Sea level rise will cause ‘catastrophic inland migration’, scientists warn
Sea level rise will become unmanageable at just 1.5C of global heating and
lead to “catastrophic inland migration”, the scientists behind a new
study have warned.
This scenario may unfold even if the average level of
heating over the last decade of 1.2C continues into the future. The loss of
ice from the giant Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has quadrupled since
the 1990s due to the climate crisis and is now the principal driver of sea
level rise.
The international target to keep global temperature rise below
1.5C is already almost out of reach. But the new analysis found that even
if fossil fuel emissions were rapidly slashed to meet it, sea levels would
be rising by 1cm a year by the end of the century, faster than the speed at
which nations could build coastal defences. The world is on track for
2.5C-2.9C of global heating, which would almost certainly be beyond tipping
points for the collapse of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets. The
melting of those ice sheets would lead to a “really dire” 12 metres of
sea level rise.
Guardian 20th May 2025,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/20/sea-level-rise-migration
Tropical forests destroyed at fastest recorded rate last year
The world’s tropical forests, which provide a crucial buffer against
climate change, disappeared faster than ever recorded last year, new
satellite analysis suggests. Researchers estimate that 67,000 sq km (26,000
sq mi) of these pristine, old-growth forests were lost in 2024 – an area
nearly as large as the Republic of Ireland, or 18 football pitches a
minute. Fires were the main cause, overtaking land clearances from
agriculture for the first time on record, with the Amazon faring
particularly badly amid record drought. There was more positive news in
South East Asia, however, with government policies helping to reduce forest
loss.
BBC 21st May 2025,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0lnngl6713o
The World Cannot Know True Peace Until We Have Reckoned With What We Did To Gaza
Caitlin Johnstone, May 21, 2025
I was listening to a young writer describe an idea he’d had that he was so excited about he couldn’t sleep the night before, and I remembered how before Gaza I used to get excited about writing stuff. I haven’t felt that feeling since 2023.
I’m not complaining or feeling sorry for myself, I’m just remarking on how incredibly bleak and dark the world has been during this terrible time. It would be weird and unhealthy if I was enjoying my job here this past year and a half. These things aren’t supposed to feel good. Not if you’re really looking at them and being sincere and honest with yourself about what you are seeing.
It’s been so ugly and so unsettling this whole time. There’s not really any way to reframe all this horror and make it okay. All you can do is work on yourself to make sure you have enough inner spaciousness to accommodate the bad feelings and feel them all the way through until they’ve had their say. Let in the despair. The grief. The rage. The pain. Let it move all the way through your system without resisting and then get up and write the next thing.
That’s what writing is for me now. It’s never anything I am excited to share or am lit up with inspiration about. If anything it’s more like “Okay, here you go, awful sorry I’ve got to show this to you, folks.” It’s just staring into the darkness and the blood and the gore and the anguished faces and writing out what I see, day after day.
Nothing about it is pleasant or rewarding. It’s just what you do when there’s a live-streamed genocide happening right in front of you with the backing of your own society. Everything about it sucks, and there’s no way to make it not suck, but you do what needs to be done, like you would if it were your own family out there in the rubble.
This genocide has changed me forever. It has changed a lot of people forever. We will never be the same. The world will never be the same. No matter what happens or how this nightmare ends, things are never again going back to the way they were.
And they shouldn’t. The Gaza holocaust is the product of the way the world was before it happened. Our society birthed it into existence, and now it’s staring us all right in the face. This is who we are. This is the fruit of the tree of what western civilization has been up until this point.
Now it’s just a matter of doing everything we can to make sure the genocide ends, and that the world learns the right lessons from it. This is as worthy a cause as anyone could take up in this life.
I still have hope that we can have a healthy world. I still have hope that writing about what’s happening can be enjoyable again one day. But these things exist on the other side of some very hard and confronting work in the years to come. There’s just no getting around it. The world cannot have peace and happiness until we have fully reckoned with what we did to Gaza.
US should never have intervened in Ukraine – Trump
19 May 25, https://www.rt.com/news/617888-us-never-intervened-ukraine-trump/
US President Donald Trump has rebuked his predecessor, Joe Biden, for funneling vast amounts of American taxpayer money into a foreign conflict that “should have remained a European situation.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Trump expressed frustration over the “crazy” scale of US involvement in the Ukraine conflict. He reiterated that it is “not our war” and stressed that his administration is working to end it through diplomacy.
This is not our war. This is not my war… I mean, we got ourselves entangled in something that we shouldn’t have been involved in. And we would have been a lot better off – and maybe the whole thing would have been better off – because it can’t be much worse. It’s a real mess,” Trump said.
The president stated that Washington has provided “massive” and “record-setting” levels of military and financial assistance to Kiev – far exceeding what the EU and other NATO countries have contributed.
“We don’t have boots on the ground, we wouldn’t have boots on the ground. But we do have a big stake. The financial amount that was put up is just crazy,” he added.
Again, this was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation. But we got involved – much more than Europe did – because the past administration felt very strongly that we should,” he said. “We gave massive amounts, I think record-setting amounts, both weaponry and money.”
Trump’s conversation with Putin was followed by calls with the leaders of Germany, Italy, and the UK, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky.
“They have a big problem. It’s a terrible war. The amount of anger, the amount of hate, the amount of death,” Trump said, adding that the conflict has reached a point where “it’s very hard to extradite themselves away from what’s taken place over there.”
Trump said he believes both Putin and Zelensky want peace, but only time will tell if it can be achieved.
Pressed by reporters on whether he has a “red line” that would cause him to walk away from mediating the conflict or potentially escalate US involvement, Trump declined to elaborate. “Yeah, I would say I do have a certain line, but I don’t want to say what that line is because I think it makes the negotiation even more difficult than it is,” he said.
Putin described the conversation with Trump as “substantive and quite candid,” adding that Moscow is prepared to work with Kiev on drafting a memorandum aimed at achieving a future peace agreement.
“In general, Russia’s position is clear. The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” the Russian president said.
India’s genocidal project is building a military base.
Survival, 21 May 25
Uncontacted people on Indian island face genocide in the name of “mega-development”
The Shompen are one of the most isolated peoples on Earth. They live on Great Nicobar Island in India, and most of them are uncontacted, refusing all interactions with outsiders.
Numbering around 300 people, they are now at risk of being totally wiped out by a “mega-development” plan to transform their small island home into the “Hong Kong of India.”
If the project goes ahead, huge swathes of their unique rainforest will be destroyed – to be replaced by a mega-port; a new city; an international airport; a power station; a defense base; an industrial park; and up to 650,000 settlers – a population increase of nearly 8,000%.
An island unlike any other
For centuries, most Shompen have refused all contact with outsiders, and this has kept them safe from the terrible effects of contact experienced by most other Indigenous peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Living in the rainforest of Great Nicobar Island in the eastern Indian Ocean, the Shompen have guarded and maintained a unique landscape for thousands of years. The Shompen are nomadic hunter-gatherers, living in small groups, whose territories are identified by the rivers that criss-cross the rainforest…………………….
Their home, Great Nicobar Island, is small but has extremely high levels of biodiversity. Around 95% of the island is covered in rainforest and it’s home to 11 species of mammals, 32 species of birds, 7 species of reptiles and 4 species of amphibians, all found only here. It’s a place where monitor lizards and crocodiles share the rainforest with macaques and tree shrews, where giant turtles swim among the coral reefs with dugongs and dolphins.
The right to remain uncontacted
While a few Shompen have contact with their Nicobarese Indigenous neighbors, settlers and government officials, most remain in the rainforest and reject contact with outsiders. This does not mean that the Shompen are unaware of the outside world but, for the most part, they choose to be left alone. As with the Sentinelese people in the nearby Andaman Islands, outsiders forcing their way into Shompen territory is illegal and could be deadly for them. That’s why in March 2025, American influencer Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov was arrested for trying to contact the Sentinelese, and could face jail.
The few Shompen who do leave the rainforest tend to do so to collect and exchange things with outsiders before returning to the island’s interior and sharing them among other Shompen families. Like other uncontacted peoples around the world, the Shompen are incredibly vulnerable to diseases to which they have no immunity and Shompen who return have been known to quarantine in special houses outside their communities. A government report stated:
Our attempt to reach the main camp…about 50 metres away from the ‘out-houses’ was resisted by throwing spears (we escaped narrowly) as the Shompens of this region strongly believe that outsiders carry diseases.
Andaman and Nicobar Administration
The report then acknowledged then that these uncontacted Shompen were certainly “healthier than those who have contacts with others”. Most contact for the Shompen at the moment occurs as it should for all Indigenous communities – on their own terms.
Mega development = mega disaster
But the Indian government is now planning to transform the Shompen’s small island into the ‘Hong Kong of India’, which will totally change their lives forever. Its ‘Great Nicobar Project’ will have a devastating impact on the lives of the Shompen and the neighbouring Nicobarese. As neither peoples have given their consent to the scheme, it violates both Indian and international law.
The mega-project will take up around a third of the island – half of it within the official Tribal Reserve. Equally disastrous is the massive population explosion planned for Great Nicobar. The total population of the island is currently around 8,000, but the government plans to settle up to 650,000 people there under the scheme, a population the size of Las Vegas.
Shompen communities, along with their hunting and foraging grounds, will be devastated by the project. Their sacred river system will also be ruined. This will in turn destroy their pandanus trees, one of their most important sources of food. With their rivers devastated, the Shompen’s ability to survive and entire way of life will face collapse.
As well as causing unprecedented social and environmental devastation for the Shompen, these plans also drastically increase their exposure to outside diseases to which could wipe them out.
The Indian government is well aware of such risks and their official Impact Assessment for the project states: “Any disturbance or alteration in the natural environmental setup where they live, may cause serious threat to their existence” and “once infections spread among the tribal [Shompen]…the whole community may face extinction.” However, in an attempt to mitigate the risks, the government is proposing sinister sounding “geo-fencing cum surveillance towers” to monitor the Shompen.
In February 2024, 39 international genocide experts wrote to the Indian President, describing the mega-project as a “death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide”. They called for the scheme to be immediately abandoned.
It’s impossible to imagine that the Shompen will be able to survive this overwhelming and catastrophic transformation of their island………………….https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/shompen
The authorities plan to create a mega-port; a city; an international airport; a power station; a defence base; an industrial park; and tourism zones, spread over more than 244 square km of land, including 130 square km of rainforest. The government claims that it will ‘offset’ the loss of rainforest through planting new trees in the scrublands of North India. Such offsetting projects are false solutions and Survival is actively campaigning against the growing threat they pose to Indigenous peoples around the world.
To the Shompen, every tree, plant, leaf and flower is sacred and has a spirit of their own. It’s hard to imagine what cutting down millions of trees will mean to a people who do not even allow the cutting of leaves on their territory.
Trump’s man in London backs Aukus partnership with UK and Australia
The new US ambassador to the UK Warren Stephens used his first public speech to praise the trilateral security alliance.
David Hughes, Jndependent, UK, Monday 19 May 2025
Donald Trump’s new ambassador to the UK has used his first public speech to back the Aukus partnership with Britain and Australia.
Warren Stephens highlighted how “vital the US-UK relationship is to our countries and to the world” at an event in Parliament attended by Sir Keir Starmer.
Mr Stephens said the Aukus partnership, which is developing a new fleet of nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines for the UK and Australia, would help maintain a “free and open Indo-Pacific”………………………………………..
Mr Stephens also highlighted the economic opportunities from the project: “Government works best when we get out of the way and let our businesses innovate, compete and collaborate to improve people’s lives……………………… https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/australia-aukus-trump-london-barrow-b2754029.html
‘Dad’s Army’ to return FOR REAL as UK military plans defence against Russian invasion.
The Home Guard will be a civilian unit tasked with protecting key infrastructure such as nuclear power plants, airports and telecommunications sites.
Michael D. Carroll and James Knuckey, Mirror, 20 May 2025
The Government is reportedly considering the establishment of a Home Guard, akin to the Dad’s Army model, to shield crucial British infrastructure from attacks by hostile nations and terrorists. These plans are rumoured to be part of the Government’s much-anticipated Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which is due for publication in the coming weeks.
The proposed unit is said to draw inspiration from the Home Guard formed during the Second World War in the 1940s as a last line of defence against a potential German invasion of Britain. The original members were typically men who were either too old or young to serve on the frontline, or those deemed unfit or ineligible…………………………………………………. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dads-army-return-real-uk-35254242
Welcome to Britain’s biggest building site. There’s a ‘fishdisco’
It’s economy v ecology at Hinkley Point C power station, which
will power a fifth of British homes if it can pull off an audacious plan to
protect wildlife.
Two miles off the Somerset coast, a strange sound is
playing. About 20 metres below the slate-grey surface of the Bristol
Channel, a small device called a ceramic transducer blasts out a
high-pitched acoustic beam at a frequency far higher than can be detected
by the human ear. This machine — once disparaged by the former
environment secretary Michael Gove as a “fish disco” — is being
tested to see if it can scare off the salmon, herring, shad, eel and sea
trout that in six years’ time will start being sucked in their millions
into massive water inlets that have been built near by.
Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is late and over budget. This is the biggest building
site in Britain, possibly Europe: 12,000 staff and 52 cranes (including the
world’s tallest — “Big Carl”, 250 metres high) are working to
complete the project. When the £46 billion station finally switches on in
2031, it will power more than a fifth of the UK’s homes.
To cool the reactors, 120,000 litres of seawater a second — fish and all — will be
sucked into concrete pipes six metres wide. A complex mechanism has been
installed to return as many fish as possible to the sea, but even so,
Hinkley’s owner, EDF, estimates that up to 44 tonnes of marine life —
more than 180 million individual fish — will be killed each year.
Natural England, in consultation with the Environment Agency and Natural Resources
Wales, will advise EDF whether the fish disco machine is sufficient to
comply with its planning permission, or whether the company will need to
revert to its plans for creating salt marshes like the one at Steart.
David Slater, Natural England’s regional director for the southwest, said the
agency is keeping an open mind on the fish deterrents. But if the tests
fail to demonstrate the fish can be kept away, the energy company will be
required to return to its plan for “compensatory habit” — the jargon
for the salt-marsh reserves — as a condition of its planning permission.
Times 18th May 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/welcome-to-britains-biggest-building-site-theres-a-fish-disco-c0wqs8lg9
The media, scientific consensus, and toxic nuclear waste
Not to be outdone by more modern means of propaganda, Nuclear Waste Services has continued the tradition of only providing the audience with the information that suits their argument.
The only way to reduce waste is to reduce the activities that cause it.
There is no other logical way.
News media tends to use ‘scientific consensus’ as if it is the end point of the discussion.
The implication that ‘this is the only way’ serves to quash dissenting voices and validate the overall message of the article.
When government agencies are hard to trust, who do we look to? Scientists. But what job is the concept of scientific consensus doing in the marketing of the GDF?
A Quiet Resistance, 8 May 2025
‘Scientific consensus’ carries a lot of weight in news media discussing the proposed Geological Disposal Facilities (GDFs) (nuclear waste dumps) in West Cumbria.
This consensus is also being used as a persuasion tool in the official literature handed out to communities by Nuclear Waste Services (NWS).
Since most of us aren’t scientists in either the nuclear industry or geodisposal, we have to turn to those who are if we’re to understand what’s going to happen to our community. Alongside the regular newsletters and other marketing from NWS, we usually access those people through articles in the news and on the internet.
But it’s important to keep asking questions about what we’re reading.
‘Scientific consensus’ doesn’t mean the science is settled; articles can contain facts and still be biased.
Biases in news media
The news media are paid for by advertisers. If they publish articles that make arguments against their advertisers’ interests, they lose advertising money. Their advertisers’ interests may not be clear. For example, they may be companies that have money invested in hedge funds, which in turn invest in nuclear power.
News media also come up against political pressure, as The Guardian found out a few years ago, to its long-term detriment.
There’s also the question of audience. News media write to a specific audience, one already sold on the ideas they are promoting, or at the very least, suggestible. Most people are aware of ‘climate change’. If someone authoritative tells them it’s important for us to have a GDF because nuclear energy will help us ‘beat climate change’, they are likely to accept that, unless they have some wider knowledge.
Bias can be edited into an article by keeping the facts, but leaving out certain contexts. They can also cherry pick facts, so that the only ones they use are those which suit their argument.
Biases and misinformation across the internet
Misinformation across the web is an endemic problem now, brought on by too little regulatory oversight, too late. A bitter combination of an advertising free-for-all, empty content for the sake of it, and algorithmic twists that feed on themselves has come together to make an internet that doesn’t run the kind of useful searches it did just 12 years ago.
On top of this, a type of information warfare has been raging, hidden in plain sight from the eyes of everyday people, and the proliferation of GenAI has made the situation much worse. Social media, news media, every place we get our information from has been seeded with doubt.
All of this means that when we read information anywhere, from both respectable and dubious sources, we have to take time to process what we’ve read before we lead with our emotions.
Bias and messaging in public information
Not to be outdone by more modern means of propaganda, Nuclear Waste Services has continued the tradition of only providing the audience with the information that suits their argument.
In the case of the Community Partnership newsletter this month, this includes a soothing word salad introduction from the outgoing Community Partnership Chair explaining that he has resigned, and our local Town Council has withdrawn from the group. There are then several pages on how the Community Investment Fund money has been spent recently.
From that messaging, it is clear they’re seeking to reassure the community – talk quietly, you don’t want them to startle – and remind us that we’re getting plenty of money for the deal.
So, what’s the problem with the scientific consensus on the idea of a geological disposal facility (GDF), more prosaically known as a nuclear waste dump?
What is ‘scientific consensus’?
Scientific consensus refers to an agreement amongst scientists in a specific, very narrow field of study.
In the consideration of a GDF, that field would be geology, and most likely a particular area of geology, such as geodisposal.
Why do we need ‘scientific consensus’?
For most of us, despite our education and our wide understanding of the world, we don’t have intensive scientific training. Even if we do, it may not be in the narrow field in question.
Ethan Siegel at Forbes.com explained this really clearly:
… Unlike in most cases, unless you are a scientist working in the particular field in question, you are probably not even capable of discerning between a conclusion that’s scientifically valid and viable and one that isn’t. Even if you’re a scientist in a somewhat related field! Why? This is mostly due to the fact that a non-expert cannot tell the difference between a robust scientific idea and a caricature of that idea.
Why should we believe ‘scientific consensus’?
Although a consensus is an impossible number to quantify, the argument for a consensus is that a lot of related research is borne out by the agreement, so if it isn’t correct – e.g. if a GDF isn’t a safe and complete solution for nuclear waste – then a lot of other research is also wrong.
That sounds reassuring, but there’s more to it.
What do we have to consider behind the messaging of ‘scientific consensus’?
News media tends to use ‘scientific consensus’ as if it is the end point of the discussion.
The implication that ‘this is the only way’ serves to quash dissenting voices and validate the overall message of the article.
This is also how Nuclear Waste Services is using ‘scientific consensus’. The inference is that there is only one solution, and a GDF is it.
But scientific consensus is not the end position of the science. It’s the starting position from which further investigation can arise.
While that future studying may not set out to prove early scientific reasoning wrong, it should seek to improve or refine our understanding of the science.
And the main problem with scientific investigation?
Take a look at this quote. It’s from the article Development in Progress, from the Consilience Project.
It is also important to consider how existing biases and values ‘prime’ us towards certain starting points when we seek to understand the world through science. Before we formulate questions of design experiments, we often have preconceived notions as to what we imagine as likely to be important to the question at hand.
You’ve got to ask what their starting point is, before you can evaluate the idea.
Or, to put it another way: if you ask a geodisposal specialist what the best way is to deal with a higher activity nuclear waste problem, they’re going to tell you to bury it underground.
What’s the motivation for a GDF? Why the bias? Where’s the starting point of the plan?
Waste is a massive issue for modern Western societies. Everything we do, everything we buy creates waste. The only way to reduce waste is to reduce the activities that cause it.
There is no other logical way.
Government and the nuclear industry are motivated towards using a geological disposal facility to store higher activity nuclear waste because:
- There’s almost seventy years’ worth of higher activity nuclear waste to store
- Nuclear appears to offer a solution to the legal requirements of Net Zero.
The more we use nuclear technology, the more toxic waste we will produce. It’s inevitable without social, political, and industrial change.
The nuclear industry
The nuclear industry’s back is against the wall. It urgently has to put the accruing waste somewhere permanently safe.
Nuclear waste is produced in solid, aqueous, and gaseous forms. If the industry reduces some of the gaseous waste, that means that it increases it in another form, e.g. aqueous. There is no escaping the waste issue without stopping the industry.
There’s a lot of money in nuclear.
The UK Government
The government has to enable the production of electricity, but having effectively phased out coal-fired power stations, it has brought in gas-fuelled hydrogen plants which are arguably just as greenhouse-gas-intensive as coal. Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, it still causes huge emissions, and it still presents supply problems.
For the government, nuclear represents a lower carbon option, with political expediencies, such as being free of Russian fossil fuel pressures (Russian uranium is still unsanctioned and likely part of the ‘diversified’ fuel mixes used in the UK).
There is also a disturbing link between civil nuclear skills and military nuclear skills which doesn’t get much media time:
Other countries tend to be more open about it, with the interdependence acknowledged at presidential level in the US for instance. French president Emmanuel Macron summarises: “without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear”.
This is largely why nuclear-armed France is pressing the European Union to support nuclear power. This is why non-nuclear-armed Germany has phased out the nuclear technologies it once lead the world in. This is why other nuclear-armed states are so disproportionately fixated by nuclear power.
In 2022, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) published a Radioactivity Waste Inventory with a timeline for the phasing out of nuclear power by 2136. But in early 2025, the Labour government announced it was keen to rapidly start up the building of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) across the UK. Going forward from this year, nuclear waste will continue to be produced in the UK beyond the 100-year lifetime of the current GDF project. Waste is inevitable.
Waste isn’t the only issue for nuclear power, either. There is the question of what happens to nuclear power plants in the face of climate catastrophe. Fukushima wasn’t an anomaly, and it wasn’t avoidable. It could be seen as a foreshadowing of future possibilities.
Back to scientific consensus
So, when Nuclear Waste Services and other media proponents talk about scientific consensus being in agreement that a GDF is the best solution available for toxic nuclear waste, what they mean is:
- there is an inexorable accumulation of nuclear waste, both historical and into the future
- there are going to be more GDFs in the future
- they aren’t looking for other methods of storage
- they absolutely will not consider a non-nuclear future
- and they don’t want to argue about it.
And, for some reason, despite a GDF apparently being the safest possible housing for nuclear waste – and despite there being many geologically suitable locations – they don’t want to locate it under Westminster.
Ultimately, despite the focus given to the science, this isn’t about the science.
It’s about burying a waste product that they have no other solution for. Sweeping it under the carpet. And calling it common sense!
Common sense as a message, in an area of study called Semiotics, is a problematic idea. Although it is dressed up as the common, standard, everyday way of thinking, it is often used in marketing and media to promote the ideas of those in power.
As the future beckons, common sense should be saying no to nuclear. Just like with plastic, nuclear has no end and no sure way of getting rid of its byproducts.
For communities that ‘host’ a nuclear waste dump, the GDF solution represents a forever risk with inter-generational risks and costs along the way.
Somehow, West Cumbria always seems to be saddled with nuclear detritus.
The potential collateral damage, seen already across the United States and South America, is similar to that experienced around mining and climate solution industries.
It starts with
- environmental destruction,
- contamination of water sources and land,
- loss of biodiversity,
- loss of human rights,
- loss of health, and
- upheaval of established communities.
These may be experienced just in the construction of a GDF.
Who knows where it ends?
Further information on the proposed GDFs in West Cumbria:
Europe self destructing in efforts to continue Ukraine’s self destruction
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 19 May 25
Every day the war in Ukraine continues, Ukraine loses more territory to Russia. So far about 45,000 square miles have been lost in the Donbas and environs containing mainly Russia speaking and cultured Ukrainians.
Ukraine had 2 opportunities to lose nary a square mile.
Their first one was by not seeking to join NATO, then not attacking Russian leaning Ukrainians in Donbas who sought freedom from their Kyiv government tyranny that killed thousands. That provoked the Russian invasion of February 24, 2022.
The second was by Ukraine not pulling out of the Istanbul Agreement 2 months into the war. It would have brought peace without Ukraine losing any territory, albeit they’d have to reject NATO membership and grant self-governance and peace to Donbas Ukrainians while still under Ukraine sovereignty.
Three years on, Ukraine faces imminent defeat, gaining nothing while losing a fifth of its land and over a million casualties. President Zelensky, likely coerced by the ultra-nationalists with the real power in Kyiv, refuses to stop the bleeding. He’s furthering Ukraine’s self destruction in a lost cause.
Tragically, he’s being goaded to fight on by much of Europe including France, Germany, Poland, the UK and Baltics. Sadly and tragically, they are all suffering economically by their refusal to drop their rampant Russophobia. Sanctioning Russia has done nothing but escalate their energy costs.
Europe’s sanctions have failed spectacularly. Russia simple moved on from supplying Europe with cheap energy to much of the nonaligned world, including China and India. Result? Last year Russia’s GDP expanded 4.1% while the EU ticked up a scant 1%.
Trump’s only sensible foreign policy is seeking to end Ukraine’s self destruction by brokering a peace deal in the first peace conference in three years. Trump is signaling he’s near ending the US weapons gravy train that has squandered over $175 billion in weapons that have merely ensured those 45,000 lost square miles of territory and a million casualties.
Europe wants nothing to do with ending the war against their bete noir Russia. The EU Commission, its executive arm, is seeking to replace the possible US withdrawal by pledging $900 billion in new defense spending in a program dubbed ‘Rearm Europe’. A better sobriquet would be ‘Weaken Russia’.
European leaders keeping the Ukraine war going are merely weakening their own economies. Their populations are not on board allowing nationalist movements such as AfD (Alternative for Germany) to gain traction threatening pro war ruling parties.
Leaders like UK’s Starmer, France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz appear oblivious the Ukraine war is hopeless, Their proposed $900 billion or even $9 trillion will make no difference when Ukraine runs out of conscripted solders to continue their lost cause. Russia garners around 50,000 military volunteers each month while Ukraine lassos draft dodgers like stray dogs.
All three could boost their sagging economies as well as end the death and destruction by partnering with Trump to reach a quick settlement at the current Istanbul peace conference. After that they’d be wise to drop their delusional Russophobia and welcome the cheaper energy and other goodies they could acquire from a resource rich trading partner they’ve spent decades isolating.
Nuclear weapons woes: Understaffed nuke agency hit by DOGE and safety worries
The consequences of DOGE’s disruptions at the National Nuclear Security Administration could be far-reaching, experts say.
Davis Winkie and Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY, 18 May 25
- For decades, the NNSA has struggled with federal staffing shortages that have contributed to safety issues as well as delays and cost overruns on major projects.
- Experts fear that the Trump administration’s moves to reduce the federal workforce may have destabilized the highly specialized federal workforce at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
- USA TODAY reviewed decades of government watchdog reports, safety documents, and congressional testimony on U.S. nuclear weapons.
In 2021, after a pair of plutonium-handling gloves had broken for the third time at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, contaminating three workers, and after the second accidental flood, investigators from the National Nuclear Security Administration found a common thread in a plague of safety incidents: the contractor running the New Mexico lab lacked “sufficient staff.”
So did the NNSA.
The agency, whose fewer than 1,900 federal employees oversee the more than 60,000 contractors who build and maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal, has struggled to fill crucial safety roles. Only 21% of the agency’s facility representative positions – the government’s eyes and ears in contractor-run buildings – at Los Alamos were filled with qualified personnel as of May 2022.
Now, President Donald Trump’s administration has thrown the NNSA into chaos, threatening hard-won staffing progress amid a trillion-dollar nuclear weapons upgrade. Desperately needed nuclear experts are wary of joining thanks to chaotic job cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, experts say.
The disruption of NNSA’s chronically understaffed safety workforce is “a recipe for disaster,” said Joyce Connery, former head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Los Alamos is not the only facility with staffing shortages in crucial safety roles.
As of May 2022, less than one-third of facility representative roles at NNSA’s Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas were held by fully qualified employees, according to a USA TODAY review of nuclear safety records.
At Pantex, where technicians assemble and disassemble nuclear weapons, only a quarter of safety system oversight positions had fully qualified hires, and only 57% of those safety positions had qualified employees at Y-12.
Nuclear weapons workers don’t grow on trees, nor do the federal experts who oversee them. Many of the jobs require advanced degrees, and new hires often need years of on-the-job training. Security clearance requirements limit the most sensitive jobs to U.S. citizens.
America’s nuclear talent crisis isn’t new, but its consequences have grown as tens of billions of dollars pour into the NNSA annually in a broader $1.7 trillion plan to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons.
Congress ordered the cramped, aging plutonium facility at Los Alamos – called PF-4 – to begin mass production of plutonium pits, a critical component at the heart of nuclear warheads, for the first time in more than a decade.
Enter Elon Musk and DOGE…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
What’s at stake
The struggle for staff has been NNSA’s Achilles heel for decades – and the stakes have only grown.
But despite efforts to develop talent, watchdogs said in February of this year the NNSA was “understaffed” and struggling to execute key oversight requirements.
Then came DOGE…………………………………………………………………………………….
Connery fears the strain and staffing problems could combine to disastrous effect.
“When you take an inexperienced or an understaffed workforce and you combine it with old facilities and a push to get things done – that is a recipe for disaster,” Connery said. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/18/nuclear-weapons-woes-nuke-agency-hit-by-doge-and-safety-worries/83621978007/
US nuclear sector intensifies lobbying in bid to prevent subsidy cuts.
The US nuclear industry is intensifying its lobbying blitz to save the
Inflation Reduction Act tax credits it says are vital for meeting
artificial intelligence-fuelled energy demand. On Monday lawmakers from the
House ways and means committee, which is responsible for writing tax law,
released draft legislation that would phase out nuclear energy subsidies
starting in 2029, in a move that caught the sector by surprise. Lobbyists
are now racing to persuade lawmakers to rescind or moderate cuts to nuclear
industry subsidies, which until recently had more bipartisan support than
other low-carbon energy technologies such as wind and solar.
FT 19th May 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/c243fd15-bef8-4c98-b06b-8b13ddd0a701
Britain left out in the cold by Trump on Ukraine peace talks
How Starmer found himself on the road to nowhere
Ian Proud, May 20, 2025
Russia Ukraine peace talks are to restart immediately, but when Trump debriefed European leaders, Starmer was not on the call. Starmer has rendered himself completely irrelevant by sticking to the same tired approaches and blocking efforts at peace in Ukraine.
After Presidents Trump and Putin spoke for two hours today, 19 May, new impetus was injected in Russia-Ukraine negotiations towards a ceasefire. The Russian and Ukrainian delegations are now in contact and will start immediately preparations towards a second round of talks. After Vice President JD Vance’s meeting with Pope Leo, the Vatican is being touted as a possible venue. Clearly, direct engagement by the two Presidents is key to any progress being made to end the war. But when Trump phoned Zelensky and European leaders after the call, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was not included.
That may be because Trump has realised that Starmer has brought nothing new to the Ukraine peace process and, rather, is acting as a major brake on progress.
After a helpful, if tentative, first meeting for three years between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul on Friday 16 May, it was clear that neither side was in a hurry to schedule further talks. For his part, Zelensky had spent most of the day on 15 May trying his best to find a way out of sending a delegation to Istanbul and blaming Russia for it. Following the standard script, British and European leaders indulged him, blaming Russia whose bemused delegation waited patiently in Istanbul for someone to show up. It was only after direct intervention from President Erdogan and the USA, that Zelensky finally relented allowing for talks on Friday.
That first Istanbul meeting, however brief, and however accompanied by the normal Ukrainian briefing out that ‘Russia doesn’t want peace’, was nonetheless a vital first step forward. But, and as Vice President JD Vance said today, we had reached an impasse, and Trump appears determined to keep the pressure up to secure an elusive ceasefire.
First Nations warn of conflict if Ontario proceeds with Bill 5
‘They’re looking for a world of opposition from First Nations in Ontario that are not going to just sit idly by’: First Nations leadership publicly slams proposed bill that would cut ‘red tape’ for economic projects — and potentially erode treaty rights.
Bay Today.ca, James Hopkin, 19 May 25
First Nations leadership is calling on Premier Doug Ford and the Ontario government to put a stop to a newly proposed bill that chiefs say would bulldoze the inherent rights of the Anishinabek and their existing treaty relationships with the Crown.
Robinson Huron Waawiindamaagewin (RHW) is publicly opposing Bill 5, which the political organization says will give extended powers to the province through the creation of “special economic zones” that would allow for the cabinet to exempt selected proponents and projects from requirements under any provincial law or regulation.
This includes bylaws of municipalities and local boards that would otherwise apply in that zone — all while repealing the Endangered Species Act.
RHW spokesperson and Anishinabek Nation Regional Chief Scott McLeod told SooToday that Ford framing Bill 5 as a way of cutting red tape for infrastructure and resource development projects is a “gross understatement,” and that Ontario is essentially gutting environmental checks and balances while undermining the treaty relationship with First Nations in Robinson Huron Treaty territory.
“He’s undermining the reality that Ontario, under the jurisdiction of Canada, inherited the treaty of 1850 from the British Crown, which laid out our relationship as title owners to the land and our willingness to share those resources,” McLeod said during a telephone interview Wednesday.
“He simply is moving forward on this as if Ontario owns the resources outright, and has no obligations to the treaties that are within Ontario.”
The tabling of Bill 5, known as the Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act, has also triggered opposition from the Anishinabek Nation, a political advocate for 39 member First Nations representing approximately 70,000 citizens across the province.
The organization says the bill “reflects a dangerous and false narrative that presumes the Government of Ontario has unilateral authority to legislate over lands and resources without consultation or consent from the rightful Anishinabek title holders.”
“To allow lands of economic value that have been cited for development to be exempt from protective checks and balances, such as archaeological assessments and wildlife and ecosystem protections as proposed in this bill will cost First Nations and Ontarians profoundly, exposing and setting back species at risk protection and leading to the destruction of First Nation burial sites and artifacts,” Anishinabek Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige said in a release issued Tuesday. …………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.baytoday.ca/local-news/first-nations-warn-of-conflict-if-ontario-proceeds-with-bill-5-10673506?utm_source=Email_Share&utm_medium=Email_Share&utm_campaign=Email_Share
Trump Admin Fast Tracks Anfield’s Velvet-Wood Uranium Project in Push for US Energy Independence
Giann Liguid, Investing News 15th May 2025
Anfield Energy’s Velvet-Wood uranium-vanadium project in Utah is the first US uranium asset to receive a fast-track designation.
The US Department of the Interior announced on Monday (May 12) that it will fast track environmental permitting for Anfield Energy’s (TSXV:AEC,OTCQB:ANLDF) Velvet-Wood uranium project in Utah
The decision slashes what would typically be a years-long review process down to just 14 days, and makes Velvet-Wood the first uranium project to be expedited under a January 20 statement from President Donald Trump. In it, he declares a national energy emergency and emphasizes the importance of restoring American energy independence.
This week’s decision signals what Anfield calls “a decisive shift in federal support for domestic nuclear fuel supply.”
The Velvet-Wood project, located in San Juan County, Utah, is expected to produce uranium used for both civilian nuclear energy and defense applications, as well as vanadium, a strategic metal used in batteries and high-strength alloys.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum characterized the move as part of an urgent federal response to what he said is “an alarming energy emergency” created by the “climate extremist policies” of the previous administration.
“President Trump and his administration are responding with speed and strength to solve this crisis,” he said. “The expedited mining project review represents exactly the kind of decisive action we need to secure our energy future.”
Anfield acquired Velvet-Wood, which is currently on care and maintenance, from Uranium One in 2015…………………….
The Trump administration’s decision to pause the implementation of its new reciprocal tariffs for 90 days provided utilities with the breathing room needed to resume contracting……………
These moves align with a broader US Department of Energy strategy that includes identifying 16 federal sites for co-locating data centers and new energy infrastructure. https://investingnews.com/trump-fast-tracks-velvet-wood/
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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