Category: nuclear
US Progressives Say Stop Supporting ‘Rogue Genocidal Regime’ as Israel Wages Illegal War on Iran
Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Rescue workers comb through the ruins of a residential building bombed by Israel on June 13, 2025 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) “Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing U.S. arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse,” said one critic.
Progressive U.S. lawmakers and human rights defenders demanded an end to unconditional American armed and diplomatic support for Israel after it launched a series of attacks on Iran early Friday, reportedly killing senior military officials and civilians including nuclear scientists, women, and children in a dramatic escalation that Iranian leaders vowed to avenge.
Israeli forces carried out at least five waves of airstrikes targeting not only Iran’s nuclear facilities but also its military leadership and capabilities, Al Jazeera reported. In addition to airstrikes, Israeli and international media reported that operatives from Mossad, Israel’s foreign spy agency, also conducted assassination and sabotage attacks in Iran.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief Major Gen. Hossein Salami and Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major Gen. Mohammad Bagheri were assassinated, as were numerous Iranian nuclear scientists.
IDF attacks targeted cities including the capital Tehran, Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, Tabriz, and Kermanshah. Iranian television reports showed bombed-out apartment towers and said that an unknown number of civilians including women and children were killed in the strikes.
The attack on Natanz—home to Iran’s primary nuclear enrichment facility—sparked fears of radiological contamination.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack—dubbed Operation Rising Lion—a “preemptive strike,” a dubious form of warfare previously waged by forces including imperial Japan during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the George W. Bush administration in Iraq.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the attacks were meant to “neutralize an immediate and existential threat to our people,” an apparent reference to Iran’s nuclear program. Successive U.S. administrations including President Donald Trump’s have concluded for decades that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.
During his first term, Trump unilaterally abrogated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
Last year, Israel and Iran carried out limited tit-for-tat attacks following the former’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanon-based resistance group Hezbollah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
This time, Iranian leaders vowed “severe punishment,” with fears that the U.S. could be targeted due to its staunch support for Israel as it wages what the international community increasingly views as a genocidal war on Gaza. While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that his country was not involved in the attacks, Israeli officials insisted there was close coordination with the Trump administration.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Friday that “in the early hours of today, the Zionist regime extended its filthy and bloodstained hand to commit a crime in our beloved country, exposing its vile nature more than ever by targeting residential areas.”
“With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself—and it will undoubtedly face it,” Khamenei added.
As the world braced for Iran’s response to the attacks, U.S. progressives called for a diplomatic solution and an end to American support for Israel.
“The Israeli government bombing Iran is a dangerous escalation that could lead to regional war,” Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on social media.
Tlaib asserted that Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and is facing a domestic criminal corruption trial, “will do anything to maintain his grip on power.”
“We cannot let him drag our country into a war with Iran,” she added. “Our government must stop funding and supporting this rogue genocidal regime.”
Referring to negotiations on a new Iran nuclear deal, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said: “Just as talks with Iran were set to resume, Netanyahu launches a strike and declares a state of emergency. He is provoking a war Americans don’t want.”
“We should not allow ourselves to be dragged into yet another conflict, against our will, by a foreign leader pursuing his own agenda of death and destruction,” Omar added.
The U.S.-based peace group CodePink—some of whose members held an emergency protest outside the White House in Washington, D.C.—said that it “strongly condemn[s] Israel’s unprovoked and reckless attack on Iran, which risks igniting a catastrophic regional war.”
“This dangerous escalation threatens millions of lives across the entire Middle East,” the group added. “The U.S. must not continue to support and enable this illegal act of aggression.”
CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said: “It’s horrific that Israel is bombing yet another country. And Trump calls himself a peace president? He knew this was coming and stood by. This is entirely out of step with the will of the American people.”
“The whole world is desperate for peace in the Middle East, and instead, Israel decides to move the region closer to World War III,” Benjamin added.
Noting that nuclear talks with Iran were set to resume this weekend, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said that “this is an attack on peace and diplomacy.”
“Israeli political officials have demonstrated that U.S. diplomacy and a peaceful resolution with Iran is what they consider to be the true threats,” NIAC asserted.
“This much is clear: This is a war of choice, and an illegal and unprovoked attack,” NIAC added. “Trump must weigh in to stop this conflict before it spirals out of control, and to preserve the chance of maintaining diplomatic offramps.”
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, Israel-Palestine director at the advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), contended that “Israel deciding to launch a war against Iran at the very same time it faces unprecedented international isolation and pressure over its genocide in Gaza is a nightmarish outcome of impunity.”
DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said that “Israel has committed an unlawful, unprovoked attack on Iran to undermine the growing global efforts to sanction it for its illegal occupation and to disrupt Trump’s efforts to independently pursue America’s interests via diplomacy.”
Nihad Awad, national executive director at the Council on American Islamic Relations, issued the following statement:
We condemn Israel’s offensive strike on Iran and the broader pattern of aggression it represents. Netanyahu is using American weapons and taxpayer dollars to launch illegal and destabilizing wars across the region. President Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing U.S. arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse. Secretary Rubio’s statement confirms what we already knew—Israel is acting recklessly, and the U.S. is letting it happen.
CodePink noted that “in the past month and a half alone, Israel has bombed Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.”
“There is no other choice,” the group added, “ARMS EMBARGO NOW!”
Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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Greens react to plans for new nuclear plant at Sizewell
Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC. Responding to news that EDF will build a new nuclear power plant at Sizewell at an estimated cost of over £14bn, co-leader of the Green Party, Adrian Ramsay MP, said:
“Nuclear power is hugely expensive and far too slow to come on line. The only thing delivered by EDF so far at Hinkley Point in Somerset is overspend and delay. Electricity was promised by 2017 with a price tag of £22bn but this has mushroomed to 40bn and Hinkley is still producing no power.
“The money being spent on this nuclear gamble would be far better spent on insulating and retrofitting millions of homes, bringing down energy bills and keeping people warmer and more comfortable. We should also be investing in genuinely green power such as fitting millions of solar panels to roofs and in innovative technologies like tidal power. All this would create many more jobs than nuclear ever will.”
Iran condemns fresh US sanctions
Original article by Abdul Rahman republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Photo: MFA Iran claimed the proposed nuclear deal submitted May 31 by the US did not reflect the essence of the five rounds of indirect talks between the two countries.
On Sunday, June 9, Iran condemned a fresh round of US sanctions on its citizens and commercial entities, calling them a reflection of the US’s long-standing hostility towards the country and its people.
Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the sanctions as a flagrant violation of international laws and another attempt to deny Iranians their fundamental rights and increase their hardships.
The administration of Donald Trump issued fresh sanctions against dozens of individuals and entities in Iran on Saturday, continuing its so-called maximum pressure campaign to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program.
The sanctions targeted the individuals and entities involved in banking and other commercial activities. Some of the entities are based in Hong Kong and the UAE. The US targeted them by accusing them of being involved in “money laundering” and “shadow banking” activities for sanctioned entities, such as the National Iranian Tanker Company.
NITC is sanctioned for its involvement in the export of Iranian oil which is targeted by the US as part of its maximum pressure campaign. The US has alleged that proceeds from the oil trade are used for the development of nuclear weapons by Iran.
Iran has claimed it has every right to have a peaceful civil nuclear program as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and denied it has any intention to develop nuclear weapons. It has termed US sanctions against it illegal and a violation of its sovereignty and demanded their immediate withdrawal.
The new sanctions were announced despite ongoing talks between Iran and the US on the nuclear issue. On May 31, the US submitted a proposal for a deal after five rounds of indirect talks.
Reflecting on the content of the US proposal, Baghaei said on Monday that it did not reflect the essence of the talks so far. He claimed that Iran is preparing its own proposal for a deal which will be submitted to the US through Oman in the coming days.
Iran has repeatedly made it clear that it will not consider any proposal for a deal if it is asked to abandon its peaceful nuclear program and sanctions imposed by the US are not lifted completely.
IAEA must not be politicized
Meanwhile, Russia warned on Sunday that any anti-Iran resolutions in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors meeting scheduled to begin on Monday will not “bring positive results.”
Russia’s permanent representative to Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, claimed that the expected anti-Iran resolution by European signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the UK, France, and Germany in collaboration with the US – would be counterproductive for the ongoing peace efforts.
Ulyanov was referring to the reports in western media which claimed that E3 along with the US have already drafted a resolution against Iran to be presented during the IAEA meeting. The draft accuses Iran of non-compliance in its safeguard obligations for the first time in two decades.
The resolution is part of E3’s threats of invoking snapback sanctions against Iran, which were withdrawn following the signing of the JCPOA in 2015 by a resolution in the UN Security Council.
The European signatories of the JCPOA have recently been following the US line on the Iran nuclear program. In the years following the US unilateral withdrawal from the deal in May 2018, however, these nations expressed a desire to revive it.
Iran has maintained that all calls for snapback sanctions are illegal. It has asserted that its decision to gradually withdraw from its commitments under the JCPOA were based on the provisions of the agreement itself and a response to the US and E3 failing to keep their own commitments under the deal first.
Reiterating the Iranian position, spokesperson for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Sunday that if others “return to their commitments [to JCPOA], we will do the same.”
Iran has warned E3 of counter measures to the imposition of snapback sanctions. On Sunday, Iran also warned the IAEA of counter measures if the said resolution was adopted, claiming such resolutions are “politically motivated” and a result of US dominance over the agency.
Original article by Abdul Rahman republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then. 
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn. Sellafield could leak until 2050s, MPs warn
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0lne622kk7o
The NDA said the “leak in the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo is contained and does not pose a risk to the public” The UK’s largest nuclear site could continue leaking radioactive water until the 2050s, MPs have warned, while its clean-up operations struggle to progress quickly enough.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) criticised the speed of decommissioning work at Sellafield in Cumbria, citing “cost overruns and continuing safety concerns” in a report published on Wednesday.
Although the committee noted there were “signs of improvement”, PAC chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said Sellafield continued to present “intolerable risks”.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) acknowledged the leak at its Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) was its “single biggest environmental issue”.
The MSSS, which the NDA described as “the most hazardous building in the UK”, has been leaking radioactive water into the ground since 2018, releasing enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every three years.
It is likely to continue leaking until the oldest section of the building has been emptied in the 2050s, about a decade later than previously expected.
Sir Geoffrey said: “As with the fight against climate change, the sheer scale of the hundred-year timeframe of the decommissioning project makes it hard to grasp the immediacy of safety hazards and cost overruns that delays can have.
“Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life.
“Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing.”
…
Article continues at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0lne622kk7o
Another seabird in one of Sellafield nuclear dump’s open-air ponds.
