CND Press Digest: Monday 17th July 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• EU Reporter writes that: “The Russian army has lost its best-trained units and a huge amount of military equipment during its unprovoked war against Ukraine. It has become obvious that Putin will not be able to achieve his original goals. This is prompting him to commit terror: nuclear, chemical environmental terror to inflict the maximum possible damage to Ukraine.”
• Russia can’t win Ukraine war and won’t go nuclear, Biden insists.
• Opinion: Take away Russia’s nuclear weapons – for Putin is finished and his country may soon collapse. The Soviet Union’s successors were never made to accept the fact of defeat. Whoever comes after Putin must be forced to demilitarise.
• The Kyiv Independent: On the edge of disaster: What could really happen if Russia destroys Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant?

NPT

• How to redefine “success” in upcoming nuclear nonproliferation talks.

AUKUS

• Supporting US military against China could draw Australia into nuclear war, expert warns.
• Australia will be given an exemption from strict US export control laws to help accelerate the delivery of its $368 billion AUKUS submarine deal, under a bipartisan proposal making its way through Congress.

UK Nuclear Energy

• A letter has been sent on behalf of eight Suffolk parish councils calling for action to improve roads to enable them to cope with traffic associated with the new Sizewell C nuclear power station.

Nuclear Energy

• None of the world’s 30 major banks have explicitly included nuclear energy in their criteria for issuing green or sustainability-linked bonds, researchers have found, despite an EU decision last year to label it as sustainable.

Fusion

• Oxfordshire start-up hopes to transform nuclear fusion production.

Fukushima

• Why China is opposed to the release of treated water in Fukushima.
• Japan called on China to approach the release of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in a “scientific manner.”

North Korea

• A fresh nuclear test by North Korea “would not come as a surprise,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday, just days after Pyongyang held a successful test of its most powerful long-range missile.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• Diplomats are in talks with western allies about reimposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, amid warnings that the country is a threat to British interests “at home and abroad”.

Nuclear War On Screen

• Streaming: the best films about the atomic bomb.
• Threads: The BBC drama which affected a generation of viewers.
• Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan: ‘Not worried about a nuclear holocaust? You should be’. The Dark Knight and Dunkirk filmmaker on putting the atomic bomb on the big screen – and what he would have done in Oppenheimer’s position.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament