CND Press Digest: Wednesday 27th March 2024

NATO / Europe

• The Telegraph’s Battle Lines podcast speaks to Professor James Davis, a former advisor to Angela Merkel’s government and the head of a new research group, the European Nucleus Study Group. which has been launched to advise experts and European leaders on the current nuclear crisis between Russia and NATO. They discuss what the west reaction would be to a nuclear attack by Russia and what precedent that would set for countries like India, Pakistan and North Korea.
• The Telegraph comment: Even without the USA, NATO would still win in a fight.The numbers don’t lie. But would Nato have the endurance to win in the long run?

Middle East & North Africa

• The Guardian: Biden administration’s Gaza strategy panned as ‘mess’ amid clashing goals.
• The Morning Star: CND are among the groups calling for an arms embargo on Israel, following this week’s UN resolution.

AUKUS / Indo-Pacific

• National Interest: Australia to invest billions for AUKUS nuclear submarine program.
• Australia, UK and US seek innovative electromagnetic technologies. Up to £1.92 million funding available to develop capabilities that provide a competitive advantage to electromagnetic targeting and defence.

Global Nukes

• Vanity Fair: Here’s how nuclear war could “destroy civilization” in just a few hours.
• Newsweek: Arm Ukraine now, or risk global nuclear proliferation later.

Nukes in Britain

• Declassified UK has a great piece on their website about the RAF’s special nuclear flights between the US and Britain, covering our recent report with Nukewatch.
• CND’s opposition to the government’s funding announcement about nuclear weapons and power is mentioned in this article in the New Civil Engineer.
• UK to test new ‘Astraea’ nuclear warheads without detonation. The testing will be conducted in collaboration the French at a facility in Dijon, France.
• Conservative Home: Sunak doubling down on Trident is an expensive embrace of Britain’s impotence, delusions, and vassalage to Washington.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The Engineer: Berkeley nuclear power station, March 1960.

Nuclear Energy

• Uranium enrichment services provider Urenco has broken ground on an expansionof its plant in Almelo in the Netherlands. The move came as the company signed a new long-term supply contract with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power.
• ChatGPT’s boss claims nuclear fusion is the answer to AI’s soaring energy needs. Not so fast, experts say.
• The ABC has apologised to Dick Smith after the outraged businessman wrote to it demanding corrections to a fact check report on renewable energy and nuclear power he said was ‘full of lies’.
• Global Laser Enrichment has decided not to submit a proposal in response to a US Department of Energy request for the acquisition of high-assay low-enriched uranium enrichment, its 51%-owner Silex Systems has announced. The company has also received regulatory approval to load uranium hexafluoride for the start of testing to demonstrate the technology it plans to use in its enrichment facility at Paducah in Kentucky.
• French nuclear regulator finalising safety review of Flamanville plant.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament