CND Press Roundup Monday 25th July 2022

CND

• CND’s presence at Saturday’s ‘we all want to just stop oil’ demo in London was noted in Surrey Live’s coverage of the event.

• The Hunts Post looks back at anti-cruise missile protests at RAF Molesworth in the 1980s and the government’s fight against regular trespassing on the base.

War in Ukraine / NATO

• The Mirror reports how two French firms – the nuclear giant EDF and waste company Veolia – have been accused of indirectly helping to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine while also making billions of pounds from British customers. While both companies say they are complying with international sanctions slapped on Moscow, EDF still has contracts to source uranium from Russia’s nuclear agency ROSATOM. Veoila meanwhile, has a number of contracts for waste and heating services. Both firms also have a major footprint in Britain with Veolia providing waste services to councils and NHS trusts, while EDF provides electricity to British customers through its nuclear power stations and is overseeing new projects at Hinkley Point and Sizewell.

• Veteran German politician Wolfgang Schaeuble has suggested that Germany should pay to help maintain French nuclear weapons. Schaeuble, who is the grandfather of the Bundestag and one of the country’s longest serving politicians, made the comments in an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. “Now that Putin’s accomplices are threatening a nuclear strike every day, one thing is clear to me: we need nuclear deterrence at the European level as well…In our own interest, we Germans must make a financial contribution to the French nuclear force in return for a joint nuclear deterrent.”

• Meanwhile, Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko has called on Russia, Ukraine and the West, to halt the war in Ukraine to avoid the “abyss of nuclear war.” Speaking in an interview with AFP, Lukashenko accused the west of having fomented the war and forcing Russia to start the conflict. “If Russia had not got ahead of you, members of Nato, you would have organised and struck a blow against it,” he said.

British Test Veterans

• Another feature in The Mirror on British Army test veterans who took part in nuclear weapons testing, with one describing how service personnel were ordered to march through smoking craters to see how radioactive they were. Brian Tomlinson also said that he had to dig scientific instruments out of contaminated soil which left bleeding ulcers on the palms of his hands for two decades. The paper is leading a campaign to have Britain’s nuclear test veterans awarded with a medal, after it was revealed that the government had covered up the true extent of the serious health conditions experienced by veterans and their families in the years following the tests.

AUKUS

• Australian submariners have started to receive training courses in nuclear propulsion from the British Royal Navy, it has been revealed. In a written question to the government, Labour peer Lord Spithead asked if “there are existing arrangements in place to train foreign officers in operating Royal Navy submarine nuclear power plants.” In response Baroness Goldie, a minister at the MoD, said Australian personnel were in attendance under the AUKUS agreement. The pact will see Australia procure its own nuclear-powered submarines, with Canberra to decide between either a British or US design.

UK Nuclear Energy

• BBC News covers Saturday’s anti-nuclear meeting in Caernarfon, where campaigners said that new nuclear projects in Wales were not the best way forward to meet the country’s energy needs. They also expressed concerns on the impact new nuclear projects will have on the Welsh language.

• The Telegraph looks at what’s to be done with Britain’s radioactive waste and the search to find a site where residents are amenable to having the facility built off their coast. Cumbria is one such location, posited as residents have already experience of nuclear power and waste with nearby Sellafield. However, an old gas terminal near the village of Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire is another possible option on the east coast. But not everyone is happy with it, including former Home Office minister Victoria Atkins – the local MP. In a statement she released last year – before her former boss Boris Johnson announced his big bet on nuclear power – she said: “Nothing I have heard or seen so far has convinced me that this proposal would be beneficial to our area. I have been clear in my concerns about this proposal and I will continue to keep constituents updated as this process moves forward.”

• The Telegraph also runs an editorial saying it’s depressing that the economic potential of nuclear energy isn’t being seized. It also throws in a call for more fossil fuel exploration in the North Sea while these reactors come online. Similar lines (unsurprisingly) being taken in the Spectator Australia.

• Northern Irish political blog Slugger O’Toole has started a series exploring nuclear power, its strengths and weaknesses, and the possible solutions it can bring to the problems world governments are facing. You can read part one here which explains the process of nuclear fission.

• Times & Star reports on how Copeland Labour has hit out at the Borough’s Tory MP for not doing enough to secure new nuclear projects for the area. Former Labour parliamentary candidate Tony Lywood said: “The Government’s announcement on Sizewell C is to be welcomed but is a deep disappointment to the people of Copeland who hoped that our area would have been chosen instead. Trudy Harrison MP’s constant refrain was that this Conservative Government would deliver new nuclear for West Cumbria.” In a statement, Copeland Labour called on Mrs Harrison to resign so “the people of Copeland can choose a stronger advocate for their industry.”

Nuclear Energy

• Wired has a piece on how nuclear powers are struggling to stay cool as summer heat waves across the world have sent thermometers to unprecedented highs.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog has warned that Iran is “galloping ahead” with its nuclear programme. International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Rafael Grossi, told Spain’s El Pais newspaper on Friday that the lack of monitoring at Iranian facilities had made it very difficult to know what was going on. “The bottom line is that for almost five weeks I have had very limited visibility, with a nuclear programme that is galloping ahead and, therefore, if there is an agreement, it is going to be very difficult for me to reconstruct the puzzle of this whole period of forced blindness,” Grossi said. “It is not impossible, but it is going to require a very complex task and perhaps some specific agreements,” he added.

• Meanwhile, France’s Emmanuel Macron has expressed his disappointment over the lack of progress in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal which put limits on Iran’s nuclear programme. In a statement issued by the Elysee Palace on Saturday, Macron called on his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi to make a “clear choice” to reach a deal, adding that it should come as soon as possible.

• A summit of the Iranian opposition movement, due to be held in Albania, was cancelled on Friday amid security concerns. Former UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox was also due to give a speech at the meeting, criticising Iran’s current rulers and the “defective” 2015 nuclear deal – as well as US President Joe Biden’s efforts to revive it.

• David Selboure writes on the complacency of the West – and liberal democracy – in this Daily Telegraph article which claims that we are blind to the coalescing of hostile forces as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its sixth month: “History teaches us that we need to wake up to our growing weaknesses in the face of all this. But a false sense of invincibility runs deep in our culture, even as North Korea tests its ballistic missiles, Iran pursues its nuclear bomb, and our civic orders tumble into greater confusion. Despite this, many ‘conservatives’ believe that it is inevitable that Western culture will continue to prevail over others, while among ‘progressives’ self-blame and guilt – for our colonial history, the legacy of racism, and other ills – in turn restrict free speech about the now chaotic condition of our ‘inclusive’ societies and their gradual dissolution.”

Fukushima

• More coverage of the decision by Japan’s nuclear regulator to allow the pumping of millions of tonnes of radioactive water into the sea – in the Irish Independent and City AM. China’s state broadcaster CGTN also covered the story – and local opposition to the plan – in this report.