CND Press Digest: Thursday 13th July 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• CND’s press release in response to the recent NATO summit.
• The Morning Star’s coverage of the NATO summit with remarks from CND General Secretary Kate Hudson.
• From The Guardian: US and UK call for more gratitude from Kyiv after Zelenskiy’s NATO complaint and Zelenskiy forced to recalibrate to avert NATO summit falling-out.
• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is a ‘dirty bomb’ waiting to happen – a nuclear expert explains.

TPNW

• Does NATO’s recent rebuttal of the TPNW mean the SNP’s hope of joining NATO in the event of Scottish independence is scuppered? Coverage in The Scottish Daily Express and The Spectator.
• That’s as this letter to the Scottish Herald calls for the Scottish government to follow New Zealand’s lead and get tough with the US on nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Test Veterans

• The Mirror with a new exclusive on Britain’s nuked blood scandal. It looks at possible crimes by the MoD, where blood and urine tests taken from service personnel before and after they flew through the mushroom clouds of nuclear detonations went missing from their medical records. One veteran John Folkes, says despite regular blood and urine tests taken before and after every nuclear flight, the only one left in his records was before exposure.

British Nuclear Weapons

• AWE Aldermaston: Worker dies after nuclear site incident.

RadWaste

• How America’s push for the atomic bomb spawned enduring radioactive waste problems in St. Louis.

UK Nuclear Energy

• “Due to unforeseen circumstances,” the UK government’s long-awaitedunveiling of a detailed plan for Great British Nuclear has been postponed. The event was supposed to be hosted by Energy Secretary Grant Shapps at the Science Museum today. Delays? In the nuclear industry? Never!
• That’s as the long-delayed Hinkley Point C has been confirmed as a major event sponsor of the upcoming Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival.

Nuclear Energy

• Clean Energy Wire on the battle between Berlin and Paris over the inclusion of nuclear power in the EU’s green energy transition.
• Despite ongoing concerns over Japan’s nuclear industry and Tokyo’s plan to release radioactive water from Fukushima into the sea, South Korea considers expanding its own fleet of nuclear reactors.
• How to help the Saudis achieve their nuclear-powered dreams without giving them the bomb. Really?

Climate Change & Nuclear Weapons

• Foreign Policy on how climate change threatens to destabilise critical nuclear weapons infrastructure.

North Korea

• North Korea’s news agency BBC: Who was the real Robert Oppenheimer?
• ICAN: What you need to know before watching Oppenheimer.

Fusion

• The EU Parliamentary Research Service asks “What if we could make nuclear fusion work?” What if indeed!

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament