CND Press Digest: Wednesday 15th November 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• The UN’s nuclear watchdog has released its latest update on the situation in Ukraine, including the news that gas boilers have been installed at industrial zones near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant ahead of the winter.
• Open Democracy: The war in Ukraine is our nuclear arms wake-up call. 

Israel-Palestine

• Keir Starmer to stage showdown vote with Labour’s Gaza rebels.
• BBC: Will SNP motion highlight division in Labour Party?
• Former foreign minister urges Iran not to get lured into war with Israel.
• A ‘humanitarian pause’ in Gaza will just prolong our suffering.
• Grief is fuelling repression and racism in Israel. But our movement for peace is growing.

US Nuclear Weapons

• The Scientific American has a special edition with several articles on US nuclear weapons and modernisation. See the list of article here. If you’re going to read just one, the editors argue that the US “should back away from updating its obsolescent nuclear weapons, in particular silo-launched missiles that needlessly risk catastrophe.”

RAF Lakenheath

• CND has raised concerns that new buildings at RAF Lakenheath break planning laws, as they are going ahead without an environmental impact assessment taking into account the base will store nuclear weapons. Read the CND press release and exclusive in the Guardian.

AUKUS

• Reuters: A new Australian law will toughen restrictions on how industries and universities share defence technology with foreigners, while exempting AUKUS partners Britain and the United States from such controls, a draft of the measure shows.
• The US Navy intends to sell Australia used Virginia-class attack submarines in 2032 and 2035, plus a new boat in 2038.
• The United States, United Kingdom and Australia recently completed a trilateral exercise focused on using unmanned undersea technology to protect subsea critical infrastructure as part of the security pact known as AUKUS.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Questions have been asked over whether a staff shortage at Sellafield nuclear power plant is affecting safety at the site.
• The government on a nuclear waste dump in Cumbria.
• Environtec on the “green” move to use a desalination plant at Sizewell C.

Nuclear Energy

• The CEO of NuScale Power defended its small modular nuclear reactor businesson Tuesday, saying work continues in the U.S. and two other countries after the company canceled its first plant at an American government lab, amid rising costs.

Iran Nuclear Deal

• Responsible Statecraft: To prevent the Israel-Gaza war from spreading and establish greater regional security, Washington needs to bring Tehran to the table.

CND

• The Guardian obituary for civil liberties lawyer Benedict Birnberg, who in addition to campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty, defended many CND and anti-nuclear campaigners over the years.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament