CND Press Digest: Tuesday 28th November 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) staff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant writes on the lack of sanctions on Russia’s nuclear industry.

AUKUS

• Australia’s Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy has claimed that the AUKUS pact is a response to the Indo-Pacific arms race and not fuel for it. Speaking in Canberra Conroy said: “The arms race is the greatest its been since 1945, and that is why I reject assertions… that Australia is somehow fuelling that arms race. We are responding to it.”

TPNW

• Kazakhstan urges global dialogue and trust-building at nuclear weapons conference in New York.
• Japan a no-show at UN meeting on prohibiting nuclear weapons.
• TPNW.

• The SNP has urged the UK Government to stop “frittering away” money on Trident just days after it emerged that a nuclear submarine nearly sunk.
• The MoD said nuclear materials are transported ‘only when necessary’ in response to campaigners accusing the government of not being transparent with convoys. Cumbria and Lancashire CND’s Philip Gilligan said: “This is nothing short of a cover-up by the government. Surely, we have the right to know how often nuclear materials are being transported past our schools, our hospitals and our towns and cities. The government’s refusal to disclose even basic information suggests that they have something to hide.”
•  to protect 450 VIPs if UK were to be bombed.
• The House of Commons Library has a new briefing available on Britain’s nuclear test veterans.

US Nuclear Weapons

• The B61-12 nuclear bomb is now formally in the US stockpile and cleared for operational use on the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber. It’s the first U.S. combat aircraft cleared to employ the advanced B61 variant operationally.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Kate Hudson TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak  where the latter is to warn that 35,000 jobs are at risk if the government doesn’t speed up the green transition. In response to the visit, Hudson said: “A rapid transition to net zero – and a government industrial and environmental strategy that makes that happen – is long overdue. What is absolutely not necessary, either for clean energy or increased jobs, is nuclear power production. Paul Nowak’s choice of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to make his is unfortunate. Nuclear power is not part of the answer to clean energy and net zero. It is not a clean technology, either in production or in waste disposal. With renewables on stream, nuclear power is unnecessary and hugely expensive — Hinkley is billions over budget. So it’s yes to a rapid transition to net zero, and yes to more jobs – but in genuinely clean and sustainable sectors, not in nuclear power.”
• The Guardian, Times, and Mirror coverage that the UAE has been sought as a replacement for Chinese investment in Sizewell C.
• Stop Sizewell C have a tool for you to email UAE financiers asking them not to invest in Sizewell C.
• A temporary nuclear waste site has been prepared at Hinkley Point A. 

Nuclear Energy

• CNBC reports on the nuclear industry’s uncertain role in the shift away from fossil fuels.
• Beyond Nuclear: A considerable number of pro-nuclear articles penned by supposedly impartial nuclear experts or professed nuclear industry lobbyists have appeared in the South African media of late. The flurry of pro-nuclear activity has been so noticeable that the cynic would be forgiven for thinking that this outpouring of pro-nuclear sentiment was not random but part of a concerted campaign to push a pro-nuclear agenda that coincided with some specific event or cause.
• Reuters: Nuclear company newcleo said on Tuesday it has signed three different partnership deals with Assystem (ASY.PA), Ingerop and Onet Technologies to achieve its development targets to 2030 and speed up decarbonisation in France.

Space

• Popular Mechanics look at the US plan to put a nuclear reactor in space for the first time since 1965.

North Korea

• Reuters: The United Nations ambassadors of the US and North Korea sparred at the Security Council on Monday over Pyongyang’s first spy satellite launch and the reasons for growing tensions in a rare, direct, public exchange between the adversaries.

Health

• Joe Biden has invoked a Cold War-era measure to boost investment in US manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies that he has deemed important for national defense. The areas of investment also include “medical countermeasures,”which include supplies that diagnose, prevent, or treat diseases related to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attacks.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament