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The West Won’t Punish The Settlements. Its Two-State Solution Was Always a Sham.

Western elites cannot imagine a world without Israel as their military thug in the oil-rich Middle East any more than you can imagine life without your arm.

If Israel wants the settlements to continue expelling Palestinians off their lands until there are no Palestinians left on those lands, then the West is not going to naysay it.

July 15, 2026, Jonathan Cook Substack, https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-west-wont-punish-the-settlements

For decades, the EU has devised ever more convoluted ways to avoid penalising Israel’s illegal settlements, even as they devour a two-state solution it claims is the only path to regional peace

If I asked you to cut off your arm, would you do it?

What if I pointed out that that your arm regularly punched a neighbour in the face so violently that it broke their nose and teeth, and left them unconscious? Would you cut your arm off then?

I’m guessing the answer to both questions is a firm, “No.”

Which is exactly why the European Union, Britain and the United States have precisely no intention of severing their support for Israel’s illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, however violent the Jewish colonisers who live on stolen Palestinian land prove to be.

For decades, settler militias – backed by Israeli soldiers – have beaten up Palestinians, shot them, poisoned their wells, chopped down their olive groves, torched their homes, all in an attempt to ethnically cleanse them from their historic homeland.

The relentless expansion of these illegal settlements has left any hope of a two-state solution in tatters. The West Bank is now an archipelago of Palestinian villages and towns isolated from one another by marauding violent settlers, apartheid roads only for Jews, steel and concrete barriers, and army checkpoints.

All of this has happened in full view of western states over many decades. The International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, ruled back in 2004 – nearly a quarter of a century ago – that these Jewish settlements violated international law and needed to be dismantled.

It reiterated that demand in a decision two years ago in which it identified Israel as an apartheid state ruling over Palestinians. It warned states to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assists in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

And yet the West has done nothing meaningful year after year as the settlements have stolen more land from Palestinians, made their lives there ever more miserable, and trashed any chance of the West’s supposed ambition of two states living alongside each other.

Remember this when Israel’s apologists tell you to wait for the same court’s definitive ruling – in a year or two, or maybe three – on what it deemed in early 2024 to be a “plausible” genocide in Gaza, just three months into Israel’s mass slaughter there.

Not only will any such ruling be far too late to make any difference to the victims of the genocide, but the US, Britain and Europe will do precisely no more to punish Israel for this crime of crimes – one we can see for ourselves without an ICJ ruling – than they have done in punishing Israel for the settlements.

Punching fist

Why? Because most western states no more wish to impose a penalty on Israel for its crimes than you would want to amputate a healthy arm.

If they refuse to lift a finger to stop a live-streamed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, why on earth would anyone imagine they are ready to do anything to stop Israel’s violent settlers ethnically cleansing the West Bank?

The settlements are as deeply integrated into Israel as your arm is attached to your shoulder. And in turn, Israel is as much the punching fist of the imperial West’s war machine as the City of London – and its former tax-haven colonies – are the beating heart of the imperial West’s financial machine.

Western elites cannot imagine a world without Israel as their military thug in the oil-rich Middle East any more than you can imagine life without your arm.

That explains why no one really believed that EU foreign ministers, meeting once again this week to discuss banning settlement products – the bare minimum they have long been obligated to do under international law – would reach an agreement.

More than 100 legal scholars had earlier written to the European Commission’s top trade and foreign policy officials stressing the EU’s “international legal obligation”.

But as everyone predicted, EU ministers kicked the can down the road – until at least October, when they agreed to more talks about talks.

The EU has been delaying meaningful action on dealing with the settlements since at least 2004, when the ICJ ruled them illegal.

A year after that ruling, the EU issued a Technical Agreement that removed preferential trade tariffs of the kind Israeli goods enjoy from any items produced in the illegal settlements. Israel agreed only because there were so many loopholes and workarounds it had no practical effect whatsoever.

It was another seven years – in 2012 – before the EU started to express concern about these loopholes, including the fact that Israel was routinely mislabelling settlement products as “Made in Israel”.

Fast forward another three years and the EU finally got around to pretending to be closing the loopholes. In November 2015, 11 years after the ICJ ruling, the EU issued an “interpretative notice” requiring labels on settlement goods to state: “Product from the West Bank (Israeli settlement).”

Again, Israel simply ignored the notice and continued mislabelling products, or blended them with products made in Israel, making it hard to determine the provenance.

Pure pantomime

Remember, these lengthy, meaningless battles were not about banning settlement products or even imposing punitive tariffs. They were simply about labelling them correctly.

To this day, the overwhelming majority of consumers across the EU have no idea, even if items are correctly labelled, which they almost never are, that they are buying products supporting Israel’s violent campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homeland.

It was because of this utter farce that civil society organisations started to noisily accuse the EU of complicity in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and demand instead the outright banning of all settlement products.

These critics have now been banging their heads against a brick wall for over a decade. They have still achieved nothing, as this week’s EU meeting once again confirms.

Even were they to win a victory a year or two hence on banning settlement products, Israel would still be able to use the same workarounds it has been for the past 22 years to avoid any meaningful impact. European consumers would still be directly subsidising the violence of Jewish settler militias and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes.

All of this has been pure theatre – or more accurately, pantomime – to suggest that some kind of administrative process is in hand, that legal avenues are being pursued, that Israel will one day pay a price for its decades-old programme of ethnically cleansing Palestinians.

And yet nothing ever actually happens. The most the EU is prepared to do is throw a sop to its critics by imposing symbolic sanctions on a couple of dozen of the most violent settlers – out of a total settler population of nearly 700,000.

Those settlers did not end up in the West Bank and East Jerusalem by accident. Most were encouraged there by the Israeli state with offers of cheap housing, lower mortgage rates and higher funding of educational and other municipal services.

Note too that this abject failure relates to Israel’s explicit goal in expanding its settlements: to eviscerate the two-state solution the West says it craves as the only way to bring peace to the region.

The fact is Europe, Britain and the US have no interest in the two-state solution. If they did, they would have used the ICJ ruling in 2004 as grounds to ban settlement products, give that ban real teeth, and threaten Israel with a loss of all preferential trade with the West until it abided by international law and removed all obstacles to Palestinian statehood, including the settlements.

They did none of this because that was never their intention.

Their only concern is keeping Israel – their pit bull in the Middle East – fed and watered.

If Israel wants the settlements to continue expelling Palestinians off their lands until there are no Palestinians left on those lands, then the West is not going to naysay it.

Just as if Israel wants to continue deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza for death, as a United Nations inquiry recently determined, then the West will turn a blind eye to that too.

If Israel’s soldiers and Jewish settler militias want to take a US Congressperson hostage in the West Bank, as they briefly did to Democrat politician Ro Khanna last week, no western leader is going to make a fuss about it.

Israel may be a rogue state but it is a rogue state made entirely in the western elite’s image. The West’s only real concern is in ensuring its own publics don’t realise, as they watch a genocidal state disappear the Palestinians, that they are looking into the mirror.

July 20, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

TELL Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Don’t weaken radiation standards

July 16, 2026, https://beyondnuclear.org/tell-nrc-dont-weaken-radiation-standards/

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission draft proposed rule (PR), allowing more radiation exposure at the industry’s discretion, has been published in the Federal Register. Deadline for comments is August 31, 2026. The PR would allow greater exposures “just to save the nuclear power industry money,” says Ed Lyman, Union of Concerned Scientists. But it is also to appease Trump’s tech billionaire donors who want AI data centers.

Please comment before the deadline. You can be guided by talking points Beyond Nuclear has created, and NRC questions in the PR, to organize and create your comments. Please also watch the Coalition to Stop Radioactive Pollution’s webinar and join the Protect Better Campaign. Push back against this radiation trainwreck and health onslaught by commenting and sharing this information on social media.

Sign up for the Protect Better Campaign.

Make a video about your, and your community’s, thoughts and experiences with radioactive pollution.

Stay in touch with us for details on an upcoming NRC public meeting on this PR.

Watch a video walking you through the comment process.

See a list of press stories/interviews on this issue.

July 20, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Corporations Lead U.S. Militarization of Space

The corporations involved could be making peaceful, beneficial goods and services

Christian, Jul 16, 2026, https://thebusinessofwar.substack.com/p/mapping-corporate-domination-in-us?publication_id=1769284&post_id=194285481&isFreemail=true&r=3alev&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

As seen in the map [on original], these space corporations could pivot to:

manufacturing satellites that monitor weather, climate, crops, and ocean temperature and currents
manufacturing satellites that help people navigate and explore (not guide bombs and artillery to kill people and destroy homes, which GPS does)
manufacturing communications satellites
designing electronics for public infrastructure
crafting sensors for public safety
developing hardware and software to track space junk
developing ways to gather space junk
fabricating composite materials for public transportation
defending the planet against near-earth objects (NEO)
helping governments and scientific bodies to peacefully explore the cosmos
demilitarizing space
researching and developing non-polluting propulsion for space launch
conducting basic research of the electromagnetic spectrum
educating the public about mathematics, physics, and engineering
doing so much more!

Industrial conversion itself is a straightforward process. It just takes political will.

Methodology

I scoured fiscal 2025 U.S. military contracting announcements in order to find all announcements pertaining to space. My study focused on the contracts issued by a relevant military unit (e.g., Space Systems Command at Los Angeles Air Force Base) or involving military operations to, in, or from space. I excluded contracts issued by the Missile Defense Agency, which contracts with industry to recognize and intercept ballistic missiles.

I use the term “contract” in this study to include contracts, contract modifications, and contract options.

The categories on the map are not firm boundaries. Many corporations sell goods and services across multiple categories (e.g., IT, ground infrastructure, consulting).

Corporate locations are organized and color-coded based on their main focus. For example, Boeing manufactures satellites in El Segundo, California, but also makes some space networking and control technology for use on the ground. I colored it black, representing satellite manufacturing, the location’s primary focus.

USAspending.gov and corporate websites (including SpaceFoundation.org) also provided information for the map.

July 20, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Australian resistance to the war machine -500 march towards Pine Gap this morning demanding closure of the facility

Monday 20 July 2026, Mparntwe Alice Springs, Arrernte Country

Hundreds from across the country have joined a rally on the road to Pine Gap this morning demanding the closure of the controversial military facility. The action closes out the Close Pine Gap Sacred Land Back Convergence 2026 organised by Mparntwe for Falastin and Anti Militarism Action Network, the biggest convergence of its kind since 1987.

The Hayes family – Traditional Owners of Kuyunba, the sacred land that Pine Gap occupies – lead the rally, with a list of four demands:

Return of Kuyunba
The closure of Pine Gap
Compensation for the years Kuyunba has been occupied
Compensation to the families in Gaza for the lives lost there

These actions have been echoed by rallies across the country.

The action follows two days of learning and discussion about militarism and colonialism. Experts from around the country addressed the violent reality and risks of Pine Gap.

“If ever there was a message to end the world, it would come through Pine Gap. We would be the handmaidens of that,” said Senator David Shoebridge on the weekend, adding, “US bases have never made us safe, but right now they are especially making us a target.”

Felicity, Wyonna and Jacquita Hayes, Arrernte Apmereke-artweye Traditional Custodians, said earlier to supporters:

“We want people to support us to close down Pine Gap. We want them to know it’s a sacred site. We don’t want to be feeling guilty all the time when bad things are happening overseas to little ones. We’re not the ones controlling that facility, but we feel guilty that it’s coming from our land.”

July 20, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

This week in nuclear-related non corporate news

Theme of the week. The World Cup football is nearly over – perhaps now we’ll get some real news. Lots of media reassures us that the wondrous FIFA religious ceremony will not be affected by wildfire smoke. But nuclear facilities will be.

Some bits of good news –

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, treated like failures, have changed billions of lives.

The UK (finally) ratified the high seas treaty. Children are overwhelmingly positive for the future, says survey

TOP STORIES.

Ministry of Ddefence (MoD) finally admits ‘extensive’ human radiation experiments on nuclear test veterans.
The Killing Machines -Governments and Technology Obsessing Over Efficient Death.
Israel And The United States Are Merging Their Militaries. Here’s Why.
The Men Who Own the War Now Run It.
Warming Europe complicates France’s bet on nuclear power . Europe’s Nuclear Plants Can’t Beat the Heat .
Nuclear Power is Now Trump Power…What Could Go Wrong?

From the archives – A 90 million gallon nuclear tragedy

Climate. Norwegian rocks to protect Sizewell B on Suffolk coast. The European holiday destinations where 50ºC summers could become the norm. UK has ‘no future’ if it fails to act on ecosystem collapse threatening national security.

Noel’s notes. The global small nuclear reactor bandwagon is led by Britain- It ought to fail, but will it?

AUSTRALIA.

‘Extreme risk’: AUKUS warnings as Garrett’s inquiry docks in Adelaide. ‘Height of unfairness’: Former SA senator slams government over AUKUS nuclear waste move.
Starting from scratch on nuclear in Australia would take longer, cost more than first-time offshore wind.
Royal Commission or Lobby Show? | The West Report Antisemitic, really? Jewish leader speaks out on Royal Commission hypocrisy.
Why Australia’s new office marks a turning point for AI governance.

NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS

CLIMATE. France Cuts 6.4 GW of Nuclear Power as Heatwave Grips the Country.

Atomic rivers. The (Un)sustainability of nuclear power in an age of climate change

France temporarily shuts down three nuclear reactors over heatwave.

Nuclear power reactor forced to shut down due to extreme 28C heat.

Heatwave: EDF will once again shut down nuclear reactors – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/15/3-b1-heatwave-edf-will-once-again-shut-down-nuclear-reactors/

EDF will spend nearly 9 billion euros to adapt to climate change – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/16/3-b1-edf-will-spend-nearly-9-billion-euros-to-adapt-to-climate-change/

Climate Change – It’s only a matter of time…

ECONOMICS.

Nuclear Commercial Shipping Still Fails The Business Case.

‘Sip your coffee while watching the sunrise’: How Israel is colonizing the West Bank by selling Palestinian land to Jewish Americans.

Bangladesh’s Nuclear Power Play Is a Test for Emerging Economies.

Insuring Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.

Holtec bets big on small nuclear reactors in its IPO filing.

Grant to support expansion of TRISO-X nuclear fuel campus.

Nuclear costs crowd out key defence priorities in UK investment plan, say SDR authors.

Great British Energy appoints Amentum and Cavendish in £360M SMR deal.

Government U turn as Sizewell B is to get a fixed-price government contract -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/15/3-b1-government-u-turn-as-sizewell-b-is-to-get-a-fixed-price-government-contract/

Nuclear power costs billions- Here are seven better ways to use that money – Martin Roche- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/14/3-b1-nuclear-power-costs-billions-here-are-seven-better-ways-to-use-that-money-martin-roche/

EDUCATION. What do you need to know to run a nuclear power plant?

ENERGY. Two Geothermal Bets Are Starting to Undercut Nuclear on Cost.

ENVIRONMENT. Federal government proposes to lessen nuclear reactor environmental reviews. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Targets Faster Nuclear Licensing With National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)Streamlining Proposal.

What is it like living near the site of a new nuclear power station?

ETHICS and RELIGION. The Killing Machines -Governments and Technology Obsessing Over Efficient Death.

What ceasefire? People still being killed and Gaza still under siege.

HISTORY ‘They used axes to spare the ammo’: How modern Ukraine’s Nazi heroes massacred Poles during WWII How Israel planned the Gaza genocide decades ago. 250 Years of a Country and What Have We Learned? – The nuclear industrial complex creation catastrophe.

INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Saugeen Ojibway Nation Says It Was Shut Out of Canada’s Nuclear Strategy

LEGAL. No, Israel Does Not Have ‘A Right To Exist’. Fearing Justice: Rubio Gets Bolshie About the International Criminal Court (ICC).

MEDIA Thirteen films that are essential to understanding the nuclear age. Iran aside, don’t ignore Trump’s war crimes in the Caribbean, Venezuela and Somalia. Walt Zlotow – Chicago Tribune misleads its readership with Bob Kustra’s imaginary commentary ‘What Ronald Reagan would do today for the people of Ukraine

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . TELL Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Don’t weaken radiation standards. How Fear of Nuclear Armageddon Leads Me to Protest. PICTURE Activists protest outside Pioneer Park nuclear event -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/19/1-b1-activists-protest-outside-pioneer-park-nuclear-event/

POLITICS.

Hamas’s Governance Exit Exposes Israel’s Real Objectives.
‘Seismic Shift’ as Over 100 House Democrats Vote to Cut Off US Military Aid to Israel.
JD Vance Says Israeli Officials Are Pressuring U.S. to Prolong Iran War.
Liberals Have Relaxed About Trump Because They Trust Him To Keep The Wars Going.
The risk of nuclear war is rising – This is what Burnham must do. ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/17/6-the-risk-of-nuclear-war-is-rising-this-is-what-burnham-must-do/ Add stopping Sizewell C to Andy Burnham’s “to do” list. Labour MP Brian Leishman opposes new nuclear energy near Clacks
July 22 deadline to comment on downgrade of impact assessment for nuclear projects | Canada’s Federal government pushing for power with a “nuclear fist” | Dates and Deadlines.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.

Europe is Teetering on the Brink. Support Without a Seat at the Table: Poland’s Costly Alignment with Ukraine. A Sustainable Peace in Ukraine: Diplomacy, Neutrality, and the Limits of the Current Order.

Jeffrey Sachs: We’re Led by the Most Incompetent Leaders Imaginable.

Walt Zlotow -All hail Marco Rubio, Potentate of Venezuela.

Trump Says Iran Deal Is “Over,” Signals More US Strikes Are Likely Coming,

RADIATION. Radiation Protection –analysis of NRC proposals. Challenging New York Time’s Suggestion That We Should Stop Worrying and Love Radiation Trump Administration Scrapping Nuclear Energy Rules Requiring Plants to Keep Radiation Levels “As Low as Reasonably Achievable”

SAFETY. ‘At risk of horrific contamination’: The Soviet nuclear submarine wreck that is a ‘ticking time bomb’. Incidents. Satellite images show damage inside Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. World warned of ‘nuclear apocalypse’ after drone kills nuclear plant engineer in Ukraine Mysterious drones spotted flying over nuclear power plant. No radiation leak after ‘contamination’ events at Africa’s only nuclear plant, regulator says.

SECRETS and LIES. The West Won’t Punish The Settlements: its Two-State Solution Was Always a Sham. Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear sites were ‘obliterated’ – Now another is in his sights. Iran Accuses Kushner, Witkoff of Pursuing Profits Over Peace in Diplomatic Talks. 2009 quake may have prompted data rigging by central Japan nuclear operator

SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Eight NATO allies to create new satellite mega-constellation. Corporations Lead U.S. Militarization of Space.

SPINBUSTER
The false promise of nuclear power. It’s Not Terrorism When We Do It.

TECHNOLOGY. BEC showcases nuclear powered A.I data centre, Pioneer Park (and Radiation Free Lakeland protestors were there in opposition) AI and the absurdity of nuclear deterrence.

WASTES. Uranium-Chomping Bacteria Found In Bowels Of Mine That Once Supplied Soviet Nuclear Weapons. Cumbrian environmental groups quit GDF nuclear waste talks . Ed Milliband to decide on Cumbrian nuclear waste plan. Canada’s Federal Government in Disarray Over Nuclear Waste Project Assessment . Decommissioning. Ukraine draft law on Chernobyl decommissioning to 2036 approved.

WAR and CONFLICT.

Is London shifting from nuclear deterrence to war-fighting?
Trump Killed Those US Troops In Jordan.
Time for all US service personnel in Middle East to disobey illegal Trump orders to wage criminal war on Iran.
Trump’s New Iran Strikes Are Turning Failure Into a Wider Disaster.
Trump says US will ‘take out’ Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility.
Iran war takes terrifying turn, missiles bombard NUCLEAR plant.
CALLING THE ODDS ON DOOMSDAY.
The five countries that could go nuclear next – and how worried we should be.

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES . Autonomous Weapons: The Wave of the Future in Military Conflicts Worldwide.

Faslane set for £15bn upgrade to ‘future-proof it for war-fighting’.

Why is Britain spending huge amounts on nuclear militarism? . ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/17/3-b1-why-is-britain-investing-huge-amounts-in-nuclear-militarism/

US industrial base is becoming stronger for wartime production, study finds.

A Budget of the Pentagon, By the Congress and For the War Profiteers.

Dennis Kucinich Warns Congress Is Quietly Merging the U.S. and Israeli War Machines.

America’s AI War Has No Civilian Stop Rule.

North Korea vows boost to nuclear buildup, military intelligence.

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Weekly Newsletter | Leave a comment

Israel And The United States Are Merging Their Militaries. Here’s Why.

“From aid to partnership”, the US and Israel are set to become even more united in genocide

While the initial bill, the “United States-Israel FUTURES Act,” failed as a standalone bill, the core provisions have been included in the NDAA. This aims to “expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation” between the US and Israel, led by an “executive agent” decided by the US Defense Secretary.

This merger would integrate the United States and Israeli occupation militarily, including “data fusion”, “network integration”, research and development, weapons and bio-manufacturing, and collaboration with AI, cyber, and quantum machine learning technologies. While the Israeli occupation forces and US military are already deeply connected and share many of their genocidal tactics, this represents a significant entanglement of the two most belligerent and murderous militaries in the world.

Nuvpreet Kalra, July 15, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/15/israel-and-the-united-states-are-merging-their-militaries-heres-why/

In June 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote to Republican Representative Marlin Stutzman of California, saying that “the time has now arrived [for Israel] to move from aid recipient to partner” with the United States. Yesterday, on Fox News, Netanyahu again repeated the proposal to move “from aid to partnership“.

What Netanyahu proclaims is at the core of the proposed “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative”, which has been included in a section of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that seeks to push the Pentagon budget to $1.5 trillion in 2027. This proposal to the annual military policy bill aims to essentially merge the Israeli and the US militaries.

In 2008, the US passed a law requiring it to protect Israel’s “military edge” against other countries in the region. The US is required to give Israel at least $3.8 billion a year in military funding until 2028. Israel has always been a major priority of the United States – this only makes that clearer.

This new integration differs from the way the US engages with its other allies. While NATO countries and partners share a degree of military integration with global weapons supply chains, intelligence sharing, military bases, and more, this removes the limitations in existence for military cooperation. Already, the US war drive through NATO has impacts across society beyond what might be recognised as purely military-related, given the military-industrial complex and integration of the US military in all aspects of life. In this case, the merger will deepen ruptures across the political, social, and economic system as the United States moves closer to its proxy. The main beneficiaries of this will be the weapons companies that profited immensely from and have made Israel’s genocide in Gaza possible, as they enter into new seamless contracts.

Israel is increasingly viewed across the world, and within the United States, as a pariah state. In the US, 60% of adults have an unfavourable view of Israel. This push to further integrate with Israel puts the US on the line in an attempt to ensure the continuation and longevity of the settler colonial project. By entrenching the US military with Israel’s own, it provides a layer of protection that goes even further than the impunity that has given Israel full rein to commit a holocaust in Gaza and further colonisation of the occupied West Bank. This integration will mean that Israel is given unfettered support to carry out its genocidal trajectory for the total colonisation of Palestine, inhibiting any future presidents from changing this relationship, if that were to ever occur.

This is the US empire defending itself, as the zionist state becomes isolated, by trying to make its proxy appear more robust and independent, while maintaining its unbreakable connection to the core. This is a clear response to the massive movements that have erupted across the world for nearly three years in opposing Israel’s genocide and the role of countries in facilitating it. The US is, in a way, absorbing Israel to provide the legitimacy being chipped away at internationally and domestically, ending the narrative opposition to unlimited foreign aid to Israel, which has garnered bipartisan support.

Israel is occupying at least 60% of Gaza. Palestinians are being pushed into a shrinking concentration camp, where they are bombed every single day and refused aid during what is described as a ceasefire. For US taxpayers, this merger would put even more of our money into funding this horrific genocide.

This NDAA is dangerous. Through the US-Israeli integration, it would facilitate more deadly technology, more weapons for genocide, and make it nearly impossible to sever support for Israel by the US. Through the $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, it would funnel money out of welfare into more war and violence across the world. For the sake of humanity, we have to dismantle this apparatus of death that is the US empire, which is in a perpetual, ever-growing state of war to maintain its system of exploitation and plunder.

Nuvpreet Kalra is CODEPINK’s digital content producer. She completed a Bachelor’s in politics and sociology at the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Internet Equalities at the University of the Arts London. As a student, she was part of movements to divest and decolonize, as well as anti-racist and anti-imperialist groups. Nuvpreet joined CODEPINK as an intern in 2023 and now produces digital and social media content. In England, she organizes with groups for Palestinian liberation, abolition, and anti-imperialism.

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Radiation Protection -analysis of NRC proposals

the US NRC is under pressure to weaken its current standards at a time when the scientific
evidence suggests these need to be tightened.

Tony Webb, July 2026.

Current standards under threat
Operating under a Directive from US President Donald Trump the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) proposes to weaken its current radiation protection standards – at a time when
the scientific evidence suggests these existing standards underestimate the risks faced by workers
and the public – and need to be significantly tightened. Unions, public health and environment
groups around the world are pressing governments, international and national protection agencies
to resist pressure from the USA to follow suit – and are calling for a comprehensive review the
evidence leading to increased worker and public protection.

In May 2025 US President Trump issued a Directive to the NRC to revise all its current regulations
and specifically those relating to radiation protection. It called for the NRC to abandon the
fundamental principle that underpins standards worldwide that there is no threshold or ‘safe’ level
of exposure to Ionising radiation. Any dose however small can be the one that triggers what are
known as ‘stochastic’ health effects that emerge over time from damage to individual cells in the
body – damage that is inadequately repaired and where the cells go on to reproduce in in
this damaged form, later manifesting as cancers, genetic, or other health damage. Some
other effects such as skin damage are called ‘deterministic’. A minimum or ‘threshold’ level
of exposure is required, and the severity of the damage increases with the level of exposure.
The severity of stochastic health effects is independent of the dose received – you either get
is or you don’t but the risk-probability that you do increases with the dose received over
your lifetime exposure.

Following from this principle that there is no safe level radiation standards required that all
exposures be kept ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ – known as the ALARA principle. . The
Presidential directive specifically instructed the NRC to reconsider this principle. It also required
review of the legal dose-limits for the amount of non-naturally occurring radiation that workers and
the public can be exposed to in any year. These annual dose limits have been set by national
standards agencies based mainly on international reviews of studies of Japanese survivors of the
bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. These survivors who received relatively
large doses over a short time period. The level of damage to their health, notably their rates of
cancer has been tracked over time and used to estimate the probabilistic risk of stochastic damage
from lower doses spread over longer time periods using a ‘Linear No-Threshold’ (LNT) model –
essentially based on the no safe level principle. The risk estimates have been revised over time as
evidence emerged for higher cancer rates among the survivors and revision of the estimates of
doses they received that might have caused these cancers.

More recently large scale studies of nuclear plant workers in France the UK and USA – known as the
INWORKS studies (with more accurate measures of doses received and health effects compared to
non-exposed workers) have shown that the estimates used to set the current standards significantly
under-estimate the risk, and that the risk at low doses – over longer time periods may be
proportionately greater than the LNT model estimates suggest. These studies also show significantly
elevated levels or cardio-vascular diseases such as heart damage and strokes, and other worker
studies show elevated levels of dementia associated with radiation exposure. Together these
studies suggest there is an urgent need to comprehensively review the evidence of risks on which
the current national and international standards are based – particularly worker dose limits . In
addition recent meta analyses of cancer rates in large populations living close to nuclear power plants in Europe and the USA show that there is a significant general increase the closer people live
to these facilities particularly affecting the young and the elderly. These suggest the need to review
the standards that set dose-limits for public exposures alongside those reviewing expsore of
workers.

In short, the US NRC is under pressure to weaken its current standards at a time when the scientific
evidence suggests these need to be tightened.

The NRC proposals
Following the May 2025 Presidential Directive, the NRC has now, after several delays, released its
proposed revision of the standards. It clearly faced a dilemma as adopting the President’s suggested
changes would mean reversing its earlier 1991 decision that specifically rejected these same
proposals requested by industry lobbyists. In essence the 179-page proposal document (open for
45-days for comments) offers its reasoned judgements on the three key aspects of the review: the
LNT model, the ALARA principle and the occupational and public exposure limits.

To its credit the NRC retains the LNT as the basis for assessing risks at lower doses than those
received by Japanese bomb survivors. Hardly surprising as to have rejected this would have flown in
the face of international scientific pinion worldwide and its own 1991 decision. It does give some
credence the highly contested ‘Hormesis’ model based on limited studies suggesting that there may
be positive effects on health at low doses due to the capacity for cellular repair but ultimately
concludes that there is no scientific consensus that would support this or any other alternative to
the LNT model.

Unfortunately, proposes abandoning the ALARA principle arguing that it is subject to ‘excessive
subjectivity that leads to overly conservative assessments’ for managing exposures below the the
occupational and public dose limits. It is clearly identified as a burden on the nuclear industry – and
thus an impediment to the policy of reducing barriers to its development and operation. In its
place the NRC proposes ‘operating principles’ for managing doses below the legally enforceable
limits. Above (and perhaps only above) an expected dose of 100 mrem (1 MSv) per year – the limit
for public exposure – employees would need to be given ‘radiation worker training’. Above (and
again perhaps only above) an expected dose of 500 mrem (5 mSv) /year). i.e., at 10% of the
regulated exposure limit, employers would be required to monitor individual workers exposures. It
further suggests a cost-benefit approach for reducing exposures indicating that it would be
appropriate for employers to spend up to $5,200 (in 2014 US $) to avert each rem of occupational
exposure. If a radiation protection measure were more costly than that, the licensee would have an
acceptable cost-justified basis for not implementing the measure and instead accruing the dose as
long as that dose was within the regulatory dose limits.

The occupational dose limit is however further weakened by allowing exposures up to double the 5
rem (50 mSv) annual limit. Previously employers could apply for ‘planned special exposures’ for
situations needing higher worker-doses. These are no re-badged as ‘occupational dose limit
extensions’ (DLEs) permitting male workers (female workers are excluded) to receiving a dose of up
to 10 rem (100 mSV) in any year provided these do not result in the worker’s five-year average
exceeding the 5 rem (50mSv) annual limit – i.e. a total over any five year period of 25 rem (250 mSv).

These proposals will leave US workers facing permitted exposures greater than recommended by
international bodies and adopted by most national standards-setting agencies where the targeted
annual limit is 20mSv with exceptional exposures permitted up to 50 mSv provided these do not
exceed 20 mSv averaged over any five-year period. This 20 mSv annual averaging standard has been
in place since 1991 but was never adopted in the USA which retains the earlier 5 rem (50 mSv) annual limit. As indicated above the scientific evidence now calls for a revision of the stochastic
health damage risk estimates and a further tightening of the standards rather than their relaxation
as proposed by the NRC. Indeed it is notable that nowhere in the NRC proposals is here any mention
of, let alone critical review of the peer reviewed INWORKS studies.

The NRC does reject the Presidential Directive’s suggestion that the public exposure limit be raised
to 500 mrem (5 mSv). it leaves it at 100 mrem (1 mSv) in line with the international norm though it
does propose relaxing the emissions standards for radiation and radioactive material from nuclear
facilities from the existing 10 mrem to 25 mem. Again, these proposed relaxations come at a time
when the evidence suggests higher risks to the public living close to such plants and that a tightening
of existing standards is warranted. And again, nowhere does the NRC mention let alone critique this
evidence for increased health risks for populations living close to nuclear facilities.

International Opposition to the US NRC proposals
The NRC proposals are currently open for comments with a final decision on the revised regulations
due by the end of 2026. While any revised radiation protection standards will initially apply only to
the USA there are implications for radiation protection in other countries. Pressure on international
and national standards bodies can be expected. As well as the civil nuclear program it is expected
that the revised standards will apply to US based military facilities. Whether these US, or other
countries’ standards will apply to US military facilities and to any jointly owned civilian enterprises
based in other countries may be in doubt. In Australia for example a Naval Nuclear Powered
Submarine Safety Regulator (ANNPSR) has been created to oversee construction, operation,
maintenance, decommissioning and radioactive waste management from the UK, US (AUKUS)
nuclear submarine program. This new regulator reports to the Department of Defence and is
separate from the existing regulator, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency
(ARPANSA) which reports to the Department of Health. How these regulators will collaborate, and
which standards will prevail is yet to be determined.

In Australia, as in other countries, notably the USA, Canada, coalitions bringing together the
concerns of trade unions, public health organisations and environment groups are campaigning for
rejection of the US NRC led proposals that would weaken current radiation protection standards
and for a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence that now strongly suggests the risks to
health of workers and the public are greater that when standards were last revised – now some 25
years ago – and need to be revised and significantly tightened.

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s New Iran Strikes Are Turning Failure Into a Wider Disaster

This is how an unsuccessful campaign becomes permanent policy. Iranian retaliation justifies American escalation; American escalation produces further retaliation; and the resulting insecurity is presented as proof that restraint would be dangerous. War becomes both the cause of the crisis and the proposed solution.

The President’s renewed strikes will not make Iran easier to coerce. They will make America weaker.

by Brian Hudson | Jul 13, 2026 , https://original.antiwar.com/brian_hudson/2026/07/12/trumps-new-iran-strikes-are-turning-failure-into-a-wider-disaster/

The easiest mistake in war is to confuse the ability to strike again with proof that the previous strike worked. Donald Trump is making that mistake in Iran. The latest U.S. attacks may destroy more military assets and infrastructure, but they do not answer the political question that has haunted this war from the beginning: what outcome is all this destruction supposed to produce?

The Trump administration launched the initial campaign claiming that it would curb Iran’s nuclear program and break the military power behind what Washington described as Tehran’s regional threat. Months later, Iran has not surrendered, the nuclear dispute remains unresolved, and the Strait of Hormuz has become an even more dangerous center of confrontation. The United States is still negotiating through intermediaries over shipping and other unresolved issues. Trump says talks can continue even as he declares the ceasefire over and orders new attacks. This is not a strategy approaching success. It is a strategy using escalation to avoid confronting its own failure.

That pattern is the central danger. Each time force fails to produce the promised political result, the administration treats the failure not as evidence that its strategy is wrong, but as evidence that it has not used enough force. The inability of the initial campaign to compel Iran becomes the justification for another round. If that round also fails, its failure can authorize the next. The strategy becomes almost impossible to disprove because every setback is reclassified as unfinished business.

Iran has suffered enormous damage. The opening attacks killed senior political and military figures, while the wider campaign struck thousands of targets and degraded military capabilities. Yet destruction did not translate into political compliance. Even the scale of the funeral ceremonies for the Iranian leader assassinated in the opening U.S.-Israeli strikes, while not proof of national unanimity, showed that foreign bombardment had not produced the easy collapse in political authority some advocates of war expected.

Supporters of escalation will say Washington simply stopped too soon. Iran was weakened but not weakened enough, and more punishment will eventually force Tehran to concede. But this logic turns every failure into a reason to repeat the policy that caused it. If bombing does not secure surrender, bomb more. If retaliation follows, strike harder. If negotiations remain necessary, claim that diplomacy works only because the bombs created leverage.

Damage, however, is not leverage unless it moves the opponent toward the outcome being demanded. The initial campaign changed the arena of bargaining without resolving the conflict. Hormuz, not the nuclear file, has become Iran’s most powerful instrument of pressure. Tehran now treats control over the waterway as its strongest strategic card. Washington went to war in the name of eliminating Iranian leverage. Instead, it helped elevate a maritime chokepoint through which the equivalent of about one-fifth of global oil and petroleum-product consumption passed before the war into the central battlefield of the relationship.

The confrontation in the strait is therefore evidence that the initial campaign failed according to its own declared logic. Washington presented the reopening of Hormuz as proof of success. Yet commercial shipping remains exposed, tanker traffic has slowed, Iran continues to assert authority over passage, and the United States is again using force to impose the access it claimed had already been secured. A victory that must be repeatedly recreated through bombing is not a durable victory. It is an unstable military arrangement waiting for the next incident.

The deeper problem is that Trump has no visible theory of how escalation ends. Is the objective a nuclear agreement, unconditional access through Hormuz, the destruction of Iran’s conventional military capacity, regime change, or punishment for attacks on shipping? Each goal would require a different strategy and political settlement. The administration’s shifting objectives obscure how little the bombing has accomplished. Ambiguity allows every new strike to be described as necessary while preventing the public from judging whether the war has succeeded.

The military cost is already substantial. The initial campaign consumed advanced U.S. munitions at a rate that exposed the limits of the industrial base. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that the United States may have used more than half of its prewar inventory in four of seven key systems, with one to four years required to rebuild those stocks. Each new round narrows future choices, increases competition among theaters and allies, and turns scarce production capacity into fuel for a war without a defined endpoint.

A serious “America First” policy would treat this as a warning. It would ask whether another missile fired at Iran makes the United States safer or merely postpones the moment when Washington must negotiate. Trump instead treats the act of striking as its own strategic justification. Firepower substitutes for political purpose, even as escalation depletes military readiness and deepens dependence on the diplomacy the administration publicly derides.

The economic costs follow the same pattern. Hormuz connects energy prices, shipping, insurance, manufacturing, agriculture, and household expenses. Oil prices fell when diplomacy appeared to reduce the risk of disruption and rose again when U.S.-Iran fighting resumed. That volatility is not incidental. It is one of the principal ways the war transfers its costs to people far from the battlefield.

A sustained campaign would raise insurance and freight costs, unsettle investment, and increase pressure on fuel-dependent industries and food production. The burden would fall on workers whose jobs depend on stable trade, families already struggling with prices, and communities repeatedly told that housing, health care, schools, and infrastructure are unaffordable. A government cannot plausibly claim to put Americans first while exposing them to a preventable energy shock and treating public resources as an inexhaustible reserve for escalation.

The regional political cost is equally serious. U.S. operations depend on Gulf states for bases, logistical support, and access. Yet those states absorb the immediate danger when Iran retaliates. The more Washington turns their territory into infrastructure for an open-ended conflict, the stronger their incentive becomes to hedge and seek arrangements that reduce their exposure. Trump’s escalation risks weakening the very network of relationships on which American power in the region depends.

Restraint is not surrender. It is the recognition that force without a political theory of success becomes an expensive ritual. Before any further attack, the administration should state its objective, explain how military action will achieve it, define the conditions for ending operations, identify the risks of retaliation, and provide the legal authority for widening the war. Congress should demand those answers rather than allowing a failed campaign to expand through presidential momentum.

The initial campaign proved that Iran could be damaged without becoming politically compliant. The renewed strikes are proving something more dangerous: Trump is prepared to weaken American military readiness, economic stability, regional relationships, and democratic accountability rather than acknowledge that bombing did not produce the settlement he promised. The responsible course is to use the remaining diplomatic channel to reduce escalation and negotiate the unresolved issues. Otherwise, every failure will become the excuse for another attack, and the United States will turn a failed strategy into a permanent war.

Brian Hudson is a political analyst and independent journalist. His work has appeared in publications including Common Dreams and other independent news outlets.

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Time for all US service personnel in Middle East to disobey illegal Trump orders to wage criminal war on Iran

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, 19 July 26

Eight months ago, six US Congresspersons, all former military or intelligence community members, issued a video urging current service members to disobey illegal orders that might be issued by President Donald Trump’s administration.

They stated “threats to our Constitution are coming from right here at home,” and repeatedly urged the military to “refuse illegal orders.” “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law, or our Constitution. Know that we have your back… don’t give up the ship.” They did not specify the illegal orders referred to but it was assumed they were Trump’s illegal orders for service personnel to obliterate little unarmed boats in the Caribbean imagined to be bringing drugs into the Homeland.

But the six didn’t have current military personnel backs. The six shut up when none of the other 529 congresspersons joined them in doing the principled thing of demanding military not engage in Trump administration war crimes whether they be bombing little unarmed boats, bombing imagined bad guys in Somalia 75 times in 2026, killing over a hundred Venezuelans to snatch Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his wife for a show trial in America.

Worst of all, the Silent Six remained mute when Trump ordered his war fighters to launch his criminal war on Iran that may plunge the world into recession if not depression. Every bomb, every missile they drop on Iran emanates from an illegal, indeed criminal order that kills mostly civilians in America’s lost cause to destroy Iran at the behest of Israel.

After 39 days of murderous bombing that killed thousands, Trump cried ‘uncle’ knowing he’d lost, forcing his negotiated a ceasefire. He thought he could salvage victory with a blockade of Iranian ports but that failed just as spectacularly. So he ordered his war fighters to attack again, except this time their targets were civilian infrastructure, obvious war crimes to any war fighter with a functioning moral compass.

The men and women carrying out these illegal orders from war criminal Trump and his unhinged defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dishonor their uniform. They are not serving their country. They are serving the war criminals that should be in the dock at The Hague, not in the White House and the Pentagon. And the phony Silent Six and their 529 fellow congresspersons doing nothing to end America’s criminal Iran war blowing up the Middle East, the world economy, possibly even unleashing nuclear weapons, are too busy scooping up Israel Lobby and US weapons makers’ money to advise military personnel to disobey illegal, criminal orders.

We need a massive military personnel sit down strike in the Middle East to end this madness and bring Trump and Hegseth to justice.

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

AI and the absurdity of nuclear deterrence

July 14, 2026, https://www.icanw.org/ai_and_nuclear_deterrence?utm_campaign=trinity_anniversary_2026&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ican

What if algorithms don’t feel fear? Nuclear deterrence isn’t a military capability. It’s a means of communication, intimidating the opponent’s mind, making them feel afraid. As AI edges into nuclear systems, it exposes the paradox at the heart of nuclear deterrence.

Artificial intelligence is changing how governments approach national security. It is reshaping intelligence analysis, early-warning systems, and military decision-making. Its growing role in the nuclear realm has sparked fears of a future in which machines decide to launch nuclear weapons.

That future is not here. No government or strategist is currently advocating that AI take charge of nuclear launch decisions. There is strong international agreement that these decisions must stay under human control.

But that misses the deeper issue. AI is already being woven into nuclear-related systems. AI is used in the military domain to identify missile launches, analyse sensor data, and model escalation. These integrations expose something that has always been true, nuclear deterrence has never been stable or responsible. The idea of responsible management of a genocidal capability, has always been an illusion. Nuclear deterrence relies on fear, perception, and moral contradiction. Increasing the speed of automation in these systems does not offer stability, it makes them more dangerous.

The Creeping Integration of AI

Currently AI applications are built to assist human decision-makers, not replace them. They filter data, flag threats, and support commanders under extreme time pressure. But even when humans keep final authority, automation reshapes how decisions get made. It determines what information appears, how it gets prioritised, and how fast a response is expected.

As reaction times shrink, the risk of catastrophic miscalculation grows. In a crisis, machine-generated assessments add urgency. Humans must respond to systems they cannot fully understand or verify in real time. As more nuclear-armed states fold AI into their command, control, and intelligence networks, the risk of unpredictable interactions between competing automated systems rises. These systems are also vulnerable to hacking and hallucinating and other interference.

AI magnifies the central weakness of deterrence, that it depends on fragile assumptions about rationality, perception, and control.

The Myth of Rational Control

For decades, nuclear deterrence has been sold as rational management, a balance of terror held steady by calculated threats. In reality, it is psychological theatre. It works by trying to shape an adversary’s behaviour through fear and the threat of annihilation. The whole logic of deterrence lives in the human mind.

Artificial intelligence breaks that logic. Algorithms cannot be coerced, bluffed, or frightened into restraint. They can be manipulated, fed false data, deceived, or trained to fail. That is a serious problem in its own right. But it is a different problem. It is not the manipulation deterrence relies on: intimidating a population, or impressing a leader’s mind, through shows of nuclear force. Code has no psyche. It cannot be impressed by posturing.

We are not yet in an era of fully automated nuclear decision-making. But the trajectory is clear. As AI increasingly mediates how information is processed and framed, the psychological foundation of deterrence starts to erode. The more automation shapes perception, the less room remains for the human uncertainty that deterrence theory depends on.

Automation also sharpens the dangers already built into deterrence: overconfidence, misperception, and compressed decision-making. A commander who trusts an algorithm may act faster, or more decisively, than one who trusts their own judgment. The apparent gain in control is an illusion. AI accelerates the instability already built into the system.

Deterrence has survived on luck, not logic.

What AI reveals is not a new danger. It is an old one, made visible. Nuclear deterrence has never been rational, predictable, or safe. History shows this. Deterrence doctrine did not prevent nuclear war. Luck did, along with individual decisions to defy protocol and err on the side of caution. AI now strips away the myth of “strategic stability” and shows the system for what it is: a gamble with humanity’s survival.

Policy Implications

Keeping nuclear launch authority under human control is important, and widely supported. But human control alone cannot make nuclear weapons safe. Nuclear history is full of near-catastrophic accidents, long before AI entered the picture. Transparency about how AI is used in nuclear systems is urgently needed. International dialogue should continue including at the UN General Assembly.

The goal should not be to make deterrence “AI-proof.” It should be to confront the fact that deterrence has always been technically unmanageable, strategically overestimated, and morally indefensible. Its risks cannot be automated away, because they are built into the system itself.

AI does not offer a new path to stability. Even committed defenders of deterrence would concede that much. What it offers instead is a stark reminder: the stability deterrence promised was illusory from the start. The only reliable way to prevent nuclear catastrophe, AI-driven or human-driven, is to eliminate these weapons, in line with international law and humanitarian principles.

This is why the humanitarian argument at the heart of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) matters more, not less, in the age of AI. The catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonation do not change because a machine helped trigger it. No AI system can contain radiation, feed a starving population after a nuclear famine, or undo the collapse of a climate. The case for prohibition was never about how a weapon might be launched. It was, and remains, about what happens after. States should treat AI integration not as a reason to modernise deterrence, but as further evidence that security strategies must rely less on nuclear weapons, not more. That means investing in disarmament, not automation; in verification and transparency, not faster decision cycles; and in the TPNW’s normative and legal framework as the route out of a system that was never under control to begin with.

AI makes visible what has always been true

Artificial intelligence does more than raise the risk of nuclear use. It acts as a mirror, reflecting the instability and moral absurdity of a system built on the threat of annihilation.

Deterrence operates in the adversary’s mind. Even its most faithful advocates must admit that its logic collapses the moment that mind becomes a machine. AI makes visible what has always been true: there can be no psychological deterrence without psychology, and no responsible way to manage weapons designed for mass extinction.

The response to the AI-nuclear weapons debate should not be new layers of technical control. It should be to question whether these weapons can ever be controlled at all. The danger is not only a future where machines decide to launch nuclear weapons. It is a present where anyone still can.

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | technology, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Mysterious drones spotted flying over nuclear power plant

Sarah Hooper Metro. Live News Reporter, July 16, 2026

At least seven drones were spotted near Switzerland’s Gösgen nuclear power plant, sparking a large police response.

The mystery drones were spotted around 10.30pm yesterday and reported by a resident.

The safety of the power plant was not compromised during the incident, with the head of communications for the plant saying the threat posed by drones was ‘negligible’.

As is usually the case around power plants, a no-fly zone is in place around Gösgen.

It remains unclear who was behind the drones above the nuclear power plant this week.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that Russia launched hundreds of drones and covert UAVs across the UK and Europe from their shadow fleet, thought to be in preparation for a future conflict.

The International Institute of Strategic Studies issued a sobering report that found Vladimir Putin’s shadow fleet ships had sent drones to target airports, bases, and nuclear sites.

Among the sites affected by the spy drones were RAF Fairford, Feltwell, Lakenheath and Mildenhall, and dozens of sites across continental Europe………………………………. https://metro.co.uk/2026/07/16/seven-mystery-drones-swarm-european-nuclear-power-plant-29153061/

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, Switzerland | Leave a comment

Activists protest outside Pioneer Park nuclear event.

by Gareth Cavanagh

ACTIVISTS held a protest outside The Peddler in Whitehaven yesterday as nuclear sector figures shared their plans for ‘Pioneer Park’, an AI data centre powered by nuclear energy, with the public.

Land at Moorside, neighbouring Sellafield, has been central to new nuclear ambitions for a
number of years. There were once ambitions to develop a ‘clean energy hub’
on the land with a mix of energy-generation solutions, including a fleet of
small modular reactors (SMR).

Now named Pioneer Park, the proposal is to
develop an SMR site which will provide the energy for an ‘innovative’ AI
data centre. It is hoped the development will attract more than £12billion
in investment from business giants, provide a jobs boost and a space for
emerging industries to thrive.

But Radiation Free Lakeland, which protested
a consultation event about the proposals yesterday, argues that benefits of
the development would not outweigh the environmental impact, pointing out
the proximity of the land to the River Ehen as well as the village of
Beckermet.

Pioneer Park is set to be located on land at Moorside,
neighbouring Sellafield. The activist group said: “This area of green
fields and River Ehen Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) should be
a buffer zone between the sprawling Sellafield site and the surrounding
villages.”

They said that the nuclear industry is “using public money like
there is no tomorrow to try and make this buffer zone a further nuclear
sacrifice zone and AI data centre.”

A spokesperson for Pioneer Park’s
developers said that the site at Moorside “has been identified through
Government policy for nuclear power generation since 2011″. Their ambition
is “to build on west Cumbria’s internationally recognised strengths in
energy and engineering by bringing forward new nuclear development,
alongside complementary clean energy and technology projects, helping to
diversify the economy, support the ongoing decommissioning mission at
Sellafield, generate secure, low-carbon energy and create long-term
opportunities for local people.”

Carlisle News & Star 15th July 2026, https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/26276371.activists-protest-outside-pioneer-park-nuclear-event/

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

US industrial base is becoming stronger for wartime production, study finds

By Michael Peck, 13 July 26, https://www.militarytimes.com/industry/techwatch/2026/07/13/us-industrial-base-is-becoming-stronger-for-wartime-production-study-finds/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=c4-overmatch

As recent conflicts consume weapons at a ferocious rate, America’s defense industrial base is becoming more prepared to sustain a major war, according to a new report.

“The trends are moving in the right direction,” Jerry McGinn, who co-authored the study for the Center for Strategic and International Analysis think tank, told Defense News.

However, the study — described as a progress report on reforms to the defense manufacturing and acquisition system — still found numerous problems with ramping up and sustaining wartime production.

For example, “according to several measures — manufacturing lead times, critical munitions and materials stockpiles, and supply chain security — the U.S. industrial base has a long way to go to achieve resilience,” warned the analysis by CSIS’s Center for the Industrial Base.

CSIS did find measurable improvements since November 2025, when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vowed to “transform the entire acquisition system to operate on a wartime footing.”

Hegseth also promised to “inspire American industry to become a wartime industrial base that focuses on speed and volume.”

Most striking is the number of new companies in the defense field.

“Roughly 10,000 new firms have entered the market in the past two years and nontraditional companies received over $120 billion in contract obligations in FY 2025, adding competition and innovation to the sector,” CSIS noted. “Munitions contract obligations have risen 330 percent since FY 2010. Spurred by this increased demand and depleted inventories, the Pentagon is signing multiyear agreements with munitions producers and suppliers on a historic scale.”

The military is also responding to depleted stockpiles of expensive guided weapons that have been rapidly consumed by the Iran and Ukraine wars.

The Pentagon’s 2027 budget request for munitions allocated 49% to low-cost munitions — defined as costing less than $600,000 apiece — rising to 70% by 2031.

The U.S. is also strengthening its defense supply chain, such as “multiyear procurement agreements, direct-to-supplier investments, and leaner acquisition pathways,” as well as investing in defense companies such as L3Harris Missile Solutions, according to CSIS.

However, while this signals government commitment to defense production, it “also complicates competitive dynamics within the industry as new entrants and established suppliers alike seek to meet rapidly growing demand for munitions at scale.”

Also notable is federal investment in rare earths, which has seen production soar from 95 tons in 2022, to 8,900 tons in 2025. Nonetheless, “the erosion of domestic rare earth manufacturing capacity and the rise of Chinese control took decades to unfold, however, and it will take several years of enduring effort for the United States and its allies to build, scale, and sustain the production capacity of these key defense inputs.”

Exports of U.S. arms, or cooperative multinational projects such as the F-35 fighter, have also become a pillar of America’s defense industry. Foreign Military Sales, or FMS, have more than tripled, from less than $20 billion in 2015 to more than $80 billion in 2025.

The Trump administration wants to take this further with the “America First Arms Transfer Strategy,” launched in February 2026.

“The United States will use foreign purchases and capital to support domestic reindustrialization, expand production capacity, and improve the resilience of the United States defense industrial base,” the White House executive order declared.

Ultimately, the federal government can control defense production through the products it demands, the prices it is willing to pay, and the incentives it offers.

“It’s a monopsony,” McGinn said. “Government sets the market. Government can regulate the market. So, if the government wants different outcomes, it changes how it buys.”

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

No radiation leak after ‘contamination’ events at Africa’s only nuclear plant, regulator says.

South Africa’s nuclear regulator said Thursday that no radioactive material
leaked into the environment during three recent “contamination” events
inside Africa´s only nuclear power station. The incidents involved
“elevated airborne radioactive contamination” inside the Koeberg Power
Station, on South Africa’s west coast, when there was a loss of power to
ventilation units during maintenance work, the National Nuclear Regulator
said, adding there was no danger to the public. It said the three separate
contamination events on June 30, July 2 and July 7 were contained inside
the station.

Mirror 16th July 2026
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/koeberg-nuclear-power-station-africa-37442154

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, South Africa | Leave a comment

July 22 deadline to comment on downgrade of impact assessment for nuclear projects | Canada’s Federal government pushing for power with a “nuclear fist” | Dates and Deadlines.

The Nuclear Fist: Five Federal Initiatives Pushing and Promoting Nuclear Power

There are currently five federal nuclear related initiatives / announcements: “Getting Major Projects Built in Canada – Discussion Paper on Proposed Legislative, Regulatory, and Policy Reforms” announced May 8th with the deadline now extended to July 22; the electricity strategy “Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy” which was announced May 14 with comment invited but no deadline; the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment electrification study with the deadline – and the study – now extended to mid-September; the Nuclear Energy Strategy for Canada announced June 22 with no comment invited and so no deadline for comment, and the June 24 announcement of the potential “listing” of the NWMO DGR under the Build Canada Act (aka Bill C-5), also no public comment period.

July 22nd Deadline to Comment on “Big Projects” Discussion Paper

The comment period will close on July 22nd on the federal government’s Discussion Paper Delivering on Big Projects in Canada. Released on May 8th, the discussion paper proposes that impact assessment of nuclear projects would be handed over to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.Visit Assessing-Nuclear-Risk.ca for more information including submissions by public interest groups, media coverage and contacts and updates. Take one minute to send a message – the message tool is HERE.

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

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