CND Press Digest: Thursday 16th March 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• The Hill reflects on the dangers faced at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant one year on from the Russian seizure and occupation of the plant.

Trident Replacement / UK Military Spending

• The UK government will increase military spending by £11 billion over the next five years - with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt saying that it would bring military spending to nearly 2.25 per cent of GDP by 2025.
• CND’s Phillip Gilligan is quoted in The Cumerland News and Star – on a recent freedom of information request submitted by The Ferret - which discovered that a 2018 exercise on how authorities would deal with a catastrophic nuclear convoy crash exercise was ‘beset by blunders.’ Gilligan said:“These Freedom of Information requests were first made in January 2019, but the MoD took four years to release the reports. This is perhaps unsurprising given the level of very dangerous confusion and inadequate preparation they reveal. Events such as those envisaged by the exercise at Longtown would, not only be extremely complex, but they would also be extremely dangerous, but it seems that the MoD is extremely ill-prepared.”
• The North West England Mail on the government’s recent progress announcement on the Dreadnought programme.
• The SNP has attacked the UK government’s military spending increase and its focus on nuclear submarines - saying the £5 billion injection over the next two years will do nothing for the pay of armed service members.

AUKUS

• Brookings Institute commentary on the recent AUKUS announcement.
• Australia is seeking talks with the IAEA over the UN watchdog’s concerns about the transfer of nuclear technology to Canberra. The IAEA head Rafeal Grossi said there would be very demanding oversight. This will include IAEA inspections of Australian subs before and after deployments.
• Reaction to the AUKUS deal from Russia and China: The Kremlin said it raised concerns over nuclear proliferation, while a Chinese embassy official reportedly askedAustralian officials if the nuclear-powered subs were intended for sightseeing.
• Academic Benjamin Herscovitch writes for The Guardian – arguing that Beijing’s disapproval of the AUKUS deal is unlikely to impact the broader Chinese-Australian relationship.
• That’s as Australian PM Anthony Albanese visits Fiji to assuage fears that the deal doesn’t impact its nuclear non-proliferation commitments.
• The Times looks at how AUKUS and a new Cold War could squeeze countries like Mongolia. The country’s PM said projects like AUKUS should instead go to developing economies: “My concern is how long it will take to go back to the normal system if we end up in a Cold War,” Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene said. “It took half a century after the [last] Cold War. This is a very critical moment for the whole world to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”
• British naval officers gives their thoughts on AUKUS in the letters pages of The Times.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Jeremy Hunt launched the UK’s first competition for small modular reactors during Wednesday’s budget speech. However, some have accused the government of undertaking a £20 billion gamble on unproved technologies like SMRs and carbon capture.

Nuclear Energy

• UN nuclear inspectors discovered on Tuesday that 2.5 tonnes of uranium ore concentrate has gone missing from a site in Libya. The IAEA said in a statement on Wednesday that it would conduct further activities to determine the circumstances of the uranium’s removal. Read the Reuters exclusive click here.