US nuclear test “Baker Shot” in 1946. Photo: US Dept of Defense
As a justification for his order to resume US nuclear tests, order to resume US nuclear tests, had claimed on Sunday that China, Russia, and Pakistan, among others, have been conducting secret nuclear tests.
China rejected accusations lodged by US President Donald Trump that it was conducting secret nuclear testing, asserting that China abides by its obligations to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and advised the US to adhere to the same.
Addressing a regular press conference on Monday, Mao Ning, spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs asserted that as “a responsible nuclear-weapon state, China is committed to peaceful development, follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and a nuclear strategy that focuses on self-defense, and adheres to its nuclear testing moratorium.”
In an interview broadcasted on CBS News on Sunday, Trump had claimed that he ordered the immediate resumption of nuclear tests in the country because other countries are already conducting tests, which may compromise Washington’s superiority in terms of nuclear weapons.
In a surprising move on Thursday, before meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, Trump asked the Pentagon, through his social media page, to resume nuclear tests immediately.
Trump accused Russia, China, and Pakistan, along with North Korea of conducting such nuclear tests without providing any evidence. He also claimed that it is difficult to know about these tests because of the “closed” nature of those societies.
“We are going to test, because they [China and Russia] test and others test,” Trump said during the CBS News interview.
Following China, several other countries have also rejected Trump’s accusation, denying they have conducted tests secretly.
Kremlin spokesperson Demitry Peskov was quoted by Reuters saying that the world came to know about nuclear testing only after Trump’s interview. Before “we didn’t know that anyone was testing,” Peskov said.
Pakistan said on Monday it will not be the first to resume nuclear weapons’ tests in South Asia.
Ning appealed to the US to abide by the moratorium on the nuclear tests and “take concrete actions to uphold the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime, as well as global strategic balance and stability.”
Fear of proliferation
Reacting to Trump’s call for the resumption of nuclear tests, Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said in a statement on Thursday that “any explosive nuclear weapons test by any state would be harmful and destabilizing for global non-proliferation efforts and for international peace and security.”
He appealed to world leaders to work together for a world free of nuclear weapons.
China, according to Ning, is “ready to work with all parties to jointly uphold the authority” of the CTBT and “safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.”
Responding to Trump’s announcement of the resumption of nuclear tests, Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia’s security council, told the press on Friday that if the US resumes testing Russia will do the same.
The CTBT was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996. The treaty bans all kinds of nuclear tests for either civilian or military purposes.
It has been signed and ratified by over 178 countries in the world. However, a section of the nuclear powered nations, such as India, Pakistan, and Israel, have neither signed nor ratified the treaty.
Though both China and the US have signed the treaty neither of them have ratified it.
However, the moratorium on nuclear tests has lasted more than two decades now. Except for North Korea, no other nuclear power has conducted weapons’ tests since the 1990s.
According to Reuters, the last US nuclear test was conducted in 1992. After that a moratorium on such tests was announced by then-president George H. W. Bush. Russia and China conducted their last tests in 1990 and 1996 respectively. India and Pakistan conducted their last nuclear tests in 1998.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Far-right Israelis and relatives of the soldiers gather in front of the military court building and stage a protest against the arrest of nine soldiers accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman Prison in the Negev desert, in Netanya, Israel on July 30, 2024. [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images]
A group of Israeli soldiers accused of torturing and sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman Prison have defended their actions and demanded to be thanked, according to Israel’s Channel 7 on Monday.
The soldiers made their remarks during a press conference held outside the Israeli Supreme Court in West Jerusalem on Sunday. In a video recording, they appeared wearing black masks to conceal their identities.
One of the soldiers, referred to as A, said: “I stand here today because I am tired of staying silent… Instead of hugs, we received accusations, and instead of thanks, there was silence.” He added: “You did not allow us to respond or explain. You gave us a show trial before the cameras and had already decided who was guilty.”
Proudly, he continued: “We will not remain silent. We will keep fighting for justice and for our families. You may have tried to break us, but you forgot that we are a force of a hundred men.”
The case dates back to last July, when a Palestinian prisoner from Gaza was severely tortured at Sde Teiman Prison, leaving him with serious injuries and a torn rectum.
Earlier on Monday, a Tel Aviv court extended the detention of the former military prosecutor, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, for three days after she authorised the release of the video showing the assault and torture, which has sparked widespread controversy.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
DPD reported pre-tax profits of nearly £200m last year. Photograph: Alamy
Exclusive: Labour peer calls for change in the law after company terminates contracts of strike ‘ringleaders’
The delivery firm DPD has been accused of “revenge” sackings after workers spoke out against a plan to cut thousands of pounds from their earnings, including their Christmas bonus.
The company, which reported pre-tax profits of nearly £200m last year and plays a significant role in the festive rush to have gifts and parcels delivered, has even threatened to withhold money from some staff to pay for the cost of replacing them, the Guardian has learned.
DPD confirmed it had dismissed workers after an estimated 1,500 self-employed drivers chose not to take on any work for a three-day period in protest at the plans.
It emerged earlier this month that the company had told workers it planned to cut 65p from the rate it pays for most of its deliveries on 29 September.
Drivers said the cut, which came to as much as £25 a day, and the loss of a £500 Christmas bonus, was likely to add up to more than £6,000 a year for each worker – and as much as £8,000 for those who take on a lot more deliveries over Christmas.
Many drivers indicated they were choosing not to work for the company for three days. After a meeting with workers’ representatives, the firm agreed to defer the rate-cut until after Christmas, but insisted it would still be implemented. Within weeks of the meeting, drivers have said, management have started to move against people they deemed “ringleaders”.
A new HMRC system used incomplete travel data at airports and ports and flagged up residents in the UK as suspected emigrants. Photograph: Robert Evans/Alamy
UK tax agency apologises after flagging people as having emigrated, often when they return via different routes
Parents who went from Liverpool to Amsterdam with their autistic children are among thousands who have had their child benefit wrongly stopped as part of a crackdown on benefit fraud, it has emerged.
It has now come to light that HMRC sent out letters questioning the residency of almost 35,000 of the 6.9m in receipt of child benefit across the UK.
Also among those whose benefits were frozen are a woman who went to France for five days after her husband died there; a Lithuanian man, living and paying taxes in England for 24 years, who was “caught” after he went on a five-day holiday with his son to Italy via Stansted airport; a family from Hove who flew in and out of Gatwick on a trip to Australia; and a woman who flew to Bristol from Belfast for her grandmother’s funeral but returned via Dublin airport.
HMRC apologised to the families and admitted it had sent letters to 0.5% of the 6.9m claimants with “payments suspended” while inquiries continued. It said it expected “the majority had been suspended correctly”.
Hanne Bosselaers on the “Conscience”. Source: People’s Health Movement
Physician Hanne Bosselaers, from Medics for the People (MPLP-GVHV) and the People’s Health Movement (PHM), was among dozens of health workers aboard the “Conscience” – one of the vessels that recently sailed to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza and draw attention to the targeting of medical and media workers during the genocide. People’s Health Dispatch spoke with Dr. Bosselaers about her experience following her kidnapping by Israeli occupation forces and about why continued mobilization, especially within the medical community, remains essential to the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
People’s Health Dispatch: Let’s begin with your experience on board the “Conscience”: what it was like to travel as part of that mission, and then to go through the violent interception and kidnapping by the Israeli occupation forces.
Hanne Bosselaers: It was a great honor to join the “Conscience”, a large ship with 92 participants. We were mainly medics and journalists because we wanted to emphasize that these are the two professions most targeted during the genocide in Gaza. We wanted to show solidarity with our colleagues there.
Almost all participants had direct links with people in Gaza through humanitarian work or Palestinian NGOs like Awda Association. Several doctors on board had worked in Gaza during the genocide, and many journalists were in touch with Palestinian citizen journalists and local news agencies. We wanted to reach Gaza to report and to offer medical assistance: that was the core message of the “Conscience”.
Normally, in any conflict, humanitarian workers and journalists have access to document conditions and preserve the right to health. Gaza is really an exception, with Israel’s illegal blockade preventing any such access. So we sailed this large ship together with eight smaller sailing boats from the Thousand Madleens mission. This was a second wave of boats, following the Global Sumud Flotilla, the 47 boats that left from Barcelona, Sicily, and Tunis at the end of August.
It was a very positive experience on board. We had a strong sense of team spirit. Life on a large ship had to be organized: we took turns at chores, cleaning, cooking, and doing safety drills several times a day. We were led by four experienced women from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, including Palestinian-American lawyer Huwaida Arraf, Vigdis Bjorvand, an activist from Norway who had previously sailed on the “Handala”, Zohar Regev a Palestinian-German activist, and Madeleine Habib from Australia, who steered the ship. These four women had all participated in earlier flotillas and prepared us very well. They knew what violent interception and imprisonment could look like because they had already experienced it, and they talked us through every step. Thanks to them, we were ready and united for what was ahead.
We kept our spirits high and held onto the hope of reaching Gaza. At one point, we had a call with my colleagues for Al-Awda. They told us: “This is exactly what we expect from you as Westerners, that you use your privilege to draw attention to our situation and to go as far as you can to reach us.” They deeply appreciated what we were doing.
I felt quite guilty not to make it to the shores of Gaza, but of course that was not in our hands. I think we did everything we could. The objectives of the flotillas were really met – the attention they drew, the participation of thousands, the local actions, the strikes in Italy, the massive demonstrations across many countries – all of this created significant pressure on Israel. I believe this helped bring about the ceasefire. Even if that ceasefire remains insufficient, it’s still a victory for the flotillas and the global movement that stood behind them.
PHD: You mentioned that the “Conscience” had a specific focus, its crew made up mostly of journalists and health workers. As a health worker, how did you experience the conditions during your imprisonment in Israel?
HB: In our case, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) boarded our ship very violently. They came with three helicopters and a large navy frigate. More than 30 armed soldiers stormed our ship against 90 unarmed journalists and medics. It was clearly a show of force. We were still 200 kilometers from the Israeli coast, about 15 hours of full steam sailing from the port of Ashdod. So the interception itself was completely illegal and disproportionate.
During the whole voyage to shore, we were held in a small, confined, and very hot space. Some participants were elderly, the oldest was Isaline Choury, an 83-year-old French woman, the niece of Danielle Casanova, who was a well-known member of the French Resistance. She was experienced but had health problems, and she wasn’t allowed access to her medication for the entire 15 hours. She had to beg just to go outside for a few minutes of fresh air, which was sometimes refused. So even before imprisonment, our treatment amounted to captivity.
Once in prison, it became worse. What we experienced is only a fraction of what Palestinians face, but it was still meant to humiliate. Guards insulted us all the time. They used minor physical violence on me and other women – twisting arms, pulling hair – not severe beatings, but completely unnecessary since no one resisted. You could really feel that this is a society built on hate, racism, and violence.
We were taken to Ktzi’ot prison, the largest in Israel, because between our group and the Global Sumud Flotilla, there were around 500 detainees. The prison itself looks like a concentration camp: massive concrete walls, five to ten meters high, reminding you of the wall in the West Bank, topped with barbed wire, and surrounded by an army of guards.
Access to medical care was extremely limited. You could request to see a medic, but they always made you wait. Some participants who depended on medication didn’t get it until their consular representatives managed to intervene, and sometimes they were only able to visit their citizens after hours of waiting, which is completely illegal. The prison authorities behave as if they are above the law and can do whatever they want.
If this is how they treat Europeans and US citizens, I don’t dare to imagine how Palestinians are treated. The food was scarce and very poor, and we didn’t receive bottled water, only tap water that looked brownish. Some people were isolated. We stayed for 48 hours, but if someone had to stay for months or years, the effects on both mental and physical health would be devastating.
PHD: You mentioned the psychological impact of imprisonment. Could you speak a bit more about what prolonged imprisonment means for Palestinians, what kind of mental health consequences it has, and how health workers like yourself react when hearing about the experiences of Palestinian political prisoners?
HB: They regularly use these tactics to break people mentally. Nothing is regular, nothing is certain. For Palestinians, this begins from the moment of arrest. They are often kidnapped – at work, at home, in the middle of the night – without trial or due process. There’s no chance to say goodbye to family members. Once they’re taken, everything becomes uncertain: the duration of detention, whether they’ll be charged, whether they’ll ever be released. The occupation authorities can prolong imprisonment whenever they want.
What they did with us, I imagine they do with Palestinians all the time: sleep deprivation, psychological manipulation. Every two hours the guards would bang on the door shouting: “You’re going home!” The first time we believed them, so we got up, went to the toilet, waited, but nothing happened. Two hours later, the same again. At this point we knew it was just about making us have less sleep. And when they finally came for real, we didn’t believe them anymore and stayed in bed until they shouted at us to get up. It’s a tactic to exhaust you, to destroy your sense of reality.
I actually had an exchange with the guard who made us enter our cell. She said: “Welcome to your new home. Welcome to hell.” I told her: “No, you are the one staying here. I’m going home soon. You’re the one trapped in this system of violence. I really pity you.” Because that’s what it is – industrial-scale violence.
Imagine the young Palestinians, some as young as fourteen, living under constant threat from these violent, vicious guards. You can see how this leads to psychosis, depression, and other severe mental disorders. There are already many reports documenting this.
To me as a health worker, it’s deeply concerning. We have to keep campaigning for the release of these people – these hostages, because that’s what they are. They’re not prisoners, they haven’t committed any crime, and they should not be in prison at all.
PHD: Before boarding the “Conscience”, you were also preparing to join the Global Sumud Flotilla with Aziz Rhali and James Smith, comrades from the People’s Health Movement. Why is it so important for health workers to take an active role in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine and to express solidarity? How does this connect to your mission as a health worker?
HB: I see a health worker as someone who defends the right to health for everyone, everywhere. And if you look at what has happened to health in Gaza, it’s the worst situation in the world. Every right related to health has been denied: the right to housing, to education, to clean water, food, and of course healthcare itself. These were the first targets of Israel’s attacks.
After October 7, several hospitals were bombed. But even before that, in every Israeli assault on Gaza, hospitals were hit and healthcare workers were targeted. The number of medical workers killed during the genocide is unprecedented: more than 1,500 have been killed, over 300 imprisoned, and many more injured while at work, inside hospitals. Patients have been killed in their hospital beds, and entire hospitals burned to the ground. It’s a genocidal strategy aimed at erasing the entire healthcare system.
Then there’s the blockade. No medicine, medical equipment, or supplies are allowed in. Even humanitarian workers face extreme restrictions. Only a few foreign health workers can enter, and when they do, they can’t bring medical materials, just a few kilograms of personal luggage and a small amount of money enough to sustain themselves, not to share with anyone else. These inhumane restrictions are illegal under international law. There is no other conflict where the destruction of health infrastructure reaches this scale. Of course, there are other very cruel conflicts – in Sudan, in the Congo – but there, at least some minimal humanitarian access and healthcare structures exist. Gaza is different. The healthcare sector has been a primary target.
And yet, when you look at the response of Palestinian health workers, it’s extraordinary. In Al-Awda, they continue to build and sustain field hospitals, expand capacity, and help their people. They’ve grown from 400 to over a thousand volunteers working in makeshift hospitals and camps. Their courage and resilience are deeply inspiring.
So as a defender of the right to health, standing with Palestine is not only a moral obligation, it’s also an act of professional solidarity. Palestinian health workers show us what it truly means to uphold dignity, even in completely inhuman conditions. They refuse to abandon their patients. They’ve said: “We will stay until the last unit of blood, until the last pill.”
These health workers are unique. They’re my greatest source of inspiration, and I feel honored to dedicate much of my activism to them. They deserve liberation, rights, and the full realization of the right to health for their entire people. For me, standing by them is not difficult, it’s the easiest and most natural thing to do.
PHD: It was really moving to see Dr. Ahmed Muhanna return to Al-Awda the other day, and to hear the speech he gave. It’s been impossible to ignore the incredible work Palestinian health workers have done over the past two years, it’s truly inspiring.
HB: Absolutely. That video made me cry with joy. Honestly, I had feared he wasn’t alive anymore, we hadn’t heard any news for such a long time. I wasn’t expecting to see him again. When I did, he looked physically exhausted, he’d lost so much weight, but the strength of his words, his spirit, was incredible. It was deeply inspiring.
PHD:At the same time, we see the mainstream media and much of the political establishment in Europe talking about Donald Trump’s so-called peace plan. But even in the first hours and days after it was announced, Israel violated the ceasefire. For health workers, for Palestinians, and for those standing in solidarity with them, the struggle clearly continues. As someone who has been involved in this movement for a long time, what do you see as the most important priorities for activists in Europe and around the world in the coming weeks?
HB: You’re right, Israel is already violating the ceasefire agreement. I asked this morning [October 17] whether any of the supplies that entered Gaza had actually reached people, and the answer was no. There has been no scaling up of humanitarian aid, and the crossings are still closed. So Israel is already violating the most important parts of the agreement.
On the other hand, the fact that Gaza still stands and that there are talks about reconstruction is itself a kind of victory. It may seem small, and the situation remains a massive violation of rights, still colonization, but we shouldn’t underestimate it. We can’t expect anything good from Netanyahu, Trump, or Blair, but their plan was to create a “Gaza Riviera,” to completely cleanse the Strip, and they failed. They didn’t manage to empty Gaza of its people, and that’s also because of the global movement, the resistance, and partly the flotillas, which showed that we would not let that happen.
Gaza will stay, and this is the moment to scale up mobilizations and to fight for Palestinians’ right to self-determination over their land and to lead their own reconstruction. There’s a big danger now that all kinds of colonial NGOs will move in and take control of reconstruction efforts. Yes, there will be funding from Arab countries and others, but this process must be led by Palestinians, according to their own priorities.
We want to listen to our partners there, the grassroots Palestinian NGOs and community groups who know best what their people need. They must lead decisions about what is rebuilt and how. So right now, direct solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and their organizations is absolutely essential. We’ll continue to speak about this, to show what they’re doing, and to raise support and mobilization in Belgium and across the world.
That’s also what we, as participants of the flotillas, agreed on: this ceasefire is not an end. It’s the beginning, a small but real moment of hope. And we need to nurture that hope and keep going.
PHD:You’ve already touched on what lies ahead, but maybe there’s more to add on how we can help ensure reconstruction and health justice?
HB: Yes, there’s an unimaginable amount of work to be done. Even just clearing the rubble and unexploded devices to make space for people to return to their land will be an enormous operation that takes a lot of time. But as I’ve said, this work must be in the hands of Palestinians. They are the ones best equipped to rebuild. They don’t need Western paternalism – and it’s Israel that must pay for what it destroyed.
That’s something we really need to fight for: accountability. You can’t just destroy the homes of two million people without any consequence. Israel must be held responsible and pay reparations for the devastation it caused. It hasn’t happened after previous assaults, but this time it must be part of the conversation within the solidarity movement. And of course there will be a need for international support, but we have to avoid a new wave of NGO colonialism. Organizations that stand in true solidarity with Palestinians should take the lead, not by flying in to “rebuild” or by constructing fancy projects nobody asked for, but by supporting Palestinians’ own initiatives and priorities. We can fund, assist, and advocate, but the leadership has to remain local.
So when we speak of health justice, it means full justice: ending Israel’s impunity and the ongoing violations of all rights. There can be no right to health under apartheid and occupation. We have to break both, or any talk of health in all Palestine will remain meaningless. Because we have to remember that the West Bank is also severely affected by settler colonial violence, home demolitions, and mass arrests. We often focus on Gaza, but we must not forget the daily displacement and repression in the West Bank. It’s all part of the same system.
PHD:Thank you, Hanne. Is there anything you’d like to add before we close?
HB: Just that the flotillas have been incredibly inspiring for people all over Europe. You could really feel how this collective effort awakened and motivated so many who had never been involved before. For Medics for the People (MPLP-GVHV), joining the “Conscience” was a collective decision. We felt it was important for our organization to take part directly, to build international connections and send a clear message of solidarity. And it worked: people in Belgium who had never thought much about Palestine suddenly started to care and to learn.
Interview slightly edited for length.
People’s Health Dispatchis a fortnightly bulletin published by thePeople’s Health Movementand Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, clickhere.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
