CND Press Digest: Thursday 7th December 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

• Turkey has named its price for allowing Sweden to enter NATO: the lifting of a US Congressional block on the sale of F-16s to Ankara.
• Foreign Policy debates the possibility of Turkey being kicked out of the military bloc.
• The Guardian: The US Senate has blocked a supplemental funding bill that included financial aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as provisions aimed at bolstering border security. The vote, which fell mostly along party lines, increases the likelihood that Congress will fail to approve more funding for Ukraine before the end of the year, as the White House has warned that Kyiv is desperately in need of more aid.

AUKUS

• Foreign Policy: America’s Indo-Pacific alliances are astonishingly strong.

Gaza War

• The high court has been urged to intervene and suspend UK arms sales to Israel in a legal challenge launched on Wednesday.
• A Westminster Hall debate on arms export licences for sales to Israel is Tribune: Why union solidarity with Palestine matters.
• UN warns of ‘horror’ and ‘atrocities’ as Israel steps up Gaza assault.

Nuclear Leaks

• Sellafield nuclear site workers claim ‘toxic culture’ of bullying, sexual harassment and drugs could put safety at risk.
• UK nuclear revelations: how bad could they get and could they affect the US and Europe?
• Sellafield responds to the this week’s revelations on nuclear safety at the site.
• The Guardian’s leaks has prompted this letter on nuclear power to the Irish Times.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The Nuclear Free Local Authorities have warmly welcomed last week’s adoption by Folkestone and Hythe District Council of a motion making a commitment ‘to a new era of clean energy production in the district’.
• A big crane has turned up at Hinkley Point C.

Nuclear Energy

• Authors of the “World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023” define the future role of nuclear energy in the global energy mix as “irrelevant” and “marginal.” The authors add that there were 407 operational reactors producing 365 GW in the middle of the year, which is less than installed capacity predictions for solar by the end of the year.
• The uncertain costs of new nuclear reactors.
• Reuters: Global electricity production from nuclear energy dropped by 4 percent last year from 2021, with the technology’s share of gross electricity generation falling to its lowest since the 1980s, an industry report showed on Wednesday.

Fusion

• The world’s biggest nuclear fusion reactor has begun operations in Japan.

Radiation

• The Herald: Scientists from Spain have recreated the radiation levels of one of the most radioactively contaminated sites in the world inside a Scottish university laboratory. The experiment was carried out to refine the criteria for radiological protection of the environment, and looked at how embryonic development in amphibians is affected by radiation and different stress source.

Oppenheimer

• Oppenheimer to finally be released in Japan after ‘Barbenheimer’ backlash.

India

• Why India cannot afford to repeat its nuclear weapons mistakes with AI.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament