Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Australian news – week to 18 July

July 14, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Antisemitic, really? Jewish leader speaks out on Royal Commission hypocrisy

by Jeffrey Loewenstein | Jul 14, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/antisemitic-really-jewish-leader-speaks-out-on-royal-commission-hypocrisy/ | 

Were the ‘attacks’ described really attacks of an antisemitic nature,The tide has turned a little at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism with a second Jewish witness breaking from the Israel narrative. Jeffrey Loewenstein reports.

Sarah Schwartz, co-founder of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion last week.

I venture to suggest that it will come to be seen that Schwartz gave seminal evidence which the Commissioner is going to find hard to ignore when she is writing her report; evidence supported yesterday by the compelling testimony of Jewish university peace activist Yasmine Johnson.

Until Schwartz gave her evidence, we had seen testimonies given by members of the Jewish community – some of which can only be described as very troubling in terms of evidence – which sometimes bordered on hysterical.

But, the elephant in the room?

Sarah Schwartz, co-founder of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion last week.

I venture to suggest that it will come to be seen that Schwartz gave seminal evidence which the Commissioner is going to find hard to ignore when she is writing her report; evidence supported yesterday by the compelling testimony of Jewish university peace activist Yasmine Johnson.

Until Schwartz gave her evidence, we had seen testimonies given by members of the Jewish community – some of which can only be described as very troubling in terms of evidence – which sometimes bordered on hysterical.

But, the elephant in the room?

“Were the ‘attacks’ described really attacks of an antisemitic nature,”

or were they people venting their anger and outrage at Jews seen to be rusted-on, unquestioning supporters of Israel’s egregious actions in Gaza?  

Take the example of a uni student in Canberra who just yesterday was reported in the Nine media thus: ”Liat told the Commission she had felt “very physically unsafe” during the long encampment at her university campus … when people would laugh and leer at me and say, ‘Look at the baby killer, look at the genocide supporter’”.

No, that is not pleasant, but the fact is – a fact unchallenged aside from the state of Israel itself and the likes of the ECAJ in Australia – that more than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed by the state of Israel and more than 44,000 injured since October 2023.

Why the rise in antisemitism?

What was more than significant, is that many of those who gave evidence of alleged antisemitism demonstrated absolutely no introspection. Why had there been a rise in anti-semitism sinceOctober 7?

Not because Hamas attacked Israel. No, it was, in many cases people showing their anger, yes, in some instances in a totally misguided way, at Israel’s actions in Gaza. Why did some 300,000 people from all walks of life and all ages, march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a foul, wet and windy day? 

The palpable anger by a significant part of the Australian community, including many Jews, at what Israel did in Gaza, and continues to do to this day, is reflected in the sober evidence given at the Royal Commission yesterday by Yasmine Johnson, a co-convener for Students for Palestine and a protest organiser.

Following her evidence, Johnson, who is Jewish, told the media

“the idea that campus protests “create a dangerous  atmosphere, fear for people, is farcical”. 

Antisemitism, anti-genocide conflation

“What we’ve heard,” she said “so far is day after day after day of evidence which conflates legitimate anti-genocide, pro-Palestine activism with genuine antisemitism which exists in our society.”  

The earlier mentioned witness Liat, and others like her, may feel uncomfortable about what is being shouted out at her as much as she probably sees posters like ‘Free Palestine’ as confronting and antisemitic, but has Liat – who acts as a  spokesperson for the Australasian Union of Jewish Students – either personally or on behalf of her organisation ever publicly accused Israel of being responsible for war crimes in Gaza, even if not genocide? Almost  certainly, not!

And that is the rub.

Might this alleged antisemitism just have had something to do with Jews so visibly parading around with Israeli flags draped acrosss their shoulders, waving Israelis flags at solidarity rallies for Israel, Jewish communal leaders excoriating those who called out Israel for engaging in genocide or starving children, and welcoming the Israeli President as their “national leader” ?

“Really? I thought we were Australians.”

The “average” person could be forgiven for concluding that members of the Jewish community were demonstrating that they identified with and supported Israel.  

The question to be asked here is why it is that criticising Israel by Jews is said to make the speaker a self-hating Jew, a “kapo” a “Judenrat” or, as in the case of Schwartz, to even be accused on ABC Radio National as being ‘anti Jewish?”

They are shameful, offensive and disgraceful epithets. They are intended to be so. 


Not be ignored in the above is that the likes of a Mark Leibler, the ECAJ, AIJAC, the Zionist Federation of Australia and similar groups see Jews who criticise Israel as a no-go area even if they, falsely, assert that Jews are free to openly express their views about Israel. It’s simply untrue!

There is the expectation from these quarters that all Jews will, as a matter of solidarity, support Israel as the Zionist/Jewish homeland. With this forked-tongue and double-speak it is no wonder that the sort of slurs and insults which Schwartz described at the Royal Commission are rife in the Jewish community. 

A climate of fear

Conversely, those in the Jewish community who might otherwise speak out against Israel fear that they will be subjected to all manner of insults and even the break-down of family relationships.  

Given the airing of Schwartz’s evidence, one has to also wonder why there has been total silence from the usually vocal Jewish organisations. Should they not be publicly calling out vilification of fellow-Jews, calling for vilification to be stopped and asking for respect for those Jews who are not Zionists, strident or not.

Proof of the “attitude” in the Jewish community to those who are not at one with supporting Israel is clearly demonstrated by the Australian Jewish News which, just last week, pulled a story attacking those in the Jewish community who attacked their fellow Jews with the the sort of offensive epithets directed at Sarah Schwartz.

My Israel question 

I can speak personally to how the Jewish community reacts when Israel or the Israel Lobby comes under scrutiny. Back in 2006, Melbourne University Press published my son’s book “My Israel Question”. The book flew off the shelves.

The response from the so-called powers-that be in the Jewish community – including a Jewish Federal member of  Parliament in Parliament, even exhorting people not to buy the book – bordered on feral.

Even putting aside the death threats to my son and his then partner, as an example of hate mail – which Schwartz has so clearly shown in her evidence – one early so-called correspondent wrote that he hoped that when the Nazis came to Australia that he and his parents would be the first to be marched into the gas chambers.

1×1515

4:40 / 6:30

Listen to this story

7 min

The tide has turned a little at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism with a second Jewish witness breaking from the Israel narrative. Jeffrey Loewenstein reports.

Sarah Schwartz, co-founder of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion last week.

I venture to suggest that it will come to be seen that Schwartz gave seminal evidence which the Commissioner is going to find hard to ignore when she is writing her report; evidence supported yesterday by the compelling testimony of Jewish university peace activist Yasmine Johnson.

Until Schwartz gave her evidence, we had seen testimonies given by members of the Jewish community – some of which can only be described as very troubling in terms of evidence – which sometimes bordered on hysterical.

But, the elephant in the room?

Were the ‘attacks’ described really attacks of an antisemitic nature,

or were they people venting their anger and outrage at Jews seen to be rusted-on, unquestioning supporters of Israel’s egregious actions in Gaza?  

Take the example of a uni student in Canberra who just yesterday was reported in the Nine media thus: ”Liat told the Commission she had felt “very physically unsafe” during the long encampment at her university campus … when people would laugh and leer at me and say, ‘Look at the baby killer, look at the genocide supporter’”.

No, that is not pleasant, but the fact is – a fact unchallenged aside from the state of Israel itself and the likes of the ECAJ in Australia – that more than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed by the state of Israel and more than 44,000 injured since October 2023.

Why the rise in antisemitism?

What was more than significant, is that many of those who gave evidence of alleged antisemitism demonstrated absolutely no introspection. Why had there been a rise in anti-semitism sinceOctober 7?

Not because Hamas attacked Israel. No, it was, in many cases people showing their anger, yes, in some instances in a totally misguided way, at Israel’s actions in Gaza. Why did some 300,000 people from all walks of life and all ages, march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a foul, wet and windy day? 

The palpable anger by a significant part of the Australian community, including many Jews, at what Israel did in Gaza, and continues to do to this day, is reflected in the sober evidence given at the Royal Commission yesterday by Yasmine Johnson, a co-convener for Students for Palestine and a protest organiser.

Following her evidence, Johnson, who is Jewish, told the media

the idea that campus protests “create a dangerous atmosphere, fear for people, is farcical”. 

Antisemitism, anti-genocide conflation

“What we’ve heard,” she said “so far is day after day after day of evidence which conflates legitimate anti-genocide, pro-Palestine activism with genuine antisemitism which exists in our society.”  

The earlier mentioned witness Liat, and others like her, may feel uncomfortable about what is being shouted out at her as much as she probably sees posters like ‘Free Palestine’ as confronting and antisemitic, but has Liat – who acts as a  spokesperson for the Australasian Union of Jewish Students – either personally or on behalf of her organisation ever publicly accused Israel of being responsible for war crimes in Gaza, even if not genocide? Almost  certainly, not!

And that is the rub.

Might this alleged antisemitism just have had something to do with Jews so visibly parading around with Israeli flags draped acrosss their shoulders, waving Israelis flags at solidarity rallies for Israel, Jewish communal leaders excoriating those who called out Israel for engaging in genocide or starving children, and welcoming the Israeli President as their “national leader” ?

Really? I thought we were Australians.

The “average” person could be forgiven for concluding that members of the Jewish community were demonstrating that they identified with and supported Israel.  

The question to be asked here is why it is that criticising Israel by Jews is said to make the speaker a self-hating Jew, a “kapo” a “Judenrat” or, as in the case of Schwartz, to even be accused on ABC Radio National as being ‘anti Jewish?”

They are shameful, offensive and disgraceful epithets. They are intended to be so. 

Not be ignored in the above is that the likes of a Mark Leibler, the ECAJ, AIJAC, the Zionist Federation of Australia and similar groups see Jews who criticise Israel as a no-go area even if they, falsely, assert that Jews are free to openly express their views about Israel. It’s simply untrue!

There is the expectation from these quarters that all Jews will, as a matter of solidarity, support Israel as the Zionist/Jewish homeland. With this forked-tongue and double-speak it is no wonder that the sort of slurs and insults which Schwartz described at the Royal Commission are rife in the Jewish community. 

A climate of fear

Conversely, those in the Jewish community who might otherwise speak out against Israel fear that they will be subjected to all manner of insults and even the break-down of family relationships.  

Given the airing of Schwartz’s evidence, one has to also wonder why there has been total silence from the usually vocal Jewish organisations. Should they not be publicly calling out vilification of fellow-Jews, calling for vilification to be stopped and asking for respect for those Jews who are not Zionists, strident or not.

Proof of the “attitude” in the Jewish community to those who are not at one with supporting Israel is clearly demonstrated by the Australian Jewish News which, just last week, pulled a story attacking those in the Jewish community who attacked their fellow Jews with the the sort of offensive epithets directed at Sarah Schwartz.

My Israel question 

I can speak personally to how the Jewish community reacts when Israel or the Israel Lobby comes under scrutiny. Back in 2006, Melbourne University Press published my son’s book “My Israel Question”. The book flew off the shelves.

The response from the so-called powers-that be in the Jewish community – including a Jewish Federal member of  Parliament in Parliament, even exhorting people not to buy the book – bordered on feral.

Even putting aside the death threats to my son and his then partner, as an example of hate mail – which Schwartz has so clearly shown in her evidence – one early so-called correspondent wrote that he hoped that when the Nazis came to Australia that he and his parents would be the first to be marched into the gas chambers.

Unhinged? Yes!

But as Schwartz spelt out in her evidence at the Royal Commission many in the Jewish community see attacking those who do not support Israel 100% as legitimate. And if that extends to thuggery, look no further than the Jewish group the Lions of Zion and their “activities” – an organisation supported by the powers that be in the Jewish community. 

Thankfully the JCA has provided an ever-growing forum and voice for Jews who will not remain silent given Israel’s genocide in Gaza and breaches of multiple international laws and conventions.

Let’s not forget, while Israel denies what a slew of scholars, human rights organisations and aid and medical agencies have found – including those learned on genocide, some of whom even live in Israel itself – the facts on the ground speak volumes. We have all seen and read about it.

Israel clearly stands guilty as charged!

July 18, 2026 Posted by | religion and ethics | Leave a comment

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

by Cathy Peters | Jul 11, 2026 , https://michaelwest.com.au/what-ceasefire-gaza-still-under-siege/

As Jillian Segal denied the undeniable at the Bondi Royal Commission this week, not much is changing in Gaza, and Trump’s Board of Peace stands by idly. Cathy Peters with the latest.

In a move that’s been largely unreported here, Hamas announced earlier this week that it would dissolve its governing Emergency Committee with the resignation of its acting leader.

This move has been recognised as an attempt to hasten the transfer of administrative authority to the Trump-appointed Board of Peace’s National Committee for the Management of Gaza (NCAG), a body of Palestinian technocrats, assembled and waiting in Cairo to manage public administration, security, recovery and transition throughout the Gaza Strip as part of the agreed ceasefire plan.

However, despite being established in January this year, the NCAG has not yet been given access to enter Gaza by the Board of Peace or Israel.

Trump’s controversial Board of Peace predictably dismissed Hamas’ move, stating that the NCAG is not yet in a position to take on this role while Hamas retains control of weapons. Hamas maintains that while Israel is still killing Palestinians, it will not disarm.

Nine months since the Gaza ceasefire and Trump’s 20-point peace plan of October 2025, conditions throughout the Strip have remained unlivable and deadly for Palestinians, with more than 1000 killed by Israeli forces and more than 3,500 injured.

“Parents stay awake all night in their tents to stop rats feeding on their children”

The amount of humanitarian aid is far short of what is required, and there is a trickle of medical evacuations despite some 16,500 Palestinians needing urgent medical transfer out of Gaza.

A Board of inaction

The UN Security Council supported the establishment of the Board of Peace in November last year, noting that it would be temporary and transitional, although Trump subsequently declared it would address other world conflicts beyond Gaza.

The composition of the Board of Peace Executive and the Gaza Executive Board includes a number of Trump’s leadership team, plus other Republican operatives, wealthy U.S.businessmen and real estate magnates, as well as Tony Blair.


Donald Trump – Chairman for life
Marco Rubio – U.S. Secretary of State

Jared Kushner – U.S. presidential advisor and son-in-law

Steve Witkoff – U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East

Tony Blair – Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Marc Rowan – CEO of Apollo Global Management

Ajay Banga – President of the World Bank Group

Qatar and the UAE and more Republican government appointees. Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff and former Trump campaign adviser. and Robert Gabriel, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor.

According to the UN Security Council Resolution 2803, this body has UN support to ‘set the framework and coordinate funding for the redevelopment of Gaza’ until the Palestinian Authority has ‘satisfactorily reformed’. It also authorised the Board to deploy a temporary International Stabilisation Force in Gaza; however, this has not occurred.

Israel has moved some of the anti-Hamas Palestinian militias it’s been arming and funding for three years now into the area it has occupied behind the yellow line. These various militias, led by factional gangs, drug lords and criminals, pose additional threats to Hamas disarming and the transition of power to a Palestinian-led reconstruction committee and the ultimate withdrawal of the IDF.

Yellow and orange lines

The Israeli-defined ‘yellow line ’, according to Israel’s legal NGO Gisha, pushes more than two million people into less than half of the Strip’s territory, exacerbating unbearable overcrowding that is harming public health, including outbreaks of disease and infestation of rats and other pests.

Israel’s seizure of such vast areas also prevents Gaza residents from returning to their homes and lands. Most of Gaza’s agricultural lands lie east of the Yellow Line, meaning they are within areas controlled by Israel. Continued denial of access for farmers to their lands prevents the rehabilitation of vital food sources.

From March 2025, Israel instituted the ‘orange’ line, a line that delineates almost 48% of Gaza’s land mass where any international organisations are prohibited from moving with prior coordination with Israeli authorities. Gisha reports that this orange line is now a new border that has expanded the area that Israel now directly controls.

While negotiations have stalled for 9 months on the initial implementation of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF, following on from Netanyahu’s call in May, has now occupied almost 70% of Gaza, with the yellow cement perimeter markers defining an ever-shrinking area where 2.1 million war-wounded and dispossessed Palestinians are helplessly surviving.

Remote-controlled machine guns

Everyone in Gaza is constantly monitored by drones, and now occupying the eastern perimeter of this dystopian landscape are 23 massive military cranes equipped with remote-controlled machine guns and high-tech surveillance cameras inside the Israeli IDF-defined yellow line. Gaza journalist Tamar Nahed posted this description of Israel’s latest killing apparatus,

“These cranes have turned the entire city into an open field. The latest military technologies are directed at civilians. We have become an open testing ground for their new weapons. The horror is not just in the sound… it is the constant feeling of being an exposed target at all times.”

In the first week of July, the Board of Peace declared that there was no role for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, which is a continuation of the Israeli ban on this aid organisation, which has supported Palestinians with essential humanitarian and educational aid in Gaza since 1948.

This announcement negates the Charter of the United Nations, international law principles and fundamental human rights standards.

Shelters or camps?

Despite the Board’s apparent refusal to allow the Palestinian committee of bureaucrats (NCAG) into Gaza, the Israeli news outlet Israel Hayom just reported on plans aimed at relocating Palestinian residents into barbed wire fenced designated areas. This will allow the IDF to ‘deepen its grip on areas outside of the yellow line’.

“Surviving Palestinians will be herded into fenced “humanitarian shelters” policed by foreign forces,” as reported by Israel Hayom on July 2.

Images of a camp that’s been described as a concentration camp have emerged in Tel Al-Sultan, an area near Rafah where a pilot project of ‘humanitarian shelters’ will be established. Civilians will be channelled into Tel Al-Sultan, which was a densely populated area of Rafah from which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ordered to flee in April last year.

This image of stark, freshly flattened land surrounded by barbed wire fences and covered with masses of metal box shelters and no evidence of any permanent cement structures (as directed by Israel) appears to be a horrific precursor to

“a very grim future for Palestinians in Gaza.“

It recalls Israel Defence Minister Katz’s plan of a year ago of a ‘humanitarian city’ on the ruins of Rafah, where the goal was to screen people before they were allowed to enter to ensure they were not Hamas and then refuse any exits except to third countries.

Legal immunity

The Board of Peace convened in Cyprus at the end of June for 3 days to “reset” after “the Iran war has completely shifted the attention in the last several months,” according to an official source. It sought to address the funding shortfalls, logistical delays and security challenges.

One of the more controversial draft resolutions was the Board’s plan to grant legal immunity to its members, contractors, and security forces; therefore

“shielding the whole enterprise from potential legal proceedings”.

As reported widely, human rights lawyers are highly critical of this proposal, including Palestinian American lawyer and academic, Noura Erakat, “They are basically saying there’s no external oversight, including applicable international law regarding occupation. It’s creating a legal system unto itself.”

At the same time, the IDF has reportedly called for fighting to resume as senior officers in the IDF claim that Hamas’ military wing is rebuilding. Hamas has maintained that it will only disarm under the auspices of the Palestinian NCAG and when Phase 1 of the ceasefire agreement is achieved, which includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces to agreed positions, full implementation of humanitarian measures and a complete end to Israel’s military attacks.

The nightmare on the ground in Gaza for Palestinians continues. The machinations of Trump’s Board of Peace appear to be

“stymying any chance for genuine reconstruction of Gaza“

led by Palestinians for Palestinians. The available evidence at this point is that the 1000-day-plus Israeli genocide in Gaza continues apace behind the veneer of Trump’s ‘peace’ plan and the continuing indifference of world powers.

Cathy Peters

Cathy Peters is a former ABC RN producer/executive producer and Greens councillor on the former Marrickville Council. She also worked for a state Greens MP and is a long-time advocate for Palestinian rights. In 2014, she co-founded PSNA / BDS Australia. She has Jewish heritage, has travelled and volunteered in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

July 18, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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

14 July 2026 Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.net/the-global-small-nuclear-reactor-bandwagon-is-led-by-britain-it-ought-to-fail-but-will-it/

Why on Earth does the Small Nuclear Reactor media bandwagon exist?

That’s a fair question, because it has been shown time and time again that small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are not an economically viable way to provide electricity.

I can only conclude that there are other reasons for the present juggernaut of promotion of SMRs.

You may not have noticed the blithering onslaught of media promotion of SMRs going on over the past weeks, (interestingly, in conjunction with the political demise of Sir Keir Starmer). With the dramatic events in the Persian Gulf, and in climate extremities, dominating the media, a fuss about SMRs seems a small matter.

But it is not a small matter.

The global media juggernaut for SMRs is potentially essential for the survival of the global nuclear industry. If one nation sets up a multitude of, or even a few, small nuclear reactors, that will provide the necessary respectability for the industry – to be accepted as cheap. clean. safe, and embraced by local communities.

Hooray – Britain to the rescue!.

Now, there’s extraordinary excitement in both the British and overseas media. A current example:

The High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult has launched a national consultation, to help UK industry capture the economic and industrial benefits of more than £100bn of expected investment in the country’s civil and defence nuclear programmes over the next decade. Industry, government, academia and regional partners are invited to contribute to the consultation through written submissions, stakeholder workshops and a programme of regional engagement running throughout 2026.

HVM Catapult doesn’t specifically state SMRs, but that’s where the UK media fervour is at. In a previous article, I have mentioned The Times, Telegraph, PR Newswire, Energy Live, Business Green, among the British enthusiasts. Internationally, there’s Construction News, Global Banking and Finance Review, World Nuclear News, Indux, and more.

What is new and remarkable about this UK SMR media fervour?

Well, there are two things. One is that it is all pitching the UK as the leader for the new nuclear renaissance. The other is that this will be a privately-led renaissance. Hence the importance of the “private” SGE £35bn plan for a fleet of SMRs across Britain, rather than the government supported Rolls Royce plan.

I digress here to point out that three nations have tried and failed to set up small nuclear reactors. Russia and China have each managed to develop one actually functioning small nuclear reactor. – in both cases – that took decades, and neither is working out very successfully – Russia – (Akademik Lomonosov floating NPP) and China (HTR-PM high temperature gas cooled reactor). The USA nearly got one happening – The Rise and Fall of NuScale: a nuclear cautionary tale.

So – at last it’s all going to happen ! And the UK is the leader – hip hip hooray! Except that the UK’s biggest SMR promoter, PM Keir Starmer is about to bow out at any moment. The policies of the heir apparent, Andy Burnham, are curiously unknown. He’s got a respectably Leftie background in supporting nuclear veterans, but I couldn’t find anything on his nuclear industry views. And, I’m inclined to think that he, or any new UK Prime Minister, would not be able to withstand the pressure of the cavalcade of vested interests in the nuclear industry. Those vested interests include not only all the UK and global stakeholders in the industry’s supply chain, but the fawning corporate media and the financially dependent universities.

There are some strong voices that speak out against this smr folly. Phil Johnstone and Andy Stirling of the University of Sussex have given a powerful condemnation of this SMR push – The hidden military pressures behind the new push for small nuclear reactors.

The nuclear industry was inaugurated in the early 1940s, specifically for creating an atomic bomb. That has continued to be its purpose for nearly a century, and it its sole real purpose today. Commercial “peaceful” nuclear power was set up as a temporarily successful fig leaf over that truly inhuman purpose. Temporarily successful, because it did provide efficient and seemingly cheap, seemingly clean, seemingly safe electricity for millions of people. We now know that not only are there long term costs – financial, environmental, health and safety costs – but that new big nuclear reactors are monumentally unaffordable.

In this 21st Century – how to make this industry look peaceful, clean, safe, and attractive to bright young career-oriented people? Well if that’s now an impossible task for dirty great Big nuclear reactors, how about a plethora of Small fig-leaves – Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.?

There may be a continued media deluge about UK’s golden SMR future, as promised by the dear soon-to- be-departed Starmer. But I doubt that there will be a deluge of investors keen to get on board the juggernaut. One saving grace of our capitalist society is that our financial writers tend to tell the truth about investment prospects. They might save the UK from this SMR folly. Then the nuclear lobby will have to really ramp up the war-mongering fever that already exists.

July 14, 2026 Posted by | Christina reviews | Leave a comment

Starting from scratch on nuclear in Australia would take longer, cost more than first-time offshore wind

Sophie Vorrath, Jul 13, 2026, https://reneweconomy.com.au/starting-from-scratch-on-nuclear-in-australia-would-take-longer-cost-more-than-first-time-offshore-wind/

Building nuclear for the first time in Australia would take longer and cost more than building offshore wind for the first time in Australia, according to modelling by Australia’s premier science agency that once again rules out nuclear power from any and all cost-efficient scenarios for a net zero grid. 

CSIRO each year delivers an annual GenCost report, a collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator that provides an “objective benchmark” on the costs of electricity generation, storage and hydrogen production technologies, to guide policy.

Last week, the chief economist at CSIRO’s Energy Research unit and the lead author of GenCost report, Paul Graham, discussed the findings of the draft report for 2025-26 to the Australian Wind Energy conference in Melbourne, ahead of the release of the final report, due this quarter.

So far in Australia’s journey to net zero emissions by 2050, the electricity sector has done the vast bulk of the heavy lifting on decarbonisation, as solar and wind firmed by storage supply close to half of the generation mix of the National Electricity Market (NEM).

Power plants critical to the country’s electricity production use river water to cool their reactors, which heats the water that is then released back into the river.

The job from here will be tougher, as the last of Australia’s coal fleet is ushered out. The job of the GenCost team at CSIRO is to work out what sort of contribution the electricity sector can continue to make to emissions reduction while still keeping costs as efficient as possible.

“What that means, in effect, is that the electricity sector should do enough abatement so that it doesn’t cost any more than abatement anywhere else in the economy, and to determine that, we can use scenario analysis,” Graham told the conference on Wednesday last week. 

CSIRO’s draft GenCost modelling continues to find that a combination of wind and solar with firming technologies is the best way forward on both costs and emissions reductions.

On the flip-side, Graham also shared some of the numbers on where “first-of-a-kind” technologies landed in the modelling.

The below slide [on original] compares the construction times and cost premiums of a range of technologies not yet built at scale in Australia, before, including gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS), black coal with CCS, nuclear small modular reactor, nuclear large-scale, solar thermal and offshore wind.

It’s a timely reminder of why the federal Coalition’s nuclear focused campaign was such a disaster for the party at the 2025 election, and yet remains the favoured energy policy path for the LNP at the same time as it promises to deliver cheaper electricity while also putting the brakes on renewables.

As Graham told the conference, the numbers still well and truly rule out nuclear, while leaving offshore wind still “in the pocket” as a potential part of Australia’s future generation mix.

“All these technologies on the left, on the left there of that table, we’ve never really built at scale in Australia before,” Graham told the conference. 

“We have to expect that there’s going to be some sort of premium associated with delivering first project and probably the second project. We tried to work through what we think that premium could be, based on this global analysis that will support projects and how they’ve fared. 

“The highest premium seems to be associated with projects that take longer to build, and nuclear … takes the longest, so it’s at least six years, probably eight years. Six years is probably best case scenario, just for the construction stage.

“The data says that those sorts of [nuclear] projects where the first time the country tries to build them, generally costs at least 100% more than the international best practice,” he told the conference.

“And so we’ve got assumptions about what these first of a kind costs will be after we’ve developed the first few projects we can then assume that the workforce is able to build these close to the world best practice and then we can build things at lower cost after that.

“So when we model these different emission intensity targets and we allow for the model to build, either with mature technologies like onshore wind and solar, or onshore wind and solar plus some of these first-of-a-kind projects, then what this shows is the generation mix that the model says is least cost.

“And what that looks like from a cost perspective is that the mature technology scenario is the lowest-cost scenario. It is a bit more expensive to have offshore wind and CCS, and but not too much more, but the most expensive in each case is nuclear,” Graham said.

“The modelling didn’t want to build … particularly a lot of CCS or nuclear, because it’s quite significantly higher than the cost we need to get to net zero, so adding those technologies would only increase the cost of getting to net zero.

“As offshore wind goes, it’s in the pocket. Potentially it would be better if the costs were at the lower end of the range … but we certainly can’t rule out, we certainly wouldn’t say that offshore wind is necessarily in or out, it just depends on where we land on that on that cost uncertainty range.”

July 14, 2026 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

From colonial forts to nuclear submarines, Australia’s response to distant conflicts reveals a recurring pattern that continues to shape its defence strategy, writes Professor Vince Hooper.

By Vince Hooper | 13 July 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/from-crimea-to-aukus-how-distant-wars-reshape-australia,21293

IN THE EARLY MONTHS of 1854, as news of Britain’s entry into the Crimean War reached the Australian colonies, an extraordinary panic took hold.

Newspapers debated, in full seriousness, whether Russia would attack Sydney or Melbourne, whether the objective would be occupation or merely the seizure of gold from colonial banks. Fort Denison was commissioned on Pinchgut Island in Sydney Harbour. Victoria passed legislation to establish a Volunteer Corps of up to 2,000 men. A war fought thousands of miles away over a peninsula in the Black Sea was catalysing Australia’s first independent military capability.

The panic did not end with the peace. In 1863, the Russian corvette Bogatyr, flagship of the Pacific squadron under Rear Admiral Popov, sailed into Melbourne undetected. More than 8,000 Melburnians visited the ship during a goodwill tour.

After the corvette departed, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the crew had been surveying the coastal fortifications of Port Jackson and Botany Bay. The revelation deepened the following year when a Polish officer who had deserted from the Bogatyr disclosed that Popov had received orders to attack British naval targets near Australian shores in the event of war.

Russian invasion scares recurred in 1870, when the corvette Boyarin appeared at Hobart; again in 1882, when three Russian warships entered Melbourne and in 1885, when Bare Island Fort stood guard over Botany Bay. For three decades, Crimea’s aftershock kept reshaping Australian defence thinking.

That a war triggered by a dispute over the custody of holy sites in the Holy Land could produce this cascade of consequences at the furthest edge of the British Empire is the analytical point. Australia’s strategic environment is not normally distributed. It is characterised by long periods of apparent stability punctuated by sharp, regime-changing shocks from quarters no plausible risk model would have flagged.

The original Crimean War also embedded its human residue in the colonial landscape. After hostilities ended, the British Government actively encouraged veterans to migrate, investigating New South Wales and Tasmania as suitable destinations. In Western Australia, Crimean veterans populated the pensioner guard force and the broader settler community.

Two Victoria Cross recipients of the 77th Regiment, Sergeant John Park and Private Alexander Wright, received their awards in Sydney.

Russian trophy guns arrived in Adelaide in 1859 and were fired to mark the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit in 1867. Suburbs named after Crimean battles, Balaclava in Melbourne, Sebastopol near Ballarat, Alma and Inkerman across New South Wales and Victoria, wrote the war into the geography that Australians still walk through daily.

Fast forward 160 years and the pattern repeats with unsettling fidelity. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 might have remained a European affair in Australian strategic consciousness. The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014, killing 298 people, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, ensured it did not.

The Abbott Government imposed sanctions, co-sponsored the UN Security Council resolution and pursued accountability through international courts. Abbott publicly vowed to “shirtfront” Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Brisbane G20 just months later, an Australian Rules football term for a front-on collision. The register was antipodean. The underlying dynamic, a distant Crimean event triggering a visceral response at the periphery, was not.

A decade on, the aftershock continues to propagate. In May 2025, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council found Russia responsible under international law for the downing of MH17. Russia appealed; Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the response “deplorable”. The 2014 trigger, like the 1854 trigger before it, has not finished reverberating.

The objection writes itself: MH17 was contingent. A plane happened to be in the wrong airspace. That is not a structural transmission mechanism; it is bad luck. But this objection misunderstands what “fat tails” mean. The whole point of heavy-tailed distributions is that the specific trigger is unpredictable while the class of events is not.

Nobody in 1854 predicted that a dispute over church keys in the Holy Land would catalyse Australian volunteer militias. Nobody in 1863 predicted that a Polish deserter from a Russian corvette would reveal contingency plans to raid Melbourne. Nobody in 2014 predicted that a Buk missile in Donetsk would kill 38 Australians in a sunflower field.

The triggers were contingent. The vulnerability, a peripheral state deeply integrated into alliance networks but geographically remote from their theatres, was structural. Fat tails do not require predictable triggers. They require structural exposure to extreme events.

Russia’s broader invasion of Ukraine in 2022 confirmed the pattern rather than creating it. AUKUS, announced in September 2021, predated the invasion, but the war validated its logic. Le Chatelier’s principle holds that an external shock to equilibrium triggers a compensating response. In 1854, that response was a volunteer corps: modest, reversible, low commitment.

Nuclear-powered submarines, serviced at Plymouth’s Devonport dockyard, are none of those things. The Plymouth connection closes a circle: one of the handful of Australian colonists to fight in the original Crimean War was Spicer Cookworthy, a subaltern in the First Regiment of Foot, bearing the surname of that city’s most famous son, William Cookworthy, the Quaker who discovered china clay in Cornwall and founded the Plymouth porcelain works.

The colonies of the 1850s built forts and raised volunteers. Australia of the 2020s is acquiring nuclear submarines and reorienting its entire defence procurement architecture. The scale has changed, but the mechanism, the propagation of distant shocks through alliance networks to force option exercise at the periphery, has not.

Policymakers who assume mean reversion, or price Australian security using a normal distribution, will be caught out by the next Crimean shock. They always are.

July 14, 2026 Posted by | history | Leave a comment

The definitely unofficial nuclear news for the week ending 11 July

Theme of the week –  Nuclear frenzy over Small Nuclear Reactors for UK –  too good to be true?

Some bits of good news –    Scientists hailed the world’s ‘greatest forest recovery’.       Blue and fin whales are returning to seas that whaling emptied. 

Ugandan Coffee Growers Shrug Off Drought Thanks to Regenerative Agriculture

  Can provocative climate messaging on OnlyFans cut through social media’s noise?


TOP STORIES.
 Here’s why Labour’s nuclear plans are wrong for Scotland – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/11/2-a-heres-why-labours-nuclear-plans-are-wrong-for-scotland/.

NATO vassals buy Trump ‘unity’ with $160 billion bribe. 

NATO IS FAILING UKRAINE. 

Flatteries and falsehoods – A multi-million dollar PR campaign can’t hide nuclear power’s ugly truth. 

Trump Sweetens the Nuclear Energy Pot, But Will Anyone Play?.

Climate. The cities most at risk from extreme heat, ranked.                 The Heat Is the Story—Climate Change Is the Cause. If this is Climate Change, then bring it on!’ (NOT!)

Noel’s notes. As UK’s Prime Minister fades away, will his beloved Small Nuclear Reactor dream fade too?

AUSTRALIA.

  More Australian news at https://antinuclear.net/2026/07/08/australian-nuclear-related-news-week-to-11-july/

Cooperation yes, uranium no: planned uranium sales to India would facilitate certain nuclear waste and risk and possible nuclear weapons. 

Former WA health chief warns AUKUS inquiry of ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’  

23 July Nuclear Weapons Survivors film screening – Adelaide!   

Vile abuse, targeted by Murdoch – The cost of speaking out against Israel. 

NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS

ATROCITIES. The Zionist Plan for a Concentration Camp in Gaza. 
CLIMATE. Scottish climate campaigners condemn new nuclear power plans.ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/09/2-b1-scottish-climate-campaigners-condemn-new-nuclear-power-plans/

ECONOMICS.


EDUCATION.University of Manchester and United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) sign landmark nuclear partnership agreement. 

ENERGY. The clear winner of Trump’s war in the Middle East is… China, says new report. £8.2bn Scottish datacentre development running out of steam? 
ENVIRONMENT. Stirling nuclear site plan mooted in new report as politicians hit out -PICTURE We’re being asked to save two buckets of water a day.- meanwhile data centres drink a town’s worth 
EVENTS. July 16 – 19H BST ATOMIC TIES Webinar!! PICTURE 19 July Livestream – A WORLD WITHOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS
HISTORY. Why Israel fears a US-Iran Deal far more than Conflict. 
INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Ainu land rights in crosshairs as Hokkaido communities debate nuclear waste. 
LEGAL. Plaintiffs Demand Release of Critical Documents and Extension of Public Comment Period on Expanded Plutonium Bomb Core Production. 
MEDIA. Francesca Albanese: “The World Is Not Sleeping—It Is Looking Away”. 

POLITICS.

POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Zelensky honoring Ukrainian WWII fighters who massacred Poles and Jews not a good way to get Polish help in lost war against Russia. Deferring a Crisis: The Iran-US Ceasefire Cracks. As in Gaza, the Israel-Lebanon ‘peace’ agreement is designed to fail 

RADIATION. Changes to radiation protection in the USA -could have been worse but are still bad 
SAFETY. Extensions to improvement notices following asbestos shortfalls at Torness. Sizewell B nuclear power plant granted a 20-year life extension. 
SECRETS and LIES. Revealed: Cleaning up: Ukrainian Woman suspected of Monaco bombing found shot dead near Kyiv. Labour minister dodges question on SNP Government and UK nuclear plans – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/11/2-b1-labour-minister-dodges-question-on-snp-government-and-uk-nuclear-plans/ landmark Scottish AI project has no prospect of meeting renewables promise. GBE-N ‘doesn’t hold’ breakdown of proposed £20bn budget for SMR contract. 
SPACE. SpaceX just launched the 1st-ever nuclear-powered commercial satellite. We condemn the attempted offshore rocket launch by the military, Hanwha, and the Jeju Provincial Government!. 
SPINBUSTER. The Patriot Trap.
TECHNOLOGY. Agreement could see Odin prototype microreactor built at Berkeley. New images reveal details about Last Energy’s Welsh micro reactor plans. 
WASTES. Spent fuel emerges as weak point in Japan’s nuclear renaissance.. Japan begins 21st release of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into ocean. 
WAR and CONFLICT. U.S. launches ‘powerful strikes’ on Iran after tanker attacks in Strait of Hormuz. Gaza’s 1000-Day Siege: A Catastrophic Humanitarian Collapse Across Health, Food, and Human Life. Israel isn’t leaving Lebanon and Syria may be next. As America Celebrates 250 Years, More U.S. Troops Are Refusing to Fight. 
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Cut the Pentagon, Save the Planet: The $1.5 Trillion Climate Solution We Can’t Ignore. Trump Says He Supports Ukraine’s Long-Range Attacks Inside Russia, Will Allow Ukraine To Produce Patriot Missiles. The hypersonic hypocrisy of Pacific nuclear politics. Hawaii Bearing Huge Brunt of U.S. Military Buildup Directed Against China. As Hawaii Hosts International War Games, Residents Question Costs of Militarism. 

July 14, 2026 Posted by | Weekly Newsletter | Leave a comment

The hypersonic hypocrisy of Pacific nuclear politics

Jeremy Rose.https://pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/07/the-hypersonic-hypocrisy-of-pacific-nuclear-politics/?utm_source=pi_news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-2026-07-08

Australia and New Zealand rightly criticise China’s nuclear-capable missile tests in the Pacific. Their silence on repeated US tests exposes a glaring double standard.

In March, the US launched a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from the Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Travelling at speeds of more than 24,000 kilometres an hour, it landed near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands 6,700 kilometres away 24 minutes later.

Minuteman III missiles can deliver up to three separate nuclear warheads, each more than 20 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

On 3 March, 2025, the Marshall Islands formally announced its intention to join the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone by signing the Treaty of Rarotonga.

Searches of the NZ Herald and Stuff websites for stories about the missile test, and the signing of the treaty come up empty.

And yet, on Tuesday, both the NZ Herald and The Post led with news that China had test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in the Pacific. Neither report made any mention of the 15 ballistic missile tests fired into the Pacific by the USA since 2021.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong, were both quoted as saying the Chinese missile test went against the intent of the Treaty of Rarotonga.

“The Pacific Islands Forum leaders have made clear that they want the Pacific to be an ocean of peace. We believe this test is inconsistent with that objective,” Wong said.

Wong isn’t wrong.

In 2024, Kiribati publicly criticised an earlier test of a Minuteman III missile that also landed in the Ronald Reagan Space and Missile Test Range located near the Kwajalein Atoll. As the name suggests, the tests are a regular occurrence.

A statement from the President’s office, reported by RNZ, said Kiribati objected equally to China and the US using the South Pacific for test-firing nuclear-capable missiles.

“Kiribati continues to advocate for the cessation of weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean and urges global cooperation to ensure the peace, security, and stability of our shared environment. We remain committed to protecting the peaceful future of the Pacific and safeguarding the well-being of future generations.”

It’s a thought – almost – echoed by Winston Peters in his response to the Chinese test: “This missile was fired into the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone established by the Treaty of Rarotonga. China’s action goes against the object and intent of that Treaty.”

You’ll search long and hard to find any similar criticism of the US missile tests by Ministers Peters and Wong. That’s despite the people of the Marshall Islands themselves and the leaders of neighbouring countries making it clear any testing of ballistic missiles in the Pacific goes against the spirit of the Treaty of Rarotonga.

The Chinese missile test is widely being reported as a response to Australia and Fiji’s signing of the Ocean of Peace Alliance the previous day.

Without confirmation from China, it’s impossible to know for certain, but it seems likely that the alliance – which New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has expressed interest in signing up to – is seen as a ratcheting up of military tensions in the South Pacific.

When it comes to the “object and intent” of the Treaty of Rarotonga, mentioned by Peters, few if any of the signatories would have countenanced one of their members purchasing nuclear-powered submarines.

But in 2023, Australia announced it was doing just that with the planned purchase of three nuclear submarines at an estimated cost of more than A$300 billion (about 15 times the combined GDP of the Forum countries excluding New Zealand and Australia).

Shortly after the announcement, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Damukana Sogavare told the UN General Assembly that his nation “would like to keep our region nuclear-free and put the region’s nuclear legacy behind us… We do not support any form of militarisation in our region that could threaten regional and international peace and stability.”

The legacy Sogavare mentions is nowhere felt more keenly than the Marshall Islands, where the US carried out 67 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1946 and 1956, resulting in sky-high rates of thyroid cancer.

The US has paid out just US$150 million in compensation despite the internationally mandated Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal having awarded over US$2 billion in personal injury and property claims.

A survey by the Asia New Zealand Foundation earlier this year found that just 23 per cent of New Zealanders viewed China as a threat, compared to 35 per cent who saw the US as one.

The US has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads with 1,700 actively deployed; China has 620 with 34 deployed.

China has a long-standing policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, while the US refuses to rule it out.

When our leaders claim to be supporting Pacific countries in their commitment to a nuclear-free Pacific by rightly criticising China’s missile tests while steadfastly refusing to criticise the USA’s regular testing of intercontinental nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, they’re indulging in hypersonic hypocrisy.

July 12, 2026 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

23 July Nuclear Weapons Survivors film screening – Adelaide! 

ICAN Australia is honoured to be bringing the Australian premiere of the award-winning documentary ‘Our Planet, The People, My Blood’, a powerful documentary about the global legacy of nuclear testing, to Adelaide this month!

We are thrilled and lucky to be joined by UK film director Daniel Everitt-Lock, as well as The Hon Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Plus more speakers to be announced!

Australian Premiere: ‘Our Planet, The People, My Blood’ documentary
Thu, 23 Jul, 10am – 12pm ACST
The Mercury
13 Morphett St, Adelaide SA 5000

Link to register and more information here.

Tickets are free – but registration essential. Numbers strictly limited to venue capacity.

This documentary follows Alan Owen, descendant of an Atomic Soldier, as he fights for nuclear testing victims’ rights worldwide. Following his journey through global accounts, he challenges the UK Ministry of Defence in a landmark case seeking recognition and features testimony from communities. The film also includes other nuclear survivors, including Jeremy Lebois from Oak Valley, near Maralinga, South Australia.

This event coincides with the ALP National Conference, So please share this widely with your civil society and MP networks, both in Adelaide and whose who may be visiting Adelaide for ALP proceedings. 

July 11, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Cooperation yes, uranium no: planned uranium sales to India would facilitate certain nuclear waste and risk and possible nuclear weapons


Dave Sweeney | Nuclear Free Campaigner, Australian Conservation Foundation | www.acf.org.au, 9 July 26

In response to news of a major uranium deal between Australia and India, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Dave Sweeney said:

“There are serious and unresolved concerns about plans to elevate Australian uranium sales to India.

“For more than a decade there has been a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India but regulatory concerns have constrained exports.

“A Joint Standing Committee on Treaties examination of the deal in September 2015 recommended a series of clear steps occur before any Australian uranium was supplied to India.

“It said important changes and checks and balances were needed, including independent review of India’s nuclear regulatory regime, improved safety standards, the full separation of India’s military and civil nuclear facilities, improved nuclear decommissioning planning and comprehensive on-site inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“These concerns remain relevant today. There are compelling reasons for Australia not to send uranium to India.

“Australian uranium would fuel radioactive risk and waste and potentially allow the diversion of domestic uranium reserves to fuel India’s nuclear weapons program in an already tense region.

Some in the Indian government basically have admitted as much, including the former head of New Delhi’s official National Security Advisory Board, K. Subrahmanyam who outlined to the Times of India that given ‘India’s uranium ore crunch, it is to India’s advantage to categorize as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to be refuelled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapon-grade plutonium production’.

“Australia regularly cites the importance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, yet India – a nuclear weapons state – is not a signatory to the NPT. 

“Australia should not facilitate atomic exceptionalism or risk in the region.

“Like Australia, India’s energy future is renewable, not radioactive. That is the policy area that the Australia and Indian prime ministers should be preferencing”.

July 11, 2026 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Vile abuse, targeted by Murdoch – The cost of speaking out against Israel

by Stephanie Tran | Jul 2, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/hitlers-jew-judenrat-kapo-the-cost-of-speaking-out-against-israel/

Executive Director of the Jewish Council of Australia, Sarah Schwartz, has told the Bondi Royal Commission of sustained abuse by pro-Israel activists. Stephanie Tran reports.

Giving evidence on Thursday, Sarah Schwartz, a human rights lawyer, said attacks from pro-Israel groups sought to delegitimise Jewish people who criticise Israel.

“They rest on the idea that Jewish identity is inherently tied to Israel, and therefore Jewish people who don’t support Israel or who criticise Israel are not really Jewish and are traitors,” she told the Commission.


Schwartz said she had been referred to as a “self-hating Jew”, “Hitler’s Jew”, “kapo” and “Judenrat”, and had been depicted using Holocaust imagery, including “on a train to concentration camps” and with the yellow Star of David imposed on Jews under Nazi rule.

Holocaust weaponised

She said the atrocities of the Holocaust were a motivation for her Palestine solidarity work and the weaponisation by pro-Israel accounts of Holocaust imagery was “incredibly disturbing”.


“I was taught that never again meant never again for anyone, and that’s why I do the work that I do,” Schwartz said.

“To have the symbols of the Holocaust and Nazi imagery and Jewish persecution used against me has been incredibly disturbing and distressing, and I think it

Schwartz said the stereotype that all Jewish people are politically aligned with Israel “causes immense harm”.

“I speak … almost every day to Jewish people who contact me and who are terrified of speaking out, because they know that if they speak their political convictions, they face the risk of a similar sort of abuse and vilification and targeting that I have experienced.”

Murdoch media coverage fuelled abuse

Schwartz told the commission that reporting by The Australian undermined her safety and ultimately led her to abandon a police application intended to protect her from ongoing harassment.

She recounted an incident in March 2025 after police applied for a personal safety intervention order (PSIO) on her behalf against lawyer Zara Cooper, who targeted Schwartz on Instagram under the pseudonym “@clammy_fraud”.

Schwartz said she first learned of the application through a journalist from The Australian, who contacted her to say the newspaper was preparing a story.

“I informed him I hadn’t been informed of the nature of the PSIO,” she said.

“When I asked him if he could provide me with a copy, he said he couldn’t provide me with a copy … because I didn’t know its contents, I also couldn’t really respond to a lot of it, because it was a police application.”

Schwartz said the following day’s front-page article incorrectly suggested she, rather than police, had initiated the proceedings in an attempt to suppress free speech.

Free speech for me, not for thee

he told the Commission that The Australian subsequently published further articles about the case, including reproducing images and slurs that formed part of the material relied upon by police in seeking the intervention order.

“What was most distressing to me is The Australian chose to republish some of the offensive imagery that was the basis on which police applied for the PSIO,” she said.

“[The Australian] republished content that took my image and placed it on a train to concentration camps, content calling me a kapo and other various slurs.”

Schwartz said the coverage convinced her that pursuing legal protection would expose her to further public attention and place her at greater risk.

“It became very clear to me after that coverage that this was becoming a media circus,” she said.

“Having reported these matters to police … was actually something that was

“going to make me less safe because of the media coverage.”

She subsequently told police she no longer wished to proceed with the intervention order, and the application was withdrawn. She has since been reluctant to report further incidents because she fears doing so would attract similar publicity.

“It’s become very clear to me that, because of the media interest in me as a person, but particularly because of News Corp’s targeting of me, it’s not going to be safe for me to engage in reporting,” she said.

She also expressed concern that republishing the abusive material normalised antisemitic attacks against Jewish critics of Israel.

“I think that media reporting really normalises the use of these terms against other Jewish people … people see that coverage and think that it is legitimate to call a Jewish person Nazi-aligned or to place our face on a train to concentration camps.”


Being Pro-Palestine is not antisemitism

Schwartz dispelled suggestions that pro-Palestinian activism is a significant driver of antisemitism, stating that, despite attempts to portray Palestine solidarity spaces as hostile to Jews, that had not reflected her own experience.

“I know that there is a lot of public discourse … that suggests that human rights spaces and Palestine solidarity spaces, in particular, are spaces that might be hostile to Jewish people,” she said.

“That hasn’t been my experience at all.”

Instead, Schwartz said she had received “many messages of support and clear condemnations of antisemitism” from Muslim colleagues following the Bondi terror attack.

Government response

Schwartz criticised the government’s responses to antisemitism, which have disproportionately focused on the Palestine solidarity movement, including the banning of protest slogans.

“I think that government responses, which locate the source of anti-Semitism within the Palestine solidarity movement, suggest for Jewish people who are also part of that movement that either we’re not really Jewish or that we are somehow against Jewish people in our own communities.”

Asked what measures would most effectively combat antisemitism, Schwartz said governments should prioritise addressing far-right extremism and

“It’s really important for us to take the threat of far-right extremism really seriously … we know that it’s rising and it’s becoming more mainstream,” she said.

“It is critically important that governments and institutions don’t adopt policies in response to antisemitism that engage in that form of conflation itself that suggests that antisemitism is coming from the Palestine solidarity movement.”

She also called for progressive Jewish organisations to be included in policymaking on antisemitism.

“It’s really important that organisations such as the Jewish Council and other progressive Jewish organizations actually have a seat at the table” she said.

“It shows the broader community that

“the Jewish community, like every community, has a diversity of opinions.”

July 11, 2026 Posted by | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Australian uranium to supercharge Indian nuclear power surge in breakthrough deal

Matthew Knott, July 8, 2026

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi are set to strike a breakthrough deal to unleash a surge of Australian uranium exports to India, ending more than a decade of delays since the nations signed a historic nuclear co-operation pact.

Modi, one of the world’s most powerful leaders, was scheduled to arrive in Melbourne on Wednesday night for meetings with Albanese on Thursday and what is set to be a raucous rally at Marvel Stadium where Modi will be cheered by 30,000 members of the Indian-Australian community.

Sources familiar with the planning of the visit said the leaders were expected to sign a long-awaited commercial uranium supply agreement, as flagged by this masthead in June, alongside pacts on critical minerals and defence co-operation.

Albanese told reporters on Wednesday he would have more to say about uranium exports to India in the coming days, as he flagged that he and Modi would make “a range of announcements” during the visit.

Australia and India signed a nuclear co-operation pact in 2014 which was controversial at the time, including within the Labor Party, because India has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.


Modi wants Australia’s uranium to power India’s data centre boom

There have been only negligible uranium shipments over the past 12 years due to technical and regulatory barriers in India.

Changes to Indian safeguards have now paved the way for significant quantities of uranium to be exported for peaceful purposes.

India is planning a massive increase in nuclear power capacity to help reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and power the boom in data centres linked to artificial intelligence.

Major tech companies such as Google, Meta and Amazon are pumping billions of dollars into data centres in India, the world’s most populous nation with 1.47 billion people.

India has set an ambitious target to have 100GW of nuclear power capacity by 2047, 10 times greater than current levels.

The state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation Of India has said the country planned to add 18 more nuclear reactors to its energy mix by 2032.

Sources in the resources sector, who were not authorised to speak publicly, said Australian uranium companies were eager to seize opportunities to export to India and were willing to expand their operations if necessary.

Australia has the world’s largest uranium reserves – almost a third of the global total – according to the World Nuclear Association, but is only the world’s fourth-largest producer.

Uranium mining is banned in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said during a meeting with Foreign Minister Penny Wong in May: “On the energy side, we have energy trade, we are looking to expand that as well into the uranium supplies.

“Our own nuclear sector has undergone reform, which will grow nuclear energy.”

Albanese described Modi as “the boss” during a stadium rally in Sydney during his last visit in 2023, prompting concerns from human rights advocates that he had not spoken out about discrimination towards minorities and democratic backsliding in India under Modi’s watch.

Pranav Aggarwal, from the Australia-India Foundation, said members of the Indian diaspora were travelling from Perth, Darwin, Auckland and Tasmania to attend the stadium rally in Melbourne.

Albanese will also speak at the event.

July 10, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Former WA health chief warns AUKUS inquiry of ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’

A former Western Australian public health chief has warned the AUKUS inquiry that there is a ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’, arguing there is no safety plan to protect Perth communities in the event of a major nuclear accident at naval base HMAS Stirling.

By Tegan George,Tue 30 Jun 2026, https://thepoint.com.au/new/260630-former-wa-health-chief-warns-aukus-inquiry-of-nuclear-disaster-waiting-to-happen

A former Western Australian public health chief has warned the AUKUS inquiry that there is a ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’, arguing there is no safety plan to protect Perth communities in the event of a major nuclear accident at naval base HMAS Stirling.

Dr Colin Hughes, the former head of Public Health in Perth, told the independent inquiry that governments had failed to adequately prepare for the possibility of a nuclear accident involving visiting or serviced submarines.

“There is actually no nuclear safety plan for Rockingham, Kwinana, or the people of Fremantle and Perth in the case of a major nuclear catastrophe,” he said.

Dr Hughes described a worst-case scenario involving a major incident at a submarine servicing facility, triggering explosions, fires, radiation leaks and mass evacuations across Perth’s southern suburbs.

“Concrete slabs are scattered across access roads, twisted steel hangs from shattered structures,” he said.

“Sections of the reactor building are simply gone. Fires burn in dozens of locations.

He said emergency responders would be confronted by an “invisible threat”.

“Radiation cannot be seen. It has no smell, no colour, no warning.

“Radiation alarms on emergency vehicles begin sounding, and some responders stare at the readings, unsure whether the instruments are malfunctioning.

“Commanders quickly realise this is not a normal fire.”

Dr Hughes said the scenario had been developed with the assistance of ChatGPT and was based on historical nuclear disasters, including Chernobyl and Fukushima.

“The precautionary principle in medicine is always to take the worst-case scenario and to say, ‘we need to be able to plan for it and prevent it’,” he told the inquiry.

Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia will purchase three second-hand Virginia-class submarines from the United States, with deliveries expected from the early 2030s.

Dr Hughes argued governments needed to answer some fundamental questions before moving ahead with the trilateral security pact.

“Where is the hazard equipment for our first responders to be able to go down there and extract people who have been injured? And where do they go? What are the hospital facilities?” he asked.

“Where’s the map that says this childcare centre, that kindergarten, that school, that aged care centre — how many people are there? Where are they going to go, and how are we going to do it?

“Because that is what we need to know as a population.”

Commissioner Dr Carmen Lawrence, a former WA Premier, said comparisons with overseas nuclear submarine bases highlighted how little information was available to communities living near HMAS Stirling.

“I’ve had a good look at some of the material that exists in the UK and the US, in communities that are home bases for nuclear-powered vessels and, in some cases, nuclear-armed vessels,” she said.

“And I have to say on the basis of that comparison we’re not doing very well at this stage in terms of informing our population, let alone first responders.”

Dr Hughes told the hearing that Western Australia had navigated the COVID-19 pandemic successfully because the state had ‘listened to the science’.

‘We saved over 10,000 lives because government listened to health professionals,’ he said.

“But they’re not listening now. They’re ignoring the fact that we have a nuclear disaster waiting to happen.”

Commissioner Lawrence acknowledged that while the chance of an accident may be ‘low probability’, the consequences would be ‘high impact’.

Dr Hughes also raised concerns about the potential long-term health impacts of radiation exposure, citing studies that showed “people who serve on the submarine are 30 per cent more likely to develop cancers of various kinds.”

He argued governments needed to assess the risks associated with accidents, terrorism and military conflict and ensure communities were prepared.

“My plea is, please, if you are going to continue with this madness, at least tell the people of Rockingham and Kwinana how they are going to escape or protect themselves from a nuclear disaster waiting to happen,” he said.

July 9, 2026 Posted by | safety | Leave a comment

Australian nuclear-related news -week to 11 July

Australian news -week to 11 July

July 8, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Liberal frontbencher gorges on nuclear freebies

Rear Window, Hannah Wootton, Jul 7, 2026

You’d think visiting Europe in its latest heatwave would convince anyone of the sun’s power. But when Charles
Kiefel is paying your airfare, nuclear still beats solar.

Hannah Wootton, Jul 7, 2026 –If there’s one thing opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan loves more than
nuclear power, it’s a free “study tour”. Especially if it involves the uranium sector’s
biggest cheerleader Charles Kiefel.
In mid-June, Tehan headed to London, Oslo and Munich for “high-level discussions around energy, industry and defence policy”. His economy flights, accommodation and meals were all covered by energy business groups the Svalbard Group and Just Transition Institute.

But Tehan also got a business-class airfare from Munich back to Melbourne paidfor by Kiefel, the “former director of the Clean Energy Regulator”, according to his
parliamentary register of interests. Funny how Kiefel’s title doesn’t mention the businessman is a proponent of exporting uranium to the US. Or that he funded a separate “study tour” for Tehan to the US last September to look at nuclear
reactors.
But flying economy all the way back from Europe is a Europe is a gruelling ask for a man such as Tehan, who is carrying the burden of an atomic future. And Kiefel is certainly a fan of gifting him the finer things in life.
The US trip included putting Tehan up in Washington DC’s luxury Hay-Adams Hotel. It overlooks Lafayette Square and charges $1800-a-night. The stay wasrevealed by this column [https://www.afr.com/rear-window/senior-liberal-s-luxury-hotel-tv-gaffe-20250909-p5mtp6], when Tehan beamed into a Sky News interview from his hotel room and forgot to turn off the TV screen with the hotel’s branding in the background.

The investment has been worth it for Kiefel. Tehan’s fervent commitment to nuclear [https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/why-i-believe-the-liberal-party-must- reset-its-climate-playbook-20251105-p5n7wa] only increased following the US trip. No wonder the anti-nuclear brigade went feral over it.

He’s secured a lasting loyalty, too. Just four days before Tehan jetted off for the June trip, he penned an opinion piece for his own website accusing “Labor’s energy luddites” of “dragging Australia into the Dark Ages”.

The evidence for all this? “What American officials told me
[https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/nuclear-energy-not-done-with-yet-say-liberals-20250908- p5mt72], repeatedly, when I visited” last year. Oh Danny Boy, at least pretend you came up with your opinions independent of multimillionaire backers.

He even referenced conversations with Singaporeans on that trip who told him how their government was looking into new nuclear technologies. “Singapore, a city-state with no natural resources, is preparing seriously. What exactly is our
excuse?” Could it be the abundant sources of non-nuclear energy?

The June trip presumably offered a new source for Tehan to cite. It included site visits to universities and meetings with executives from BP, Shell, and Vitol. As for the “defence policy” part of his discussions, Tehan visited an Oxfordshire facility which is “home of the UK’s civil and military nuclear science developments” and met with “companies involved in defence” in Norway. Plus the Norwegian energy and defence ministers. Reassuring stuff.

Tehan told us he took the trip as “any opportunity to get access to senior government ministers when you’re in opposition is too good an opportunity to pass, especially when it doesn’t cost the taxpayer a cent”.

The Coalition promises an independent, self-reliant energy future. A shame that the same can’t be said of Tehan’s policy positions or travel plans.

July 8, 2026 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

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