CND Press Digest: Wednesday 28th June 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• Boss of the Russian mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin has landed in exile in Belarus as part of a deal following his mutiny against the Russian state last weekend. Him and his troops have also been given an abandoned military base in which to set up shop.

Military Spending

• “The global industrial arms race is just what we need,” writes chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts Andy Haldane in the Financial Times: “Most arms races leave no one better off. Today’s race to reindustrialise is different. It may be just the impetus the world needs to break free of its economic and environmental torpor.”

Nuclear Testing

• A bitter turf war has broken out in government over the long-fought for medal for nuclear test veterans, writes The Mirror.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The first tests are under way to determine where Britain will store its highly radioactive nuclear waste, The Telegraph can reveal. Work has begun to see which of four potential locations are best suited to house the UK’s first geological disposal facility (GDF), where millions of tons of nuclear waste will be permanently stored under the sea.
• A supply chain programme supporting the construction of the Hinkley Point Cnuclear power station EtrvWL60RmZ_LaspqntuaeSAKq3ps3g3FG6efAEkyhsGa4D52-EvhbitkXwHcpZD6NRvjjpIX/3xf/QDAB7FUaRz2JO9IRrSXv0A/h5/POhbSWFPGoLzjEq7l9JbgTKLjj-RJ6MJ9dPrDzNgEbA”>reports.
• Vox on the nuclear industry’s bet on small modular reactors.

RadWaste

• New Mexico has reached a settlement with the US Department of Energy over the renewal of a permit for the federal government’s only underground repository for nuclear waste.

Fusion

• The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fusion project’s council has put back for a year an announcement on its updated timeline for the project - and is proposing other changes including switching the plasma-facing “first wall” material from beryllium to tungsten.

Fukushima

• Japanese regulators began the final inspection Wednesday before treated radioactive wastewater is released from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plantinto the Pacific Ocean.

Climate

• UK missing climate targets on nearly every front, say government’s advisers.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament