“President of the World” is not a joke – it’s a warning
7 January 2026 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/president-of-the-world-is-not-a-joke-its-a-warning/
Apparently, a Republican has referred to Donald Trump as the “president of the world.” The remark has circulated widely enough to be waved away as hyperbole, trolling, or the sort of rhetorical excess we’ve all learned to mentally file under American political theatre.
That would be a mistake.
Because while the phrase sounds ridiculous – comic-book villain ridiculous – it is also deeply revealing. Not about Trump, who has never been subtle about his view of power, but about how far the language of American politics has drifted from reality, restraint, and even irony.
Calling someone “president of the world” is not just exaggeration. It is an admission. It tells us how power is imagined, how authority is framed, and how limits are quietly discarded.
For most of modern history, even the most dominant empires understood the value of pretense. Rome spoke of provinces, not ownership of the earth. Britain talked of stewardship and civilisation. The United States, at its best, at least gestured toward alliances, multilateralism, and a rules-based order – even when it bent or broke those rules.
What’s new is not American power. It’s the abandonment of embarrassment.
The phrase “president of the world” collapses all the old euphemisms. It dispenses with alliances, sovereignty, and consent. It skips straight to hierarchy. There is a ruler, and there are the ruled. The only remaining question is who gets to pretend otherwise.
Supporters may insist this is just bravado, the rhetorical equivalent of chanting at a rally. But language matters – especially repeated language, and especially when it aligns so neatly with behaviour.
Trump does not speak like the leader of one nation among many. He speaks like an owner. Other countries are not partners; they are assets, dependents, or irritants. Agreements are not commitments; they are deals to be renegotiated or torn up. International law is not a constraint; it is an obstacle.
Seen in that light, “president of the world” is not a joke. It is a job description aspirationally spoken aloud.
What makes this frightening is not that Trump believes it – he has always treated the globe as an extension of his will – but that others are now comfortable saying it without irony. Once, such a phrase would have embarrassed even loyalists. Now it’s floated casually, as though the only thing unusual about global dominance is failing to name it properly.
There is also something revealingly insecure about the claim.
Strong systems don’t need to announce supremacy. They rely on legitimacy, consent, and institutions that outlast individuals. Declaring someone “president of the world” is less a statement of confidence than a confession of longing – for order, for dominance, for a single figure who cuts through complexity with force of will.
It is the language of people tired of democracy’s messiness, who would rather have a boss than a process.
And let’s be clear: no one who believes in democracy, sovereignty, or international law should be comfortable with the idea – even metaphorically. The world is not a corporation. Nations are not subsidiaries. And the office of “global president” does not exist – except in the imaginations of those who resent limits.
The truly unsettling part is how unchallenged this rhetoric has become. There is no widespread recoil, no sharp intake of breath. Just a shrug, a laugh, and a quick pivot to the next outrage. We have normalised language that would once have sounded like satire – or a warning from a dystopian novel.
History suggests that when people start naming emperors before crowning them, the ceremony is already under way.
So yes, calling Trump “president of the world” is absurd. But absurdity does not make it harmless. Sometimes it makes it honest.
And honesty, in this case, is the most alarming part.
Venal Reactions: US Allies Validate Maduro’s Abduction.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did little to improve upon the weak formula in his shabby statement, similarly skipping over the violations of the UN Charter and Maduro’s abduction. “We urge all parties to support dialogue and diplomacy in order to secure regional stability and prevent escalation.” A bland acknowledgement of “the need to respect democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms” is made, along with the risible reference to supporting “international law and a peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.”
5 January 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/venal-reactions-us-allies-validate-maduros-abduction/
On the surface, abducting a Head of State is a piratical act eschewed by States. A Head of State enjoys absolute immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction, known as ratione personae, at least till the term of office concludes. The International Court of Justice was clear enough about this principle in the 2002 Arrest Warrant Case, holding that high ranked government officials such as a foreign minister are granted immunity under customary international law to enable the effective performance of their functions “on behalf of their respective States.”
That said, international law has been modified on this score by the jurisdiction of theInternational Criminal Court, whose founding Rome Statute stipulates that the official standing of a serving Head of State is no exemption from criminal responsibility. The effectiveness of this principle lies in the cooperation of State parties, something distinctly unforthcoming regarding certain serving leaders. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu springs to mind.)
US domestic law puts all of this to side with the highwayman logic of the Ker-Frisbie doctrine. Decided in Ker v Illinois in 1886, the decision overlooks the way, lawful or otherwise, a defendant is apprehended, even if outside the jurisdiction. Once American soil is reached, judicial proceedings can commence without challenge. The US Department of Justice has further attempted to puncture ancient notions of diplomatic immunity by recategorizing (how else?) the standing of a leader – in this case Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro – as nothing more than a narco-terrorist. Maduro was seized, explains US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as part of a law enforcement operation.
In addition to being a violation of the leadership immunity principle, the January 3 kidnapping of Maduro and his wife by US forces was an audacious breach of the sovereignty guarantee under Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. Operation Absolute Resolve involved 150 aircraft, strikes on military infrastructure including surface-to-air missile and communication systems, and various depots. The security fantasists from the White House to the State Department treated Venezuela as not merely a dangerous narco-state but one hosting undesirable foreign elements, but it has never posed a military threat to the US homeland.
In the face of such unalloyed aggression – a crime against peace, if you will – the response from Washington’s allies has been feeble and worse. This is made all the more grotesque for their claims to purity when it comes to defending Western civilisation against the perceived ogres and bogeymen of international relations: Russia and China.
From the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer could not have been clearer about his contempt for the processes of international law. “The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela,” he declared in his January 3 statement. “We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President and we shed no tears about the end of his regime.” Having given a coating of legitimacy to the banditry of the Trump administration, he could still claim to “support” international law. His government would “discuss the evolving situation with US counterparts in the days ahead as we seek a safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.” Certainly, judging from this, the will of President Donald Trump.
An official statement from the European Union released by its high representative, Kaja Kallas, was even more mealy-mouthed: “The EU has repeatedly stated that Nicolás Maduro lacks the legitimacy of a democratically elected president and has advocated for a Venezuelan-led peaceful transition to democracy in the country, respectful of its sovereignty.”
The tactic here involves soiling the subject before paying some false respect for such concepts as democracy and sovereignty. We can do without Maduro, and won’t miss him, but make some modest effort to respect some cardinal virtues when disposing of him. All those involved should show “restraint […] to avoid escalation and to ensure a peaceful resolution of the crisis.”
The arrogance of this position is underlined by the concession to diplomacy’s importance and the role of dialogue, when there has been no dialogue or diplomacy to speak of. “We are in close contact with the United States, as well as regional and international partners to support and facilitate dialogue with all parties involved, leading to a negotiated, democratic, inclusive and peaceful resolution to the crisis, led by Venezuelans.”
From the Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, there was not a whisper of Maduro’s abduction, or the US breach of the UN Charter. The phantom conveniently called the Venezuelan People stood as an alibi for lawbreaking, for they had a “desire to live in a peaceful and democratic society.” And there was the familiar call “on all parties to exercise restraint and uphold international law,” marvellous piffle in the face of illegal abductions.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did little to improve upon the weak formula in his shabby statement, similarly skipping over the violations of the UN Charter and Maduro’s abduction. “We urge all parties to support dialogue and diplomacy in order to secure regional stability and prevent escalation.” A bland acknowledgement of “the need to respect democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms” is made, along with the risible reference to supporting “international law and a peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.”
Who, then, are these idealised people? Presumably these Venezuelans are the vetted ones, sanitised with the seal of approval, untainted by silly notions of revolution and the poverty reduction measures initially implemented by the government of Hugo Chávez. But if EU officials and other states friendly to Washington thought that a Venezuelan appropriately representative of the People’s Will might be the opposition figure and travesty of a Nobel laureate, María Corina Machado, Trump had other ideas. To date the Maduro loyalist Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, has caught his fickle eye. “I think,” he said with blunt machismo, “it would be very tough for [Machado] to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.” The Venezuelan people’s choice will be, putting democracy and dialogue to one side, the same as Trump’s.
The Venezuela Playbook: How Australian Media Sold Us Another War
4 January 2026 David Tyler AIM Extra , https://theaimn.net/the-venezuela-playbook-how-australian-media-sold-us-another-war/
Part One: The Anatomy of an Imperial Project
“Venezuelan strongman Maduro seized in daring US operation.”
That’s how our ABC led its coverage when American forces stormed Caracas in January. Over at The Australian, it was “Narcoterrorist-in-chief finally brought to justice,” a newly-minted international crime, ingeniously linking two scourges, drugs and terror.
The Sydney Morning Herald went with the risible “Democracy’s long-delayed victory in Venezuela.”
Not one dare say that what we’d just witnessed was an illegal military invasion of a sovereign nation. Dear SMH, how is the invasion democratic? Not one asked why Australian media were suddenly experts on Venezuelan “narcoterrorism”, a freshly-pressed grape of wrath? Or brand-new imperial panic button.
And not a soul bothered to note that we’ve seen this movie before, frame for frame, lie for lie.
Welcome to the second level of contempt: not just the violence itself, in which we all through our membership of various organisations failed the people of Venezuela, but the propaganda about the propaganda, served up by our own trusted news sources.
It’s as if we’re too dim to remember Iraq’s WMDs or Libya’s “humanitarian intervention.” They’re counting on our goldfish memories, our inability to hold a pattern in our heads long enough to shout: “Hang about, haven’t we been down this path before?”
Narcoterrorism: The Empire’s Latest New Designer Label
Every imperial adventure needs its signature scare. Saddam had (invisible) WMDs that could strike London in 45 minutes. John Howard, hadn’t actually seen them but he was prepared to lie that proof existed. Gaddafi was about to massacre Benghazi. Assad gassed his own people (some of which was true, conveniently omitting our backing of jihadists fighting him). Now Maduro runs a “narcoterrorist state”, a portmanteau phrase that fuses two reliable panic buttons into one handy package.
If he could remember his earlier phrase, Trump would doubtless call Venezuela a shithole country.
But let’s be clear, we are being sold a smash and grab raid. Cool. Maduro had it coming. It’s Marketing 101 for illegal invasion. Drugs? Terrifying. Terrorism? Even worse. Mash them up and you’ve got a villain so vile that international law is just a mere technicality. Far-fetched? It’s a hoot. The United States; the world’s largest consumer of cocaine, its biggest market and architect of the catastrophic “War on Drugs”, now poses as global sheriff, with just a whiff of the crusader against narcotics? Hilarious.
But the crusader copy writes itself. And our media newshounds are selling it with a straight face.
It’s not the drugs. It’s the oil. Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest heavy sour crude oil reserves. Bigger than Saudi Arabia. Bigger than Iraq. And unlike those compliant petrostates, Venezuela has had the temerity to suggest that its oil might benefit Venezuelans rather than Exxon-Mobil shareholders.
That’s the real crime. The drugs are just the marketing.
Our media know this. They’re not stupid, just complicit. When The Australianquotes “Western intelligence sources” on Maduro’s drug empire, they’re parroting CIA talking points. When the ABC describes Venezuela as a “failed state,” they skip over how it got that way. And when they mention sanctions at all, it’s as a footnote, “pressure for reform”, not as the economic siege warfare it actually is.
But always check your oil. A reality check: Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt contains extra‑heavy, sulphur‑laden crude that’s expensive and technically finicky to extract and refine. CNN reports that gulf refineries in Texas and Louisiana are already tooled up for this dirty work—cheaper than retro-fitting to deal with local shale oil.
Despite Venezuela needing $58 billion for infrastructure upgrades, refining Venezuelan oil remains cheaper long-term due to low production costs and refinery optimisation. This could stabilise US diesel amid tight global supply, potentially dropping American refining costs 10-20% versus Saudi or Canadian alternatives.
Economic Strangulation as Prelude to Invasion
Since 2017, Washington has waged silent war on Venezuela, strangling its economy with a sadistic deliberation that would make any medieval besiegers green with envy. To be fair, corruption in Caracas and mismanagement helped. But billions in Venezuelan funds were frozen. Oil exports blocked. Access to global financial markets cut. Ships intercepted. Assets seized. The whole machinery of dollar dominance weaponised against a country whose real offence is daring to chart its own course.
The arithmetic of empire is written in bodies. Forty thousand preventable deaths from sanctions-induced medicine shortages by 2024, according to Physicians for Human Rights. Three hundred thousand Venezuelans with cancer, diabetes, HIV at risk of death because medical supplies can’t get through the blockade. Maternal mortality at 125 deaths per 100,000 live births. A population where 75% collectively lost an average of over 8 kilograms to hunger. Seven point six million people, nearly a quarter of the population, driven into exile, generating the largest displacement crisis in Latin American history.
UN human rights experts have condemned these sanctions as collective punishment, noting that unilateral coercive measures enforced through armed blockades violate international law. Human Rights Watch criticised the sanctions for lacking humanitarian exemptions. In 2025, UN rapporteurs called US actions “collective punishment,” violating international law by inducing suffering without UN Security Council approval. They are, in plain English, economic warfare against civilians.
Now Australian media perform their best trick: they report the humanitarian crisis while erasing its primary cause. Venezuela is “collapsing under Maduro’s mismanagement,” we’re told. True enough; the man couldn’t run a chook raffle. But the sanctions turbo-charged a crisis into a catastrophe, and that’s the bit that gets memory-holed. It’s like reporting on a bushfire while forgetting to mention the arsonist.
It’s America’s classic neocon playbook. Throttle the economy. Wait for the suffering to mount. Blame the government. Present military intervention as mercy. Rinse and repeat. We did this to Iraq. We did this to Libya. We did this to Syria. And now, with barely a change in script, we’re doing it to Venezuela while the ABC and its fellow travellers play their assigned role: cheerleaders for the latest passage in a very old US game play.
From Sanctions to Shock and Awe: The Long Con
The January military assault isn’t some sudden eruption. It is the logical endpoint of a strategy perfected over generations. The USA has been toppling Latin American governments since before most of us were born.
Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, was overthrown for daring to redistribute land owned by United Fruit Company. Chile’s Allende was sent packing in 1973, because socialism and copper don’t mix (from Washington’s perspective). Panama’s Manuel Noriega in 1989.
Yes it’s the same narcotics pretext, when a former CIA asset outlived his usefulness. Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti: the list reads like a greatest hits of manufactured regime change.
Each time, the script is identical. Step one: demonise the target government. (Check: Maduro’s been “dictator” and “strongman” in our papers for years, never mind that he’s been elected multiple times under international observation.) Step two: manufacture or exploit a crisis. (Check: sanctions created the crisis, now presented as evidence of governmental failure.) Step three: present military action as the only solution. (Check: “No choice but to act,” as the Pentagon spokesman put it, parroted faithfully by our lot.)
The “kidnapping” of Maduro; let’s call it what it is, not “arrest”, represents peak imperial theatre. A sitting president of a sovereign nation, indicted by a US court on charges of narcoterrorism and having guns and stuff, (the real charge sheet is preposterous), seized in a military raid that violated every principle of international law, paraded before cameras like a trophy buck.
Legal scholars and a UN Secretary-General have warned this sets a catastrophic precedent. Without Security Council authorisation, without credible self-defence claims, this is simply illegal. An act of war.
But watch how Australian media runs with it: as if it were a police procedural, not an invasion. “Wanted man captured.” “Fugitive seized.” The language of law enforcement, not the language of international aggression. This is propaganda by omission, the most insidious kind.
Australian Complicity: Our Shame
Australia isn’t some innocent bystander tutting from the sidelines. We’re up to our necks in this.
Check our UN voting record on Venezuela: lockstep with Washington, backing every condemnatory resolution, every sanctions package, every diplomatic manoeuvre designed to isolate Caracas. We’ve imposed our own sanctions; targeting oil, gold, and individual officials, all while the Australian press trumpet this as righteous punishment of corruption rather than a lethal punching-down in economic warfare.
Not spelled out: Through Five Eyes intelligence sharing, we’re part of the machinery that provided targeting data for the Caracas raid. Our Pine Gap facility, that polite lie of “joint defence,” played a role in communications and surveillance. We’re not just cheer-leading; we’re materially enabling the US.
And the media? They’re the propaganda arm of this operation, whether they admit it or not. When The Australian runs pieces about Venezuela’s “criminal regime” sourced entirely to the US State Department and the CIA-backed opposition, that’s just stenography, not journalism.
When the ABC describes Maduro as “widely regarded as illegitimate” without noting that “widely” means “by Western governments who want his oil,” that’s editorialising posing as fact.
Compare the coverage to Saudi Arabia, for example, a real autocracy that dismembers journalists, starves Yemen, and funds extremism globally. The press might tut occasionally, but there’s no drumbeat for regime change, no breathless coverage of Saudi “crimes against humanity,” no earnest panels discussing whether we have a “responsibility to protect” Yemeni children from starvation.
Why? Because the Saudis play ball with Western oil interests. Venezuela doesn’t. That’s the difference, and our media know it.
This is the second level of contempt I feel: they think we’re mugs. They think we won’t notice the pattern. They think we can’t hold two ideas together long enough to ask: “Hang on, didn’t they sell us this same pig in a poke before?”
The Oil They’re Not Talking About
Let’s cut through the smoke: this is about oil. Always has been, always will be.
Venezuela holds roughly 300 billion barrels of reserves; the largest in the world. After years of sanctions crippled Russian oil exports following Ukraine, and with OPEC playing hard to get on production increases, those reserves are irresistible to Washington. Add China’s deepening energy partnerships with Venezuela; Belt and Road investments, oil-for-loans deals, and you get the strategic picture.
Maduro’s great sin isn’t drugs or authoritarianism (Washington has backed far worse). It’s keeping Venezuela’s oil revenues at home instead of letting them flow north to Houston. It’s partnering with Beijing instead of bowing to the Monroe Doctrine. It’s being an example, however flawed, of resource nationalism in a region where the US prefers compliant client states.
The press mention the oil in passing, if at all. It’s treated as context, not cause. But follow the money, follow the barrels, and the whole “narcoterrorism” narrative reveals itself as window dressing for a very old-fashioned resource grab.
Chevron, notably, got a sanctions exemption in 2022 to restart Venezuelan operations. Funny how the “criminal narco-state” is fine for doing business with when it suits corporate interests, but requires military intervention when it doesn’t play ball politically.
The Human Cost: What They Won’t Count
And now, in the January strikes: at least 40 dead in the initial assault, Venezuelan and Cuban military personnel alongside civilians. An apartment block in Catia La Mar with its exterior wall blown off, one confirmed dead, others seriously injured. “Unspecified” casualties—that bureaucratic language that erases individual lives. The Venezuelan government is still counting bodies while the American press celebrates “liberation.”
Add to that the 115 people killed in the boat strikes from August through December 2025, fishermen and alleged traffickers alike, all part of the same operation. Governments and families of those killed say many were civilians, primarily fishers. The Pentagon insists they were all “narco-terrorists.” The bodies can’t argue back.
But this is developing information, casualties still being tallied. What we know for certain: Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed deaths among both military and civilians. Trump confirmed two US soldiers injured. One US helicopter was hit but remained flyable. The 30-minute assault involved over 150 aircraft striking military bases, ports, communication facilities, and yes, civilian areas too.
Resistance: The Story They’re Burying
Here’s what should terrify the Pentagon but won’t make the ABC news: Venezuela isn’t collapsing in grateful relief. The Bolivarian militia, whether 1.6 million or government claims of eight million, represents a genuine popular defence force. Millions of Venezuelans, whatever they think of Maduro’s economic management, won’t thank the Americans for bombing their capital and kidnapping their president.
Across Latin America, governments from Mexico to Argentina have condemned the invasion. Not because they love Maduro; many don’t, but because they recognise the precedent: if Washington can do this to Venezuela, it can do it to anyone. Regional solidarity isn’t about personality; it’s about sovereignty.
China and Russia have issued sharp condemnations. They’ve got skin in the game: billions in loans and infrastructure investments that a US-installed puppet government might default on. This isn’t ideological—it’s the emerging reality of a multi-polar world where US military adventurism faces actual push-back.
And in the streets, from Caracas to Mexico City, from Barcelona to Sydney; protests are building. Not because protesters are Maduro fans, but because they’re sick of watching the same imperial playbook run again and again while their media gaslight them about “liberation” and “democracy promotion.”
The press is busting a gut to ignore or minimise this resistance.
Can’t have the narrative complicated by inconvenient facts like Latin American solidarity or popular opposition to invasion. Better to focus on the “drama” of Maduro’s capture, the “terrorism” charges, the grateful (CIA-vetted) Venezuelan exiles welcoming “freedom.”
Lest We Forget
What ought to enrage us: the utter contempt for our minds. They genuinely believe we won’t remember.
Colin Powell’s vial of “anthrax” at the UN, the aluminium tubes, the mobile weapons labs lies. Or Libya, where “protecting civilians” became regime change and now boasts open-air slave markets. Syria’s Assad was gassing his people (true) so we’d better arm the jihadists (catastrophic).
Won’t remember that every single time, the pattern is identical: demonisation, sanctions, crisis, intervention. And every single time, our media play their part in manufacturing consent.
The difference now? They’re not even trying that hard. The “narcoterrorism” frame is lazy; transparently so. But they’re banking on our scattered attention being too fragmented to notice. They’re counting on the dopamine hit of outrage at the “dictator” overwhelming any critical thought about whether invading a sovereign nation might be, you know, illegal and catastrophic.
This is what I mean by the second level of contempt. The violence itself is bad enough. But being propagandised about it by our own media, who know better but do it anyway? That’s the deepest cut.
What Comes Next
The US may have captured Maduro, but they haven’t captured Venezuela. Guerrilla resistance, regional backlash, and international condemnation are already brewing. This may not be the clean victory our media are selling. It could be messy, bloody, protracted; another forever war to add to the collection.
But then our media could “both-sides” Gaza. Australia is complicit. Our government will back it. Our media will sell it. And most of us will scroll past, troubled but not troubled enough to actually do anything.
Unless we start holding the pattern in our heads. Unless we start asking the questions our media won’t: Who benefits? What’s being omitted? Where have we seen this before?
The anatomy of an imperial project isn’t complicated. It’s the same operation, over and over. The only variable is whether we’re awake enough to recognise it.
Time to wake up.
[To be continued in Part Two: The Media’s Role in Manufacturing Consent
This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES
The Pro-Israel Propaganda Complex
The Zionist PR machine is an enterprise to behold. It is probably historically unprecedented in the breadth and density of its lobbying and propaganda entities.
If Israel is so innately good, why does it need so many resources to proselytise it, to defend it and to dissimulate about its character?
3 January 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Dr Evan Jones, https://theaimn.net/the-pro-israel-propaganda-complex/
Caitlin Johnstone’s customary finger on the Zionist pulse is how I was first exposed to the telling presentation by Sarah Hurwitz to the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly on 16 November 2025. Hurwitz was a senior adviser in the Obama administration (from which she was appointed as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council).
Says Hurwitz, young people no longer read but are hooked on social media. There, with respect to Gaza, they confront a ‘wall of carnage’. Hurwitz laments that: “So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments, and they are just seeing in their minds: carnage. And I sound obscene.” (Grown up) rationality has seemingly succumbed to (teenage) unprocessed sense impressions.
More, Holocaust education has been turned against us because our own young kin are applying the role of the evil oppressor, (Jewish) god forbid, to Israel itself.
British philosophy academic Lorna Finlayson (New Left Review’s Side Car) chimes in with respect to the Hurwitz performance:
“The true meaning of the Holocaust, we might infer, is not that it was bad because the strong were hurting the weak, but because Jews were the victims. When the victims are Black or Palestinian, it’s different.”
Peculiar that Hurwitz imagines that ‘the data and information and facts and arguments’ at her command contradict the youngster’s visualising the ‘wall of carnage’. The ‘data and information and facts and arguments’ that I am familiar with are consistent with the visuals.Finlayson concurs:
“The trouble for Hurwitz, however, is that if the pictures aren’t on her side, the ‘facts’ and ‘data’ are even less so. The more we see of them, the worse Israel looks.”
Dead children, medicos, journalists, aid workers – an impressive and mounting tally. Ah, and the infrastructure! The landscape obliterated. Bradford University’s Paul Rogers, interviewed in April 2025, estimated that 70,000 tonnes of explosives had been dropped on Gaza to that date.
Hurwitz waxes mystical:
“The problem is, we’re not just a religion … We’re a nation. Civilization. Tribe. Peoplehood. But most of all we’re a family. … The seven million people in Israel, they are not my co-religionists, they are my siblings.”
‘The seven million people in Israel’ – what? Hurwitz is referring to Jewish people in Israeland, presumably, Jewish settlers who don’t live in Israel (add Russian ersatz Jews assimilated to up the numbers). Hurwitz conflates the local Jewish population and the state of Israel. The others don’t exist.
Civilisation I don’t think so. ‘Tribe’ is correct – this is tribalism writ large. Yet the bad eggs, the founders and successive leaders of apartheid Israel, are dictating to the tribe the terms in their entirety on which tribalism will prevail. For Hurwitz – Israel is us, period. Being Jewish, you’re in the tribe on Israel’s terms – period. What do you think, at some expense, we send you to Jewish day school and Hebrew school for?
Finlayson again:
“The problem [for Hurwitz] with Palestinian children is not that they are evil [as perthe claims of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant] but that they are a PR challenge.”
How in the world could the bloodthirsty Zionist enterprise, acting with impunity, face a PR challenge?
The Zionist PR machine is an enterprise to behold. It is probably historically unprecedented in the breadth and density of its lobbying and propaganda entities. The character of the matrix is well captured in a review of American academic Harriet Malinowitz’s recent book Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the Uses of Hasbara, from whence this Malinowitz summary is extracted:
“[The hasbara, which can be] bluntly described as propaganda, but in fact comprises a huge network of government ministries, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofit agencies and charities, campus organizations, volunteer groups, watchdog bodies, professional associations, media networks, fundraising operations, and educational programs that aim to fortify a Zionist-defined notion of Jewishness in persons within Israel, the United States, and other countries.”
Quite. And that’s just for Jewry itself, to keep it on the straight and narrow. The network addressed to the non-compliance and ignorance of non-Jews is something else.
Attached below is a list, inevitably incomplete, of organisations that one has been able to compile from public sources. It is a scrappy matrix, even anarchic but layered, influenced by national Jewish communities’ size and history, and by individual initiatives. It is complemented by Israeli state authority initiatives.
In total, the resources devoted to selling Israel and warding off and attacking its detractors have been and are formidable. Do Zionists have time in their life for anything else?
There’s an anomaly here. If Israel is so innately good, why does it need so many resources to proselytise it, to defend it and to dissimulate about its character?
The juggernaut has evidently had impressive results, of which the following samples.
The US Congress is a Zionist-occupied entity. The mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu is invited into the hallowed premises (Joint: 10 July 1996, 24 May 2011, 3 March 2015, 25 July 2024; House: 12 September 2002), debauches it with his mendacity and is met with standing ovations.
The EU-Israel Association Agreement ‘entered into force’ in June 2000. The Agreement accords Israel considerable privileges. The background is here. The 154 page document is here. Of integral relevance is Article 2:
“Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.”
Israel is an apartheid state by construction, so how could this trade Agreement ever get on the drawing board, leave alone come to fruition?
Israel remains ensconced in global sporting entities, as exemplified with soccer. There is currently pressure on UEFA and FIFA to exclude Israel but the governing bodies have resisted to date. Russia has been sanctioned. Israel remains in the bosom of global sport.
Ditto culture. Eurovision’s sponsor, the European Broadcasting Union, is also under pressure to exclude Israel but has ignored it (this is ‘a non-political event’). Russia is immediately expelled in 2022. Israel remains in Eurovision. Israel has won Eurovision four times, with more recent questions arising of dubious voting integrity and the transparent ‘soft power’ leverage by Israel of the platform to detract from the ongoing genocide.
Perusing the list, one can observe select categories.
1. Some early organisations began as charities to support Jewish communities in need. Amongst these, there has been a general trend to turn towards support for the state of Israel – sometimes auxiliary, sometimes central. Some latter–day organisations are formally Jewish community support-oriented but add Israel to their charter.
2. Some organisations stand out with respect to the influence of their operations. Uniquely there is the Jewish Agency for Israel, in Mandatory Palestine, which, with the Jewish National Council, were the nuclei for the state of Israel after 1948.
Singularly important are the dominant organisations in particular countries, not least AIPAC in the US, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and CRIF in France.
The power of AIPAC puts it in a league of its own. AIPAC exerts an enormous influence on the US Congress, not least through funding for and against sitting members and candidates, and fostering Israel junkets. AIPAC funding contributed to the defeat of long-serving Illinois Representative Paul Findley in 1982. Findley’s contemporary and fellow activist Pete McCloskey, California Representative (1967-83) was perennially under attack from the Zionist lobby. AIPAC and other Jewish organisations’ funding facilitated the defeat of long-time Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney and Alabama Representative Earl Hilliard, both in 2002 primaries. AIPAC funding defeated Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards, seeking re-election to a seat she previously held, in 2022. AIPAC funding defeated Missouri Representative Cori Bush and New York Representative Jaamal Bowman, both in primaries in 2024. Apparently AIPAC ‘invested’ $45 million in the November 2024 elections, half of which went to defeating Bush and Bowman. AIPAC conferences present a ghoulish spectacle in which Congress and government members bow down before AIPAC’s commitment to the imperatives of a foreign rogue state. (More details regarding the US Israel lobby are outlinedin Serge Halimi’s ‘Is the United States’ patience with Israel running out?’, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2025.)
3. A discernible category covers Christian Zionist organisations and Jewish organisations seeking amity with and support from Christian groups, not least Evangelicals. Christians United for Israel (US) is clearly the most significant of this grouping, with CUFI claiming over 10 million members. Israel and Zionism evidently value this alliance in terms of the numerical ‘heft’ that it brings.
Israeli academic Tom Ziv performed a quantitative analysis of the size of evangelical Christian Zionist populations in 18 Latin American countries (‘Evangelicalism and Support for Israel in Latin America’, Politics & Religion, 2022). He found a link between the size of such groups and the country’s support for Israel as reflected in UN votes, with such groups evidently having a direct impact on their country’s foreign policy. Being a ‘true’ value-free academic, he declines to articulate the ‘policy implications’, although the Israeli authorities would be thoroughly aware of the implications for hasbara PR funding.
As mainstream protestant churches were reducing their support for Israel (tangibly in divesting denomination-related investments from Israel-related corporations and activities), so also there had been some small shift against whole-hearted support for Israel amongst young evangelicals. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://theaimn.net/the-pro-israel-propaganda-complex/
Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society
Caitlin Johnstone, Jan 03, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-and-its-supporters-deliberately?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=183299564&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I’ve noticed a lot of angry comments underneath my posts these past few days which bizarrely mention the words “Islam” and “Muslims” completely out of the blue.
“Why don’t you turn your attention sometimes to the genocidal intent of the radical Muslims, or does that suit your racist narrative?” reads one tweet.
“What can you say about Islamic Jihadists Muslims murdering thousands of Christians in Sudan and other parts of Africa?” reads another.
“The muslims must be irradicated,” reads another.
There are too many examples to quote here, but here’s what’s so funny about all this: I haven’t been saying anything about Islam or Muslims on Twitter — I’ve been tweeting about Israel. Hasbarists just babble about Islam when they can’t defend Israel’s actions.
It is not a coincidence that they’ve been doing this. In September of last year Drop Site News published a leaked polling report that had been commissioned by the Israeli government which found that while Israel’s reputation is crumbling throughout the western world, one way to salvage it would be to foment panic about Muslims.
Drop Site reports the following:
“Israel’s best tactic to combat this, according to the study, is to foment fear of ‘Radical Islam’ and ‘Jihadism,’ which remain high, the research finds. By highlighting Israeli support for women’s rights and gay rights while elevating concerns that Hamas wants to ‘destroy all Jews and spread Jihadism,’ Israeli support rebounded by an average of over 20 points in each country. ‘Especially once the situation in Gaza is resolved, the room for growth in all countries is very significant,’ the report concludes.”
So if you speak critically about Israel online and suddenly find your replies inundated with Zionists shrieking about Islam and Muslims, that’s why. Their research has concluded that convincing westerners to hate Muslims is easier than convincing them to love Israel.
In addition to committing genocide and starting wars and working to stomp out free speech throughout the western world, Israel is also doing everything it can to make our society more racist and hateful. A foreign state is actively fomenting division and discord in western countries, in exactly the way western empire apologists claimed Putin was doing at the height of Russia hysteria. But because it’s a western “ally”, nothing is being done to stop it.
In addition to being evil and disgusting, this tactic is also just sloppy argumentation. Deflection is the lowest form of argument. Even if Islam really was as dangerous as they pretend it is and even if Muslims really did present a threat to our society, pointing this out would not address a single criticism of Israel. Yelling “Muslims bad!” does not magically erase Israel’s abuses or address the grievances of its critics; it just diverts attention to another target and says “Stop looking at Israel’s actions and hate THOSE people instead!”
Mention Israel and you’ll get hasbarists babbling about Islam, but Islam and Israel are not opposites, and the mention of one has no bearing on the other. One is a worldwide religion with nearly two billion adherents, while the other is a genocidal apartheid state. Framing the issue as a conflict between two diametrically opposed parties is a false dichotomy created by propagandists and manipulators.
And that’s exactly the false dichotomy Netanyahu is trying to feed into when he tells Americans that Israel is in an alliance with Christianity against “radical Shiite Islam” and “radical Sunni Islam,” calling it “our common Judeo-Christian civilization’s battle.” He’s working to foment fear of Islam among Americans to boost support for Israel.
All this to manufacture consent for human butchery and apartheid. Israel could improve its support among westerners by simply ending its genocidal atrocities in Gaza and ceasing to try to start a war between the US and Iran, but instead it’s working around the clock to foment racism and division while demanding increased censorship and authoritarianism to stomp out pro-Palestine sentiment throughout western society.
Israel is doing this because it cannot exist in its present iteration as a state without nonstop violence and abuse. Under the political ideology known as Zionism, peace, justice, truth and freedom are simply not an option.
A Statement of Omission
30 December 2025 Andrew Klein, PhD, Australian Independent Media
A recent U.S. airstrike in Nigeria, coordinated with the nation’s authorities, has elicited a forceful response from Australian Senator Michaelia Cash. Her declaration – “ISIS is evil… Australia should always stand with partners confronting Islamist terror” – presents a binary, morally unambiguous view of a profoundly complex reality. While condemning extremist violence is unobjectionable, this framing serves as a case study in strategic omission. It ignores the multifaceted drivers of Nigeria’s conflicts, the role of external actors in shaping its crises, and the dangerous simplification of a struggle over resources, identity, and power into a singular war of religion. This analysis will deconstruct the senator’s statement by examining Nigeria’s historical context, the true nature of its security challenges, and the geopolitical interests at play.
Section 1: The Colonial Crucible and Post-Colonial Fragility
To understand modern Nigeria is to understand a nation forged by colonial cartography, not organic nationhood. The 1914 amalgamation of hundreds of distinct ethnic and religious groups – primarily Muslim in the north and Christian in the south – into a single British colony created a fundamental political fault line. The colonial administration’s indirect rule entrenched these divisions, empowering northern elites and fostering systemic regional inequality. This engineered disparity over access to political power, education, and economic resources laid the groundwork for the communal and sectarian tensions that plague the nation today. The competition is not inherently theological but is a scramble for a stake in the modern state, a competition framed and often inflamed by the identities colonialism hardened.
Section 2: Deconstructing the “Religious Conflict” Narrative
Senator Cash’s focus on “Islamist terror” reflects a narrative heavily promoted by certain U.S. political figures. However, data and expert analysis reveal a more complex picture:
A Mosaic of Violence: The security landscape in Nigeria is fragmented. It includes the jihadist factions of Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), ethno-communal conflicts – often between predominantly Muslim Fulani herders and Christian farmers – criminal banditry, and secessionist agitation
Muslims as Primary Victims: While attacks on Christian communities are severe and warrant condemnation, the data shows that Muslims constitute the majority of victims of Islamist extremist violence. Groups like Boko Haram have killed tens of thousands of Muslims they deem insufficiently orthodox. A 2025 data analysis of over 20,400 civilian deaths found more were from attacks targeting Muslims than Christians, though the majority of fatalities were unattributed.
Resource Competition as Core Driver: Underlying much of this violence, particularly the farmer-herder conflicts, is intense competition over dwindling arable land and water, exacerbated by climate change and population growth. The Nigerian government itself has consistently rejected the characterisation of a one-sided religious war, emphasising that “people of many faiths” are victims.
Violence Profile in Nigeria’s Northwest and Middle Belt
This following breaks down the complex actors and motives often simplified as “Islamist terror”:
Main Actor(s): Jihadist Groups (ISWAP, Boko Haram)
Primary Motivations and Targets: Establish Islamic law; target state, Christians, and Muslims deemed non-compliant.
Relation to Religious Narrative: Exploits religious identity but kills more Muslims; seeks to impose sectarian frame……………………………………………………………………………………….
Section 4: The Australian Position – A Critical Independence Foregone
Senator Cash’s call for Australia to “stand with partners” uncritically adopts the simplified U.S. framing. An independent Australian foreign policy, one committed to a “rules-based order” and nuanced humanitarian engagement, would demand a more forensic approach:
Acknowledge All Victims: Public statements must recognise that Muslims are the primary victims of the jihadist groups Australia condemns, and that violence stems from multiple, overlapping conflicts.- Address Root Causes: Effective, long-term policy must engage with the governance failures, corruption, climate-induced resource scarcity, and lack of economic opportunity that fuel all forms of instability.
- Scrutinise Geopolitical Motives: Australia’s alignment should be with the Nigerian people’s sovereignty and complex reality, not with a single ally’s simplified narrative or resource-driven interests. Silence on these dimensions is a form of complicity in a misleading story.
Conclusion: Beyond the Simplistic Frame
Senator Cash’s statement is not false in its condemnation of ISIS’s evil, but it is dangerously incomplete. By reducing Nigeria’s agony to a front in a global war on “Islamist terror,” it erases history, obscures complexity, and echoes a geopolitical narrative that serves external interests as much as it claims to serve Nigerian ones. It ignores the colonial roots of strife, the resource wars masked as holy wars, and the plight of millions of Muslim victims.
References for Further Reading…………….. https://theaimn.net/a-statement-of-omission/
Nuclear news at the start of 2026
Best wishes for 2026. I know that I should start with something positive. And there are positive things happening, and millions of people working on them. As Anne Frank said so long ago “I believe that people are really good at heart”
Nevertheless, I feel like sounding a note of warning.The mainstream news is barely to be trusted. Journalists are self-censoring so as to hang on to their jobs. “Social media” is all too often anti-social, and is not fact-checked.
Now, going back to my original purpose – the nuclear-free movement,I now feel impelled to start 2026 with this advice:Be especially sceptical of any information derived from the nuclear industry. At best, even where it’s factual, still take it with a big grain of salt.
Some bits of good news – The renewables juggernaut thundered on. Scientists treated the ‘untreatable’.
Uganda rapidly got on top of an Ebola outbreak – all stories from – https://www.positive.news/society/what-went-right-in-2025-the-good-news-that-mattered/
TOP STORIES. Exposing the World Nuclear Association’s Bullshit.What Lies Ahead for Ukraine’s Contested Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant?
Palestine Before Nationalism: What Was Lost – and Why It Matters Now. UN Security Council Abandoned Palestinians- Humanity Must Refuse to Follow Suit. Israel Bans Dozens of Aid Groups from Operating in Gaza, Including Doctors Without Borders. Israel’s Ceasefire Violations in Gaza Continue to Pile Up –
AUSTRALIA.
Israel Bans Aid Groups and Puts Targets on Australian Backs | The West Report –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9mjGsCU6QU How Zionists are weaponising the courts to silence critics | The West Report – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_175A8ws4ak In Australia it is taboo to speak up for Palestinians, Australia being the only Western country that has no free speech, no Bill of Rights. The Embedded Alliance – Australia, The Retreat from Sovereignty, and the Machinery of External Control. A Statement of Omission.
NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS
| ATROCITIES. As Israel bans aid orgs in Gaza, notorious mercenary firm seeks “Targeter”. |
| ECONOMICS. Mini nuclear reactors are already losing their glow. Investors Beware: 2 Nuclear Energy Stocks That May Be Radioactive to Your Portfolio |
| EMPLOYMENT. Fears raised that specialist Vulcan MoD work could shift to Sellafield |
| ENERGY. AI Did Not Demand Centralised Power: Vested Interests Did. |
| ETHICS and RELIGION. Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society. The Pro-Israel Propaganda Complex. Catholic diocese urges prayer, public witness against proposed nuclear plant in northern Philippines. |
| HISTORY. When the USSR and China saved humanity: How they won the World Anti-Fascist War. Chris Hedges: Decline and Fall. |
| LEGAL. Pike County mom sues revived nuclear plant, alleging radiation led to daughter’s death. |
| POLITICS. U.S. Plans Largest Nuclear Power Program Since the 1970s . Donald Trump’s first step to becoming a would-be autocrat –hijacking a party. Secretary of State Rubio Believes U.S. Recovered Alien Tech And Gave It To Private Military Contractors. Palestinian factions have come together to thwart Israeli plans in Gaza, for now. Energy bills to rise on New Year’s Day ‘to fund nuclear in England’. Dungeness power station tipped for nuclear return as government ‘aware’ of interest. |
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Russia-US nuclear pact set to end in 2026 and we won’t see another. Poor, beleaguered Venezuela, with new pals China and Russia, may be demolishing two century old US Monroe Doctrine. Trump reaffirms his support for another strike on Iran after meeting with Netanyahu. Trump’s team no longer trusts Netanyahu – Axios. Netanyahu to Press for ‘Another Round of War With Iran’ in Meeting With Trump This Week. Netanyahu Is Visiting Trump For The FIFTH Time This Year, And Other Notes. ‘Pay price for wrongdoing’: China Sanctions 20 US defence firms after Trump approves Taiwan arms sale. Trump, Zelenskyy make ‘95% progress’, but ‘thorny issues’ remain – 5 key points. The West is spending big on nuclear plants again – and taking taxpayers along for the ride– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/12/31/1-b1-the-west-is-spending-big-on-nuclear-plants-again-and-taking-taxpayers-along-for-the-ride/ Patrick Lawrence: New Year’s Notes on Purported Leaders. |
| PLUTONIUM. Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) Nuclear Literacy Program to Educate Nuevomexicano Communities on the LANL Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Plutonium Pit Production. |
| SAFETY. Safety fears as Japan prepares to restart nuclear plant ‘built on tofu’. Trump regulators ripped |
| TECHNOLOGY. The AI Arms Race Is Cracking Open the Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Electric Vehicles and Nuclear Power Are Fighting Over One Obscure Mineral. |
| WASTES. How are geological repository projects progressing (pronuke bias) |
| WAR and CONFLICT. Russia Hands US Evidence That It Says Confirms Ukraine Targeted Putin’s Residence in Drone Attack. Trump Praises Putin, Promises Peace—Kyiv Still Under Fire. CIA, with Trump’s blessing, is using Ukrainians to sabotage Russia’s energy infrastructure and oil tankers – NYT. WAS RUSSIA’S SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION “UNPROVOKED”? |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Russia claims to have moved nuclear-capable missile system into Belarus. Russia ‘Confidently Advancing’ In Ukraine, Over 30 Settlements Captured In December. Ukraine Takes Part in NATO War Games, Further Integrating Into Collective Defense Architecture. Pentagon In Panic: China Just Delivered The Final Blow– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEa9E9vhQ0U.The Trillion Dollar War Machine (w/ William D. Hartung) T he Chris Hedges Report. Why talk of a Japanese nuclear option is resurfacing – and why it alarms critics |
Exposing the World Nuclear Association’s Bullshit
3 Jan 2026 https://wauchope.substack.com/p/exposing-the-world-nuclear-associations
From an edited transcript of World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León’s World Nuclear News podcast interview.
What do you think are the main priorities for the year ahead?
I think that for everybody in the global nuclear industry, it is essential that we move from ambition to action, to see real projects deployed, many of them. We also need to see many final investment decisions, and see more countries moving forward with nuclear projects.
Finance continues to be an important piece of the puzzle, and in more and more projects we see private investors understanding how they can contribute. We are seeing this in Poland, we saw this in the UK, and I think that we are going to see this in many other jurisdictions. We will continue to work on the supply chain.
This year we will have our second World Nuclear Supply Chain Conference. We are really pleased that it is going to be held in Manila in the Philippines. The ASEAN region is moving forward with nuclear projects very, very quickly and most of the countries are growing their economies incredibly quickly, which of course translates into enormous energy demand. And many of them – Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore – they are really looking at nuclear as a key piece of the puzzle.
We will be publishing in 2026 the World Nuclear Supply Chain Report which will provide a very important snapshot of where we are – what are the true capabilities of the industry to deliver all these projects, what are the needs for growth, what are the potential bottlenecks, what are the opportunities for investment?
There are quite a few projects moving very quickly. We are all pretty much waiting for the first unit at Rooppur in Bangladesh to start operating, and also the first unit at Akkuyu in Turkey. That will be good timing because COP31 is going to take place in Turkey later in the year so that would be a very good showcase opportunity. There should be first concrete at Paks II in Hungary early in the year. And then there are projects progressing in the Czech Republic, Poland, and lots of SMRs in the USA and Canada. In Canada, of course, they are already under construction with ground broken at the Darlington site. But we are also seeing demonstration projects in the US and elsewhere. So lots of exciting opportunities. Africa is a little bit uncharted territory for new nuclear energy but the El Dabaa project in Egypt is making progress very quickly and we are seeing a number of other countries, such as Rwanda, Ghana and South Africa, where we will likely see projects developing in the coming year.
China will also have a pipeline of projects
It almost feels like a given that there will be new projects and new units in China. They have an enormous pipeline of projects – they will continue to build reactors on time, on budget, and in doing so showcase enormous industrial capabilities. Also, we are looking closely at India’s plans.
We are seeing the realignment of some of the laws in India, the Atomic Energy Act and also the liability laws, that are going to hopefully incentivise international cooperation, international participation in the Indian market, because India has incredible ambitions for 100 GW of new nuclear by 2047. India has great capabilities itself, but global contributions could also be fabulous for these ambitions. The changes also encourage more involvement from the Indian private sector, which could be really game-changing.
One of the big issues for the public is nuclear waste
That is true, but I think that in 2026 we are going to see the entering into operation of the geological repository in Onkalo, Finland. I think this will be a key opportunity to show the world that the questions about what to do with nuclear waste and used nuclear fuel are not a technology problem. It is actually most often a problem of policy, politics, and political will. So I think it is great that Finland is being proactive. I think that Sweden is a minute behind, and then France is also very close by. So I think it will be a key year for that part of the fuel cycle also.
April will see the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident
COMMENT Doncha love the way these nuclear hypocrites turn every bad thing into a plus?
Chernobyl’s so good as a lesson. Never mind the fact that the damaged protection dome is spewing radiation out, and they can’t get rid of the toxic melded waste inside .
It is always good to look back and make sure that we have really learned all the lessons and taken the opportunities for improvement from previous events. 2026 will also be the 15th anniversary of Fukushima. I think that the industry has been very good at reflecting on these events and extracting all the lessons to be learned.
I think that the safety culture at a global level continues to be better than ever. I think that international collaboration has always been great in nuclear, but certainly the collaboration that ensued after Chernobyl, and certainly after Fukushima is a testament to how well the nuclear industry is collaborating. Those were important events. We cannot minimise them whatsoever,
COMMENT. Note that here the WNA boasts that nuclear power helps action on climate change, (but later on, boasts its partnership with with fossil fuel industries)
but they need to be put in context with the impacts of things like using fossil fuels on human health, on the environment and obviously on climate change. We really need to look at the entire life-cycle of all energy sources and to recognise that there is not one energy source that is a silver bullet for anything. I think that perhaps Fukushima’s anniversary and Chernobyl’s anniversary will be an opportunity for us as a society to become more pragmatic and realistic about the risks and opportunities of all these technologies.
What do you think are the key planned events for the year?
We hit the ground running at Davos at the World Economic Forum this year, from 19 January – this is perhaps the second time that nuclear energy is really going to be visible there, so we are excited about that opportunity. Immediately after Davos there is India Energy Week in Goa, which is the second-largest energy conference in the world.
In March, we will be at CERAWeek in Texas, a very important event where we are bringing together nuclear energy with many of these large energy users, in particular the oil and gas industry, that are really aligning themselves to best understand how nuclear can contribute to their decarbonisation and energising efforts.
And then, in April, we will have the World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference in Monaco. In May, we will be in Manila at the World Nuclear Supply Chain Conference, and World Nuclear University’s Summer Institute will be in the summer in Lyon in France. And of course we will come back together in September here in London for the World Nuclear Symposium, which will be even bigger and better than the one that we did in 2025. We really wanted to bring the nuclear and finance communities together to answer each other’s questions and demystify nuclear, so financiers recognise that nuclear projects are nothing more, nothing less, than large infrastructure projects. We are now working together with the finance community to put together a nuclear financing guide to pull together best practices and lessons learned to support financiers and nuclear developers going forward.
COMMENT. Note that while the nuclear lobby pretends to solve climate change, in reality they’re not only in cahoots with oil and gas lobbies, but they intend to take over global climate action, as they planned for in previous COPs
Later in the year, there will be Africa Energy Week at the end of September in Cape Town, and Singapore International Energy Week is a great opportunity to bring together all those ASEAN countries. There will also be the World Energy Congress taking place in Saudi Arabia and also COP31 in Turkey. So if people thought that 2025 was crazy, I think it is clear that 2026 is looking like it will be just as busy.
So interesting times ahead…
Definitely. This is the time. We’ve been discussing how the stars are aligning for nuclear energy and I think that we are there. The stars are definitely aligned. This is the moment where we, the global nuclear industry, really need to be proactive and active and make the most of this opportunity. We really need to work together with our governments. We need to work together definitely with the nuclear regulators, with the finance community, with large energy users, and we cannot leave behind civil society. We have seen major improvements in public acceptance and interest in nuclear, but we need to continue to be proactive to engage with civil society, to make sure that no question is left unanswered. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/in-quotes-what-to-watch-out-for-in-2026
“Absolutely devastating”. Israel bans aid orgs from Gaza, publishes Aussie antisemites list.
by Stephanie Tran | Dec 31, 2025
Médecins Sans Frontières has warned Israel’s suspension of NGO operations in Gaza would be “absolutely devastating”. Stephanie Tran reports on Australian reaction to Israel expelling humanitarian orgs.
Overnight, Israel announced it has banned the world’s leading humanitarian agencies from Gaza, including Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), World Vision, Oxfam, Caritas and more than two dozen others. For antisemitism.
Ashley Killeen, director of engagement at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Australia and New Zealand, said MSF was continuing to operate in Gaza but remained in limbo about whether it would be allowed to remain.
“We’re continuing to operate in Gaza, unless we hear otherwise,” Killeen told MWM. “We are awaiting official communication from Israeli authorities whether we have or have not received registration.”
Israel has said it will halt the operations of 37 international humanitarian organisations in the Gaza Strip from 1 January 2026, accusing them of failing to meet new requirements introduced by its Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.
The new regulations require aid groups to submit detailed information on their staff, funding and activities, and include conditions that organisations “must not engage in any activities or criticism which delegitimise the state of Israel”.
The Israeli Ministry also came under fire on Monday for releasing a report naming dozens of Australians as “Key generators of anti-Semitism and delegitimization in Australia”.
Killeen said MSF was currently in a “grey area” following the December 31 deadline set by Israeli authorities.
“The 31st of December was the deadline so I’m sure we’ll know in the next 24 hours,” she said. “But what we can say is that if this comes into effect, it will be absolutely devastating.”
MSF is one of the largest medical providers operating in Gaza. Killeen said the organisation currently supports six hospitals and two field hospitals, delivering a scale of care that would be impossible to replace.
“In 2025, we delivered 800,000 outpatient consultations,
“100,000 trauma surgeries, and delivered 10,000 babies.”
“This gives you a sense of the huge gap that will be there if we are told that we have to cease these operations,” she said.
Gaza’s health system is heavily reliant on international NGOs, with local facilities overwhelmed, damaged or destroyed.
We’re experienced in operating in these types of situations where the infrastructure and the medical facilities are decimated,” Killeen said. “So to be able to replace that, I’m honestly not quite sure how that would happen.”
“The population of Gaza is reliant on these international NGOs. This is not something that is a complementary service. It’s a core service.
“And if it’s not there, it’s horrific to think what will happen to these people.”
Killeen expressed concern that organisations similar to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) may be brought in to fill the gaps left by the NGOs. In August, the UN called for the dismantling of the GHF after 859 Palestinians were killed while seeking food at GHF sites.
“We know that there have been interventions introduced, such as the so-called ‘humanitarian hubs’, where people have gone to receive food and have been met with gunshots,” she said. “The prospect of that type of solution is terrifying.”
MSF has operated in Gaza since 1989 and employs a predominantly Palestinian workforce, many of whom are unable to leave the territory.
“We will do everything to try and remain in Gaza,” Killeen said. “The majority of people that work for MSF in Gaza are Palestinian. They can’t leave. We come in and we complement that with international staff, but these are people that are there, their families there.
“To no longer be there and provide this service – it’s so much more than taking away a lifeline for people. It’s ripping the fabric of the community.
What Australians have NOT been told about the $368billion AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.
‘We will undoubtedly be a nuclear target,’ ‘I don’t think many of the people living in Perth realise that, if they weren’t a nuclear target before, they certainly will be when all these… submarines start arriving.
‘I would bet an awful lot of money that the AUKUS subs will be duds by the time they get here, if they ever do,’
‘They’ll probably be redundant because there’s been revolutions in drone technology which will be able to detect submarines more easily.
‘I would bet an awful lot of money that the AUKUS subs will be duds by the time they get here, if they ever do,’
By CAITLIN POWELL – NEWS REPORTER, 29 December 2025
An AUKUS critic has shed light on the fundamental dangers of the military deal, including the threat of Australia being a nuclear target, as the security pact receives support from Donald Trump – and a rising number of Australians.
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that AUKUS was going ‘full steam ahead’ after questions were raised when the Trump administration earlier announced it would review the deal.
The agreement, which would see Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, is expected to cost the country up to $368billion over three decades.
Just a few weeks before Rubio’s thumbs up, an Australia-wide survey of 2,045 people by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) found support for the policy had increased.
The number of people who agreed that the trilateral deal with the US and UK could help keep Australia secure from a military threat from China surged compared to last year.
While 48 per cent agreed in 2024, that rose to 50 per cent in the 2025 survey. The poll also found that over two thirds (68 per cent) supported using AUKUS to deepen Australia’s cooperation with the US and UK on advanced technologies.
This included hopes for technology in cyber, AI and quantum computing.
But AUKUS critic and adjunct professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, Mark Beeson, has said there are some major issues with the deal which most Australians are missing.
A major component of AUKUS will be a facility at the Australian Navy’s HMAS Stirling base in Perth’s south from 2027.
Up to 1,200 UK and US personnel, their families, and five nuclear-powered submarines will be stationed there.
‘We will undoubtedly be a nuclear target,’ Beeson said of the facility. ‘I don’t think many of the people living in Perth realise that, if they weren’t a nuclear target before, they certainly will be when all these… submarines start arriving.
‘This will be a sort of launch pad for whatever American strategic adventure they decide to take on next.’
The use of the area as base also raised another key issue for Professor Beeson: Australia’s sovereignty.
‘I think there are questions about the historical relationship we have with America,’ he said, referencing the poll.
The survey revealed that a growing trend among Australians is that they want Canberra to make foreign policy decisions without the US and UK.
Among those surveyed, 77 per cent said Australia should make its China foreign policy decisions independently, even when they differ from US preferences.
‘Australia would make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the outcome of any conflict or strategic stand-off between the United States and China – with or without four or five submarines,’ he said.
‘If the Chinese aren’t deterred by America’s overwhelming military power, they’re not going to be deterred by anything we can do.
‘We’re just a convenient piece of real estate in the southern hemisphere that they can use as sort of launching pad for whatever they decide to do next.
‘There are major implications for our independence and sovereignty.’
‘Australia would make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the outcome of any conflict or strategic stand-off between the United States and China – with or without four or five submarines,’ he said.
‘If the Chinese aren’t deterred by America’s overwhelming military power, they’re not going to be deterred by anything we can do.
‘We’re just a convenient piece of real estate in the southern hemisphere that they can use as sort of launching pad for whatever they decide to do next.
‘There are major implications for our independence and sovereignty.’
The reasoning for this, he said, is that by having the presence of American and British military on Australian soil, Canberra is no longer solely acting on behalf of Australians.
‘It limits the options available to Australian policymakers to make independent decisions that are in the national interest,’ he said.
‘Rather (we follow) some supposed mutual interest of Australia, Britain and the US.’
Professor Beeson highlighted that the poll displayed different views among Australians, with support for AUKUS but a desire for independence on policy.
‘I wasn’t surprised that there were a few contradictory sort of views amongst all that, because it is a complex set of issues,’ he said.
‘But some of it displays quite an encouraging degree of sophistication and not just wild panic about China, which is good.’
A final issue Professor Beeson raised was the capacity and timeline of the submarines promised to Australia.
‘I would bet an awful lot of money that the AUKUS subs will be duds by the time they get here, if they ever do,’ he said.
‘They’ll probably be redundant because there’s been revolutions in drone technology which will be able to detect submarines more easily.
‘It’s just such a ludicrous long term investment of a lot of money we don’t really have, and we could use on much better things.’
The Embedded Alliance – Australia, The Retreat from Sovereignty, and the Machinery of External Control
Critical debate on Israel’s policies is systematically constrained in Australia. A former senior editor notes a “tacit consensus” in newsrooms to avoid the subject, driven by fear of a well-organised lobby that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
29 December 2025 Andrew Klein, PhD and Gabriel Klein, Research Assistant and Scholar
Introduction: The Architecture of a Dependent State
From the high command in Washington to the corporate boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the networked lobbyists in Canberra, a clear and sustained project has unfolded over the past six decades. Its aim is not the military occupation of Australia, but something more insidious and total: the integration of the Australian state, its resources, and its strategic autonomy into the imperatives of American hegemony. This analysis documents the systematic erosion of Australian sovereignty since the 1960s, revealing a pattern where security anxieties are strategically cultivated, neoliberal economics enables extraction, and domestic political discourse is policed to serve external interests. Australia has been transformed from a regional actor with independent agency into a compliant territory – a model of control replicated by empires throughout history.
Phase I: Cultivating Fear and Forging the Chain (1960s-1970s)
The foundational step in securing Australian compliance was the ideological binding of its foreign policy to American global objectives, beginning in Southeast Asia.
1 Vietnam and the “Forward Defence” Doctrine: Australia’s entry into the Vietnam War was justified domestically by the “domino theory” – the fear of communist expansion in Southeast Asia threatening Australia directly. Prime Minister Robert Menzies framed the commitment as a necessary response to a request from South Vietnam, a claim historians have contested, suggesting the decision was made in close coordination with Washington to bolster the legitimacy of the US war effort. This established a template: Australian blood and treasure would be spent in conflicts determined by US strategy, sold to the public through the marketing of fear.
2 The Whitlam Catalyst and the “Coup” Response: The election of Gough Whitlam’s government in 1972 represented the most significant rupture in this dependent relationship. Whitlam immediately moved to withdraw remaining troops from Vietnam, recognised the People’s Republic of China, and opposed US bombing campaigns. His assertive independence triggered a fierce response from entrenched security and political establishments aligned with Washington. The constitutional crisis of 1975, culminating in his dismissal, demonstrated the lengths to which the domestic machinery – when aligned with foreign interests – would go to reassert the established pro-US trajectory. It was a stark lesson that moves toward genuine sovereignty would be met with systemic resistance.
Phase II: Neoliberalism as the Engine of Extraction (1980s-Present)
With the security bond firmly established, the next phase involved remaking the Australian economy to facilitate the outward flow of wealth and deepen integration with US capital.
1 The Hawke-Keating “Reforms”: Pragmatism or Ideology?: The economic transformations of the 1980s and 1990s – financial deregulation, tariff reductions, and privatisation – are often framed as pragmatic modernisation. However, they served core neoliberal doctrines privileging market forces and global capital mobility. The floating of the dollar and dismantling of banking controls integrated Australia into volatile global financial flows, increasing its vulnerability to external shocks.
2 Structural Consequences: Finance Over Industry: This shift catalysed a profound restructuring of the Australian economy, privileging extractive and financial sectors over productive industry.
3 The Mining Cartel: The resources sector, buoyed by Chinese demand, grew to become Australia’s largest export industry. It accrued immense political power, exemplified by its successful multi-million-dollar campaign to gut the Resources Super Profits Tax in 2010, directly shaping government policy to its benefit.
4 The Financialisation of Everything: Banking deregulation led to unprecedented concentration, with the “Big Four” banks becoming a protected oligopoly. Their profits, supercharged by a government-inflated housing market, now rank among the highest in the world. The economy became geared toward asset inflation and debt, benefiting financial capital at the expense of housing affordability and productive investment.
5 Manufacturing Decline: Concurrently, Australian manufacturing entered a steep relative decline, its share of GDP falling to one of the lowest levels in the OECD. The nation was deliberately reshaped as a quarry and a financial platform, deeply enmeshed with global (particularly American) capital and vulnerable to commodity cycles.
Phase III: The China Pivot and the Securitisation of Dissent (2016-Present)
The return of China as a major regional power presented both an economic opportunity and a strategic dilemma for US hegemony. Australia’s management of this dilemma reveals the subordination of its economic interests to alliance maintenance.
1 The “Securitising Coalition” and Anti-China Politics: From approximately 2016, a powerful coalition within Australia’s national security establishment, conservative politics, and aligned media deliberately elevated a “China threat” narrative. This served a dual purpose: it created domestic political advantage for the conservative coalition and was seen as crucial “alliance maintenance” with the US, proving Australia’s loyalty as Washington pivoted to overt “strategic competition” with Beijing. Policies like banning Huawei from the 5G network placed Australia “out in front” of even the US in confronting China.
2 Economic Punishment and Sovereign Costs: This posture triggered severe economic coercion from China, which disrupted billions in Australian exports. Despite this cost, the strategic subordination continued. The AUKUS pact, involving the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines at an estimated cost of up to $368 billion, locks Australia into a decades-long, exorbitant dependency on US and UK military technology, creating a perpetual revenue stream for the American military-industrial complex.
3 Direct American Coercion: This dependency invites direct pressure. In 2025, the US Secretary of Defense publicly demanded Australia increase its defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, a drastic rise from the current 2%. Concurrently, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on Australian exports, demonstrating that coercive pressure now flows from both major powers, with Australia caught in the middle.
Phase IV: The Information and Ideological Frontier
Final control requires shaping the domestic narrative. Australia’s public discourse on key US foreign policy interests is subject to sophisticated manipulation and silencing mechanisms.
1 The Israel-Palestine Litmus Test: Critical debate on Israel’s policies is systematically constrained in Australia. A former senior editor notes a “tacit consensus” in newsrooms to avoid the subject, driven by fear of a well-organised lobby that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. This conflation, described as a “long-term strategy,” ensures Palestinian perspectives and critiques of occupation are marginalised. Government policy follows: the 2025 Albanese government antisemitism strategy adopts a controversial definition that risks conflating criticism of Israel with hate speech, a move criticised by human rights experts for threatening free speech and ignoring the context of the war in Gaza.
2 Surveillance and Infiltration: The reach of external influence extends into covert domains. Israeli intelligence has recruited Australian citizens for operations, as revealed in the case of alleged Mossad agent Ben Zygier. Globally, Israeli cyber-surveillance firms, often staffed by intelligence veterans, export intrusive spyware like Predator to governments worldwide, enabling the surveillance of journalists and dissidents. This global surveillance infrastructure, in which Australian entities may be both targets and unwitting transit points, represents a penetration of informational sovereignty.
Conclusion: Scraping By in the Imperial Perimeter
The trajectory is undeniable. From Vietnam to AUKUS, Australia has been mobilised to fight America’s regional battles. Through neoliberalism, its economy has been restructured for resource extraction and financial profiteering, enriching a narrow elite while creating crises in housing, manufacturing, and cost of living. Its political discourse is policed on issues core to US and allied geopolitical interests, from China to Palestine.
Prime Ministers from Menzies to Albanese have navigated this reality with varying degrees of submission or muted resistance. The result is a nation whose security policy is set by Washington, whose economic model serves global capital, and whose public square is patrolled by imported ideological framings. Australia is not a sovereign actor but a managed asset within the American imperium – a fate it now shares with territories across the globe where the empire extracts, and its subjects scrape by.
References……………………………………………………
Continue readingLooking to 2026 in nuclear news
28 Dec 25 https://theaimn.net/looking-to-2026-in-nuclear-related-news/
There are really a lot of good things happening, involving a huge number of good people. My favourite is that very persistent, won’t-be-beat boat – the Golden Rule, with its crew and supporters – Veterans for Peace. They sail the world, but especially from port to port in the USA, with their message of hope.
Dozens of groups sailed with the crew—including Code Pink, the NorCal TPS Coalition, the People’s Arms Embargo, the Comfort Women’s Justice Coalition, the Task Force on the Americas, and the Cal Sailing Club.
But of course there are thousands of other groups working for compassion and good will, in every country, of whatever political style. There are millions of people aware of, and prepared to be active in getting action on global heating.
I think that there’s a revival beginning in the media, with the growth of so many truly independent and alternative journalism sites. Some get funding from their readers, some soldier on providing free news and information.
Even the corporate media, and some USA Republicans are appalled at the antics of the deranged American “President for Peace” – leading to the thought that he might not last that much longer as “leader of the free world”.
Still – a reality check – if Donald Trump does cease to be USA President – there could be worse to come, with another choice from his pack of greedy sycophants.
So – a reality check is needed. It’s not going to be a happy new year as things are going at present
– “If we make no effort to change direction, we will end up where we are heading.”
Giving up is not an option. A world run by emotionally-unintelligent squillionaire technocrats is not going to be sustainably viable. Addiction to super-profits and power, and absurd ideas of exceptionalism and superior race -these are not the characteristics of good leadership. Jesus said that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth“. But I’m rather hoping that some of the meek get into charge before then, before the current power-brokers wreck the place.
Meanwhile, we continue to try to shed light on the absurdities of our current ‘civilised’ culture. And there are many hazards to expose and to combat – the horror of Zionism (which is NOT the Jewish religion), booming militarism, climate denial, racism, injustice, suppression of civil rights, AI gone wild- to name only a few. Lots of work to do.
The past week has been a busy one in non-corporate nuclear and nuclear-related news. The detailed list is at https://antinuclear.net/2025/12/28/the-non-corporate-nuclear-news-week-to-27-december/
Yes, a Bondi Royal Commission but … | The West Report
If there is to be a Royal Commission into the deadly Bondi Beach shootings, it must not presume blame. It must have broad terms of reference; not be concocted as a political stunt to attack Albanese, peace protestors, Muslims. Everything must be in scope – broad terms of reference and an independent Commissioner with credibility
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 