24 August Nationwide March for Palestine set to mobilise largest numbers in Australia’s history
19 August 2025 AIMN Editorial, https://theaimn.net/nationwide-march-for-palestine-set-to-mobilise-largest-numbers-in-australias-history/
August 24. 21 Cities and towns across Australia
(Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, Canberra, Newcastle, Central Coast, Katoomba, Port Macquarie, Tathra, Bathurst, Pine Gap, Geraldton, Townsville, Cairns, Warrnambool, Canberra, Coff’s Harbour)
Slogans:
- Recognition is a distraction: Sanction Israel Now
- End the two way arms trade with Israel
Key Information:
- The largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in Australia’s history are planned for this Sunday, as a broad national coalition combining every major Palestine organising group nationally unites for a country-wide day of action.
- The march is backed by key union federations including Victorian Trades Hall Council, Unions NSW, Hunter Workers, Unions WA, and South Coast Labour Council. This is the first time union federations have backed Palestine action in any coordinated way.
- The scale of participation, with demonstrations currently planned for 21 locations across the country, suggests widespread support for the Palestinian people among the Australian public. As a result, Sunday will see protests in every capital city, as well as places as diverse as Geraldton, Coffs Harbour, and Pine Gap. Some will be hosting their first ever protests for Palestine. Full list of marches below.
The Albanese government has sought to respond to this growing public pressure to stop Israel’s siege and assault on Gaza by raising the question of symbolic recognition. Yet spokespeople for the pro-Palestine movement, which is the largest ongoing anti-war movement for generations, have made it clear that that they insist on action to try to end the ongoing genocide, not meaningless words.
Quotes:
Palestinian organiser Mai Saif explained the intention of the march:
“So many people are disgusted at the scenes of men, women and children being deliberately starved and bombed to death by Israel. We will be taking to the streets in enormous numbers, in at least 21 cities and towns across the country.”
National organiser Jasmine Duff said:
“We call on those with any ounce of humanity to march on August 24 in every pocket of Australia, from the capital cities to our most isolated towns. History must record that when our government armed a world-historic genocide, Australia said not in our name. We will not condone a single weapons component or scrap of steel provided by our government to arm Israel as it slaughters and starves the people of Gaza.”
National organiser Josh Lees said:
“Albanese has attempted to buy off the Palestine movement by recognising the same state his government is helping to destroy. We made history when we marched on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and we will make history this Sunday by flooding the country with marches for Palestine. If you’ve watched in horror as mass starvation grips Gaza, and as our government continues to arm Israel, this is the moment to join the movement in the streets.”
Billions in Israel defence contracts put Australia at risk.
by Stephanie Tran | Aug 17, 2025, https://michaelwest.com.au/billions-in-israel-defence-contracts-put-australia-at-risk/
The Australian Government risks breaking international law, splashing billions in public money on Israel weapons deals. A Stephanie Tran analysis.
The Australian government has funnelled $2.5 billion of taxpayer funds to Israeli arms manufacturers over the past two decades via government contracts.
An analysis of Austender data shows that since 2004, the Australian government has signed dozens of deals with Israel’s largest defence companies, making them some of the country’s most significant foreign suppliers of arms.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The true sum is certainly much higher, as the government is not required to disclose subcontracting arrangements, such as the $900 million deal between Elbit Systems and South Korean firm Hanwha to supply the Australian Army with armoured vehicles.
The breakdown of the funds is as follows:
- $1.92 billion to Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries Elistra Electronic System Ltd, Universal Avionics Systems, Geospectrum Technologies and Ferranti Technologies
- $307 million to Israel Aerospace Industries and its subsidiaries, Elta Systems and Elta Electronics industry
- $180 million to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, its subsidiary Pearson Engineering and a joint venture with Australian company Varley Group, “Varley Rafael”
- $10 million to Israel Military Industries, also known as IMI Systems. (Note: IMI Systems was acquired by Elbit Systems in 2018)
- $870,000 to Plassan
- $210,00 to Rada Electronic Industries
Breaking international law
Lara Khider, Senior Lawyer at the Australian Centre for International Justice, said the contracts place Australia at risk of breaching its international legal obligations.
“States have been put on notice that Israel may be committing internationally wrongful acts in relation to its military and other operations in Gaza and through its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory,” Khider said, citing multiple International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings in the South Africa v Israel genocide case and its advisory opinion on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
“On this basis, States have an obligation to cease aid and assistance to Israel in relation to the commission of these acts. Otherwise, States may be deemed complicit in internationally wrongful conduct.”
She said the ICJ was unequivocal that all states must avoid trade or economic dealings that entrench Israel’s unlawful presence in occupied Palestinian territory and refrain from aiding or assisting its maintenance. Under the Arms Trade Treaty, to which Australia is a signatory, governments are required to block weapons transfers if there is an overriding risk they would be used to commit serious violations of the Geneva Conventions.
The Australian Centre for International Justice has called for a two-way arms embargo “as a bare minimum” to ensure Australia does not contribute directly or indirectly to violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Department of Defence did not respond – does it ever?
The Department of Defence did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether it would cancel its existing contracts and refrain from entering into new contracts for the procurement of arms from Israeli defence companies in light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Greg Barns SC, a spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, said continuing the contracts undermines Australia’s moral and legal credibility.
“Australia has an obligation to comply with all of the international agreements, treaties and covenants to which it is a signatory. That any Australian government would allow the supply of defence equipment to a country committing war crimes and genocide is morally reprehensible and a clear breach of international law,” Barns said. “This reduces Australia’s standing globally in terms of adherence to the rule of law.”
Non-corporate nuclear news – too long this week-sorry
Some bits of good news – How Australia Enlisted the Whole Country to Protect Its Biodiversity.
Lessons for a Warming World From Kashmir’s Cooling Caves. Offshore wind farms act as ‘de facto marine reserves’. Weaving a story of hope with nature recovery
TOP STORIES.
Democrats bashing Trump, Putin summit ensuring continued destruction of Ukraine. It’s not ‘Who lost Ukraine?’ It’s ‘Who destroyed Ukraine?
Does Trump have the guts to end America’s lost proxy war against Russia?
Stopping The Gaza Holocaust Is The First Step Toward A Healthy World.
From the archives. Conveniently forgotten and ignored – the 8 years war in Ukraine up to 2022. Setting the record straight on the background to events in Ukraine. The West initiated the Ukraine crisis, and will have to work to fix it.
Climate. Temperature records broken as extreme heat grips parts of Europe. Hellish’: heatwave brings hottest nights on record to the Middle East.
AUSTRALIA. Australia’s F-35 exports a “facilitation of war crimes”: US expert.
‘Disarm now’: Anti-nuke advocate’s message to world leaders at Pine Gap protest.
New report on British nuclear submarines should raise alarm bells across Australia. The nuclear-powered submarine crisis.
Government-funded nuclear is fine for Dan Tehan, but not renewables or climate initiatives.
NUCLEAR ITEMS
| ATROCITIES. Over 100 Children Have Died of Severe Hunger Amid Israeli Siege: Gaza Health Ministry. Israel’s govt issues ‘death sentence’ to remaining captives.Palestinians Displaced in West Bank by Israeli Settlers Ask: Where Can We Go? |
| CLIMATE. Heat Waves Are a Growing Threat to Europe’s Nuclear Power Supply. |
| CIVIL LIBERTIES. Pentagon to Create ‘Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force’. |
| ECONOMICS. Nuclear developers turn to Special Purpose Acquisition Companies – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAJTkL99anI&t=22s Rolls-Royce making fortune from ‘untested new nuclear market’.The cost of the UK’s strategic nuclear deterrent. Nuclear legacy costs far outweigh Germany’s environmental protection investments.. |
| ENERGY. Equinix enters into multiple advanced nuclear deals to power data centers– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/08/16/1-b1-equinix-enters-into-multiple-advanced-nuclear-deals-to-power-data-centers/ |
| ENVIRONMENT. Swarm of jellyfish shuts nuclear power plant in France. A Mob of Alien Creatures Just Took 4 Nuclear Reactors Completely Offline. Government faces calls to investigate Faslane nuclear leak. Radioactive water ‘leaked into’ loch from Faslane nuclear base. Rachel Reeves to cut ‘bats and newts’ in boost to developers- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/08/18/1-b1-rachel-reeves-to-cut-bats-and-newts-in-boost-to-developers/ |
| ETHICS and RELIGION. Vonnegut on Nagasaki: “The most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human slavery” |
| EVENTS. PETITION: Urgent: Insist Cumberland Council Fulfill Their Nuclear Democratic Duty |
| HEALTH. Nuclear wasps fallout explodes as worker from bomb factory blows the lid on the true threat of the crisis… while battling FIVE cancers. |
| LEGAL. Netanyahu’s Plan To Occupy Gaza Violates World Court Ruling That Israeli Occupation is Illegal. TASC’s new legal challenge against Sizewell C’s secret flood defences. Judicial review sought at High Court into flood barriers. Quebec engineering body finds former SNC-Lavalin CEO guilty on multiple counts of misconduct. |
| MEDIA. Israel Assassinates More Journalists To Hide Its Planned War Crimes. Slaying and Censoring the Journalists: The Murder of Anas al-Sharif. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6w0NF5Htbs Cowardly Israeli Murder of 5 Journalists, including Anas al-Sharif, Smearing them as Hamas. |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Hundreds rally in Taipei against restart of No. 3 nuclear power plant. |
| PERSONAL STORIES. Anas Al-Sharif’s Final Message.My years reporting on Gaza broke me down- Why did it take so long for the world to become outraged? |
| POLITICS. Smotrich Announces Major West Bank Settlement Expansion To ‘Bury the Idea of a Palestinian State’. Coulport nuclear leaks spark alarm among local nuclear campaigners -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/08/16/1-b1-coulport-nuclear-leaks-spark-alarm-among-local-nuclear-campaigners/ Scottish independence can rid us of nuclear abomination. Switzerland moves to lift ban on new nuclear power plants – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/08/17/2-b1-switzerland-moves-to-lift-ban-on-new-nuclear-power-plants/ Taiwan set to hold referendum on restarting last nuclear reactor. |
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY . Breaking the Ice in Alaska: Why Diplomacy Still Matters. Review of the Alaska meeting – The goal is always domination. Trump on Summit with Putin: We Made Great Progress Today. Trump meets with Putin: the non-event that was sold as history. No ceasefire, no deal: What summit means for Trump, Putin and Ukraine. The Alaskan Summit: Possible Agenda and Outcomes.War’s final act: Zelensky’s dangerous play to crash Russia-US talks. Zelensky Rejects Idea of Ceding Territory to Russia as Trump and Putin Prepare for Alaska Summit. EU’s Kallas urges ‘pressure on Russia’ ahead of Putin-Trump talks . The West is in panic as Israel’s plan for ‘full control’ of Gaza heralds a new Nakba. Tehran faults UN nuclear watchdog over response to Israeli, US attacks. Iran’s nuclear chief urges IAEA to condemn Israeli terrorism. |
| SAFETY.UN nuclear watchdog official to visit Iran in a bid to improve ties but no inspections planned. Incident. Serious nuclear incident’ took place at Scottish Navy base – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/08/17/2-b1-serious-nuclear-incident-took-place-at-scottish-navy-base/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD2b-rM-aeQ Dumbing down: UK Taskforce charged with pushing nuclear deregulation . UK Labour eye ‘utterly reckless’ bonfire of nuclear energy regulations. Nuclear Reactor Faces 18 Hours Without Cooling as “Pipes Burst Like Burning Arteries” Following Technician’s Mistake in Shocking Safety Breakdown. |
| SECRETS and LIES. Declassified: CIA’s Covert Ukraine Invasion Plan.Israel Is Beginning To Choke On Its Own Lies. A Shield of Lies: Netanyahu’s Battle Against the World. ‘A million calls an hour’: Israel using Microsoft cloud for mass surveillance of Palestine. Ministry of Defence urged to publish full details of Faslane incident– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/08/18/1-b1-ministry-of-defence-urged-to-publish-full-details-of-faslane-incident/ |
| SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Reckon you can put a nuclear reactor on the Moon? |
| SPINBUSTER. Trump Declares Victory After Putin Summit: The Spin Begins. |
| URANIUM. Russian uranium being used at Sizewell B site in Suffolk. |
| WASTES. Geological disposal facility for nuclear waste could cost £54bn and ‘appears unachievable’. Unproven and costly: Nuclear Waste Dump ‘Red’ Rated as Unachievable. |
| WAR and CONFLICT. Russia says it prevented a Ukrainian drone attack on the Smolensk nuclear power plant – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/08/18/1-b1-russia-federal-says-it-prevented-a-ukrainian-drone-attack-on-the-smolensk-nuclear-power-plant/Russia makes battlefield breakthrough in urgent push for land.Kaliningrad Gambit: NATO’s Last Desperate Bluff /Spark for World War III? |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Germany’s Merz to Israel’s Netanyahu: ‘No more genocide weapons for you.’ In major shift, Germany ends arms exports to Israel amid Netanyahu’s Gaza takeover plan. US flies nuclear bombs to Britain. Don’t believe the hype about nuclear weapons. The ‘third nuclear age’ is a politically motivated label that seeks to justify a renewed arms race. |
The nuclear-powered submarine crisis
Tim Deere-Jones , 11th August 2025
The full Report “The British experience with nuclear-powered submarines: lessons for Australia” has been written for Friends of the Earth Australia by British scientist Tim Deere-Jones here.
Dr. Jim Green, national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, said:
“The report reveals disturbing patterns of unacceptable safety risks, an appalling lack of transparency, cost-blowouts and delays.
“None of the issues raised in Tim Deere-Jones’ report have been adequately addressed in the Australian context. Indeed a federal EPBC Act assessment absurdly precluded nuclear accident impact assessments as ‘out of scope’. If those vital issues are addressed at all, it will be by a new, non-independent military regulator ‒ a blatant, deliberate breach of the fundamental principle of regulatory independence.
“The Australian government must immediately initiate a thorough, independent review of the AUKUS submarine project and this report should be an important input into that inquiry.”
The Report author Mr. Deere-Jones said:
“The British experience with nuclear submarines reveals a litany of safety risks, cost blowouts and delays. It can confidently be predicted that these problems will beset the AUKUS submarine programme.”
“Operational risks include radiological pollution of marine and coastal environments and wildlife; risks of radioactivity doses to coastal populations; and the serious risk of dangerous collisions between civilian vessels and nuclear submarines, especially in the approaches to busy naval and civilian sea ways and fishing grounds.
“Ominously, the problems seem to be worsening.”
Australia’s F-35 exports a “facilitation of war crimes”: US expert.
Following Sydney’s huge protest against Israel’s killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, the federal government has doubled down on its misinformation about Australia’s arms exports to Israel
Undue Influence, Michelle Fahy and Elizabeth Minter, Aug 17, 2025
The Labor government’s word games continue as it tries to persuade an increasingly sceptical public that Australia’s hands are clean when it comes to complicity in Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
An expert on US arms exports has given short shrift to the Albanese government’s misleading mantras, telling ABC radio last weekend that Australia was facilitating war crimes by exporting F-35 parts and components to Israel.
When asked how he would describe the Australian military’s recent direct supply of F-35 parts to Israel, former US State Department official Joshua Paul said: “It’s directly a facilitation of war crimes. There’s no question about it, to my mind.”
Mr Paul made international headlines in 2023 as the first US official to resign publicly in protest over the Biden administration’s policy of expediting weaponry to Israel for its current war on Gaza, stating that America knew the weapons were to be used to commit human rights violations. Mr Paul was director of congressional and public affairs at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, a US State Department agency that works closely with the Pentagon on weapons transfers.
Defence Minister Marles squirms under scrutiny
Also last weekend, on ABC TV’s Insiders, Defence Minister Richard Marles criticised what he labelled “misinformation” about Australia’s arms exports to Israel. Yet he refused to answer basic questions on the topic, resorting repeatedly to the government’s discredited mantra that Australia is not supplying weapons to Israel.
Mr Marles also passed the buck for his role in personally approving Australia’s continued export of F-35 parts and components, deflecting responsibility for the F-35 global supply chain onto prime manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.
Without providing any justification, Mr Marles claimed that Australia’s F-35 exports presented a “very different question” and were a “separate issue” from other arms exports.
Australia’s F-35 exports cannot be separated out from the overarching question of Australia’s arms exports to Israel during its genocidal war on Gaza.
The Defence Department has stated that more than 75 Australian companies have contributed to the F-35 global supply chain, which has been working overtime – at “breakneck speed” – for almost two years to increase spare part supply rates to ensure Israel’s F-35s remain operational.
In her June report, From economy of occupation to economy of genocide, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, named Lockheed Martin and the members of its F-35 supply chain as enhancing Israel’s ability to sustain its genocide of Palestinian people.
Mr Marles’ claims are also at odds with a significant UN statement last year: ‘States and companies must end arms transfers to Israel immediately or risk responsibility for human rights violations’, which named 11 multinationals, including Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems. These companies, by sending weapons, parts, components, and ammunition to Israeli forces, risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws, the statement said.
UK-based BAE Systems is one of Lockheed Martin’s three major partners in the F-35 supply chain. Its Australian subsidiary is also involved in supplying parts and components.
Australia’s export of F-35 parts and components into the supply chain is essential to the assembly of new aircraft and the maintenance and operation of the global fleet, including Israel’s F-35s.
Australia is the sole global source of some F-35 parts and components including, for example, the high-tech mechanism that opens and closes the weapons bay doors, enabling Israel to drop bombs on Gaza.
Despite this, foreign minister Penny Wong repeated in the Senate last month the ludicrous assertion she and Richard Marles first aired last year that the Australian-made parts and components in the world’s most lethal fighter jet are “non-lethal”. (Watch SBS News clip.)………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Could Australia make a difference?
Undue Influence last year reported comments by the head of the US-based F-35 joint program office, Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt, that the just-in-time F-35 global supply situation was “too risky”.
Despite claims from Mr Marles and Ms Wong that Australia has no power to make any impact on Israel’s military activities in Gaza, Josh Paul’s insights reinforce the fact that Australia could make a difference, should it have the courage to do so.
Australia could announce it will cease its export of F-35 parts and components unless or until the other member nations of the F-35 consortium agree to cease exporting to Israel. https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/australias-f-35-exports-a-facilitation?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=171175147&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Calls for Transparency Over Serious Nuclear Incident at Faslane
By Chris Martin, 14 Aug 2025, https://argyllbute24.co.uk/calls-for-transparency-over-serious-nuclear-incident-at-faslane/
THE Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing calls to disclose details of a serious nuclear incident at HMNB Clyde, Faslane, between 1 January and 22 April this year.
Classified as Category A – the MoD’s most serious level – the event reportedly posed no risk to the public or environment.
Faslane, on Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute, houses the UK’s nuclear submarines, including Vanguard-class vessels armed with Trident missiles.
In a parliamentary response to SNP MP Dave Doogan, defence minister Maria Eagle confirmed multiple incidents at Faslane and nearby RNAD Coulport, but refused to detail Category A or B events, citing national security concerns.
Renewed alarm follows a Guardian/Ferret investigation revealing radioactive water leaked into Loch Long from Coulport in 2019 due to faulty pipes, with a six-year secrecy battle over the case. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency deemed the discharges “of no regulatory concern”.
SNP deputy leader Keith Brown has demanded an “urgent explanation”, warning nuclear weapons are “poorly maintained” and threaten safety, communities, and the environment.
The MoD insists it handles radioactive substances “safely and securely” and that none of the incidents caused harm or radiological impact, reaffirming support for the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
More on this story in next week’s Observer
Government-funded nuclear is fine for Dan Tehan, but not renewables or climate initiatives
Rachel Williamson, ReNeweconomy, Aug 14, 2025
From the party that promised seven taxpayer funded nuclear reactors, now comes a call to enforce pure free-market economics on all things renewable and climate related, at least according to new shadow energy minister Dan Tehan.
Tehan’s speech to the Carbon Market Institute’s emissions summit in Melbourne on Thursday was a pitch for renewable energy and climate initiatives to be turned over to competitive markets.
But mentions of the Coalition’s former plans for state-funded nuclear power plants, or the removal of the $14.5 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies were conspicuously absent.
And while Tehan was keen to adopt Ross Garnaut’s contention that Australia will struggle to achieve its 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, he did not also reference in his markets-led speech Garnaut’s contention that oligopolistic gas participants are using their market power to drive up prices.
Playing to his role as a free market champion, Tehan opened his talk with a gentle neg at the audience about why he thinks the entire premise of the conference founder is wrong.
“I called it the so-called carbon market, for a reason,” he told the crowd, saying markets are defined by transparency.
“Australians deserve clarity about costs, trade-offs and pathways in our energy transition. At the moment, this has been hidden, and we need to know why.”
In a speech that repeatedly referenced the cost blowout of the VNI West transmission line, called for CSIRO to “release its code, data and assumptions in full” for the GenCost report, and demanded to know how much the beneficiaries of electric vehicle incentives are earning, Tehan’s pitch was that governments are too involved in the economy-wide changes currently underway to reduce emissions. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Currently, the Coalition still can’t agree on what kind of energy they’d like in Australia.
Two weeks ago, Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan from the Nationals were again calling for more coal fired power stations to be built, and last week Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie came out against a too-quick transition from fossil fuels,
Energy is one of the five issues Liberal leader Sussan Ley has put up for negotiation.
Tehan listed eight different areas where the federal government should bring in more market-based measures rather than an approach marked by “ideology, energy constraint and emissions reduction through a high cost de-industrialisation”……………………………………………https://reneweconomy.com.au/government-funded-nuclear-is-fine-for-dan-tehan-but-not-renewables-or-climate-initiatives/
It’s not ‘Who lost Ukraine?’ It’s ‘Who destroyed Ukraine?
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 15 Aug 25
When Mao won the Chinese civil war in 1949, adding China to the USSR in the roster of commie countries, the US war hawks of that era excoriated the Truman administration for ‘losing’ China’. Their unhinged claim was that the commie filled State Department made Mao’s inevitable takeover possible. That helped fuel Sen. Joe McCarthy’s equally unhinged campaign to smoke out all those imagined commies in the Truman administration a year later.
A whiff of that 1949 anti commie hysteria is playing out on mainstream media ahead of Friday’s sit down between President Trump and Russian President Putin seeking a ceasefire and end to this disastrous war destroying Ukraine.
Morning Joe Scarborough this morning pondered whether Trump will cave to evil Putin’s Ukraine dismembership demands to achieve the peace that might garner him a Nobel Peace Prize. Yep, Moring Joe laid out the ‘Who lost Ukraine’ meme on Trump to prepare us for the onslaught of anti-Trump, anti-Russian hysteria sure to follow if a settlement reflecting the reality of Ukraine’s dismembership is inked in Alaska tomorrow.
A settlement is only possible if a US/Russia settlement verifies the battlefield reality. Ukraine’s military is teetering on collapse with over a million dead cannon fodder and 4 oblasts gone to Russia forever. If Trump accomplishes peace…which is far from likely, the blame game will focus on Trump who ‘lost’ Ukraine which will end up as a greatly diminished rump state dependent on US/European life support for years to come.
Historians instead should begin with the 6 administrations preceding Trump’s second term 2.0: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump 1.0 and most grievously Joe Biden. H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, Trump 1.0 and Biden all promoted NATO expansion into Ukraine and dismissed all Russian security pleas that such expansion was a Red Line Russia would view as an existential threat.
While his predecessors put Ukraine on the road to destruction, Joe Biden essentially pulled the trigger on a war Ukraine had no chance of winning. Putin tried to avoid invading. He saw Ukraine massing 60,000 elite troops on the Donbas border to polish off the Ukrainian separatists there seeking independence and safety from Kyiv neo fascists. His plea of December 21 2021 was dismissed out of hand. Biden told Putin that Russia’s security interests, which included autonomy for Ukrainian separatists as well as a neutral Ukraine not in NATO, were ‘not subject to discussion whatsoever.’
Biden knew that response would provoke a Russian invasion. But Biden miscalculated that US weapons combined with draconian Russian sanctions would result in a Vietnam style defeat for Russia, possibly even the overthrow of President Putin.
So here we are three years, eight months later with Putin, not Trump holding all the cards in tomorrow’s negotiation. Trump knows the correct outcome is settling on Russia’s terms: no return of Ukraine territory, no NATO for Ukraine and a demilitarized Ukraine that can never attack inside Russia territory again. He also knows he’ll be branded by America’s ravenous war hawks as ‘The man who lost Ukraine’ should he end the war.
Nobody lost Ukraine. But we now know who destroyed Ukraine. The only question to be answered is…How severely Ukraine will be destroyed before the guns go silent.
Serious nuclear incident’ took place at Scottish Navy base.
14 Aug 25, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/14/serious-nuclear-incident-clyde-faslane-navy-base/
MoD admits ‘Category A’ event at HMNB Clyde which will raise concerns about maintenance of Trident nuclear submarines
‘Potentially serious’ event at HMNB Clyde prompts concerns about maintenance of Trident submarines
Category A events are defined as those which carry “actual or high potential for radioactive release to the environment”.
The revelation will raise serious concerns about how the Trident nuclear submarines in Scotland are being maintained. It is also likely to prompt questions over transparency and why the incident was not known about until now.
HMNB Clyde houses every Royal Navy submarine, including the Vanguard-class vessels which are armed with Trident missiles.
On Wednesday afternoon, the SNP demanded an urgent explanation from the Labour Government in Westminster over a “catalogue of failures” including separate contamination nearby.
The MoD declined to offer specific details of the incident, which was first reported by the Helensburgh Advertiser. This means it was unclear if any radiation was leaked into the environment or if there was a risk of this taking place.
The incident is not the first category A incident to take place at Faslane, with the MoD having reported two such cases from 2006 to 2007 and a third that took place in 2023.
The incident was disclosed in a written parliamentary answer by Maria Eagle, the procurement minister, after she was asked to provide the number of Nuclear Site Event Reports (NSERs) at the Coulport and Faslane naval bases.
She said there had been one category A event at Faslane between Jan 1 and April 22, two category B, seven category C and four category D. A further five events were deemed to be “below scale”, meaning they were less serious.
Nearby Coulport, where the UK’s nuclear missiles and warheads are stored, had four category C and nine category D events over the same period.
Ms Eagle told Dave Doogan, the SNP MP who tabled the question: “I cannot provide specific detail for the events as disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of any relevant forces.
“I can assure the honourable member that none of the events listed in question 49938 caused harm to the health of any member of staff or to any member of the public and none have resulted in any radiological impact to the environment.”
She also said that NSERs “are raised to foster a robust safety culture that learns from experience, whether that is equipment failures, human error, procedural failings, documentation shortcoming or near-misses”.
Category B incidents are defined as having “actual or high potential for a contained release within [a] building or submarine or unplanned exposure to radiation”.
Category C incidents have “moderate potential for future release”, while category D incidents are unlikely to prompt any release but “may contribute towards an adverse trend”.
Radioactive water leak
It emerged last week that radioactive water from the Coulport and Faslane bases, which are situated near Glasgow, was allowed to leak into the sea after several old pipes burst.
The substance was released into Loch Long because the Royal Navy inadequately maintained a network of around 1,500 pipes on the base, a regulator found.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the pollution watchdog north of the border, found up to half the components at the base were beyond their design life.
David Cullen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Basic defence think tank, said attempts to hide previous serious incidents from the public had been “outrageous”.
Mr Cullen said: “The MoD is almost 10 years into a nearly £2bn infrastructure programme at Faslane and Coulport, and yet they apparently didn’t have a proper asset management system as recently as 2022.
“This negligent approach is far too common in the nuclear weapons programme, and is a direct consequence of a lack of oversight.”
Government accused of ‘cover-up’
Keith Brown, the deputy leader of the SNP, accused the Government of a cover-up in relation to the incident at Faslane.
Mr Brown said: “Nuclear weapons are an ever-present danger and this new information is deeply worrying.
“With repeated reports of serious incidents at Faslane and now confirmed radioactive contamination in Loch Long, it’s clear these weapons are not only poorly maintained but are a direct threat to our environment, our communities, and our safety.
“Worse still, the Labour Government is refusing to provide any details about the category A incident, or the full extent of the contamination, including who could potentially be affected.”
The SNP has vowed to scrap Trident, despite consensus in Westminster and among defence experts that the world is now more dangerous than at any point since the Cold War.
The accusations over a cover-up come after The Telegraph disclosed last month that Britain had secretly offered asylum to almost 24,000 Afghan soldiers and their families.
The Government earmarked £7bn to relocate Afghans to the UK over five years after they were caught up in the most serious data breach in history.
Despite enormous costs to the taxpayer, the breach was kept secret from the public for 683 days by two successive governments after the first use of a super-injunction by ministers.
An MoD spokesman said: “We place the upmost importance on handling radioactive substances safely and securely. Nuclear Site Event Reports demonstrate our robust safety culture and commitment to learn from experience.
“The incidents posed no risk to the public and did not result in any radiological impact to the environment. It is factually incorrect to suggest otherwise. Our Government backs our nuclear deterrent as the ultimate guarantor of our national security.
The MoD said it was unable to disclose details of individual incidents for “national security reasons”. However, it is understood all the NSERs were categorised as having a “low safety significance”.
Not the corporate nuclear news -this week
Some bits of good news – Superpowers united on a shared green energy vision. Japanese ‘Rental Grandmother’ Service Provides Much-Needed and Much-Loved Purpose for Older WomenUK’s Rarest Breeding Birds Raise Chicks for First Time in Six Years
TOP STORIES.
Remembering Hiroshima 80 years on – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgU-Vc958-k
Jeremy Corbyn: Nuclear Disarmament Now.
Why no Hollywood movie on Nagasaki A Bombing?
As Netanyahu moves toward full takeover of Gaza, Israel faces a crisis of international credibility.
Trump’s Suicidal Nuclear Brinksmanship.The new space race: How the US, China, and Russia are all vying to be the first to build a nuclear reactor on the MOON.
Environment and health. The Lancet Countdown on health and plastics.
AUSTRALIA. Australia to chart its own course on Palestinian statehood, without Trump’s say-so.
Dare To Hope. Julian Assange Joins Historic Anti-Genocide March Across Sydney’s Harbour Bridge.
The lethal legacy of Aukus nuclear submarines will remain for millennia – and there’s no plan to deal with it. The AUKUS Submarine Deal is Dead. AUKUS delusions– More rivets pop in submarine drama.
Those left behind: The long shadow of Britain’s nuclear testing in Western Australia.
NUCLEAR ITEMS.
| ARTS and CULTURE. Patrick Lawrence: Yes, It’s a Genocide. |
| ATROCITIES. The Genocidal Partnership of Israel and the United States.1,500 Killed While Seeking Aid in Gaza Since May: UN. |
| CLIMATE. Europe’s electricity system tested by heatwaves as air-conditioning use soars – nuclear power plants affected- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/08/07/2-a-europes-electricity-system-tested-by-heatwaves-as-air-conditioning-use-soars-nuclear-power-plants-affected/ |
ECONOMICS. EDF shifts nuclear strategy to domestic projects.
How industry is positioning itself for the giant Golden Dome budget.
EMPLOYMENT. Miliband’s Nuclear Quango Chief In Line for £200,000 for Working Three Days a Week. Sellafield nuclear plant contractors to strike. Sizewell C to give jobs to hundreds of ex-offenders.
ETHICS and RELIGION. The Satanic Nature of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Christian Zionist View of Foreign Policy Is Holy War. Chris Hedges: The Gaza Riviera.
To Future Generations: They Knew-They All Knew What Was Happening In Gaza.
| HEALTH. The Bombs Still Ticking.“Memories that do not heal”: the legacy of uranium mining at Laguna Pueblo. |
| HISTORY. Hiroshima’s fading legacy: the race to secure survivors’ memories amid a new era of nuclear brinkmanship.SEEDS OF PEACE -AUGUST 2025.Atomic testament: Yoshito Matsushige and the first photos of Hiroshima’s nuclear toll. |
| MEDIA. When the Press Becomes the Enemy: The Erosion of Media Independence in Trump’s America. YouTube bans prominent Zelensky critic. |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . No Nukes for Power, Posturing or Destruction. |
POLITICS. Weekly Briefing: A tipping point for Israel’s legitimacy.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Nuclear Roulette.
80 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki — time for a nuclear-free world for a peaceful, sustainable future.
Zelensky and the EU increasingly desperate over the inevitable outcome of the conflict.
As the world hurtles ever closer to nuclear oblivion, where is the opposition?
| SAFETY. Trump’s Nuclear Energy Overhaul Sparks Alarms Over Safety.Fire safety improvements required at Dungeness A. |
| SECRETS and LIES. Ukraine hacks Russian submarine as Moscow expands Arctic presence.Microsoft helping Israel spy on millions of Palestinians since 2021: Report. |
| SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS.Who’s Protecting the Moon? We may not survive a nuclear war but some plan to carry on. Nasa to put nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030 – US media. A NASA Nuclear Reactor On The Moon? Bold Proposal Is Unfeasible By 2030– Here’s Why. From boots to orbits: Army develops space skills amid growing battlefield reliance on satellites. |
| SPINBUSTER. 80 Years of Lies: The US Finally Admits It Knew It Didn’t Need to Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
| TECHNOLOGY. A Second CANDU Reactor for Point Lepreau? Let’s Ponder. |
| WASTES. Tepco wraps up latest round of treated water release in Fukushima. |
WAR and CONFLICT.
Israeli military plans to occupy Gaza City in major escalation of war. Israel Preparing To Escalate Military Offensive in Gaza. Occupation and Slaughter: Netanyahu and Taking Over Gaza.
Trump and Zelensky, two cornered rats with no way out of Ukraine catastrophe.
Threat of Nuclear War Is Rising, But Scientists Say the Public Can Change That.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.
No more Hiroshimas. Hiroshima anniversary: mayor says Ukraine and Middle East crises show world ignoring nuclear ‘tragedies.
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Expands Nuclear Bomb Production, Rejects Cleanup, Still Plans to Release Tritium.
$10 billion, 10 year US Army contract elevates Palantir to defense contracting royalty.
Pete Hegseth Doesn’t Want to Talk About Golden Dome
‘Disarm now’: Anti-nuke advocate’s message to world leaders at Pine Gap protest.
Following the breakdown of a nuclear treaty, an antinuclear advocate wants world leaders to hear a message she’s made from the doors of a top secret Territory spy base.
12 Aug 25,https://www.ntnews.com.au/journalists/gera-kazakov
An antinuclear ambassador for a Nobel prize winning group has delivered a message to world leaders at the edge of a Red Centre spy base, days after Russia pulled out of an arms treaty following an American missile test in the Top End.
ICAN ambassador Karina Lester was one of a dozen demonstrators who gathered at the edge of the Pine Gap Joint Defence Facility restricted area on Sunday, where she told world leaders to “disarm now” when speaking with this masthead.
“Get rid of your weapons. Lets fund and focus on world peace, not arm up and test missiles,” she said.
Ms Lester’s visit to the border of the Pine Gap restricted zone on Hatt Rd comes a day after she gave a speech at the sixth Yami Lester memorial event in Alice Springs – an event named after her father.
Mr Lester, a Yankunytjatjara elder who died in 2017, was blinded by the British nuclear tests in northern South Australia in the 1950s.
He was blinded as a child, and spent his life advocating against nuclear weapons – a mantle his daughter has taken up with ICAN, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for their antinuclear advocacy.
The group got to the edge of the Pine Gap restricted at about 4.30pm Sunday, where they were again met with a police blockade at where the restricted zone begins.
Two unmarked Toyota LandCruisers followed the convoy to their meeting place, and a police drone was also observed overhead.
The group heard from speakers who opposed the US-run base, with members of the crowd holding signs reading “Yankee go home” while others held Palestinian flags.
At the conclusion of the demonstration, the group gathered for a photo and chanted “land back, close Pine Gap” while various media outlets filmed and photographed them.
Federal NSW Greens senator David Shoebridge was also billed to be at the Pine Gap demonstration on Sunday, but pulled out due to covid, this masthead understands.
The Greens defence and foreign affairs spokesman said the political party has opposed the US-run base “for decades” but did not comment on why he was unable to come on Sunday when asked by this masthead.
The lethal legacy of Aukus nuclear submarines will remain for millennia – and there’s no plan to deal with it.
Ben Doherty, 10 Aug 25, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/10/the-lethal-legacy-of-aukus-nuclear-submarines-will-remain-for-millennia-and-theres-no-plan-to-deal-with-it
“None of the leaders who announced Aukus are in power any more,” he tells the Guardian. “One hundred thousand years from now, who knows what the world looks like, but Australia, whatever is here then, will still be dealing with the consequences of that high-level waste.”
Australia’s future nuclear submarines will produce highly radioactive waste, and allies in the UK and the US still don’t have a safe place to store their own.
In the cold deep waters of Rosyth Harbour lie the dormant hulks of Britain’s decommissioned nuclear submarines.
One of the shells lashed to the dock here is HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine. It was commissioned in 1963, retired in 1980, and has spent decades longer tied to a harbour than it ever did in service. The spent nuclear fuel removed from its reactor remains in temporary storage.
For decades the UK has sought a solution to the nuclear waste its fleet of submarines generates. After decades of fruitless search there are “ongoing discussions” but still no place for radioactive waste to be permanently stored.
Similarly, in the US – the naval superpower which controls a vast landmass and which has run nuclear submarines since the 1950s – there is still no permanent storage for its submarines’ nuclear waste.
More than a hundred decommissioned radioactive reactors sit in an open-air pit in Washington state, on a former plutonium production site the state’s government describes as “one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the world”.
This is what becomes of nuclear-powered submarines at the end of their comparatively short life.
A nuclear-powered submarine can expect a working life of three decades: the spent fuel of a submarine powered by highly enriched uranium can remain dangerously radioactive for millennia. Finland is building an underground waste repository to be sealed for 100,000 years.
For Australia’s proposed nuclear-powered submarine fleet there is, at present, nowhere for that radioactive spent fuel to go. As a non-nuclear country – and a party to the non-proliferation treaty – Australia has no history of, and no capacity for, managing high-level nuclear waste.
But Australia is not alone: there is no operational site anywhere on Earth for the permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste.
‘Australia shall be responsible … ’
Documents released under freedom of information laws show that, beginning in the 2050s, each of Australia’s decommissioned Aukus submarines will generate both intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste: a reactor compartment and components “roughly the size of a four-wheel drive”; and spent nuclear fuel “roughly the size of a small hatchback”.
The Australian Submarine Agency says the exact amount of high-level waste Australia will be responsible for is “classified”.
Because Australia’s submarines will run on highly enriched uranium (as opposed to low enriched uranium – which can power a submarine but cannot be used in a warhead) the waste left behind is not only toxic for millennia, it is a significant proliferation risk: highly enriched uranium can be used to make weapons.
The eight nuclear-powered submarines proposed for Australia’s navy will require roughly four tonnes of highly enriched uranium to fuel their sealed reactor units: enough for about 160 nuclear warheads on some estimates.
The spent fuel will require military-grade security to safeguard it.
The problems raised by Australia’s critics of Aukus are legion: the agreement’s $368bn cost; the lopsided nature of the pact in favour of the US; sclerotic rates of shipbuilding in the US and the UK, raising concerns that Australia’s nuclear submarines might never arrive; the loss of Australian sovereignty over those boats if they do arrive; the potential obsolescence of submarine warfare; and whether Aukus could make Australia a target in an Indo-Pacific conflict.
All are grave concerns for a middle power whose security is now more tightly bound by Aukus to an increasingly unreliable “great and powerful friend”.
But the most intractable concern is what will happen to the nuclear waste.
It is a problem that will outlive the concept of Australia as a nation-state, that will extend millennia beyond the comprehension of anybody reading these words, that will still be a problem when Australia no longer exists.
And it cannot be exported.
The Aukus agreement expressly states that dealing with the submarines’ nuclear waste is solely Australia’s responsibility.
“Australia shall be responsible for the management, disposition, storage, and disposal of any spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste … including radioactive waste generated through submarine operations, maintenance, decommissioning, and disposal,” Article IV, subclause D of the treaty states.
As well, should anything go wrong, at any point, with Australia’s nuclear submarines, the risk is all on Australia.
Australia shall indemnify … the United States and the United Kingdom against any liability, loss, costs, damage or injury … resulting from Nuclear Risks connected with the design, manufacture, assembly, transfer, or utilization of any Material or Equipment, including Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plants,” subclause E states.
“‘Nuclear Risks’,” the treaty states, “means those risks attributable to the radioactive, toxic, explosive, or other hazardous properties of material.”
‘Decide and defend’
An emeritus professor at Griffith University’s school of environment and science, Ian Lowe, tells Guardian Australia that the government’s regime for storing low-level nuclear waste is a “shambles”. He says the government’s “decide and defend” model for choosing a permanent waste storage site has consistently failed.
“You currently have radioactive waste from Lucas Heights, from Fishermans Bend, and from nuclear medicine and research all around Australia, just stored in cupboards and filing cabinets and temporary sheds,” Lowe says.
“The commonwealth government has made three attempts to establish a national facility – it’s a repository if you’re in favour of it, it’s a waste dump if you’re opposed – and on every occasion there’s been local opposition, particularly opposition from Indigenous landowners, and on each of those three occasions … the proposal has collapsed.”
Most of Australia’s low-level and intermediate nuclear waste – much of it short-lived medical waste – is stored at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation facility in Lucas Heights in outer Sydney. Lowe says the nuclear safety regulator, ARPANSA, does a commendable job in protecting the public but the facility was never intended to be permanent.
Australia has been searching for a permanent site for nuclear waste for nearly three decades.
Its approach – derided by Lowe as “decide and defend”: where government chooses a place to put radioactive waste and then defends the decision against community opposition – has failed in Woomera, in central South Australia, in the late 1990s, then Muckaty station in the Northern Territory, then on farmland near Kimba, again in SA.
The federal court ruled against the Kimba plan in 2023, after a challenge from the traditional owners, the Barngarla people, who had been excluded from consultation.
Lowe, the author of Long Half-Life: The Nuclear Industry in Australia, says the complexities and risks of storing high-level nuclear waste from a submarine are factors greater than the low- and intermediate-level waste Australia now manages.
“The waste from nuclear submarines is much nastier and much more intractable,” he says. “And because they use weapons-grade highly enriched uranium there is the greater security issue of needing to make sure that not only do you need to protect against that waste irradiating people and the environment, you must also ensure that malevolent actors, who have in mind a malicious use of highly enriched uranium, can’t get their hands on it.”
Australia’s decision to use highly enriched uranium to power its submarines, as opposed to low enriched uranium (reactors would need refuelling each decade), is a “classic case of kicking the can down the road and creating a problem for future generations”, Lowe argues.
“In the short term, it’s better to have highly enriched uranium and a sealed reactor that you never need to maintain during the life of the submarine. But at the end of the life of the submarine, you have a much more serious problem.”
The high-level nuclear waste from Australia’s submarines will be hazardous for “hundreds of thousands of years,” Lowe says.
“There are arguments about whether it’s 300,000 or 500,000 or 700,000 years, but we’re talking a period at least as long as humans have existed as an identifiably separate species. The time horizon for political decision makers is typically four or five years: the time horizon of what we’re talking about is four or five hundred thousand years, so there’s an obvious disconnect.”
Inside ‘Trench 94’
The US and the UK have run nuclear-powered (and nuclear-armed) submarines for decades.
In the UK, 23 nuclear submarines have been decommissioned, none have been dismantled, 10 remained nuclear-fuelled. Most are sitting in water in docks in Scotland and on England’s south-west coast.
The first submarine to be disposed of – the cold war-era HMS Swiftsure was retired from service in 1992 – will be finally dismantled in 2026. Keeping decommissioned nuclear subs afloat and secure costs the UK upwards of £30m a year.
There is still no site for permanent storage of their radioactive waste: there has been “progress and ongoing discussions”, the defence minister, Lord Coaker, told the House of Lords last year, but still no site.
The UK has about 700,000 cubic metres of toxic waste, roughly the volume of 6,000 doubledecker buses. Much of it is stored at Sellafield in Cumbria, a site described by the Office for Nuclear Regulation says as “one of the most complex and hazardous nuclear sites in the world”.
In the US, contaminated reactors from more than 100 retired submarines are stored in “Trench 94” – a massive open pit at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state. Spent nuclear fuel is also sent to the Idaho National Laboratory and sites in South Carolina and Colorado. Hanford is designed to last 300 years but the site has a chequered history of pollution and radiation leaks. Washington state describes it as “one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the world”.
Finland is the first country to devise a permanent solution. It is building an underground facility 450 metres below ground, buried in the bedrock of the island of Olkiluoto.
The Onkalo – Finnish for cave or cavity – facility has taken more than 40 years to build (the site was chosen by government in 1983) and has cost €1bn. It is now undergoing trials.
‘A Trojan horse’
In March 2023 Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, said high-level nuclear waste would be stored on “defence land, current or future”, raising the prospect that a site could be identified and then declared “defence land”. A process for establishing a site would be publicly revealed “within 12 months”, he said. That process has not been announced nor a site identified.
Australia will require a site for high-level nuclear waste from the “early 2050s”, according to the Australian Submarine Agency. Senate estimates heard last year that there have been no costings committed for the storage of spent fuel. And preparing a site for storing high-level radioactive waste for millennia will take decades.
Guardian Australia sent a series of questions to Marles’ office about the delayed process for selecting a site. A spokesperson for the Australian Submarine Agency responded, saying: “The government is committed to the highest levels of nuclear stewardship, including the safe and secure disposal of waste.
“As the Government has said, the disposal of high-level radioactive waste won’t be required until the 2050s, when Australia’s first nuclear-powered submarine is expected to be decommissioned.”
The spokesperson confirmed that Australia would be responsible for all of the spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste generated from the Aukus submarines: it would not have responsibility for intermediate- or high-level radioactive waste – including spent fuel – from the US, UK or any other country. No permanent storage site had been identified for low-level radioactive waste, which would include waste from foreign submarines.
The government has consistently said it will engage extensively with industry, nuclear experts and affected communities to build a social licence for a permanent storage site.
But Dave Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation says he has seen little evidence of genuine effort to build social licence.
The leaders who signed the Aukus deal – and those who continue to support it – have failed to comprehend the consequences beyond their political careers, he says.
“None of the leaders who announced Aukus are in power any more,” he tells the Guardian. “One hundred thousand years from now, who knows what the world looks like, but Australia, whatever is here then, will still be dealing with the consequences of that high-level waste.”
Sweeney says the “opacity” of the decision-making around the Aukus agreement itself is compounded by fears that the deal could be only the beginning of a nuclear industry expansion in Australia.
“We see this as a Trojan horse to expanding, facilitating, empowering the nuclear industry, emboldening the nuclear industry everywhere,” he says. “It is creepy, controversial, costly, contaminating, and leading to vastly decreased security and options for regional and global peace.”
Beyond the astronomical cost of the submarine deal, its the true burden would be borne by innumerable future generations.
“We are talking thousands and thousands of years: it is an invisible pervasive pollutant and contaminant and the only thing that gets rid of it is time. And with the whole Aukus deal, that’s what we’re running out of.”
New report on British nuclear submarines should raise alarm bells across Australia.
Friends of the Earth Australia, 11 Aug 25, https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2025/08/new-report-on-british-nuclear-submarines-should-raise-alarm-bells-across-australia/113276/
A detailed new report on the British nuclear submarine experience should ring alarm bells across Australia. The report has been written for Friends of the Earth Australia by British scientist Tim Deere-Jones, who has a B.Sc. degree in Maritime Studies and has operated a Marine Pollution Research Consultancy since the 1980s.
Mr. Deere-Jones said:
“The British experience with nuclear submarines reveals a litany of safety risks, cost blowouts and delays. It can confidently be predicted that these problems will beset the AUKUS submarine programme.”
“Operational risks include radiological pollution of marine and coastal environments and wildlife; risks of radioactivity doses to coastal populations; and the serious risk of dangerous collisions between civilian vessels and nuclear submarines, especially in the approaches to busy naval and civilian sea ways and fishing grounds.
“Ominously, the problems seem to be worsening.”
Dr. Jim Green, national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, said:
“The report reveals disturbing patterns of unacceptable safety risks, an appalling lack of transparency, cost-blowouts and delays.
“None of the issues raised in Tim Deere-Jones’ report have been adequately addressed in the Australian context. Indeed a federal EPBC Act assessment absurdly precluded nuclear accident impact assessments as ‘out of scope’. If those vital issues are addressed at all, it will be by a new, non-independent military regulator ‒ a blatant, deliberate breach of the fundamental principle of regulatory independence.
“The Australian government must immediately initiate a thorough, independent review of the AUKUS submarine project and this report should be an important input into that inquiry.”
The report, ‘The British experience with nuclear-powered submarines: lessons for Australia’, is online at https://nuclear.foe.org.au/nuclear-subs/ or direct download https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Deere-Jones-nuclear-submarine-report-final-August-2025.pdf
Those left behind: The long shadow of Britain’s nuclear testing in Western Australia
WA TODAY, ByVictoria Laurie, August 10, 2025
son, a daughter and a grandson of Australian servicemen exposed to nuclear testing have made an emotional pilgrimage up to the remote Montebello Islands to capture details of an era with – literally and metaphorically – enduring fallout.
Paul Grace, Maxine Goodwin and Gary Blinco recently stood together in the ruins of a bomb command centre overlooking the scene of three British nuclear tests in the 1950s that few younger Australians have ever heard of.
As the world commemorates Japan’s wartime nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the trio say Australians should not forget the impact of atomic tests conducted on West Australian soil in the 1950s, starting with Operation Hurricane in 1952 and followed by two more tests in Operation Mosaic in 1956. Other atomic tests at Emu Field and Maralinga bookended the Montebello series.
Grace, Goodwin and Blinco all know the tests left a family legacy of death or ill-health – and lingering contamination 70 years later on several islands. On a recent expedition up to the Montebello archipelago, 80 kilometres offshore from Onslow, the trio gathered documentary and archival material while filling gaps in their own family histories………………………
For Grace and Goodwin, the most poignant moment was when they stood on the tarmac at Onslow airport in the exact spot where his grandfather and her father posed for a photograph with No 86 Transport Wing Detachment RAAF, to commemorate the successful test of Britain’s first ever nuclear bomb detonation on October 3, 1952.
“They performed what they called ‘coastal monitoring sorties’ after testing, but that was code for looking for fallout – the British had promised that no fallout would reach the mainland.”
Grace’s grandfather wrote later: “As pilot of the aircraft, I would have been the most exposed crew member, being shielded only by the Perspex of the front and side windows. The navigator, radio operator and Mr Hale being in the body of the aircraft had, presumably, more protection.
“Further to the above, after leaving the atomic cloud, we spent approximately two more hours in a radioactive airplane (as proved by the Geiger-Counter check) during the return to Onslow, landing, parking and shut-down.”
Maxine Goodwin’s father died of lymphatic cancer aged 49, when she was 16.
“He would have been servicing contaminated aircraft, so my mother and I do believe his illness was the result of his participation in the nuclear tests,” she says…………………………………………….
……………………………………. a 2006 DVA study of Australian participants in British nuclear tests in Australia showed an increase in cancer deaths and cancer incidence (18 per cent and 23 per cent respectively) than would be expected in the general population.
“They tried to explain these figures away, but they are really quite damning,” says Paul Grace, an author whose book Operation Hurricane gives a detailed account of the events and personnel involved in UK nuclear testing in Australia.
The three descendants of nuclear veterans describe the Montebello Islands as haunting but beautiful. “Within the landscape, you’ve got an incredible number of Cold War artefacts lying around, what the British referred to as ‘target response items’,” says Grace………………………………………………………………………
The nuclear fallout was not limited to those servicemen involved. Still affected 70 years later are large tracts of land and seabed across the Montebello archipelago.
New research into plutonium levels in sediment on some islands have found elevated levels up to 4500 times greater than other parts of the WA coastline. The research by Edith Cowan University, released in June, was supported by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. Visitors are urged to spend no more than an hour on some islands.
Grace says the Montebello story is a cautionary tale of Australia’s over-eagerness to host Britain’s nuclear test series, and of UK authorities’ lack of safety and casual attitude toward radioactive drift.
“It forces you to question the wisdom of tying Australia’s defence to powerful allies, especially in the context of the current debate over AUKUS, where the benefits are vague and shifting and the costs will only become clear decades in the future,” she says.
It might seem like we are doing the same thing all over again.” https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/those-left-behind-the-long-shadow-of-britain-s-nuclear-testing-in-wa-20250808-p5mlj9.html
Australia to chart its own course on Palestinian statehood, without Trump’s say-so.
Trump’s return to the White House has already shifted global diplomatic currents, with several leaders recalibrating their positions to maintain favour. By declaring that Australia’s decision will not be subject to U.S. approval, Albanese is signalling a willingness to resist that pressure – even if it means copping criticism from one of the country’s most powerful media empires.
9 August 2025 Michael Taylor, https://theaimn.net/australia-to-chart-its-own-course-on-palestinian-statehood-without-trumps-say-so/
Australia’s decision on whether to recognise a Palestinian state will not be dictated by Washington – and that, apparently, was enough to attract howls of condemnation and disapproval from sections of the Murdoch media.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed this week that he was unlikely to consult with U.S. President Donald Trump before making any decision on recognition. It’s a simple case of Australia acting in Australia’s national interest, emphasising that the issue will be decided in Canberra, not in the White House.
The reaction from the Murdoch media was swift and fierce. Headlines and opinion columns framed Albanese’s stance as a diplomatic snub to a “key ally,” warning of potential damage to the Australia–U.S. relationship. The coverage fits a familiar pattern: when leaders diverge from U.S. policy – especially under a Republican president – Murdoch media frequently portrays it as reckless or unpatriotic.
At the heart of the dispute is a deeper question of sovereignty. Critics argue that Australia should stand firm on charting its own foreign policy, particularly on sensitive Middle East matters, which have been shaped for decades by complex international law and humanitarian concerns. Recognition of a Palestinian state has long been debated within Australia, with supporters citing the need for a two-state solution and opponents warning of diplomatic repercussions with Israel and the United States.
Trump’s return to the White House has already shifted global diplomatic currents, with several leaders recalibrating their positions to maintain favour. By declaring that Australia’s decision will not be subject to U.S. approval, Albanese is signalling a willingness to resist that pressure – even if it means copping criticism from one of the country’s most powerful media empires.
In a political environment where foreign policy is often filtered through the prism of domestic politics and media narratives, Albanese’s comments draw a sharp line: Australia will make its own call. The real question is whether the public sees that as principled independence – or unnecessary defiance.
Either way, the stance taps into a deeper tradition in Australian foreign policy: the belief that while alliances matter, sovereignty matters more. From Whitlam’s recognition of China to Howard’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, Australia has occasionally charted its own course against the preferences of powerful allies. Albanese’s decision – or even just his refusal to seek Trump’s blessing – may yet be remembered as another of those moments.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 