CND Press Roundup Friday 1st July 2022

War In Ukraine / NATO

• Vladimir Putin has responded to Finland and Sweden’s acceptance into NATO, as the Russian leader attended the Caspian Summit in Turkmenistan. “We don’t have problems with Sweden and Finland like we do with Ukraine,” Putin told a press conference, adding that they don’t have the same territorial differences. However, he warned that “if military contingents and military infrastructure were deployed there, we would be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us.”

• Boris Johnson, citing an unnamed think tank, has claimed that Vladimir Putin has made dozens of nuclear threats against the West since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February. Speaking to LBC on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid, Johnson said: “There’s an analysis that I think has been done by somebody recently, a think tank, that they’re looking at about 35 mentions or perhaps it’s a little bit more now.”

• However, Russia has not taken the accusations of making nuclear threats lightly - hauling in Britain’s ambassador to Moscow to rebuke her over “the frankly boorish statements of the British leadership regarding Russia.” Ambassador Deborah Bronnert was handed a memorandum stating that “offensive rhetoric from representatives of the UK authorities is unacceptable. In polite society, it is customary to apologise for such statements.” Moscow also objected to British statements containing “deliberately false information, in particular about alleged Russian ‘threats to use nuclear weapons.’”

• Despite the reprimand of UK officials, Russia said it was willing to engage in dialogue on strategic stability and nuclear non-proliferation – but these talks do not seem on the cards any time soon. Vladimir Putin told a legal forum in St Petersburg that “Russia is open to dialogue on ensuring strategic stability, preserving non-proliferation regimes for weapons of mass destruction and improving the situation in the field of arms control.” His spokesperson, Dimitri Peskov, later said that no direct contact between Moscow and Washington has taken place since Russia’s invasion.

• The Morning Star reports on the UK’s announcement to boost defence spending to 2.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with reaction from peace campaigners. Symon Hill of the Peace Pledge Union said: “If you’re queueing at a foodbank, anxious about heating bills or unable to buy toys for your children, then your life will not be made safer or better by an increased budget for long-range rocket artillery. We need to spend public money on tackling the real global threats of poverty, pandemics and climate change.”

Trident

• More online coverage of the recent nuclear convoy picked up by The Mirror, Wales Online, IB Times, and The Express. The latter’s telling is (unsurprisingly) strange, seemingly unaware that these convoys are a regular occurrence, reporting the story that nuclear warheads are “believed” and “alleged” to be on board.

Test Veterans

• BBC picks up on calls from nuclear test veteran John Morris – for the government to officially recognise British Army personnel who took part in its nuclear testing programme in the 1950s. The Rochdale-native told BBC North West Tonight that 22,000 military personnel were exposed to the nuclear tests and he was part of the campaign to honour them with a medal.

• The Mirror – who is campaigning for nuclear test veterans to be officially recognised - reports on a deadline given by politicians to achieve this. Tory and Labour MPs have given Boris Johnson until Parliament’s summer break – just three weeks away – to make a decision on a medal and wider recognition for survivors of the test blasts. They also want the official recognition to be in place before the 70th anniversary of Operation Hurricane – the UK’s first atomic blast in 1952 – and for medals to be issued before Remembrance Sunday.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The FT reports on the government’s decision to hire Barclays’ to search for investors to fund the Sizewell C nuclear reactor project. The plan to fund the constructions will see the government and French nuclear firm EDF each take a 20 percent stake – with the remaining 60 percent coming from other investors. Under a regulated asset model, EDF will receive money to help pay for construction from a levy placed on consumer’s energy bills.

Nuclear Energy

• A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) details how nuclear energy can solve the twin crises of climate breakdown and energy security. It claims that the industry is in a unique place to “stage a comeback” – but is dependent on governments enacting friendly policies and investments into new technologies.

• But while countries are looking to pivot back to nuclear energy with a fleet of new small modular reactors, a new study led by Stanford University’s Lindsay Krall found that these mini-nuclear power stations produce higher volumes of radioactive waste per unit of generation than larger-scale traditional ones. Krall said that information from the industry is “promotional,” echoing past criticisms that SMRs are still “PowerPoint reactors” with no detailed engineering to back up the concept. “SMR performed worse on nearly all of our metrics compared to standard commercial reactors.”

• US nuclear operator PG&E Corp has called on the Department of Energy to extend a deadline so it can apply for federal funds to keep California’s last nuclear plant open. The firm is looking for a 75-day extension so it can apply to the $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit program – which is aimed at keeping nuclear plants scheduled to retire open. California’s Diablo Canyon plant was scheduled to start shutting down in 2024 – but has received calls to keep the reactors open by a group of 37 scientists, entrepreneurs and academics in order to fight climate change.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• EU negotiators have expressed doubt over the chances of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal. It comes after unofficial talks between US and Iranian negotiators in Qatar ended in disagreement before they barely started. US officials later expressed the same pessimism that a fresh accord could be struck. “The prospects for a deal after Doha are worse than they were before Doha and they will be getting worse by the day,” one anonymous US official told Reuters. “You could describe Doha at best as treading water, at worst as moving backwards. But at this point treading water is for all practical purposes moving backwards.”

• Reuters also has a piece on the growth of diplomatic ties between Israel and the Arab states – and how this is driving Iran to make a nuclear deal work. Despite the indirect talks in Qatar with the US floundering in a stalemate, “the talks’ difficulty has not discouraged Iran, two officials and a politician, all Iranian, told Reuters, adding Iran’s hardline establishment was set on pursuing diplomacy.”