CND Press Roundup, Wednesday 9th March, 2022

CND Press Roundup, Wednesday 9th March, 2022
 

War in Ukraine

• The Tablet has some coverage of Sunday’s London demonstration, leading with CND Vice President Bruce Kent’s contribution at Trafalgar Square. He said that the threat of nuclear weapons should be “a terrifying wake-up call”. It notes his plea for the UK to sign up to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and his remarks that billions of pounds are being wasted “on nuclear weapons which could be used for hospitals and education.”

• More coverage coming through of CND-involved actions as part of last Sunday’s global day of action. The Westmorland Gazette coversthe event in Lancaster attended by CND groups from North Cumbria, South Lakeland and Lancaster. South Lakeland and Lancaster District CND Spokerson, Patricia Gilligan told the Gazette: “CND stands squarely with all those in Russia and beyond who have protested against the invasion of Ukraine. We join them in calling for an immediate and total ceasefire and for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. It is essential that we condemn military aggression wherever it occurs and whoever is the perpetrator. We call for humanitarian aid and a welcome for refugees, and urge our Government and others to pursue diplomatic solutions rather than military escalation. It is essential that we show our support for peace in the world and halt the drift towards potential disaster.”

• CND gets the ‘backing’ of psychology experts in a Guardian piece giving parents advice on talking to their children about the war in Ukraine and the prospect of nuclear war. Among them was Judith Wenban-Smith, a forensic psychologist with a special interest in families, who said children should be reassured that countries with nuclear weapons hold them in a safe way and are determined not to use them. She continues: “Then encourage the child to do something, like join CND, ask for a school assembly on the subject, contribute to a campaign or fundraiser…Parents should not dominate the conversation: encourage the child to talk and respond to their worries specifically.”

• ICAN has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of nuclear “blackmail” in an interview with AFP. Beatrice Fihn, ICAN’s executive director, said “Russia is using it[nuclear weapons] to blackmail almost, to be able to invade Ukraine, and nobody can interfere.” She added that the nuclear threat is being used in “an extremely malicious way” and used to “enable an illegal invasion of a country that doesn’t have nuclear weapons.”  

• Ukraine’s energy minister has said that the government is in the dark when it comes to what is happening at its Russian-occupied nuclear power plants. Herman Halushchenko said its regulator was unaware of the current radiation levels at the abandoned Chernobyl facility and has no control over its largest working plant, Zaporizhzhia, which currently has 400 Russia troops stationed there since it was seized last week. It comes as the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency said it had lost contact with the monitoring systems from Chernobyl stating: “The Agency is looking into the status of safeguards monitoring systems in other locations in Ukraine and will provide further information soon.”

• A UK nuclear expert has suggested that UN peacekeepers should be deployed to protect Ukrainian nuclear facilities from any potential disasters. Speaking to the i newspaper, Professor Tom Scott, from the University of Bristol, said the recent shelling by Russian forces of the Zaporizhzhia plant showed how important it was to “have a non-contested area around these power plants.” He suggested that a demilitarised zone would also help prevent radioactive materials from going missing which could lead to a national security issue. “There are people who we might call ‘bad actors’ who might try to take materials to sell them or do bad things, like make a dirty bomb,” he warned.

• The Daily Mail writes on the frustrations among Russian military leaders about how the invasion of Ukraine is progressing, and US officials who warn Vladimir Putin may use nuclear weapons amidst dogged Ukrainian resistance. Quoting the director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier said Putin has invested in “tactical” nuclear weapons that “he thinks that gives him an asymmetric advantage.”

• Reuters reports on the US announcement to ban energy imports from Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. While Russian oil and gas are now a target of Washington’s sanctions regime, noticeably absent is uranium, a key ingredient needed for nuclear power plants. There is no uranium production or processing currently taking place in the US, with most of it sourced from either Russia or neighbouring Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. However, several US companies have said that they are willing to restart domestic production in the states of Texas or Wyoming if US nuclear power plants are willing to ink long-term supply deals.

• In light of Russia’s recent nuclear threats, Vox has an interview with Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, on the “dismal state of nuclear treaties.” It gives a good breakdown of the eroding of non-proliferation and nuclear treaties.

AUKUS

• Australia’s Defence Minister said the government is expected to announce further details on its nuclear-powered submarine acquisition programme as part of the AUKUS security pact with the UK and US. Peter Dutton said details will be given within the next few months citing the UK and US as “willing partners” and understanding of the timelines required in line with “what is happening in the Indo-Pacific.” In September, Australia scuppered a 2016 deal with France to provide it with 12 new diesel-powered submarines. Under the new deal, Australia’s first nuclear-powered vessels will come into service by 2040, however Dutton indicated they will likely acquire the subs ahead of time. “The arrangement that’s underway at the moment between the US and UK has been incredibly productive,” he added.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• Qatar has stepped up its role in talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as part of efforts to break an impasse between the US, European, and Iranian negotiators. Western powers have been trying to get Iran to sign up to a new agreement which would see them abandon their nuclear weapons programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Talks in Vienna during February have extended into March as it was hoped a new deal was close. However, an announcement has been delayed due to a number of outstanding issues. Among the efforts by Qatari intermediaries is to convince Tehran that if a new deal is agreed to, it won’t be unilaterally dumped by the US – as was the case in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump.

North Korea

• A report released by the US government on Tuesday warned that North Korea could resume testing Intercontinental ballistic missiles, or even nuclear warheads by the end of the year. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence suggested that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, saw nuclear weapons as a key part in maintaining power and it was likely that the country would be accepted as a nuclear power over time. Pyongyang’s nuclear strategy is also seen as a way of driving a wedge between the security partnership of the US and South Korea by “vacillating between periods of escalatory behaviour and symbolic gestures toward the South to exploit differences between Washington’s and Seoul’s approach to solving the Korea problem.”

Fukushima

• A student from the Fukushima National College of Technology has built a robot that will assist in the work to decommission the destroyed nuclear complex. Developed with funding from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Takumi Takeda’s robot is one of a series of probes that will be sent into the reactor buildings to provide video of inaccessible parts of the facility. Takeda, now 20, was only in elementary school at the time of the 2011 disaster, but it led to a huge transformation in his daily life. A trip to the plant in November inspired him to use his background in robotics to assist in the plant’d dismantling. “What I witnessed during the inspection made me realise that the nuclear accident is not over yet. I want to do what I can in decommissioning,” he said.

UK Nuclear Energy

• A crowdfunding site has been launched by a campaign group opposed to the plan by energy group EDF, to dump thousands of tonnes of mud from the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant into the Severn Estuary. Backed by Welsh musician Cian Ciaran, the Save the Severn Estuary campaign hopes the funds raised will finance its legal challenge to have the dumping stopped. The group is concerned that mud excavated during the plant’s construction will churn up radioactive waste previously generated by the Hinkley C’s predecessor reactors.

• The Commons Business committee has been told that the UK could learn from the lessons of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster as part of efforts to curb its growing energy crisis. Professor of global energy at the University of Warwick, Michael Bradshaw, told MPs that Japan launched a national energy saving campaign in the wake of the 2011 disaster, which included calls for households to curb energy use, neon lights to be turned off, and trains to run slower.

• George Monbiot writes on the energy supply in Europe and gives another plug for more nuclear energy as the answer to the fossil fuel crisis. Noting that the US effort to deliver nuclear weapons was achieved in four years, he wonders if “similar resources and political will” could be used to develop “kinder nuclear technologies” in a similar time frame.

With best wishes,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament