a bomb.

U.S. and Israeli leaders have yet to fully consider Iran’s option to make nuclear weapons from plutonium, a material Iran can extract from spent fuel at its largest reactor at Bushehr. Washington should make sure that Iran doesn’t remove Bushehr’s spent fuel and strip out the plutonium. This can and should be done without bombing the plant.

ROSATOM, the Russian firm that built and has operated Bushehr since 2011, says there are 210 tons of spent reactor fuel at the plant. If you check the ROSATOM figure against International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reactor performance logs, the 210 tons of waste contain enough plutonium to make more than 200 nuclear weapons – as many or more than SIPRI estimates Israel has.

It would not take Iran long to remove Bushehr’s spent fuel and chemically strip the plutonium out. In 1977, the U.S. General Accounting Office evaluated leading U.S. nuclear chemist Floyd Culler’s  proposed quick and dirty method of plutonium chemical separation. The facility Culler described was 130 feet by 60 feet by 30 feet (approximately the size of a standard basketball court). It employed technology little more advanced than that required for the production of dairy and the pouring of concrete. Such a plant could fit within a large warehouse and would take no more than six months to build. Until the plant was operational, it would send off no signal and could separate a bomb’s worth of plutonium after only ten days of operation. After that, the plant could separate a bomb’s worth of plutonium in a day.

Two more steps are needed to convert separated plutonium into an insertable metallic core for a nuclear implosion device First, turn the plutonium solution into an oxide and another to convert this oxide into metal. Second, cast and machine this material into a hemisphere. Assuming Iran already had an (implosion) device on the ready, the completion of a bomb could take one to two weeks. This plutonium weapon production timeline is similar to what it would take to extract the uranium hexafluoride in the rubble at Isfahan and then to chemically convert that gas into insertable metal uranium bomb cores. For that reason, the Trump administration should pay as much attention to this back end of the fuel cycle as it is to the front-end, which features uranium enrichment.

What’s odd is that there’s been next to no public discussion of Iran exploiting the Bushehr plutonium option. This may be due to the popular myth that “reactor-grade plutonium” can’t be used to make workable bombs. Robert Selden and Bruce Goodwin, two of America’s top plutonium weapons designers, put this fable to rest, most recently in 2025. As the U.S. Department of Energy has explained, with Iran’s level of weapons sophistication it could use reactor-grade and produce Hiroshima or Nagasaki yields.

The U.S. government used to worry about this possibility. In 2004, the State Department spotlighted Bushehr as a worrisome nuclear weapons plutonium producer. Late in 2012, after Iran shut Bushehr down and withdrew all of the fuel – roughly 20 bombs-worth of near-weapons-grade plutonium – the Pentagon swung into action, launching surveillance drones over the reactor to make sure the plutonium-laden spent fuel didn’t leave the plant to be reprocessed elsewhere. The Iranians put the fuel back, but the concern that Iran was trying to pull a fast one remained.

Now, the Trump Administration is threatening to bomb the largest of Iran’s electrical generating plants, of which Bushehr is in the top ten. Bombing it, much less its spent fuel pond, however, would be a big mistake. The last thing the United States should risk is prompting a radiological release. NPEC-commissioned simulations indicate radiological releases from Bushehr’s  reactor core could force the mandatory evacuation of tens of thousands to millions of Iranians. Attacking the spent fuel pond could result in even larger numbers. Of course, Bushehr would be a legitimate military target if it supported Iranian military operations. However, it doesn’t. Even before U.S. Israeli forces hit the site with two projectiles, the plant was on cold shutdown.

What, then, should our government do? First, the Pentagon should watch to make sure Iran does not remove any of the spent fuel at Bushehr. It could do this with space surveillance assets or, as it did in 2012, with drones. Second, any “peace” deal President Trump cuts with Tehran should include a requirement that there be near-real-time monitoring of the Bushehr reactor and spent fuel pond, much as the IAEA had in place with Iran’s fuel enrichment activities. The IAEA actually asked for this back in 2015. Iran refused. Unfortunately, President Obama didn’t push back. That was a mistake, one the Trump Administration should not continue to make.

Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He was deputy for nonproliferation policy in the Department of Defense (1989–1993), and is the author of China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War (2024).

April 11, 2026 Posted by | - plutonium, Iran, USA | Leave a comment

NuScale Power Corporation Class Action Reminder – Robbins LLP Encourages SMR Stockholders to Contact the Firm for Information About Their Rights  

 Business Wire  Apr 4, 2026, https://www.morningstar.com/news/business-wire/20260403532096/nuscale-power-corporation-class-action-reminder-robbins-llp-encourages-smr-stockholders-to-contact-the-firm-for-information-about-their-rights

NuScale Power Corporation Class Action Reminder – Robbins LLP Encourages SMR Stockholders to Contact the Firm for Information About Their Rights  

Robbins LLP reminds stockholders that a class action was filed on behalf of all investors who purchased or otherwise acquired NuScale Power Corporation (NYSE: SMR) Class A shares between May 13, 2025 and November 6, 2025. NuScale is a nuclear technology company focused on scalable, modular reactors.

For more information, submit a form, email attorney Aaron Dumas, Jr., or give us a call at (800) 350-6003.

What is the class period? May 13, 2025 – November 6, 2025

What are the allegations? Robbins LLP is Investigating Allegations that NuScale Power Corporation (SMR) Mislead Investors Regarding its Business Prospects

According to the complaint, NuScale’s core technology, the NuScale Power Module (“NPM”), is a small modular nuclear reactor designed to generate energy within a broader power plant. Prior to the start of the class period, NuScale entered into a global commercialization partnership with ENTRA1 Energy LLC (“ENTRA1”). Defendants claimed that this critical partnership would allow the Company to take its NPM technology from development to deployment, enabling NuScale’s NPMs to serve as meaningful, revenue-generating components in power plants. During the class period, defendants emphasized ENTRA1’s purported wide-ranging capabilities and deep experience in power plant development in their communications with investors. However, during its entire operating history ENTRA1 had never built, financed, or operated any significant project, let alone one in the highly technical and difficult field of nuclear power generation.

On November 6, 2025, NuScale surprised investors by revealing that the Company’s general and administrative expenses had ballooned more than 3,000% to $519 million during its third fiscal quarter, up from $17 million in the prior year period, due largely to NuScale’s payment of $495 million to ENTRA1 for its TVA agreement. As a result, NuScale’s quarterly net loss skyrocketed to $532 million, up from $46 million in the prior year period. On this news, the price of NuScale Class A shares declined more than 12% over a two-day trading period, from approximately $32 per share on November 6, 2025 to approximately $28 per share on November 10, 2025. The price of NuScale Class A stock continued to fall in subsequent days, dropping to a low of just $17 per share by November 21, 2025 – more than 70% below the class period high of more than $57 per share.

Plaintiff alleges that defendants failed to disclose that: (i) ENTRA1 had never built, financed, or operated any significant projects – let alone projects in the highly technical and complicated field of nuclear power generation – during its entire operating history; (ii) NuScale had entrusted its commercialization, distribution, and deployment of its NPMs and hundreds of millions of dollars of NuScale capital to an entity that lacked any significant prior experience owning, financing, or operating nuclear energy generation facilities; (iii) the purported experience and qualifications attributed to ENTRA1 by defendants during the class period in fact referred to the purported experience and qualifications of the principals of the Habboush Group, a distinct entity without significant experience in the field of nuclear power generation; and (iv) as a result, NuScale’s commercialization strategy was exposed to material, undisclosed risks of failure, delays, regulatory challenges, or other negative setbacks.

What can shareholders do now? You may be eligible to participate in the class action against NuScale Power Corporation. Shareholders who wish to serve as lead plaintiff for the class must submit their papers to the court by April 20, 2026. The lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. You do not have to participate in the case to be eligible for a recovery. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member. For more information, click here.

April 11, 2026 Posted by | Legal | Leave a comment

  Labour and SNP clash over nuclear power for Scotland amid Holyrood campaign. 

 Labour touts “stability” while SNP blasts “misguided” nuclear
plan. Torness power station — could nuclear become a key battleground
ahead of the May poll?

The SNP and Scottish Labour have traded barbs over
energy policy as the debate on new nuclear power in Scotland took centre
stage on the Holyrood campaign trail. It comes as the Scottish Greens
pledged to deliver 40,000 new green energy jobs in Scotland by the end of
the next Holyrood term in 2031. In a statement, Scottish Labour leader Anas
Sarwar vowed to end what he called the SNP’s “ideological and
anti-science” prohibition on new nuclear power.

Opposition to nuclear
energy has a long history in Scotland, beginning in the 1970s with the
construction of the Torness Point reactor in East Lothian. Sarwar said the
SNP stance against nuclear power is costing Scotland high-quality jobs,
investment, and energy security. Scottish Labour said it would immediately
end a ban on new nuclear in office, and begin the process of securing sites
for next-generation technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs).
Sarwar said the SNP’s nuclear policy leaves Scots “vulnerable to
tyrants abroad”. The SNP have chosen misinformation and scaremongering on
nuclear power — leaving Scotland with less energy security, higher bills
and fewer jobs,” he said.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have also backed
new nuclear in Scotland ahead of the May elections, with the party open to
supporting projects at Hunterston and Torness.

SNP warns of high costs from
nuclear In response, the SNP said Scottish Labour’s nuclear plans would
“hammer Scottish bill payers”. The party pointed to North Sea neighbour
Norway, where a government-appointed commission this week recommended
against investing in nuclear power at present. SNP depute leader Keith
Brown said Scottish families “already pay a ‘nuclear tax’ to fund the
two most expensive nuclear plants in the world”, referring to Hinkley
Point C and Sizewell C. “Why on earth does Anas Sarwar want to inflict
more of this on Scotland?” Brown questioned.

 Energy Voice 9th April 2026,
https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/nuclear/595535/labour-and-snp-clash-over-nuclear-power-for-scotland-amid-holyrood-campaign/

April 11, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

An Open Letter to Washington: The World Cannot Afford Silence

7 April 2026 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/an-open-letter-to-washington-the-world-cannot-afford-silence/

To Members of the United States Congress and the Vice President,

I write to you as an observer from outside the United States, but not outside the reach of its power. What happens in Washington does not stay in Washington. It reverberates across the globe.

A recent public statement by President Donald Trump, circulated widely from his Truth Social account, contains language and threats relating to Iran that are alarming in both tone and substance. The message invokes destruction of infrastructure, uses inflammatory and profane language, and concludes with a phrase that appears to praise a religious figure in a context that is, at best, deeply incongruous and, at worst, dangerously provocative.

Taken together, this is not normal rhetoric for the holder of the most powerful office in the world.

Many across the world are beginning to ask a question that would once have seemed unthinkable: whether the behaviour being displayed is that of a rational leader, or something far more dangerous. In blunt terms – terms now increasingly heard in public discourse – there is a growing fear that the President is acting like a madman.

The concern here is not political disagreement. It is the apparent abandonment of restraint, clarity, and responsibility in matters that could have immediate and catastrophic international consequences. Words at this level are not symbolic – they can signal intent, trigger reactions, and escalate conflict.

If such rhetoric is not constrained by the institutions designed to provide oversight, the consequences could be severe. Miscalculation or escalation in relation to Iran risks drawing multiple nations into conflict, destabilising an already fragile region, and placing countless civilian lives in jeopardy. It risks disrupting global energy markets, triggering economic shocks far beyond the United States, and increasing the likelihood of direct military confrontation between major powers. In the worst case, it opens the door to a broader and more devastating war whose impacts would be felt worldwide.

The United States Constitution anticipates moments when the conduct of a President raises serious questions about their fitness to discharge the duties of the office. It provides lawful mechanisms to respond: the power of impeachment vested in Congress, and the provisions of the 25th Amendment, which empower the Vice President and Cabinet to act where incapacity or inability is evident.

These are not partisan tools. They are safeguards.

No one outside your system can invoke them. Only you can.

History will not judge this moment solely by what was said, but by what was done – or not done – in response. Silence or inaction in the face of credible concern carries its own consequences.

The world is watching the United States not for perfection, but for proof that its institutions still function as intended: that power is checked, that accountability exists, and that no individual is beyond the reach of the law.

I urge you to consider, with the utmost seriousness, whether this moment calls for the use of those constitutional safeguards.

Respectfully,

Michael Taylor

April 11, 2026 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Mass Media Are Evil But They’re Also Really Dumb,

Apr 04, 2026. Caitlin Johnstone

The New York Times has printed an article with the headline “A North American Treaty Organization Without America?”, apparently having spent the entire Ukraine war completely unaware that NATO stands for North ATLANTIC Treaty Organization.

At the same time, CNN ran a segment on an American bomber whose plane was shot down over Iran in which analyst Amy McGrath suggested that the Iranians might help the pilot because they’re “happy” he’s bombing their country, saying the pilot would be worried because they don’t know “if you’re gonna be picked by somebody who is going to turn you over to the Iranian forces that are gonna use you and capture you, or is the population happy that you’re there?”

Really illustrates how fucked western journalism is, doesn’t it?

I mean, this is some serious baby-brained thinking on display here. That New York Times headline made it through multiple checkpoints before publication without it ever even occurring to anyone to at least do a quick Google search to find out if the A in NATO really does stand for “American”, and, if so, why are there so many European countries in it? That CNN analyst really does have such an infantile, children’s cartoon worldview on American wars that she thinks the people being bombed by American pilots will want to hug them and kiss them and give them presents when they emergency eject into enemy territory. It’s kind of amazing that any of the people involved in either of these incidents are working in news media at all.

If you’ve ever wondered why so many Americans are so ignorant about what’s going on in their world, it’s because for generations these have been the kinds of people informing them about world events. These are the news outlets who’ve been responsible for creating an informed populace. And their reporting is shared with the entire western world.

I constantly criticize the western press for its role in propagandizing the public to manufacture consent for evil wars and normalize an abusive political status quo. You cannot despise these manipulators enough for their role in the world’s dysfunction today. But these two incidents highlight the fact that the people running the western press aren’t just evil — they’re also really, really stupid.

The New York Times is also running narrative cover for Israel’s ethnic cleansing operation in Lebanon, running a story on the ethnically motivated mass expulsion with the obscene headline “Israel’s Message to Southern Lebanon: Shiites Must Go”.

The Times then goes on to make it clear that what they’re softly framing as “Israel’s message” is in fact a brazen ethnic cleansing operation, saying Israel’s evacuation orders in Lebanon apply exclusively to Shiite Muslims, while Christians and Druse may be permitted to remain as long as they don’t shelter any Shiites among them:

“As fighting reignited, Israel issued blanket evacuation guidance for a vast stretch of southern Lebanon — extending 25 miles from the Israeli border — publicly urging all civilians to flee to the north.

“But behind-the-scenes, Israeli officials have conveyed a more targeted message.

“In private calls to local leaders across southern Lebanon, Israeli military officials have assured several Christian and Druse communities that they could remain in the evacuation zone. They have pressed them, however, to force out any Lebanese from neighboring Shiite Muslim communities who have sought refuge among them as Israeli bombardment flatten Shiite towns, according to local Christian, Druse and Shiite leaders who spoke to The New York Times. The Shiites make up the majority of southern Lebanon.”

The fact that Israel is explicitly warning people of one ethnicity not to hide members of another ethnicity from the invading force which wants to eliminate them should be drawing Holocaust comparisons around the world. Instead it’s going completely ignored while the west pretends Jews are the ones in imminent danger…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-mass-media-are-evil-but-theyre?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=193128305&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

April 11, 2026 Posted by | media | Leave a comment

Audit cites DOE oversight failures on NuScle nuclear project

E&E News 1st April 2026

The Department of Energy mismanaged a landmark nuclear project to construct the country’s first small modular reactor, according to an audit by DOE’s Office of Inspector General released Tuesday.

The Carbon Free Power Project was a partnership between the federal government, NuScale Power and a coalition of Utah utilities that included $1.36 billion in DOE cost-share financial assistance. The government grant would help fund construction of the company’s first units at the Idaho National Laboratory.

The project that launched in 2015 was ultimately canceled in 2023 after NuScale and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems mutually agreed to terminate development of the plant. Cost estimates for the first-of-a-kind advanced reactors had climbed, giving the utilities that had agreed to purchase the power cold feet. NuScale’s stock price had collapsed. The canceled project left the U.S. government out $183 million………………………………..(Subscribers only) https://www.eenews.net/articles/ig-cites-doe-oversight-failures-on-nuscale-nuclear-project/

April 11, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Faced with new energy shock, Europe asks if reviving nuclear is the answer

Katya AdlerEurope Editor, BBC 5 Apr 26

“…………………….nuclear energy seems to be back in fashion as part of a home-grown European energy mix – in the UK as well as the EU. But how quick a fix can nuclear be – and how safe and reliable is it really?

…………………………A renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power is palpable in Europe:

………………………………………….Italyis preparing draft laws to repeal its longstanding ban

Belgium seems to be making a complete U-turn after years of reluctance about investing in nuclear energy

Greece, historically cautious because of seismic concerns, has opened a public debate on advanced reactor designs

Sweden reversed a four-decade old decision to abandon nuclear technology

In the UK, Chancellor Rachel Reeves recently announced streamlining regulation to help advance nuclear projects.

“To build national resilience, drive energy security and deliver economic growth, we need nuclear,” said Reeves.

………………………..No prizes for guessing that France is the loudest nuclear cheerleader. President Emmanuel Macron is ever eager to point to the industry’s credentials as a low carbon-emitter, potentially helping the EU towards its net zero goals.

He told Europe’s nuclear summit that “nuclear power is key to reconciling both independence, and thus energy sovereignty, with decarbonisation, and thus carbon neutrality”.

He also emphasised the increased energy demand from AI and his belief that nuclear power could give Europe a competitive edge or “the ability to open data centres, to build computing capacity and to be at the heart of the artificial intelligence challenge.”

But Berlin has since agreed to the removal of anti-nuclear bias. A cynic might say that could have something to do with defence and security concerns, provoked by deteriorating relations with the Trump administration.

Germany has asked France to extend its independent nuclear deterrent to European partners, something France agreed to this month.

But beware of viewing nuclear as an energy panacea.

Nuclear development is a long-term project, not a short-term fix to current energy insecurity.

Building nuclear reactors can be subject to extremely long delays, as recent examples in France and the UK have illustrated, at Flamanville-3 and Hinkley Point C.

Waste management and public concerns regarding the safety of nuclear energy persist.

Environmental groups warn investment in nuclear energy can divert funds and political attention from speeding up the development of renewables, and an added layer of strategic risk is that a number of Central European countries, especially Hungary and Slovakia, still depend on Russian nuclear technology and uranium.

“You’re ignoring the history of nuclear in Europe if you think it can just slot in [as an easy energy crisis solution],” Chris Aylett told me. He’s a Research Fellow at the Environment and Society Centre, Chatham House.

Nuclear energy is part of the solution, he believes, but many European nuclear reactors are old and governments need to invest considerably just to maintain or extend their working life.

“The main challenge is maintaining existing share [of nuclear power]. If governments really want to increase the share, they need a lot of time and a lot of money.”

But many of Europe’s governments are indebted, cash-strapped and faced with numerous, competing priorities – such as how to maintain welfare and boost defence spending to the levels promised to US President Donald Trump.

Nuclear is also being beaten on price as the costs of wind and solar have gone down, Aylett points out.

So, with price and practicality in mind, the European Commission has rushed to embrace the concept of small modular reactors (SMRs).

………………………….The focus on SMRs is international. Last week, the US and Japan announced a $40bn project to develop SMRs in Tennessee and Alabama, while last month Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, published the regulatory justification for Rolls-Royce’s plan to become the first company to try to build SMRs in the UK.

But as attractive as they sound, SMRs are viewed as unproven at commercial scale. As of early 2026, no construction licences had been granted anywhere in the EU…………………..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g8k8vq8gno

April 11, 2026 Posted by | EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Trump and Netanyahu: Two Madmen Playing God

When deranged leaders invoke divine catastrophe as a political instrument, it is not only their enemies who are consumed. Unless they are stopped, we will all be victims of these two psychopaths.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Apr 06, 2026, Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/netanyahu-trump-psychopaths-war-criminals?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=05f9359cac-Top+News+%7C+Thu.+1%2F8%2F26_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c56d0ea580-601318790

Here is Donald Trump’s Easter message to the world:

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP


Donald Trump and his partner in war crimes, Benjamin Netanyahu, are jointly waging a war of murderous aggression against Iran, a nation of 90 million people. They are in the grip of three cascading pathologies. The first is personality: both are malignant narcissists. The second is the arrogance of power: men who possess the power to command nuclear annihilation and feel, in consequence, no restraint. The third, and most dangerous of all, is religious delusion: two men who believe, and are told daily by those around them, that they are messiahs doing God’s work. Each pathology exacerbates the others, so that together they put the world in unprecedented danger

The result is a glorification of violence not seen since the Nazi leaders. The question is whether the world’s few grownups—responsible national leaders who remain committed to international law and are willing to say so—can restrain them. It will not be easy, but they must try.

Let us start with the underlying psychological disorder. Malignant narcissism is a clinical term, not an insult. The social psychologist Erich Fromm coined the phrase in 1964 to describe Adolf Hitler, as a merger of pathological grandiosity, psychopathy, paranoia, and antisocial personality into a single character structure. The malignant narcissist is not merely vain. He is structurally incapable of genuine empathy, constitutionally immune to guilt, and driven by paranoid conviction that enemies surround him and must be destroyed. Already back in 2017, psychologist John Garnter and many other professionals were warning of Trump’s malignant narcissism.

When power faces no limit, the only remaining internal check is conscience. And the psychopath has no conscience.

Several respected psychologists and psychiatrists have evaluated Trump for psychopathy using the standardized Hare Scale and have come up with scores well above the diagnostic cutoff. See, for example, here. Psychopathy is best characterized as a lack of conscience or compassion for other human beings.

Both Trump and Netanyahu fit this profile with precision. Trump’s psychopathy was on full display when US forces destroyed a civilian bridge in Tehran, of no military significance, with at least eight civilians killed and 95 or more injured. Trump did not grieve. He gloated and promised more destruction. Netanyahu’s Passover address similarly contained not one word for the dead. No pause. No shadow of doubt. Only the triumphant catalog of enemies he has destroyed.

Paranoia drives the threat that Trump and Netanyahu have manufactured. Trump’s own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in writing that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” and that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” The IAEA stated flatly there was no evidence of a bomb. Trump’s own counterterrorism official resigned in protest, writing that “we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” The paranoid does not need a real threat. He will make one up if he must, to match his feelings of exaggerated fear.

The Machiavellianism operates without shame. Trump told the world that diplomacy was always his “first preference,” while boasting in the same breath about ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran: “I was so honored to do it. I was so proud to do it.” He destroyed the diplomatic framework with his own hands, then blamed Iran for the wreckage. He then admitted, casually, that the war has no self-defense rationale: “We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have. But we’re there to help our allies.” Under the UN Charter, self-defense is the only legal basis for force. Trump has confessed that no such basis exists.

There is a particular deformation that power inflicts on certain personalities, and it is especially acute when the power in question is unbounded or seems to be so. With the command of nuclear arsenals, Trump and Netanyahu do not experience the world as others do. The availability of nuclear weapons, for these malignant narcissists, is not a burden of responsibility but an extension of their grandiose selves: I can do anything. I can level anything. Watch me. There will be no self-restraints by Netanyahu and Trump on this delusional grandiosity.

Trump and Netanyahu do not experience the world as others do.

Trump has completely internalized this sense of impunity. On April 1, he stood before the cameras and promised to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” The phrase “where they belong” is the verdict of a man who feels divinely licensed to judge the worth of 90 million people and dehumanizes them without hesitation. He has repeatedly threatened to destroy Iran’s civilian electrical infrastructure—a war crime under the laws of armed conflict, announced openly as a negotiating position, to a global audience that mostly changed the channel.

Netanyahu commands a state with an estimated 200 nuclear warheads, has never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and operates under no international inspection regime. He has watched Trump wield American military power with unchecked aggression and concurs that there are no consequences. The second madness feeds the third: when power faces no limit, the only remaining internal check is conscience. And the psychopath has no conscience.

The lack of conscience is the most dangerous pathology of the three, because it is the one that removes the last possible internal brake. The strategist who wages an unjust war may eventually calculate that the costs exceed the gains and stop. The malignant narcissist who wages war for ego may eventually exhaust the ego’s demands and stop. The psychopath escalates because there are no limits.

And, if you can believe, it gets even worse. Both Trump and Netanyahu are would-be messiahs. They are self-proclaimed agents of God. For them, stopping the war on Iran would mean God was wrong. And the self-proclaimed messiah cannot be wrong, either, because the messiah and God have become, in the grandiose psyche, effectively the same.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have claimed this messianic identity explicitly. Trump has called himself “the chosen one.” Regarding the assassination attempt on Trump in 2024, he declared, “I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I ⁠was saved by God to make America great again.” Netanyahu, in his address on the eve of Passover, did not merely invoke God. He appropriated God’s role in the Exodus narrative—enumerating ten “accomplishments” of what he calls the “War of Redemption” and naming each one a plague. The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei he named the “Plague of the Firstborn.” He then warned the world:

After the ten plagues of Egypt, I remind you that Pharaoh still tried to harm the People of Israel, and we all know how that ended.

In the Book of Exodus, that ending is the drowning of Pharaoh’s entire army. Netanyahu was threatening the annihilation of Iran, on television, in the language of holy scripture.

Surrounding each of these men is a court of flatterers and fanatics whose function is to sustain the delusion and prevent reality from entering their consciousness.

Trump’s Court: Hegseth, Huckabee, and the Christian Nationalists

Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, has turned the Pentagon into a theater of holy war. He sports a Jerusalem Cross tattoo on his chest and the words “Deus Vult,” “God Wills It,” the battle cry of the medieval Crusades, on his arm. He hosts monthly Christian worship services in the Pentagon’s auditorium. He has asked the American people to pray “every day, on bended knee” for military victory in the Middle East “in the name of Jesus Christ.” At one of these services, he prayed aloud for US troops to inflict:

Overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy … We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.

At a press briefing on the Iran war, Hegseth said the United States “negotiates with bombs.” He described Iran’s leaders as “religious fanatics” seeking nuclear capability for “some religious Armageddon,” while presiding over monthly prayer services at the Pentagon and declaring that “the providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops.” He appears to have no awareness of the mirror he is holding up. A defense secretary who prays for “overwhelming violence” in the name of Jesus, while calling his enemies religious fanatics, has defined the word “projection.”

Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel, provides the theological architecture. A Baptist minister and avid Christian Zionist, Huckabee believes the Israel-Iran conflict is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy—a necessary step toward the Rapture and the second coming of Christ. He sent Trump a message—which Trump then posted on social media—comparing the moment to Truman in 1945 and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, urging Trump to listen to “HIS voice,” meaning God.

In an interview, Huckabee was asked about the biblical land grant stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates—encompassing Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq—and whether Israel had a divine right to it all. His answer was direct: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Smotrich, for his part, posted on social media: “I ♥ Huckabee.” Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee, whose organization Christians United for Israel has been a major driver of US evangelical support for Israel’s wars, looked at the Iran war and said simply: “Prophetically, we’re right on cue.” Franklin Graham, at a White House Easter prayer service, fed Trump’s messianic delusions: “Today the Iranians, the wicked regime of this government, wants to kill every Jew and destroy them with an atomic fire. But you have raised up President Trump. You’ve raised him up for such a time as this. And Father, we pray that you’ll give him victory.”

Netanyahu’s Court: Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and the Messianic Settlers

On the Israeli side, the inner court is composed of two figures whose radicalism is so extreme that they were considered political pariahs until Netanyahu used their votes to stay in power. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the National Security Minister, is an admirer of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was designated a terrorist organization. Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, draws his ideology from Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, who taught that Israel’s 1967 military victory was divinely mandated and that the settlement of Palestinian territory is the will of God. Together, they hold 20 seats in Netanyahu’s 67-seat coalition. They do not merely advise the prime minister, they share in his messianic beliefs and vision.

Ben-Gvir has used his control of the Israeli police to enable settler paramilitaries operating against Palestinians in the West Bank. He has consistently blocked ceasefire negotiations and has openly claimed credit for delaying them. He pushed for Jewish ritual rights on the Temple Mount in defiance of a status quo maintained for decades, a move Israeli security officials warned would lead directly to bloodshed. In August 2023 he declared: “My right, and my wife’s and my children’s right to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria, is more important than the right to movement for Arabs.” The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Spain have all sanctioned him for inciting violence, yet the United States, under Marco Rubio, defended Ben-Gvir and criticized those sanctions.

Smotrich is the more methodical of the two: less theatrical and more dangerous. He has systematically transferred civilian governance of the West Bank from the Israeli military to his own ministry, channeling hundreds of millions of shekels to settler infrastructure while Palestinian Authority budgets are deliberately strangled. He has directed his office to formulate “an operational plan for applying sovereignty” over the West Bank. During the Iran war, he called for Israel to annex southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, declaring that the war “needs to end with a different reality entirely.” Smotrich’s ideology draws on Kook’s teaching that the settlement enterprise is not political but sacred—a divine obligation that must be completed regardless of international law, Palestinian rights, or the opinion of the world. The 1967 borders, in this theology, are not a temporary military reality. They are God’s unfinished business.

The world’s grownups must try to stop the madness.

Neither Ben-Gvir nor Smotrich was anything more than a fringe extremist before Netanyahu legitimized them by bringing them into government and his inner court. He gave them power over Israeli society, and they gave him the religious-nationalist firepower to call his wars a divine mission.

Into this landscape of holy war, one voice has spoken with world-saving grace and clarity. Pope Leo XIV has consistently called for an end to the violence. During a Holy Thursday Mass in Rome, he addressed the arrogance of power:

We tend to consider ourselves powerful when we dominate, victorious when we destroy our equals, great when we are feared. God has given us an example — not of how to dominate, but of how to liberate; not of how to destroy life, but of how to give it.

On Palm Sunday, the pope was again direct, saying that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” Hegseth followed up by holding another worship service at the Pentagon, where he again prayed for “overwhelming violence” in Christ’s name.

Professor John Mearsheimer has stated precisely that the crimes now being committed by Trump and Netanyahu are the same crimes for which the Nazi leadership was hanged at Nuremberg: aggressive war, annexation of foreign territory, deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, and collective punishment. This is not rhetorical excess. These are legal categories. The Nuremberg Tribunal called the crime of aggression the “supreme international crime”—the one that “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”—because it is the crime that makes all the other crimes possible. These men have confessed to it, publicly, in speeches carried by international broadcasters.

The institutional mechanisms that exist to prevent exactly this kind of catastrophe, including the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court, the non-proliferation regime, and the laws of armed conflict, are being actively subverted by the United States.

And yet the world’s grownups must try to stop the madness. The multilateral effort in Islamabad, including the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, working alongside the China-Pakistan five-point peace initiative, is an important start. It should be joined by the full weight of the BRICS nations, the UN General Assembly, and every state that wishes to live in a world governed by rules rather than by the delusions of two malignant narcissists.

When deranged leaders invoke divine catastrophe as a political instrument, it is not only their enemies who are consumed. We will all be the victims of Netanyahu’s plagues and Trump’s bombing of Iran to the stone ages, unless other leaders place limits on these two madmen.

April 10, 2026 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES | 1 Comment

Trillions Hidden, Humanity Starving: The Super-Rich vs. the Rest of Us

 April 6, 2026, Josh Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/06/trillions-hidden-humanity-starving-the-super-rich-vs-the-rest-of-us/

Ten years after the world first glimpsed the Panama Papers, the shadow empire of the super-rich is no less formidable. New analysis from Oxfam reveals a staggering truth: the untaxed wealth hidden offshore by the richest 0.1 percent now exceeds the combined wealth of the poorest 4.1 billion people on Earth. That’s not a statistic—it’s a moral indictment.

Oxfam estimates that $3.55 trillion in untaxed wealth was stashed in tax havens and unreported accounts in 2024 alone—more than the GDP of France and over twice the combined GDP of the world’s 44 least developed countries. Within this minuscule elite, the top 0.01 percent controls roughly $1.77 trillion of that hoard. Meanwhile, ordinary people continue to shoulder the burden: underfunded schools, crumbling hospitals, and fraying social safety nets are the collateral damage of a system engineered to let the wealthiest operate above the law.

Within this microscopic elite, the top 0.01 percent controls roughly $1.77 trillion. Meanwhile, billions of people are left with underfunded schools, crumbling hospitals, and social safety nets that barely function. The system isn’t “broken” — it’s working exactly as it was designed to work, just not for the vast majority of us.

The consequences are brutally clear. Public services starved of funding. Ordinary people shouldering the cost of inequality. A global economy rigged to reward the few and punish the many. Trillions of dollars that could fund hospitals, schools, clean water, and climate solutions are instead parked in secret accounts, out of reach and untaxed.

“This isn’t clever accounting; it’s power and impunity,” says Christian Hallum, Oxfam International’s Tax Lead. “The consequences are as predictable as they are devastating: ordinary people pay for the privileges of a tiny few.”

Progress has been made. The Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI), launched in 2016-2017, has nudged down the share of untaxed offshore wealth to about 3.2 percent of global GDP. But the gains are uneven. Many countries in the Global South—the nations that need tax revenue the most—remain excluded from the system.

  • Two Bold Proposals to Tax Wealth Across the Land

Oxfam calls for bold, global action: taxing extreme wealth, strengthening financial transparency, and ensuring the richest 1 percent pay their fair share—especially multimillionaires and billionaires. A UN-led Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, approved in 2024 and under negotiation through 2027, could be a turning point—but only if nations have the courage to confront entrenched power.

The Panama Papers were meant to be a wake-up call. A decade later, the alarm still blares—but the world seems content to hit snooze while trillions slip offshore, untaxed and untouchable. Meanwhile, billions of people scrape by.

Inequality isn’t an abstract concept—it’s a crisis of fairness and morality. And as long as the super-rich are allowed to hide fortunes beyond reach, the rest of us will pay the price.

April 10, 2026 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Why an attack on Bushehr nuclear plant would be catastrophic for the Gulf

The US and Israel have repeatedly hit the nuclear power plant, raising risks of radioactive contamination far beyond Iran’s borders.

By Al Jazeera Staff, 5 Apr 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/5/why-an-attack-on-bushehr-nuclear-plant-would-be-catastrophic-for-the-gulf

Iran’s only functioning nuclear plant, the Bushehr power plant, has come under repeated attacks in the ongoing Israel and US war on Iran, raising fears of a possible nuclear incident that could prove “catastrophic” across all Gulf countries.

The latest attack on the plant came on Saturday, after missiles hit a location close to the plant, killing one security guard and causing damage to a side building, according to the state-run Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) which has condemned the strike.

In a statement criticising the attack, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed the Bushehr facility had now been “bombed” four times since the war erupted on February 28. He criticised what he said was a “lack of concern” for nuclear safety on the part of the United States and Israel.

On Monday, the AEOI asked the United Nations nuclear oversight body to also explicitly condemn the attacks on Bushehr. The organisation’s head, Mohammad Eslami, said the attacks were “a clear violation of international law and an instance of a war crime” in a letter to Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Nuclear experts and regional authorities have long sounded the alarm over the incredible damage that bombing Bushehr would do, not just to Iran and Iranians, but to neighbouring countries as well.

Here’s what to know about the Bushehr plant and why its safety is paramount:

What is the Bushehr plant?

The Russia-built Bushehr plant is a nuclear power plant located in the coastal city of Bushehr, which has a population of 250,000.

Work on it initially started in 1975 by German companies, but it was eventually finished in 2011 by Russia’s atomic energy ministry. To date, hundreds of Russian personnel are stationed in Bushehr, with some having been evacuated following recent strikes.

It’s the first nuclear power plant in the Middle East, with one operational reactor. Bushehr Unit 1 currently provides about 1,000MW to the national grid. Two additional reactor units are expected to be operational by 2029.

What would happen if Bushehr were attacked?

Iranian officials say Bushehr has now been attacked four times in the course of the US-Israel war on Iran.

That’s separate from an initial strike on February 28, when the US and Israel first launched attacks, sparking off the war. Strikes hit Bushehr city, a few hundred metres from the plant.

A strike on a nuclear reactor or storage pools for used fuel would cause the release of radiological particles, specifically the hazardous isotope Caesium-137, into the atmosphere.

These can be spread far beyond the release point by wind and water and can contaminate food, soil, or drinking water sources for decades. Close exposure to such material would burn the skin and increase cancer risks.

What has the UN nuclear watchdog said about strikes targeting Bushehr?

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ atomic watchdog, has been warning against targeting the plant for months.

During Israel’s 12-day war on Iran last year, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told the UN Security Council that an Israeli strike on the Bushehr power plant could trigger a regional catastrophe.

Directly hitting the plant, which tonnes of nuclear material, could “result in a very high release of radioactivity”, with “great consequences” beyond Iran’s borders, Grossi warned, calling for “maximum restraint”.

A strike on the lines supplying electricity to Bushehr, which keep the cooling system operating, could cause a reactor meltdown and trigger a radioactive leak, he said. Evacuation orders would have to be issued within several hundred kilometres of the plant, extending to countries outside Iran.

He said authorities would also have to administer iodine to those within the area and potentially restrict food supplies due to possible radioactive contamination. Areas beyond the immediate danger zones would then have to be monitored as well for hundreds of kilometres.

Grossi, in the wake of the latest attack on Saturday, reiterated calls for restraint

What are the risks of water contamination for the Gulf?

There are also fears that damage at Bushehr could contaminate the waters of the entire Gulf region. Radioactive contamination would affect marine life in the area, and the Gulf’s shallowness could see the negative effects remain over a long period, research finds.

It would also affect drinking water supplies. Most Gulf countries lack groundwater and rely heavily on desalination of seawater. But desalination plants are not inherently built to filter radioactive material, and not all plants at the moment have the technologies required.

Alan Eyre of the Middle East Institute told Al Jazeera that academic research has shown that the concentration of radioactive material at Bushehr might not be enough to cause Chornobyl-level disasters, referencing the 1986 tragedy in then-Soviet Ukraine.

But “more serious is the threat of radioactive material in the water because once you get an appreciable amount of radioactivity in the water, that precludes desalination”, he said, explaining that high radioactive material could halt desalination altogether.

Last year, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani revealed in an interview with right-wing US media personality Tucker Carlson that a hit on the plant would affect “all of us”.

Sheikh Mohammed said that Qatar, which is about 190km (118 miles) south of Iran, had simulated the possible effects of a Bushehr attack. Authorities found that the sea would be “entirely contaminated” and the country would “run out of water in three days”, he said.

“No water, no fish, nothing… no life,” he added.

Is there a law against targeting civilian nuclear facilities?

Yes, there are international frameworks protecting nuclear facilities during conflict. Launching attacks on energy or nuclear facilities while knowing it could cause extensive loss of life and environmental damage is a war crime.

Article 56 (Protocol I) of the Geneva Conventions prevents the targeting of “works and installations containing dangerous forces”, including those containing nuclear material.

Warring parties are also meant to differentiate between facilities serving civilians, as opposed to military targets. The Bushehr plant provides electricity for national use.

The IAEA’s guidelines similarly prohibit indiscriminate targeting of a nuclear facility. They include that countries must avoid physically hitting reactors and stored fuel, that they must ensure the safety of staff, ensure power to the grid to prevent reactor core melt, and have systems in place to monitor radiation.

Has the Western response been muted compared to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia?

Iran’s Aragchi on Saturday called out Western nations for failing to speak up about the possible dangers of targeting Bushehr in the same way they did over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

“Remember the Western outrage about hostilities near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine?” he said in a post on X. “Radioactive fallout will end life in GCC capitals, not Tehran,” he added.

Russia attacked the plant in March 2022 using heavy tanks and artillery, causing a major fire. In reaction, the United Kingdom and Ukraine called an emergency UN Security Council meeting.

The UN, the US, the EU, and dozens of other countries issued immediate statements condemning the action. NATO warned that any radioactive fallout reaching a member state would trigger its collective defence mechanism.

French President Emmanuel Macron later spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the incident and requested that IAEA staff be allowed to monitor the occupied site.

The European Union has not, in this instance, commented on the attacks on Bushehr. Russia, which has scores of staff there, has meanwhile issued a statement raising concern and “strongly condemning the atrocity”.

What nuclear accidents have happened in the past?

COMMENT. This section of this article is a gross understatement.

See https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/2021/04/05/the-truth-about-fukushima-today-and-the-cover-up-thomas-a-bass/

and

https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/the-dreadful-truth-of-chernobyl-radiations-health-and-death-toll-is-now-coming-out/

Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors melted following an earthquake in 2011.

Some 160,000 residents were evacuated to avoid radiation risks. There was one recorded death from lung cancer as a result of clean-up activities later in 2018. However, the stress of evacuation, trauma, and general disruption at the time of the disaster led to thousands of deaths.

In the April 1986 Chornobyl disaster, a reactor exploded during tests, resulting in a massive explosion that blew off the facility’s heavy roof and resulted in a fire that burned for days.

High levels of radiation were released in the explosion. Some 30 people died at the time of the blast or in the immediate aftermath. About 20,000 others would later develop thyroid cancer, especially children. More than 300,000 were evacuated, and the area is still largely deserted.

April 10, 2026 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Statement Condemning Trump

Marjorie Taylor Green’s Statement from X: April 5, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/05/marjorie-taylor-greenes-statement-condemning-trump/

On Easter morning, this is what President Trump posted. Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness. I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit. I’m not defending Iran but let’s be honest about all of this. The Strait is closed because the US and Israel started the unprovoked war against Iran based on the same nuclear lies they’ve been telling for decades, that any moment Iran would develop a nuclear weapon.

You know who has nuclear weapons? Israel. They are more than capable of defending themselves without the US having to fight their wars, kill innocent people and children, and pay for it. Trump threatening to bomb power plants and bridges hurts the Iranian people, the very people Trump claimed he was freeing. On Easter, of all days, we as Christians should be reminded that the son of God died and rose from the grave so that we can be forgiven once and for all of our sins. Jesus commanded us to love one another and forgive one another. Even our enemies. Our President is not a Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians. Christians in the administration should be pursuing peace. Urging the President to make peace. Not escalating war that is hurting people. This NOT what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024, I know, I was there more than most. This is not making America great again, this is evil.

April 10, 2026 Posted by | politics, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Secrets and Shortcuts: The US Uranium Enrichment Rush

LYNDA WILLIAMS, 6 April 2026, https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/06/secrets-and-shortcuts-the-us-uranium-enrichment-rush/

The United States keeps going to war over uranium enrichment. 
We started a war in Iraq over it after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” which later proved to be false. We bombed Iran’s enrichment facilities in June 2025, with Trump declaring he had “completely and totally obliterated” them. 
Eight months later, we started another war with Iran over enrichment, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found no evidence of a structured nuclear weapons program. Now, Trump is considering sending  special forces into Iran to physically seize the enriched uranium — except nobody knows exactly where it is.

Now the US is actively pursuing its own domestic uranium enrichment after decades of dependence on foreign suppliers, including Russia, which, after it invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration cut off. The US currently has only one operating commercial enrichment facility, which cannot begin to supply the “nuclear renaissance” the Trump administration is promoting. Five companies are simultaneously seeking NRC licenses, backed by $2.7 billion in DOE contracts, under a regulatory framework being dismantled in real time — gutting environmental review, eliminating radiation safety standards, and compressing public participation timelines to get them built fast.

The first to apply is Global Laser Enrichment LLC — a Delaware shell company majority-owned by Silex Systems Limited of Australia and Cameco Corporation of Canada — and their application is shrouded in secrecy and regulatory shortcuts. The license application looks like a redacted Epstein file: 274 pages of black bars.

Why the Big Secrecy?

The problem with enrichment is proliferation. Natural uranium consists of two isotopes — uranium-238 and uranium-235 (U-235), the fissile isotope you need for both nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs. In its natural state, uranium contains only 0.7% U-235, so it must be enriched artificially.

Nuclear fuel for a nuclear power plant needs uranium enriched to about 5% U-235. A nuclear bomb needs it at 90% or above. Same basic process, same basic equipment — just keep enriching. Iran had enriched to 60% according to the IAEA before the June 2025 strikes — well past reactor fuel and closing in on weapons grade. That’s proliferation. North Korea had a proliferation problem the Clinton administration was successfully negotiating — until Bush came in, put North Korea on the “axis of evil,” and within months they turned off their IAEA monitoring cameras and expelled inspectors, testing their first nuclear bomb four years later.

On March 27, 2026, the NRC published a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed $1.76 billion uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, Kentucky — next to the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP), a Cold War uranium enrichment site that operated from 1952 to 2013 and left behind a Superfund cleanup still running today. The federal government sold GLE over 200,000 metric tons of publicly owned depleted uranium to process from the PGDP — but the price is secret.

The secrecy traces to a single act. In June 2001, the Secretary of Energy classified the SILEX laser enrichment technology under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The entire public record of that decision is five sentences in the Federal Register — no technical justification, no public comment period, no congressional notification, no appeal process. The Federation of American Scientists called it “constitutionally questionable.” It has never been legally challenged. The PLEF would be licensed to enrich to a maximum of 6% U-235 — reactor fuel grade. The irony is that independent peer-reviewed research suggests SILEX cannot be efficiently cascaded to weapons grade, making the classification that drives all this secrecy scientifically questionable as well.

What’s in the EIS?

GLE proposes to build a $1.76 billion laser enrichment facility on 322 acres of former public wildlife land — until eighteen months ago part of the West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area, managed for hunting, fishing, and horseback riding, and home to bald eagles, golden eagles, monarch butterflies, and eastern box turtles. The site contains 38 wetlands, 20 streams, and 6 ponds — all of which would be destroyed to build the facility. GLE proposes to discharge 60,000 gallons of wastewater per day, some of it radioactive, into Little Bayou Creek, which flows to the Ohio River — drinking water for five million people downstream. Fish consumption in Little Bayou Creek is already not supported due to PCB contamination from the adjacent Cold War plant.

The facility would take in depleted uranium hexafluoride — the tails left over from Cold War enrichment — re-enrich it, and produce more uranium hexafluoride waste. Over 40 years the PLEF would generate 290,574 metric tons of new radioactive waste with nowhere to go. The EIS waste table lists the largest waste stream — 18,161 tons per year — with three words in the disposal column: “subject to availability.” The EIS also declines to quantify what fraction of the DOE stockpile contains reprocessed uranium — known as RepU — material that passed through a reactor and carries transuranic contaminants, including neptunium-237 and plutonium, with half-lives of thousands to millions of years. RepU cannot go to a standard low-level waste site and may require disposal at WIPP in New Mexico, which was never designed for it. GLE’s website says the PLEF will “reduce the legacy environmental footprint” of the former Paducah plant. Re-enriching depleted uranium hexafluoride produces more uranium hexafluoride. The chemical form never changes, and the volume increases. That’s not cleanup. That’s more radioactive waste with nowhere to go.

What We Don’t Know: Safety

The comment period for the EIS closes May 11, but the government’s Safety Evaluation Report (SER) – which is normally completed alongside the EIS -won’t be completed until January 2027. GLE received special NRC permission to submit the environmental and safety portions of its application separately, meaning the public must comment on the facility’s EIS without ever seeing the safety analysis. The safety analysis submitted with the license application is classified. The emergency plan is withheld as a corporate trade secret on the grounds that releasing it would, in the sworn, notarized words of GLE’s licensing manager Tim Knowles, “reduce or foreclose the availability of profit opportunities.”  The Integrated Safety Analysis Summary — which NRC regulations require to be placed on the public docket — has been removed from the federal docket entirely. Not redacted. Removed. (NRC ADAMS accession ML25179A002 not publicly available)  In case of emergency, the EIS says the facility relies on local volunteer fire departments – departments with no legal right to read the emergency plan for the facility in their jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Kentucky approved nearly $100 million in public incentives to bring this facility to Paducah — some of it under a nondisclosure agreement so complete that the McCracken County judge told public radio he legally cannot tell you how much his county committed or what the terms are. The undisclosed county portion alone is nearly twice McCracken County’s entire annual operating budget.

The Regulatory Shortcut

For the EIS, the NRC borrowed conclusions from NUREG-2249, a draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement written for nuclear reactors — not enrichment facilities — that was published in September 2024, never finalized, and never applied to any proceeding before this one. Using this unfinished reactor document, the NRC pre-answered 34 environmental questions for the PLEF, declaring them all SMALL without site-specific analysis — including water use in the region, sedimentation impacts on aquatic species, and contaminated stormwater from outdoor uranium cylinder storage pads.  SILEX laser enrichment appears nowhere in NUREG-2249. These 34 conclusions can still be challenged before May 11. Once NUREG-2249 is finalized, that window closes permanently.

What You Can Do

The most impactful comments challenge the application of NUREG-2249 — a draft reactor document — to pre-answer 34 environmental questions for a laser enrichment facility without legal authority; the waste disposal analysis for which no confirmed to put 290,574 metric tons of new radioactive waste; and the requirement to comment on facility safety before the Safety Evaluation Report exists.

Submit comments on the PLEF draft EIS by May 11, 2026 at: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NRC-2025-1007

Lynda Williams is a physicist and environmental activist living in Hawaii. She can be found at scientainment.com and on Bluesky @lyndalovon.bsky.social

April 10, 2026 Posted by | Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Flotilla coalition prepares renewed mission to break Gaza siege

The international flotilla of over 80 boats and 1,000 activists will sail from Barcelona to challenge Israel’s blockade on Gaza and demand humanitarian access

APR 3, 2026, https://thecradle.co/articles/flotilla-coalition-prepares-renewed-mission-to-break-gaza-siege

A coalition of pro-Palestine activists announced on 3 April that it will launch a new maritime mission from Barcelona on 12 April to challenge Israel’s blockade on Gaza, according to reports citing statements by the Global Sumud Flotilla.

The group said more than 80 boats and around 1,000 international participants will take part in the initiative in a renewed attempt to reach the besieged enclave by sea. 

It follows a previous high-profile journey across the Mediterranean that drew global attention before Israeli forces illegally intercepted the vessels and detained activists near Gaza.

Organizers said the earlier interception, which involved arrests and reports of physical and psychological torture, came as Gaza faced severe shortages of food, water, medicine, and fuel. 

Jailed activists described being subject to abuses ranging from starvation to physical assault, intimidation, and humiliation.

The new mission carries the same aim of breaking the humanitarian siege on Gaza, as conditions continue to worsen under Israel’s ongoing blockade.

“The cost of inaction is too high to bear,” the group said, warning that continued restrictions risk deepening deprivation inside the territory.

Parallel land-based mobilization is planned across multiple countries to increase pressure and expand international engagement.

Describing the initiative as a “principled, nonviolent intervention,” organizers said the effort aims to defend human dignity, secure humanitarian access, and push for international accountability.

The flotilla’s return comes after its first mission ended without reaching Gaza, despite widespread attention and condemnation following the Israeli illegal interception and seizure of humanitarian aid.

In mid-March, Palestinian officials warned that Gaza was once again being pushed toward famine as Israel strangled aid deliveries to just 10 percent of agreed levels, allowing only 640 of 6,000 expected trucks into the strip – deepening a crisis driven by its prolonged blockade. 

The restrictions triggered severe shortages of food, fuel, and basic goods, disrupting hospitals, sanitation systems, and daily life, while prices for essential items surged by up to 300 percent, highlighting Gaza’s dependence on external aid. 

Gaza’s Government Media Office said more than 1.5 million people now face food insecurity, with conditions worsening as Israel tightens control over the strip, exploiting global distraction with the US war on Iran.

April 10, 2026 Posted by | Gaza, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

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