CND Press Digest: Monday 5th February 2024

NATO / Europe

• Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is falling apart, and the world is ignoring the danger. Leaks, power outages, low staffing, and no maintenance plan. Europe’s largest nuke plant is falling apart.
• The FT and BBC report: One of the UK’s two state-of-the-art aircraft carriers will not take part in the largest NATO exercise in Europe since the cold war after last-minute checks identified a problem with its propeller.

• Reuters: Hungary under pressure to ratify Sweden’s NATO bid after EU deal.  

• What happens when NATO meets the Freedom Caucus.
• Vladimir Putin is expected to visit Turkey.
• The Telegraph runs a lengthy piece on why “wasteful Britain” needs to rearm for a war with Russia.
• Ireland has been accused of “security freeloading” by right-wing British Think Tank, Policy Exchange. The Guardian and the Mirror cover the report while the Daily Mailcalls for Britain to increase its military presence in Northern Ireland.

Middle East & North Africa

• Telegraph, BBC, Sky News, ITV, and Evening Standard’s coverage of Saturday’s Ceasefire demonstration in London.

AUKUS / Indo-Pacific

• GCTN: New Zealand should think twice before joining AUKUS’ pillar two.

Global Nukes

• A rusting rocket discovered in a man’s garage in Washington state is in fact an inert nuclear missile, police have said. Bellevue police bomb squad technicians said it was a Douglas AIR-2 Genie, an unguided air-to-air rocket that is designed to carry a 1.5kt W25 nuclear warhead. They said there was no warhead attached and there was no danger of an explosion. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/03/nuclear-missile-found-in-garage-washington-state/?...

Nukes in Britain

• The Morning Star with CND’s comments on RAF Lakenheath: US nuclear weapons in Britain will make country a ‘guaranteed target.’
• Common Dreams: Campaigners warn return of US nukes to UK would ‘make Britain a guaranteed target’.
• North East Bylines: US nuclear weapons return to Britain.

UK Nuclear Energy

• A bed and breakfast located nearby to the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant has applied for retrospective permission to house plant workers on its site.
• ‘Odd’ Hinkley Point C salt marsh plan has Somerset locals up in arms. Anger at EDF proposals to flood wildlife-rich farmland as ‘compensation’ for killing millions of fish at nuclear site.
• Plans to dispose of nuclear waste in East Yorkshire will “blight the community”, residents have claimed.
• That’s as the government says Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire remains under consideration for nuclear waste dumping site.
• Welsh Labour leader hopeful Jeremy Miles on nuclear power: We have ambitious targets in Wales to respond to the climate and nature emergency and we have renewable targets, which are a really important part of that to help us reach those goals. Nuclear power has a role to play in that mix of how we achieve those targets as a sustainable green Wales in the future.

Nuclear Energy

• Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority will review its evacuation guidelines after the Jan. 1 earthquake that devastated the Noto Peninsula heavily damaged roads around the Shika plant that would be used by local residents during an evacuation.
• Nuclear battery produces power for 50 years without needing to charge.

CND

• Kendal protesters condemn genocide in Gaza over weekend.https://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/24096377.kendal-protesters-condemn-genocide-gaza-weeken…
• Video: Ninth Salisbury candle light ceasefire vigil.
• The Guardian, Counterfire and CounterPunch remember EP Thompson at 100.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament