The linked opinion article was written in response to this opinion article in the NYT.

i have never come across this channel before, so i wanna share it with others who might've just missed this wise guy entirely.

For over half a century, Israel has pursued a deliberate strategy of concealing its nuclear weapons program while refusing to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Unlike Iran, which remains a signatory, Israel does not permit international inspections of its nuclear facilities, maintaining a policy of "nuclear ambiguity."

Israel's nuclear capabilities date back to May 1967, when Prime Minister Levi Eshkol ordered the assembly of nuclear devices at the Dimona reactor, ready for use in the Six-Day War. This doctrine was further entrenched during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, with the mobilization of 13 warheads under the so-called “Samson Option”—a deterrence strategy based on the threat of massive retaliation.

Despite denying possession, Israel is widely believed to maintain a stockpile of 90 to 400 nuclear warheads. It has enforced this dominance regionally—from the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor to the alleged assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010. The massive aerial campaign over Gaza in 2023–2024 and controversial statements about potential nuclear use further exposed the fragility of international norms.

Although the Iran-Israel conflict concluded in 2025, the lack of accountability for past actions and unwavering U.S. support continue to erode global non-proliferation efforts and encourage future escalation.

Posted in video format because it's the original source/proof (and of course it is a video, it's Simon Whistler we are talking about, perhaps the current de facto posterboy of YouTube after having replaced Matthew Santoro a while ago). We in the fediverse have been mindfully observant of situations like what's happening in Germany. Does the idea someone thinks they will get to be treated as different in this state of affairs scare anyone else?

The Pentagon has initiated an official review of the AUKUS defense pact, a landmark agreement signed in 2021 by the Biden administration with Australia and the United Kingdom to develop nuclear-powered submarines.

The AUKUS agreement, valued at approximately $239 billion, represents a significant commitment to enhancing Australia’s naval capabilities through the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. The pact, which also includes cooperation on advanced technologies such as hypersonic weapons, was established to strengthen collective defense in the Indo-Pacific region.

“The Department is reviewing AUKUS to ensure this initiative from the previous administration aligns with the President’s ‘America First’ agenda,” a Pentagon spokesperson stated.

The Turkish publication Aydınlık raised concerns about the modernization of B61-12 nuclear bombs.

What’s the modernization about? Essentially, the bomb’s tail section is upgraded with a guidance system that can adjust its flight path to the target. This is similar to the JDAM kit used by the U.S. military (not to be confused with JDAM-ER, which is akin to the UPMK).

This upgrade boosts the bomb’s combat effectiveness by reducing its circular error probable (CEP) compared to the free-fall version. It also aims to standardize the B61 bomb, which currently has four variants, into a single version. According to the Turkish outlet, the upgraded bomb can travel up to 24 kilometers.

The publication argues that modernizing these bombs, ramping up production of the new B61-13, and statements by some U.S. politicians about using nuclear weapons only heighten tensions between Russia and the U.S., putting Turkey at risk as a result.

In a surprising turn of events, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between India and Pakistan on social media on May 10. He claimed his intervention prevented a nuclear war. On May 12, responding to a reporter’s question at the White House, Trump said, “The U.S. didn’t just ‘broker’ the ceasefire between India and Pakistan— we stopped a ‘nuclear conflict.’”

Was there a nuclear threat during Operation Sindoor that Washington knew about, prompting Trump’s dramatic statement? From May 7 to 10, rumors of radiation leaks sparked serious concern. The buzz was that India had struck Kirana Hills near Rawalpindi, where Pakistan reportedly stored nuclear materials underground. Amid the flood of reports, some claimed Indian strikes caused a radiation leak, detected by a specialized U.S. reconnaissance plane.

Social media and certain Indian outlets went wild, hailing it as India’s ultimate triumph — a bold yet restrained and just response to Pakistan’s nuclear bluff, damaging its strategic assets. But to quell rising fears and provide a clearer, grounded assessment, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog, stepped in. On May 15, it confirmed that “no radiation leak or release occurred at any nuclear facility in Pakistan.”

So, what led to Trump’s claim of averting a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan?

The UK government has signed a contract worth approximately $11.5 billion (£9 billion) with Rolls-Royce to develop nuclear reactors for submarines. The project aims to support the maintenance and modernization of Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet. The contract includes the design, production, and maintenance of nuclear systems, which officials claim will create thousands of jobs and strengthen national defense.

Although not officially part of the Dreadnought program, the contract aligns with broader fleet modernization efforts, including the replacement of Vanguard-class submarines. The Dreadnought program remains one of the UK’s most expensive and strategically vital initiatives.

However, experts warn of risks related to insufficient financial transparency in defense spending. Analysts from Transparency International point out that large defense deals often face hidden budget reallocations, particularly due to limited oversight of military expenditures.

Media reports have repeatedly raised concerns about the lack of transparency in UK defense procurement. In 2022, the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed inflated costs in contracts with BAE Systems, sparking public debate over the justification for such spending.

Rolls-Royce has previously been involved in international anti-corruption investigations. In 2017, the company agreed to pay over £670 million to settle bribery allegations in Brazil, Indonesia, and other countries. Despite government assurances of compliance with transparency standards, the absence of detailed reporting on current expenditures under this new contract has drawn criticism from observers and NGOs.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/43916323

Gaza’s water “comes from wells with salt water unfit for consumption. They have water treatment plants, Israel should hit those plants. When the entire world says we have gone insane and this is a humanitarian disaster — we will say, it’s not an end, it’s a means.” That was the opinion of Giora Eiland, adviser to the defense minister and former head of the Israeli National Security Council, writing in Yedioth Ahronoth on October 9, 2023.⁠[1]

Already by November, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that “around 70% of the population in Gaza is drinking salinised and contaminated water.”⁠[2] By July 2024, Oxfam reported that “people in Gaza have had only 4.74 litres of water per person per day” since the start of Israel’s offensive,[3] well below the World Health Organization’s minimum needed for survival in a humanitarian emergency.⁠[4]

Israel's control over life’s most essential resource did not arise overnight. After occupying Gaza and the West Bank in 1967, it quickly established a system to extract water for its own use while restricting Palestinian access. For decades, this policy forced the indigenous population into dependence and precarity, while Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories — illegal under international law⁠[5] — enjoyed “privileged access to water.”⁠[6]

Read the rest of the piece on SourcedPress. Every fact-checking thread is public, and every source document is provided.

https://sourced.press/a/water-and-occupation

Israel has passed a new bill which criminalises the questioning of the official narrative regarding 7 October 2023. The law, passed without opposition, bars non-Israeli citizens from entering or residing in the country if they or the organisations they represent deny the 7 October attack, question the Holocaust, or support the prosecution at international courts of Israeli security personnel for war crimes. It also expands a controversial 2017 amendment that prohibited visas for individuals associated with groups supporting the peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for a peaceful resolution to Russia’s now three-year war in Ukraine. VOA examined several approaches floated by think tanks recently aimed at achieving a lasting peace to the war.

The 24th February marks the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Neither side has been able to land a knockout blow. Donald Trump is back in the White House and promising to begin negotiations with Vladimir Putin to end the war. What should we expect in 2025 and beyond?

To understand how the war might end, a good place to start is why it began—putting aside Putin’s propaganda about Ukraine being run by Nazis, or having bioweapons labs, and so on.

This war is about how Putin and the people around him see the world and Russia’s place in it. To know what Putin is thinking, we must listen to what he is saying, but here there are two major problems. The first is the role of lying in Russian statecraft, at both the tactical and strategic levels—the latter being what I have called the “intercontinental ballistic whopper”. The second is much bigger. It is that we often don’t want to accept deeply unattractive facts or their consequences. We need to believe that Putin’s worldview can somehow be made to fit with ours and a compromise reached. It can’t.

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