CND Press Round-Up - 4th March 2021
Posted: 4th March 2021
Please find today’s press round up below. Thank you once again to everyone for their useful feedback. With British news coverage predominantly focused on yesterday’s Budget and Nicola Sturgeon’s appearance before the Scottish Parliament, the round up is perhaps more internationally focused today.
Nuclear Weapons
Radioactive Waste at Faslane
Thank you to Nigel from Oxford CND for passing on a recent report in the Scottish investigative journalism website, The Ferret. The Ministry of Defence has made an application to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency to dump more radioactive liquid waste from nuclear submarines in the Firth of Clyde. According to the Ferret, the radioactivity of dumped waste could increase ‘by up to 50 times’. CND spokesperson Dr Ian Fairlie is also quoted in the piece. The in-depth report can be found here.
The Labour Party and Nuclear Weapons
Nick Wright has an article in today’s Morning Star, where he explores the Labour Party’s recent repositioning on questions of defence and nuclear weapons, following on from the Shadow Defence Secretary’s speech at the RUSI last Friday. It contains a fairly detailed overview of the relationship historically between Labour and nuclear weapons. Recent polling commissioned by CND, which showed strong support for the UK participating in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), including from Conservative voters, is cited.
Nuclear Power
Fukushima Report
The OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency published a report yesterday on the Fukushima disaster. The eighty-page report examines in detail the continued struggles of removing nuclear debris at the site and its surrounding area. One of the report’s claims, according to Nuclear Engineering Today, that the disaster at the Fukushima plant had not had ‘any direct impact on human health’ is bound to attract scrutiny. Moreover, the framing of the report, which presents Fukushima as a key moment in improving nuclear safety globally will be met with scepticism by anti-nuclear campaigners.
Nuclear Power in the Netherlands
The lower house of the Dutch parliament is due to vote today on a motion which will rule out the Eemshaven site in the northern Groningen province as one for the development of a new nuclear plant. It is expected that the motion will pass. The proposed siting had attracted widespread opposition from local residents, who continue to suffer the after-effects of natural gas extraction, including earthquakes.
Anti-war
The War in Afghanistan
The U.S. political blog The Hill carries a report this morning on the conclusions of the report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which found financial waste, corruption and inefficiency in spending during the NATO-led occupation of Afghanistan running into the billions of dollars. The report comes in the context of Donald Trump’s agreement with the Taliban that would conclude U.S. troop withdrawals from the country by the start of May. The new administration has placed the agreement under review.
No New Cold War
The Taiwanese military will hold six rounds of missile tests in mid-March to coincide with PLA military exercises off the Chinese coast, according to the South China Morning Post. Analysts have placed the exercises in the context of continued tensions between the U.S.-aligned island and China.
The same paper is also reporting that China and South Korea have agreed a new crisis de-escalation communications mechanism. This follows on from what Seoul sees as Chinese and Russian incursions into its Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ).
In related news, Al Jazeera reports that a German warship is set to enter the South China Sea towards the end of this year, for the first time in nearly twenty years. The moved has been hailed by the U.S. State Department. This follows on from a similar move by the UK, scheduled for the summer.
With best wishes,
Michael Muir
Press and Communications Officer
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament