CND Press Roundup Tuesday 21th June 2022

Bruce Kent

• Another tribute to Bruce published by Guardian-Series by Labour councillor Paul Donovan.

• Somerset Live looks at the recent Glastonbury documentary on BBC 2 which features contributions from Bruce on CND’s historic role in the festival. Founder Michael Eavis remembers: “CND were mailing about 400,000 people. My flyer went into that envelope. So free advertising for my event. It was genius! With a captive audience and like-minded people, people who I had an affinity with, I had something to fight for, and something to go down for. We named it the CND Festival actually. I made £20,000 in 1981. I could not believe it.And I gave the money to Bruce Kent. I took it down on the train myself and said ‘here’s the £20,000 towards the CND campaign’ you see. And later we moved from CND to Greenpeace and WaterAid and Oxfam.”

War In Ukraine

• Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that there is no point in restarting nuclear talks until the US is begging for negotiations. Speaking during a discussion on nuclear arms reduction on the messaging app Telegram, Medvedev said: ”Now everything is a dead zone. We don’t have any relations with the United States now. They are at zero on the Kelvin scale. There is no need to negotiate with them (on nuclear disarmament) yet. This is bad for Russia. Let them run or crawl back by themselves and ask for it.”

UK Nuclear Energy

• City AM has a feature on the planned Sizewell C nuclear project and its potential to ease the ongoing energy crisis. It’s fairly generous to the proposed idea despite this from energy analyst for the Institute of Economic Affairs, Andy Mayar: “Ministers are far too close to the energy industry and convey every sense they have forgotten their fundamental duty to manage trade-offs and protect consumers, in a zeal to signal their virtue on tackling climate change with ‘big bets’.”

• Construction at Hinkley Point C is in full flow with 8,000 workers not on site, the plant’s operator EDF has said. The Nuclear energy firm released a video giving an update on works taking place. I’m not sure if the Construction Enquirer is being particularly objective when it writes: “The nuclear power station will be vital in helping the UK fight climate change, and in ensuring energy security.”

• Lincolnshire Live reports on the planned underwater nuclear dumping site – or Geological Disposal Facility – near the village of Theddlethorpe in Cumbria. The Theddlethorpe Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) Nuclear Working Group said residents and opposition groups would have their voices heard on the matter – amid fears residents would be sidelined – and that they wouldn’t be forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. Ken Smith of The Guardians Of the East Coast (GOTEC) said: “There is no guarantee that most of the members of that partnership are also members of the community affected by this project. Even representatives from the county and district councils could represent wards as far from the proposed site as possible.”

Global Nuclear Energy

• South Korea’s new government is looking to reverse the previous administration’s plan to phase out nuclear energy – instead striving to become an exporter of nuclear energy expertise. Oil Price takes a look.

• The failure by French President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble group to win a majority in the country’s parliamentary elections is likely to frustrate his planned reform of the nuclear firm, EDF. Macron floated a revamp of the mostly state-owned EDF last September – which involved separating the profitable renewables arms of the company in a separate company from its debt-laden nuclear wing. However, the plan was met with opposition from unions while the European Commission fears one could subsidise the other if they were not fully separate entities.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said his country wanted to reach an agreement with Western powers but blamed the US for not reviving the 2015 nuclear deal. “Even today, we are ready to return to Vienna to reach a good deal if Washington fulfils its commitments,” Saeed Khatibzadeh told a press conference. A deal had been nearing conclusion in March but was scuppered after a disagreement over removing a unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp from the US Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) watchlist.

• Meanwhile, a report by the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned that “Iran is escalating its uranium enrichment further by preparing to use advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its underground Fordow site that can more easily switch between enrichment levels,” according to Reuters. The news agency got a glimpse of the confidential International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report to member states.

• Iran will put on trial three people accused of being behind plots to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad. The trio were arrested in April but no other details about their nationalities given. The arrest follows reports that two nuclear scientists died in suspicious circumstances which Tehran believes were poisonings by Israel.