CND Press Digest: Tuesday 27th February 2024

NATO / Europe

• Here’s what to know about Sweden’s bumpy road toward NATO membership.
• Reuters: Sweden’s NATO accession ends era of go-it-alone security.
• The Guardian: Hungary approves Sweden joining NATO after months of delays.
• The Telegraph: Sweden joins NATO as Hungary agrees arms deal. Budapest parliament approves the Nordic nation’s accession following a deal to buy Swedish fighter jets.
• Sweden will complete its ‘long farewell to neutrality’ with NATO accession.
• The Times view on Sweden joining NATO: Cold War.
• New York Times: The NATO welcoming Sweden is larger and more determined.
• Russia could attack NATO states if west fails to support Ukraine, Macron says.
• Nick Timothy in the Telegraph: Europe’s peace is over. We must prepare for the growing threat. The days of relying on America’s military to keep the continent safe are drawing to a close.
• Slovakia’s PM has suggested that NATO members could sign bilateral deals with Kyiv that would allow them to send troops to Ukraine, a move being considered by Macron, dismissed by Stoltenberg, and says. According to a report by the IAEA and seen by The Associated Press, Iran has further increased its total stockpile of uranium and continues to bar several of the most experienced inspectors from monitoring its nuclear program.
• Palestinian Authority PM Shtayyeh resigns citing new ‘reality’ in Gaza.
• Israel Gaza: Biden hopes for ceasefire by next week.
• A serving US airman has died after self-immolating outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. Aaron Bushnell said in a livestream before the protest that he could “no longer be complicit in genocide” and that he is “about to engage in an extreme act of protest – but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonisers is not extreme at all.”

AUKUS / Indo-Pacific

• Fawning praise from Australian Liberal Senator Claire Chandler: Scott Morrison to be remembered for his role in ‘securing the AUKUS deal’.
• Financial Times: The squawkus about AUKUS is getting louder. The strategic case for the Australia-UK-US pact is sound. But technical and political doubts are growing.

Global Nukes

• Intelligencer: The most intense set of nuclear dangers that have existed in my adult life.
• The middle of No and Where: Johnston Island and the US Air Force’s nuclear anti-satellite weapon.

Nukes in Britain

• Socialist Worker: Humiliation for the British military as its Trident missiles fail.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Stop Sizewell C has issued a new petition to the government, urging them to stop investing in the nuclear project, after it was revealed that costs for the project had ballooned to £46 billion.
• Locals oppose Hinkley Point C plans for saltmarsh in Pawlett.
• Discussions are continuing over the future of two nuclear power stations. The energy firm, EDF, wants to extend operations in Lancashire at Heysham 1 by two years to 2026, while Heysham 2 is currently due to stay open until 2028.

Nuclear Energy

• Financial Times: The new president of the European Investment Bank has signalled openness to fund new nuclear projects, increase investments in defence and take on more risk as part by a pivot of the world’s largest multilateral lender.
• BBC Sounds: Why is nuclear power back in fashion?
• Fourth Fukushima treated radioactive water release to start Wednesday.
• India to build 18 nuclear reactors with 13.8GW of capacity by 2032.
• Bill supporting development of nuclear energy