CND Press Digest: Monday 18th December 2023

Posted: 18th December 2023

War In Ukraine/NATO

  • Rolls-Royce is in talks with Ukraine’s biggest private power company to build a string of mini nuclear power plants in the country, The Telegraph can reveal.
  • Russia loads new intercontinental ballistic missile into silo south of Moscow.
  • Trump’s foreign policy: rethink NATO, troops to Mexico, boost tariffs.

Gaza War

  • Former UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace pops up in The Telegraph to warn that Israel risks fuelling a new wave of radicalisation over its war in Gaza. Unpaywalled report by the BBC.
  • David Cameron is now saying the UK government could support a ‘sustainable ceasefire’ in Gaza but added:  ”We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate ceasefire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward.”

British Nuclear Weapons

  • Posted without comment: This Christmas, we should give thanks to our nuclear missile submariners.
  • National Interest takes a look at Britain’s Vanguard-class nuclear submarines.
  • UK Defence Journal on the recent visit by French nuclear submarine Suffren to the Faslane nuclear base in Scotland.

British Military

  • The Sixth-Generation fighter plane commonly known as the Tempest has taken a major step toward being reality after Britain, Japan, and Italy signed an international treaty in Tokyo to create a formal partnership to develop a new supersonic aircraft.

AUKUS

  • CND’s report on US Congress’ support for AUKUS in its recent defence spending bill.
  • ABC: Over 700 American AUKUS personnel to be based in Western Australia, with radioactive storage facility also planned.
  • Perth nuclear waste storage facility planned for AUKUS submarines at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island

Climate

  • The connections between climate science and the American military-industrial complex suggest that global governance of the climate is likely to continue to be driven by state interests.

Nuclear Leaks

UK Nuclear Energy

  • The decommissioning and monitoring of nuclear power stations could be made more safe in the future thanks to autonomous robots. The Hunterston B power station in North Ayrshire ceased operations at the beginning of 2022 and is currently in the process of being defuelled, a process which is expected to last until 2025 due to the safety measures in place.
  • Copeland MP Trudy Harrison met with nuclear firm Nucleo to discuss plans for a small modular reactor nuclear project in West Cumbria.
  • The Telegraph The Bulletin: COP28 and the nuclear energy numbers racket.

Fukushima

  • The Japanese government expects that victim compensation and other costsrelated to the 2011 nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant will rise by more than £10.5 billion. The total payout is now believed to be around £85 billion.

North Korea

  • North Korea has tested a long-range ballistic missile that is theoretically capable of striking anywhere on the US mainland, Japan officials said, in the regime’s first round of missile tests for about a month.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Best,

 

Pádraig McCarrick

 

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Find out more – call Caroline on 01722 321865 or email us.