CND Press Digest: Tuesday 5th December 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• Reuters: President Vladimir Putin was shown a simulation of the “nuclear button” but declined to press it on Monday as he toured a vast exhibition of Russian achievements in what looked like a warm-up for an imminent re-election campaign.
• Poland warns NATO has three years to prepare for attack by Russia.
• NATO bid from derailing Washington summit.
• NATO should be ready for ‘bad news’ from Ukraine, Stoltenberg warns.
• NATO battlegroup’s firepower put to the test on Exercise Ramming Bull in Lithuania.
• A recent inquiry conducted by a committee of the German parliament has brought to light what appears to be a significant oversight by the German maritime authorityin connection with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.

Israel-Palestine

• The New York Times reports that a Hamas rocket launched into Israel on 7 October struck a military base where nuclear weapons are stored. The report notes “while the missiles themselves weren’t hit, the rocket’s impact, at the Sdot Micha base in central Israel, sparked a fire that approached missile storage facilities and other sensitive weaponry.

US Nuclear Weapons

• Associated Press: The Air Force is expanding its study of whether service members who worked with nuclear missiles have had unusually high rates of cancer after a preliminary review determined that a deeper examination is needed.

Space

• World Nuclear News: The results of a UK Space Agency backed research programme have been unveiled by Rolls-Royce, with the company saying it aims to have a micro-reactor ready to send to the Moon by the early 2030s.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The Guardian has dropped a major exclusive on safety breeches at Sellafield, including revelations that cyber groups linked to Russia and China hacked into the nuclear site. The paper discovered that the authorities do not know exactly when the IT systems were first compromised. But sources said breaches were first detected as far back as 2015, when experts realised sleeper malware – software that can lurk and be used to spy or attack systems – had been embedded in Sellafield’s computer networks.
• You can also watch a short video on the nuclear leaks story. 
• Sellafield: ‘bottomless pit of hell, money and despair’ at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site.
• Ministers pressed by Labour over cyber-attack at Sellafield by foreign groups.
• Secondary coverage of the story in the Telegraph, RTÉ, Belfast Telegraph, iNews, and the Mirror.
• However, the government maintains that Britain has no records or evidence to suggest that a successful cyber attack was carried out on networks at the Sellafield nuclear site.
• That’s as Andrew Orlowski uses his Telegraph column to accuse “Whitehall mandarins” of holding back nuclear power in Britain.
• City AM COP28.
• Rolls-Royce boss Tufan Erginbilgic said he would be “very surprised” if the company did not win a multi-billion pound small modular reactor contract from the UK government. 

Nuclear Energy

• Regulators begin hearings on how much customers should pay for Georgia nuclear reactors.

Fusion

• NPR: Companies say they’re closing in on nuclear fusion as an energy source. Will it work?

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament